Ultimate gaming PC

It doesn't matter a whole lot what you do as long as you don't put on too much thermal paste.

If you had a theoretically perfectly flat heatsink base and IHS, you wouldn't need any paste, since you'd be maximize conductivity by putting flat surface to flat surface. The paste just fills in the micro-ridges to maximize effective surface contact.

But you can see in the photo I provided that Intel isn't very careful with applying paste between the IHS and the CPU anyway.
 
Just apply a tiny drop about the size of a tic tac. Don't try spreading it. Trying to put a line runs the risk of putting too much.
 
Update: The CPU cooler is too large. If I remove one of the fans it will fit over the ram fine, but the video card might be in the way. Maybe. Does it matter which slot I install my video card into? Is one slot "primary" and faster or whatever? Is this mobo dependant?

When I get home today I will remove the offending fan from the cpu cooler and unmount the bracket for it and rotate it 90 degrees. That seems to be the ideal position for this monster.

Does it also matter where I install my ram? I have two sticks and the way motherboards used to work way back is that if you wanted full dual channel capability, you install them in specific slots. All my mobo manual talks about though is priority. What would that impact? What says you? How much have things changed?
 
warpus said:
Update: The CPU cooler is too large. If I remove one of the fans it will fit over the ram fine, but the video card might be in the way. Maybe. Does it matter which slot I install my video card into? Is one slot "primary" and faster or whatever? Is this mobo dependant?

When I get home today I will remove the offending fan from the cpu cooler and unmount the bracket for it and rotate it 90 degrees. That seems to be the ideal position for this monster.

Does it also matter where I install my ram? I have two sticks and the way motherboards used to work way back is that if you wanted full dual channel capability, you install them in specific slots. All my mobo manual talks about though is priority. What would that impact? What says you? How much have things changed?
Click to expand...

Put the gfx card in the PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot. Your manual says that is the PCIE2 slot, or the one closest to the CPU.

Dual channel RAM should go in the A1 and B1 slot, and so on. I.e., alternating. Pretty sure you can try them in the A2 and B2 slots as well, if that fits the cooler better. Your mobo lacks the color coordination on other mobos that would make that more obvious.
 
illram said:
Put the gfx card in the PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot. Your manual says that is the PCIE2 slot, or the one closest to the CPU.
Click to expand...

This cooler is so giant that this might not be an option. It's going to be close...

I have no idea who designed this thing and how people make it fit. Maybe it's a cpu cooler for elephants? It got GREAT reviews, which is why I bought it.

illram said:
Dual channel RAM should go in the A1 and B1 slot, and so on. I.e., alternating. Pretty sure you can try them in the A2 and B2 slots as well, if that fits the cooler better. Your mobo lacks the color coordination on other mobos that would make that more obvious.
Click to expand...

Hmm my mobo says that slots A2 and B2 would make both sticks "priority 1". There are priorities 2 and 3 that kick in if I were to use other configurations.

I'll reseat them to A2 and B2, with the fan off the cpu cooler that will fit fine. I still don't get this "priority" thing however.
 
warpus said:
This cooler is so giant that this might not be an option. It's going to be close...

I have no idea who designed this thing and how people make it fit. Maybe it's a cpu cooler for elephants? It got GREAT reviews, which is why I bought it.
Click to expand...

Well, if losing about 5% or so performance bothers you, then you might consider a different cooler so that you can put it in the 16x slot. Or no cooler, if you do not plan on overclocking. ("No cooler"=use the intel cooler.)

With a GTX 680, 8x vs. 16x equals about a 5% difference or so in games on ultra settings. Not sure how much 8x vs. 16x makes a difference with the new Haswell boards and the 780 but my guess would be... not much. Still, ideally, you want it in your nice pretty 16x slot.

Hmm my mobo says that slots A2 and B2 would make both sticks "priority 1". There are priorities 2 and 3 that kick in if I were to use other configurations.

I'll reseat them to A2 and B2, with the fan off the cpu cooler that will fit fine. I still don't get this "priority" thing however.
Click to expand...

On some mobo's the manuals say to populate channels in order. I have never had an issue just using either channel. Check the BIOS to ensure they are operating at the correct speeds when you fire it up.
 
Yeah, if it doesn't fit I'm going to have to get a new cooler. Although I mean.. the mobo I have is an "enthusiast" one, meant for overclocking and gaming and all that jazz. Why wouldn't a cooler fit? Who's designing this stuff?

Good idea about checking speeds after I boot up.
 
I am sort of surprised this is a problem on a larger board like yours, but with aftermarket coolers it is always a good idea to double check measurements. Are you sure you are installing the cooler correctly? (Although not surprised you ran into issues with the RAM with the heat spreaders. Unless you heavily overclock your RAM those are also unnecessary and often problematic if you have a large horizontal cooler.)

I looked at the cooler and it doesn't strike me as one of the unseemly enormous coolers you sometimes see. If you must have an aftermarket cooler maybe try a tower style cooler? E.g. the Hyper 212 EVO. Unseemly enormous, but of the vertical unseemly enormous type, so not as much clearance issues. In your big case it should be fine.
 
It totally didn't seem very huge from the pictures and the specs. Mind you I only compared the cooler measurements to the case measurements to make sure it would fit in the case, so I didn't try to imagine what x by y mm would look like. When I opened the box I just started laughing, because the thing is GIANT. And I mean, I was actually literally laughing. It was the only possible response.

I am installing the cpu cooler with my roommate, taking another stab at it in another hour. Should be able to finish it tonight - I am staying positive and assuming that it is going to fit even though it seems like it's going to be a very tight fit. All we've been doing is placing the cooler above the cpu in all 4 configurations and checking if there's enough clearance. There seems to be only 1 possible way to do it, and only if you take off the fan. With both fans on neither configuration works. The only things from the cpu cooler package installed are the 2 brackets in the front and the plate in the back, and that's definitely done right because everything fits and looks like the picture in the manual. That, and the cpu cooler aligns very well when we hover the cpu cooler overtop.

The ram is total overkill, but so is every other part in the system sort of, except the ssd. Maybe some kerbal space program influence there? Overengineer everything, right?
 
Ram slots A2/B2 or A1/B1 will work identically.

You can remove any headspreaders from RAM, they're worthless. (Or you could have purchased cheaper, lower MHz ram with smaller heatspreaders which would have performed identically.)

8x vs 16x will make no difference with that card and PCIe 3.0: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5458/the-radeon-hd-7970-reprise-pcie-bandwidth-overclocking-and-msaa
(680 only shows 5% performance penalty from PCIe 2.0 16x to 8x, PCIe 3.0 8x has equal bandwidth to PCIe 2.0 16x)

Noctua lists your mobo as compatible with your cooler: http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compatibility_gen&products_id=63&lng=en#LGA1150_ASRock

Actually, it shouldn't even be overhanging the memory at all, or providing any problems with the top PCIe slot:

Thanks to its slim design with only 45mm fin depth, the NH-U12S will not overhang the RAM slots even with two fans installed. This gives the user full access to the memory modules on all current CPU sockets and guarantees 100% compatibility with tall heatspreaders or optional memory fans.
Click to expand...

Standing 158mm tall, the NH-U12S is short enough to fit most modern mid- or high-end tower cases. Measuring 125mm wide (including fan and fan clips), the cooler stays clear of the top PCIe slot on standard ATX or Micro-ATX motherboards
Click to expand...

This is the normal orientation (with only one push fan, with a second pull fan it would be the same anyway):

Spoiler :
 
Yeah, it's larger and horizontal.

And guess what.. I'm on my new pc right now, finishing installing windows updates :goodjob:

The cpu cooler without the lower fan fit fine, but was a bit of a pain to install because I put in the video card in first so that I could see exactly which orientation would fit best. That didn't leave much room to see what the hell is going on below, but I'm stubborn so I kept at it (carefully), in the end having to take the video card out and cleaning all the thermal paste off both plates and starting again.

With the video card out the cpu cooler was easy enough to screw on.. I did some cable management adjustments, hooked up the ssd drive, which is attached behind the motherboard and I don't think that's the norm because the power cable that came with the modular power supply twisted in the wrong direction and caused some headaches there.. I might have to get new cables for that. Anyway though, I booted her up and she started up like a charm!

I monitored CPU temperature in the bios for 10 minutes or so before doing anything and it kept steady at 31-32C.. I had other stuff to do so I just let it sit there for a while and periodically checked what it was at. Memory is in dual channel mode.. everything else looked good, so I installed windows.

I've been sitting here installing drivers and updating everything, network and graphics drivers are up to date, windows 7 updates just finished and I have to reboot, I am going to have to download all drivers for the motherboard after that..

And I guess I'm good to go :cool:

Installed already is Europa Universalis IV, which didn't work on my laptop at all. I also plan on building a super giant rocket in kerbal space program and while I sleep I want to simulate my fm2012 save 100 years into the future to see if my ungrateful team ever names a stadium after me.

As you can see there is no way I am getting any sleep tonight. I should have updated the specs in the OP, but it is too late for that now. Post build pics coming soon.
 
So when you build a pc like this, how do you boot it up initially? Is it the BIOS that tells the hardware to initiate the removable storage?

Does internal memory come with some low level firmware or something?
 
Sounds pretty awesome. Glad it's up and working! And Europa Universalis IV is a pretty good game, too.

Those are pretty good temps, too. My desktop is about 10 degrees hotter at idle, but that's with the stock cooler. Your gigantic one probably is making a lot of that difference.

And those are some pretty nice specs. Kind of makes me want to go over to Micro Center and buy some a CPU cooler and maybe a faster SSD myself. Although the more rational part of my brain is thinking I should probably find out just how much space I'd have for the cooler first.

peter grimes said:
So when you build a pc like this, how do you boot it up initially? Is it the BIOS that tells the hardware to initiate the removable storage?

Does internal memory come with some low level firmware or something?
Click to expand...

From back when I built one, assuming the power button cable is connected, when you press that, it'll send a signal to the motherboard, which will start up the BIOS, which in turn will do its regular startup routine, just like on a desktop you buy from the store. Traditionally it would try booting from a floppy disk first, then a CD/DVD (if it was bootable), and after that the hard drive; nowadays some might not even have a floppy option. The very first time, you probably don't have anything bootable in the CD drive, so you'll get the "No bootable device detected" message, at which point you can put a CD in, restart, and start installing an operating system.

Now how it figures out which of the SATA connections is a CD/DVD drive, and which is a hard drive, I don't know. There must be some way that the drive can communicate that with the BIOS, but at least when I built my desktop, there wasn't a requirement to connect optical drives to certain SATA ports. This is likely part of what the BIOS is doing as its progress bar moves slowly from left to right (or more quickly if you have EFI).
 
Ah, got it ;so the BIOS lives on the motherboard. I don't think I ever realized that. So does this imply that the BIOS is flashed at the motherboard factory? Are there better and worse BIOSes for different home configurations?
 
:yup: BIOS is part of the motherboard. Generally, the latest BIOS is the best.

Several years ago, got a motherboard that had an older BIOS version on it and it would not use the cpu I had for it. Had to find an older cpu that fit the socket and the BIOS could communicate with, boot it up, flash the BIOS and then put in the newer cpu. Once it was flashed, it was excellent, but figuring it out and getting there wasn't very fun. :rolleyes:
 
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