Waiting on parts (Finally)!

Idunno442

So after looking for some advice last march (www(dot)boards(dot)ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=89677030) (ugh) and subsequently being refused a college grant, I finally got around to ordering parts for a reasonably cheap, hopefully upgradable gaming pc build.

RAM 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport 62.48
CPU Pentium G3258 59.98
SSD Crucial MX100 256GB 93.86
Case Enermax Ostrog 39.47
Case Fan Artic Cooling F12 PWM 3.88
Mobo Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 73
PSU Seasonic M12 II 750 Bronze 103.98

Total 436.65

I got second hand xfx radeon 7970 black edition earlier today from adverts so felt it was about time to stop thinking about the rest and just do it!

Seeing as ye were so kind as to help me out (almost a year ago) I thought it was only polite to give a (very late) update. yay! about frikken time!

So the motherboard is more expensive than I need for OCing the Pentium, but a couple of reasons for that. 4 DIMM's, 97chip support for broadwell (if it ever arrives), i think it was the cheapest board with crossfire support, and if I want to drop in a K at a later date the no troubles.

PSU proabably WAY overboard for the total build cost (above plus 150), but it should do for crossfire 7970, and hopefully last a very long time.

Once parts arrive, I'll post up some build-in-progress photos and some Pentium OC'ing results.

(Notable absences in the above are no HDD, no disk drive and no CPU cooler. I actually have no photos, and no films so don't need a huge amount of storage. Someone('s) mentioned in a post recently to go for the bigger ssd and buy the HDD at a later date so I thought that seemed like a good idea. Originally intended on a Sythe Mugen 4 cooler but since I dropped the HDD I decided to have a go without it, and I can order it in a month or two with a HDD if I need/want it. Got free windows 7 on usb so I cant see meself needing a disk drive. can take it out of an old pc if necessary.)

So to do this build, I'll need anti-static wristband and screwdriver. Is it allen or Philips screwdriver do you think? Also is there any need for a rubber mat? Or anything else that I haven't thought of?

Oh ya and I bought a 2.85 mouse cuz the one I have really sucks, but that's ok its 8ish years old. which reminds me, must get xbox computer usb dongle thingi...

Idunno442

oh and everything was instock or due tomorrow, so hopefully shouldn't be as long wait for parts as i was ordering them :P

Idunno442

Got everything up and running now. yay! no problems as of yet after a week (bit of a delay with the parts, my fault not hwvs).
Inside/outside pics of the finished product:
(cant actually post links, but this shouldn't be too complicated)
http:// imageshack.com/a/img661/3197/RbtmPj.jpg
http:// imageshack.com/a/img540/5542/5wVnV4.jpg

Decided to mount the second fan on the side of the case rather than behind the front cover, thought it would get better airflow. Don't know if that even makes sense really.

Still working on maxing out an overclock. 44x core multi + 44x uncore multi. 1.72v vcore reading on HWInfo, changed a few different voltages to try and minimise the voltage. Disabled the integrated graphics, figured it would cause unnecessary heat.

Going to try to go up to 45x after the weekend if nothing bad has happened.

Thanks to a very cold room, haven't seen the temperature go above 67 degrees, that could be a problem in summer though.

Was wondering a few things about the overclock though.

Firstly, I've read one forum thread saying that raising the uncore/cache ratio/multiplier has no impact on performance but can make it more difficult to raise the core multiplier. Should I stop trying to increase the uncore, or should I reduce it? Would it make any difference either way?

Secondly, is there any point at all in messing with the bclk? I believe that it would overclock the graphics card and ram as well as the cpu. Would this make it too difficult/dangerous to use?

Thirdly, what would be safe voltages to be working with for the cpu? I had in my head below 1.3v, is this too high? Or could I go higher?

Finally, once I've settled on a maximum overclock for the processor I was planning to try and overclock the ram a bit. I don't think that it really has a whole lot of an impact on the performance, but if I can why not? Would it be better to try to increase the speed, or lower the timings? I think the Pentium says it supports 1333Mhz, does that mean increasing the rams speed would not work?

Idunno442

its weird that I can't post a link, but I can put a single space in the url and post it no bother

Idunno442

that should say 1.272V vcore in HWInfo!

Cant imagine surviving too long with 1.72