Tokume

Due to the fact that my laptop was pretty much derping heavily on me from some memory leak out of nowhere, I was pressed to getting a new computer. However, I definitely didn’t have enough money for my epic workstation build that I have planned… So, I opted for something relatively cheap but made sure it’d be something that could handle the tasks I needed.

And today is the day I got all the components to build it. Talk about an awesome way to start the weekend :D Any case, more info and a bunch of pictures of the entire process after the break…

So, when I finally got of work early and rushed home, this is what I found at my door:

WOO!!! Unboxing time:

ALL DEM COMPONENTS! I’ll be sure to link all the Newegg entries for each component when they pop up. So, before I start putting everything together, I went ahead and got the Cooler Master Storm Sniper out of the box:

Its not a bad case… but certainly not nearly as awesome as the previous case I posted, which was the Cooler Master Cosmos II. I do like the fact that Cooler Master and other case makers are also paying attention to the inside of the case as well:

In any case (pun intended), time to move on. The reason I got the case out first was so that I could use it as a grounding point and reduce my static charge. Definitely wouldn’t want to break any components due to a static shock. Moving on to the Gigabyte motherboard:

As much as I’d rather have an Intel based computer (as my future workstation has planned for), AMD is cheaper. For this build, I went with the A8 3.0GHz quad-core APU.

So, now that I’m installing components, the first one I install would be the G.Skill Ripjaws memory sticks (the reason being will be revealed later) :

Super nifty looking… but they look kinda lonely… so time to give them a partner:

Those blue cpu cooler brackets need to go. So, that I can install a way better after market cooler: Cooler Master GeminII

While yes, I wouldn’t have minded opting for the V8 or V10 (if they were even compatible with this case), I chose for something more low profile and not to mention budget friendly for such a decent performer.

Putting on the brackets….

And BAM, cooler mounted on the CPU. Of course, I made sure to use thermal paste. While the cooler did come with their own brand, I chose to get some Arctic Silver just from past experience. As you can see, its a good thing I put the memory in first. Else, it’d have been difficult to impossible to put them in with the cooler in the way. However, with the cooler rotated as it is, the fan will also cool the memory at the same time. Double win :D

You may be wondering why I didn’t put it together in the case… well, I wanted to test the major components first before throwing it in there. If something went wrong, then I’d have spent that time for nothing. So, I went ahead and unpacked my power supply to do a quick post test to make sure that everything was working at this stage.

After hooking up the 8-pin CPU rail and the 24V main rail, I fired it up and hoped for the single beep…. And success! Everything seems alright so far… except it looks like I’m missing something…

If you guessed video card, you’re right :P I didn’t want to test it, have things blow up, and lose my video card needlessly. So, second post test, this time with the EVGA GTX 550 Ti:

Second post test with GPU was successful :D Time to throw it all in the case…

So, skipping all the cable management mess, I added in the DVD drive and single Western Digital hard drive … and here’s the end result build:

Those case fan lights are easily switched from a button on top, as well as their current speeds.

Honestly, the best thing about this build is that it is crazy super quiet, even with all the fans blasting at max. However, I haven’t yet been able to run the benchmarks to really know how well it will perform, considering I’ve been busy re-installing all the things. I’ll make a second post with the results.