System build help - have parts, what next?

[Lava_Fish]

It's been seven years since my last computer and it was time for an upgrade. (Gaming with sweet eye-candy / programming / surfing the internet)

So I have bought the following components.
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Hard Drive: Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Hard Drive: Samsung 830 Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Optical Drive: LG WH12LS39
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (CrossFire
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (CrossFire)
Case: Rosewill THOR V2 ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair 850W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Monitor: HP ZR30w 30.0" Monitor
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

I also bought a generic keyboard. (I'm happy with it.) And I'll keep my sweet Logitech mouse and my klipsch 5.1 speakers.

The video cards and the monitor should be coming this evening. I've already got everything else put together and cabled in. I turned on the power and all of the fans spun, but I haven't gone any farther than that. No speakers plugged in, so no beeps to analyze. This case is pretty cool. (Pun?)

Anyway, I had a few questions.

Any general advice about common (or not so common) pitfalls for new system builders? (My one issue so far was that the modular cable's 8-pin connector for the motherboard power had a different shape than the motherboard receptacle. So I was confused until I found someone on the internet with the same 'problem' and the solution was...even though the shapes don't match, it fits fine. And it did. But I would have liked a picture or a statement to that effect, as I'm not the kind of guy to normally try to fit a square peg in a round hole.)

As far as the SSD goes, I was thinking about ignoring ISRT and just using the SSD for my OS and anything I wanted to run fast. If I feel like I'm suffering from too much slowness, I may buy another SSD for the ISRT caching. But I'm not sure that is even a good idea as I don't have any more 6GB/s ports available.

As far as overclocking goes, I don't want to be too aggressive. Am I just the person the auto overclock feature on this motherboard was designed for? Or will that feature be annoying/not work well/or otherwise be undesirable?

I have heard I shouldn't plug in the storage drive until windows is installed. Is it actually hard to get windows to install on the proper drive otherwise?

Any other advice or resources you guys find particularly helpful?

Thanks for all of the help!

 

[Ken g6]

I'd start by plugging the monitor into the video out on your mobo, and making sure everything looks OK in the BIOS. I'd then plug in the SSD and start installing Windows. If you're interested in ISRT you could leave a 64GB partition free on that 256GB SSD; 64GB is as much as ISRT can use.

I know there should be a step in there to set or check the SSD access mode in the BIOS, but I can't remember the acronym right now. :$

 

[VirtualLarry]

(My one issue so far was that the modular cable's 8-pin connector for the motherboard power had a different shape than the motherboard receptacle. So I was confused until I found someone on the internet with the same 'problem' and the solution was...even though the shapes don't match, it fits fine. And it did. But I would have liked a picture or a statement to that effect, as I'm not the kind of guy to normally try to fit a square peg in a round hole.)

That could be very bad. The cable from the PSU to the mobo, should fit perfectly, you shouldn't have to force it. If you did, then that means something is wrong. And if you attempted to power on that way, you may have damaged something already.

 

[Ken g6]

(My one issue so far was that the modular cable's 8-pin connector for the motherboard power had a different shape than the motherboard receptacle. So I was confused until I found someone on the internet with the same 'problem' and the solution was...even though the shapes don't match, it fits fine. And it did. But I would have liked a picture or a statement to that effect, as I'm not the kind of guy to normally try to fit a square peg in a round hole.)

That could be very bad. The cable from the PSU to the mobo, should fit perfectly, you shouldn't have to force it. If you did, then that means something is wrong. And if you attempted to power on that way, you may have damaged something already.

Well, fitting a square peg in a round hole would be very bad, yes. But fitting a round peg in a square hole may be OK, as long as the clip orientation matched the little tab on the plug.

 

[mfenn]

Two 7970s???? Jesus man, that is a lot of cash to be dropping on video cards, especially for a CPU-bound game like Skyrim (though we went over this in your other thread).

Since you have a 256GB SSD there is no point to using SRT, you will be able to put whatever you want on the SSD. Anyway, AHCI is the acronym that Ken was looking for, make sure you set your SATA controllers to that mode before you install the OS.

:wq

EDIT: ^^^ LOL, I guess I know that I've been at work for too long when I start typing vi commands into posts.

 

[Lava_Fish]

The cable from the modular PSU to the Mobo fits perfectly. It just doesn't look like it would fit. No extra pressure or modification needed. It just fits fine.

I did overkill on the video cards. But that just means I'll have to buy lots of super-duper games to make sure I get good use out of them!



Generally things seem to be going well.

Everything powered up fine with no issues. Installed OS to SSD. Partitioned HDD. Loaded Mobo drivers. Autotuned/overclocked to ~4.5 GHz.

Noticed I couldn't set resolution higher than 1280*800.

Installed video cards. Loaded drivers and catalyst. Enabled crossfire. Bumped the clocks up.

Noticed I still couldn't set my desktop resolution higher than 1280*800.

Hmm, ok. Installed monitor drivers.

Hmm, still can't set resolution higher than 1280*800. (To be perfectly clear, I can change the resolution but the highest resolution choice available to me in display properties or in the catalyst interface is 1280*800.)

I googled and found people with similar problems but I haven't found any solutions yet...

And then I google some more.

And I figure out that I was being dumb connecting what I thought was an HDMI to dual-DVI adapter to my dual DVI cable to my monitor. (Maybe such a thing doesn't even exist.)

Swapping in the mini-DP to DP adapter to the DP cable to my monitor makes the world a better place. I thought I would post my problem + solution here to make the next guy's googling easier.


I love the display portion of the monitor. But I don't like that it doesn't swivel enough to give easy access to the connection points.

And it seems to give off a great deal of heat. Almost feels like I'm tanning.

 

[mfenn]

And I figure out that I was being dumb connecting what I thought was an HDMI to dual-DVI adapter to my dual DVI cable to my monitor. (Maybe such a thing doesn't even exist.)

Swapping in the mini-DP to DP adapter to the DP cable to my monitor makes the world a better place. I thought I would post my problem + solution here to make the next guy's googling easier.

Normal HDMI tops out at 1920x1080, so your monitor was likely just offering the next most reasonable 16:10 resolution when it saw that connection. Using DP is fine, but is there any reason that you didn't just use DVI directly?

And it seems to give off a great deal of heat. Almost feels like I'm tanning.

30s tend to do that. :awe: