Description
After building my first gaming PC late last year, there was two things that went through my mind. How much I enjoyed building PCs, and how Id love to do this as a part-time job as a student. Thus I started a small home-based Custom PC building business, and have since made several builds ranging from around $1000-$4000. I think doing this is less of a job and more like a hobby, which I get paid to do :)
The RedDragon is a beast custom PC made recently for a client. As the client said, "I want it to be the center-piece of my den", and so aesthetics were always considered in the planning of this machine. He originally wanted something basic to just play games in 1080p, nothing big, but soon went from getting a 1060 to a 1070 and from an i5 to the 7th generation i7. For someone who wants their PC to look as bold as it performs, they got what I think is pretty darn menacing.
I made a quick build time lapse for this as well, something I see myself doing for most of the client builds I do from now on. Ill put a link to it below. Let me know what you guys think!
Instead of doing a part by part review directly on the description, I'm just going to do it on the parts review section so just scroll down to see my two-cents on the parts I used.
If you have any questions, please comment them below and I'll reply as soon as possible. If its a little more specific don't hesitate to send me a private message.
YouTube Build Time Lapse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82y5U3zx_D4&t=21s My previous build: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/b/CcfH99
Part Reviews
CPU
Phenomenal. The Kaby Lake 7th gen i7 is amazing power efficient, fast, responsive, and well, its intel so the quality is pretty great. The 7th gen is definitely not too much better than the 6700K, but for any new builds that want an i7 for gaming or video editing this is the best!. It's easily overclock-able, and is really great all around. Would recommend!
CPU Cooler
What a beauty! This liquid cooler is so much more than just that. It is a statement and a workhorse all in one. It is really easy to install, comes with everything in the box, and even the tubes aren't so rigid which really helps when test-fitting everything. When you use this with the S340 Elite, you're able to fit the fans behind it which you cant do with many other coolers. The software was easy to use as well. I've used the Kraken X61 and Corsair H100i V2 recently on other builds and both were really good, but this is just a little better. The price comparatively? Oh boy...
Motherboard
This motherboard works really good. It has a nice bios, its easy to install and looks really nice. The LED lighting on the side I/O shield has 4 customize-able lighting zones which really add to the aesthetics. I initially wanted to get the Z270E, but it got shipped too late and there was a strict deadline I had so I had to get this one instead through Prime (the Z270E was out of stock.). The only con is that for nearly the same price as the Z270E, it has no wifi/BT. There was only a $5 difference between the two when I purchased it and that had WiFi while this didn't, which made no sense.
Memory
It looks great, works nice, and hasn't ever given me any issues. This is the second time i'm buying a pair of these because they're very reliable and look nice in most builds. This set goes at 3000 MHz and to be honest you wouldn't see much of a performance difference in mainstream uses. It feels great in the hand, looks great on paper, and is great in performance, what more to ask for?
Storage
I'm sure that when most people think of Samsung they associate it to many of the tech mishaps that had occurred in regard to them over the past year. This is definitely not one of them. The SSD is fast, reliable, and looks really nice. It runs at nearly SATA 6 theoretical limit speeds, has had great reviews and for a little extra price over some of the cheaper ones, I'm sure it'll be tons more reliable. Use this as an OS drive, storage drive, or anything and it will rock it!
Video Card
Deadly. No it wont kill your PC, just your wallet and your enemies when playing at 1440P at high settings. This thing is BEAST! It looks absolutely ravishing and performs as good as it looks. It is really long compared to some smaller cards, but it has three fans, runs at one of the highest clock speeds and is dead silent. In fact I've never seen the fans turn on during normal use (watching movies, doing student stuff), and even during lighter game-play such as Infinite Warfare at 1080P at high settings. It can boost really high and its just phenomenal.
Case
This case is designed for people that want ATX capacity in a small footprint. For its size, its surprisingly easy to work in for the most part. It looks really good and even has a tempered glass side panel. It doesn't have amazing airflow (it still pretty decent), and can support 4 fans of varying sizes. Installing the radiator was a pain because whoever designed the cable management metal bracket made sure that screwing fans to the back would be a nightmare. Other than that its awesome!
Comments