* Ordering all the parts on Christmas Day…
* Having them all ship the next day – except for the case…
* Having one of the three shippers get the address wrong on Friday (GMaps issue + New Construction = "Uh, this is a house, but the address has an apartment number?") resulting in my going to pick the package up at their warehouse on Monday…
* Having the case shipped 3-day, but arriving in no less than 8 days…
* Having the first motherboard be DOA – No BIOS/No Video/No Anything, even when stripped down to the Mobo/RAM/CPU + Onboard video and monitor.
* Having the replacement motherboard be delivered to the office, not the apartment – with no slip on the door to indicate that it'd been delivered at all…
* Having a freakout moment when I powered the second iteration up and got almost exactly the same result as the first iteration – no BIOS/no Video – before realizing I'd forgotten to add the power cable to the video card… Added power to that, and all was well. :facepalm:
* Having them all ship the next day – except for the case…
* Having one of the three shippers get the address wrong on Friday (GMaps issue + New Construction = "Uh, this is a house, but the address has an apartment number?") resulting in my going to pick the package up at their warehouse on Monday…
* Having the case shipped 3-day, but arriving in no less than 8 days…
* Having the first motherboard be DOA – No BIOS/No Video/No Anything, even when stripped down to the Mobo/RAM/CPU + Onboard video and monitor.
* Having the replacement motherboard be delivered to the office, not the apartment – with no slip on the door to indicate that it'd been delivered at all…
* Having a freakout moment when I powered the second iteration up and got almost exactly the same result as the first iteration – no BIOS/no Video – before realizing I'd forgotten to add the power cable to the video card… Added power to that, and all was well. :facepalm:
…the new PC is alive and well and installing Windows Updates¹!
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2p7kl
Sadly, the older 1TB Hitachi drive I found in a box does not actually have the 22GB of music that I thought I'd left on it. Poop.
On to Steam!
Intel Core i5-4430, Asus GeForce GTX 660, Cooler Master Elite 130 – System Build
PCPartPicker Part List: Intel Core i5-4430, Asus GeForce GTX 660, Cooler Master Elite 130
The dang thing is tiny! I also hope that you have a storage drive of some sort.
New Windows box to run Steam, or custom Steam box?
He has a 1 TB standard drive for storage. And it's SUCH A CUTE WEE LITTLE COMPUTER.
standard drive for storage
Yes as opposed to a solid state drive. An HDD if you need it spelled out. They are still the standard.
+Mark Koenig Yeah, it's a wee little thing. It's permanent home will be in a cubby in one of these, which I use as part of my standing desk: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10103088/
It had to be wee – the spaces in the Expedit are 13" x 13". With the case being 9.5" x 8", there's plenty room for airflow along the sides! The case is also perforated to hell and back – the video card fans draw air directly from outside the case!
+Chase Knott Windows 7 box – too many software titles that aren't Steam or Linux compatible – but I did find out that all the drivers except WiFi exist to do a Hackintosh.
Free OS? Maybe.
Performance? Got some of that, too.
Old CPU (i7-Q740 2.73Ghz) Benchmark: 3250
New CPU (i5-4430 3 Ghz) Benchmark: 6294
Old GPU (GTX460M) Benchmark: 1361
New GPU (GTX660) Benchmark: 4108
The old machine did…ok…on everything I ever threw at it – even the most GPU intensive stuff would see it humming along at 20-30 FPS with everything-except-shadows turned all the way up.
The new machine?
Well, still downloading, but I suspect that it'll be All Shadows All The Time from here on out.
Woohoo! Glad you got it figured out. I'm building my first computer and I just hope the traits are genetic.