Description

Hey guys, put together this build for my little brother. He expressed an interest in getting into Photoshop digital painting and photo manipulation, as well as some 1080p gaming. My step mother will be using it for Lightroom and photo storage which is why I went with the 3TB Reds in RAID 1.

This will be his first custom built PC I hope he likes it.

Part Reviews

CPU

Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor

Best bang for you buck Intel processor in my opinion. It overclocks very well. Got it to a respective 4.1GHz. It has headroom to go further, but as this is not for myself I want to be sure it stays stable for a long time. Temperatures are really good this this chip as well. Hardly ever getting above 60C with an AIO cooler.

CPU Cooler

Deepcool CAPTAIN 240 91.12 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

I won this in a case modding competition, otherwise I bet I would have never bought one. But this thing is actually bad ***. The performance is definitely up there with the H100i's and NZXT AIO 240 coolers. The mounting design is unique but very easy to install. The units seems well made. The fans are a little loud for me but they are manageable with software pwm control.

Motherboard

MSI Z170A GAMING M3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

This is my first build using MSI boards. The board definitely has a nice aesthetic with not to much red and a good use of red LEDs along the audio trace and the a few other parts of the board.

Overclocking was pretty strait forward. Just needed to get used to MSI UEFI. I would prefer if the fan headers for the cpu were next to each other with another system fan header where the CPU2 fan header is. But that is hardly a con, more of a preference.

Memory

Crucial Ballistix Elite 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory

What can I say, its RAM. Good price, good speed, god bless less play.

Storage

Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

I've never had an issue with Samsungs 850 series. Its a great SSD, and the price keeps dropping on these suckers!

Storage

Western Digital Red 3 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive

I use RED drives in my server environment for the low energy, low heat aspect. They are great for tight spaces like under a PSU shroud. Designed specifically for RAID NAS.

Video Card

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB GAMING X Video Card

Man GPUs are running high these days. So much market inflation its not even funny. This is a great value card in its range. Destroys most games with ultra settings at 1080 and 1440.

Case

Corsair 400C ATX Mid Tower Case

Corsairs version of the NZXT S340. Great case design. Cable management was a little more difficult in this case. Especially when using cable extensions.

Comments

  • 39 months ago
  • 7 points

holy dicks that cable management

+100000000

  • 39 months ago
  • 3 points

Impressed by your cable management . Well done !!

  • 39 months ago
  • 2 points

Good job with cable management on the back. Most people with extensions have an absolute mess and many people don't even post the backside of their PCs on here probably for that reason. +1

  • 39 months ago
  • 2 points

Thanks! I always make an effort on cable management front and back. Its kind of an art for me. Very common theme amongst all my builds.

  • 35 months ago
  • 2 points

Absolutely superb man!

  • 30 months ago
  • 2 points

I'm late posting. Sorry about that. I upvoted this beaut Friday, but didn't take time to comment. Very nice build. It's beyond what most consider professional. Great job.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Good.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

which Cable extensions are those? I love the look of them.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cablemod-basic-cable-extension-kit-8-6-pin-series-red.html

They are pretty good. You definitely need to work with them before you put them in the build if you want them to come out strait and clean. A little pre-training if you will. I'm not the biggest fan of the cable combs that come with them but they are easily removed after the cables are trained.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

that overclock doe

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

All jokes aside this is a sexy build. Was wondering where u got the red cable extensions as what I am currently looking at are some from phanteks that include the same 3 cables as you have, but I am unsure if these have cable combs included. If you know let me know what you used that would be great. :)

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cablemod-basic-cable-extension-kit-8-6-pin-series-red.html

They are pretty good. You definitely need to work with them before you put them in the build if you want them to come out strait and clean. A little pre-training if you will. I'm not the biggest fan of the cable combs that come with them but they are easily removed after the cables are trained.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

i like it a lot., why didn't you get the msi gtx 1060 OC edition? or do you prefer this one? coz im choosing between the 2 versions and i ended up with the oc edition. any opinion or thoughts? gaming x has great aesthetics, the oc edition is factory overclocked. what does this mean to you? the oc edition lacks aesthetics it makes me wanna change it to gaming x.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

The 1060 Gaming X has a higher Core Clock and Boost clock than that of the OC version. And I do prefer the aesthetics over the OC. The red fit this build quite nicely.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Your little brother is lucky to have someone like you. And the effort you put into doing this for him is phenomenal. Very well done man :)

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

+1 for building for your younger brother.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Nice and clean. Mom would be proud.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Beautiful build indeed. Do you think you could pull off another set of fans on the rad for a push pull setup? I'm thinking of getting this case and would like to know. TIA

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Yeah there is room, but personally from my experience, push/pull is not needed on such a thin radiator. Even on 35mm thick radiators. Static pressure fans are really efficient. Any decreases I've seen in temperature have been in the margin of error within a degree.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Good to know, thanks for the info!

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Hey man, great looking black and red build. I have one question though... I am looking to buy this case , and was wondering if you had any trouble fitting that psu in their without any problems. Thanks :)

  • 39 months ago
  • 2 points

Na no problem at all, the entire PSU shroud comes off making installation EZ PZ. You are limited on space in front of the PSU if you are leaving the HDD bays installed, but it really wasn't an issue. I was still able to push in some excess cable into that space. If at all possible I would try and route your cables before installing the shroud back so that you can more easily cram the excess cable length into that space.

  • 39 months ago
  • 1 point

Gotcha. I'll keep those tips in mind if I do end up going with this case. Thank you!

  • 35 months ago
  • 1 point

do the 2 GPU fans spin together at 60c? or only 1

  • 35 months ago
  • 1 point

Both fans spin up after the card his about 45 to 55 c

  • 35 months ago
  • 1 point

s that the stock sittings?

  • 35 months ago
  • 1 point

I woud say slightly over stock, I didn't do anything fancy with the GPU, the only overclocking was done through the MSI afterburner.

  • 35 months ago
  • 1 point

what is the idle GPU temp while fans don't spin?and is ur country cold or hot?

  • 35 months ago
  • 1 point

I think it was around 35 to 40c. About 22c ambient.

  • 31 months ago
  • 1 point

Hey there, I know this is a pretty old thread, but I'm thinking of getting the 400c. Was originally going to get a p400s tg, but a local deal came up and I can get this for £40/~$52. How easy is it to scratch this side panel?

  • 31 months ago
  • 1 point

It's surprisingly resilient.

  • 31 months ago
  • 1 point

ah thanks, looking forward to building in this case :)