by William
October 23, 2011 11:00 PM
Well, parts have been arriving like crazy for the new PC so I thought I’d take a little time to go over in more detail some of the plans I have for this PC, starting with the case.
The Case
I’ve decided to use the HAF-X case by CoolerMaster. Not exactly a small case, but in the world of enthusiast PC building this isn’t exactly the largest case out there either. One of the primary reasons for me choosing this is that I have used a CoolerMaster HAF case in the past and I really liked the case and was impressed with the quality and the features. Additionally, this case was about the largest I wanted to go with to be able to fit it in its future home.
The HAF-X is designed to be an air-cooling case and comes with plenty of features to support that; however, as I indicated in my last post I will be water cooling this new PC and fortunately CoolerMaster thought of that when designing this case. There is room at the top to add the radiators and fans used in water cooling as well as plenty of space in the bottom and front drive bay areas to add other water cooling components (such as a reservoir and pump). This was important to me as well as I want to try to keep this PC as clean as possible and not have various pieces-parts hanging out the back or sitting on the top.
Another nice thing about this case is that it not only supports standard ATX motherboards (ATX referring to the physical size of the motherboard) but EATX and XL-ATX (see herefor a more complete explanation of motherboard sizes) and it is possible that the X79-based motherboard I end up getting will be one of these larger sizes, especially if I use a motherboard by EVGA (the brand I have used in the last three PCs I built).
The Power Supply
All PCs need a source of power of course and I have decided on the ATX-1200 by Corsair. Yes, a 1200-watt power supply is a little on the overkill side for a PC that is planning to use only one video card but I decided to bite the bullet on this for the following reasons:
- I will have plenty of headroom. PC power supplies generally are at their most efficient (and most stable) when operating somewhat below their maximum rating.
- Future expansion. If I decide to add more components at a later date (say a second video card) I should still have plenty of room left on this power supply to do so, thus I decided to pay a little more now as opposed to having to (possibly) buy an entirely new power supply later.
- All the extras in the new PC. Besides the “normal” stuff (motherboard, CPU, video card, etc.) I will have things like a water pump, fan controller, the requisite lighting for modded PCs, and I’m planning on a RAID hard disk array. All of these things will take power so again I figured all the extra headroom would just be safer and easier if done upfront.
- The power supply is fully modular. This means that all of the cables that attach to it are removable, which means two things: There won’t be extra cables cluttering up the inside of the case and I can make my own cables that are the exact length I need, further contributing to the cleanliness of the inside of the case.
- Let’s face it, as a guy I am pre-programmed for “bigger is better” (insert Tim Allen grunt from Home Improvement here). 100.4 amps on the 12-volt rail? Why yes, thank you!
That wraps it up for now. Next time I will start to discuss the cooling system I’ve planned out as those parts have started to arrive as well. As well as cable sleeving. Lots and lots of cable sleeving. I don’t think I really understood what I was getting into when I decided on the “build my own cable” option, to be honest. I’m glad the CPU and motherboard won’t be released for another month or so though…
A parting image of the parts pile so far:
