Description
Where to start? Ever since I was a young boy I was mesmerized by video games and gaming. My first experience was on the NES. When I was 10 I received a brand new game cube and shortly after playing the first ever pikman game I was hooked. Over the duration of my teen years my gaming took a backseat to schooling. I was only allowed to play on weekends and even then I had very little time to play. Last spring I finally graduated university and have been lucky to land a well paying job.
About 4 or 5 years ago my buddy introduced me to twitch. More importantly it instilled the idea that streaming is something I like doing. I have been streaming on and off for a few years now and was never very dedicated because I could only stream from my laptop which compared to what I have built, will now be used to keep my kitchen table, level. I have always enjoyed streaming but felt like its not worth it because my quality of stream wasn't very good. That has all changed though now with my new baby!
Like everyone in life they have ups and downs and my life suffered a down that I wouldn't wish on anyone. My younger sister passed away about a year ago so this build is in her name. Her name was Mackenzie so I decided to name my build "MACH 1". She was infatuated with rap music especially how fast some of them can sing. So my nickname for her was Mach 1.
Its been about 5 months of planning, reading your guy's reviews and ordering the parts I wanted. so without further adieu here is, MACH 1.
The entire build took me about three full nights from 6pm-11pm give or take some time for some chicken nuggets for dinner. I really enjoyed building my computer but if I had the knowledge I do now it would have gone a lot smoother. A lot of the terms and lingo went over my head but after reading countless reviews and forums on the world wide web I managed to get it done.
Some advice for first time builders...TAKE. YOUR. TIME. I tried to rush through solely on the feeling of excitement. I wanted this pc built as fast as possible which caused me to kind of rush through some things in the beginning.
After building it for the first time and praying that it would turn on I was disappointed when it didn't. I took the CPU cooler out, disconnected all the wires and restarted. Again praying it would start on the second attempt I was overjoyed when the CPU cooler turned on. But that's all that turned on. My GTX 1070 card didn't turn on, None of my audio was working (no beeps or anything). so Again I removed everything else and left the thermaltake cooler connected. again I tried and finally for the third time everything worked. My Ram turned on, which btw is beast, my card turned on and the case fns turned on also.
I didnt want a disc drive and for that I had to use a USB do do the initial boot up and install the drivers on. It sounds a lot easier than it actually is, especially for a first time builder. The OS worked and everything is history.
I had a lot of fun planning and ordering all the parts and was estatic when my ram, which was the last thing I ordered, arrived. It definitely was a learning experience and will be making upgrades in the future such as another graphics card for SLI.
Anyways guys I hope you enjoyed reading the story behind this build, I sure had a lot of fun telling it and building this pc.
Part Reviews
CPU
Really easy to install. Just be careful because you can damage it. Does what it's supposed to!
CPU Cooler
First off I love how quiet these bad boys are. The RGB lighting looks amazing and I'm really happy with my choice in CPU cooler.
Can use the controller easily and is very straight forward.
Thermal Compound
Just your basic thermal compound. Works well.
Motherboard
Really like the layout and design. Although -1 for install guide. It was quite confusing and had to use forums for most of the install info. In the install manual they showed pictures but sometimes didn't explain what exactly was being shown. Really easy to connect the CPU cooler and RAM.
Memory
Beast. plain and simple. really easy to install and the lighting is a nice add on.
Storage
Storage is storage I guess. Maybe looking to upgrade to more storage later on but for now its perfect.
Storage
Easy install. Might upgrade but again I am fine right now.
Video Card
What a beast of a card. It was a little tight fitting it into my NZXT H440 but it managed to squeeze in. On the heavier side I've read but a good weight to it so its not flimsy.
Case
A really nice looking case. Very easy to install with lots of room. It was between this case or the INWIN 805 Infinity. Either would have done the job but I love the clean, matte look of the case.
Power Supply
great PSU. -1 because of the install manual. Didn't go in depth enough for me and got a little frustrated when trying to connect to some of the parts without fully knowing whih wire to connect to which part.
Operating System
Not much to say here except it works well and is easy to use.
Wireless Network Adapter
simple wireless network adapter. Works great, no problems installing it. but because I don't have a disc drive I had to copy the setup driver onto my USB stick which look a little longer.
Monitor
A really nice monitor. Very sleek and skinny. Doesn't take up very much room on my desk which is nice. I'm looking to get another to be able to play my game and have my stream/recording software open on the other one. Zero bleed and has a lot of customization options which most other monitors don't have.
Keyboard
really quiet keyboard. Love the color changing abilities also.
Headphones
Love these headphones. really simple to use and don't squeeze my head too much. great sounding quality. The only thing I would change is to get the wireless option so I can reduce the amount of cables around my pc and desk.
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