Been planning this for a long time and now it's done: mITX/1440p/1070/7600K
I've wanted to build a PC for a few years now because I bought an Xbox One a couple of years ago but was pretty underwhelmed with the experience and wanted an upgrade, plus many of my friends have transitioned to PC gaming. The ancient craptop I have can't handle Chrome or even basic games like FTL so that needed replacing asap. Final straw was when I looked at the specs for my Pixel and realised the Snapdragon 821 cores were clocked higher than the i3-2310m in my laptop (2.15GHz vs 2.1GHz). So I saved up and committed to a new year's build. Bit late but whatever, I saved a lot by picking up deals here and there in r/buildapcsalesuk.
Parts
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Kaby Lake just came out so the i5 7600k was a logical choice. Have it at [email protected] now just using the preset OC in the BIOS, will tinker and do it manually eventually.
Cooler is pretty good, has a no fan mode for low loads so is pretty quite. Temps are ~24°C idle and ~60°C load.
Mobo looks pretty good, nice and black. Needed wifi because no ethernet in my room. Has a USB C port on the back which is quite useful for connecting my Pixel.
16GB for Chrome. 2400 MHz because it was on sale.
1TB SSD because fuck HDD's. Fast af.
The Windforce 1070 was on sale for so low I had to get it. Turned out to be a good buy, have OC'd it from 1506MHz stock to 1700MHz. and it boosts to 2.1GHz normally. Temps are decent once again, ~30°C idle and ~68°C load.
Chose a mITX case because I have a small space to work with.
Monitor is the cheapest IPS 1440p screen I could find. Wanted to go for 1080p 144Hz initially but G Sync is too expensive. I'm happy with my choice because 1440p has so much space for activities and the colours are great.
Anne Pro from the r/mechanicalkeyboards starter pack lol. Must resist urge to buy keycaps.
Benchmarks
Getting solid 60fps on ultra in Overwatch, haven't yet tried anything else.
Big thanks to this sub, learnt a lot over the last 3 years. Really positive community. :)
Big thanks to r/buildapcsalesuk for saving me probably around £200
Posted Feb 19, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC
Nice job of taking the time to get some proper pictures along the way and also ordering and commentating on each. I did the same and nobody gave a shit, so here's me giving a shit to you.
Also lol at going ITX then tossing it under the desk where space isn't a problem...oh, I did that same.
It's the least I could do. Tbh I mainly did it for my own use. Good documentation might help if something breaks. I always appreciate a well organised album though.
I give a shit. Its still real to me damnit!