and I'll be showing you through the build process today. Now, whether you're here to

expand on a hobby

learn something new, or save 30% to 50% off of retail by building it yourself

they're all great reasons, and I'll help show you through that today.

Now, why do you want to listen to me? I started building computers at a young age

as a hobby and it's now turned into my profession.

I've got a degree in Computer Engineering and 15 years experience in

the field

Now I certainly don't claim to know it all, but if you learn a thing or two then that's great.

So what are we building with today? We've got our power supply, our motherboard, our hard drive

our Solid State Drive, our RAM

a CPU, a high-performance graphics card, an aftermarket heatsink

a DVD burner and an anti-static wrist strap

Now, if you want a full description of all the parts that we suggest to use in a build like this

head over to the website at EasyPCBuilder.com

where you'll find the monthly updated Parts Guides, which outline the best components to buy

to get the best Value, Performance and Reliability

our of your Build. A large amount of consumer and engineering research goes

into these

and they're also available for other builds too,

such as Gaming PC's at various levels, Media PC's

& Home Office PC's also... And they're awesome!

Now I'm using an anti-static wristband as I build today. This really should be

a requirement as you build

If you don't use static protection you may not completely break anything

but you do run the chance of shortening the life of your components by them sustaining

partial damage from static events

for the small cost of an anti-static strap, I'd really recommend it.

Now to ensure that you're appropriately grounded to earth

you should do the following: unpack the case and the PSU before unboxing or

touching any of your other components,

install the power supply into the case, now you'll notice a fan on the bottom of

this particular model

which feeds air into the PSU. Where you have an intake and filter in the bottom of the case

install it this way, as it will help you draw cool air, in and through the case.

*excellent hand motions*

Now on the back of the case, you'll see four mounting points that you need to fasten.

Now ensure that the PSU power switch is in the OFF position

this will cut any potential power supply as the earth bypasses this switch

as it is direct wired.

These days with painted cases, your strap won't conduct to earth properly unless

you find an unpainted surface to attach to.

So I've attached the wrist strap to a non-painted

conductive area, by using a riser as a connection point

to ensure good continuity to ground. When the build is finished we simply remove this

and put the normal mount in

But as the thread in this riser interfaces directly to the earthed PSU casing

it is the best path available with a painted case like this.

Now doing all of this will ensure that I'm as close to relative ground as

possible

which is the best potential to be at when working with components.

Having yourself attached to a non-earthed case is still better than nothing

but as the case cannot completely dissipate your passed charge

you're likely floating at some voltage higher than 0V

and still have the potential to damage components (pun intended).

Also, We'd recommend doing the build on tiles or hardwood floors where you can

as it's hard to build up static. And don't pat your curious pets while you're building

and have a clean, non-conductive work area to work on.

Insert the power cord for the PSU

into an earthed wall socket which is turned OFF and then plug the other end

of the cable into TURNED OFF power supply.

So, for the mean time, we'll just leave the case and the power supply as they are

and now that I'm appropriately earthed and static free, we can get to installing some of

our other components.

Seriously, buy a wrist strap. They're $5.

So here on the motherboard

we've got our

CPU array, we have our four CPU *cooler* mounting points

we have our CPU fan header, our RAM slots

we have our PCI Express and PCI slots

we have our 24 pin power

primary connector, we have our 8 pin secondary CPU power connector

we have our USB 2.0 headers, our USB 3.0 headers

our case interface header for switches and LED's

we have our 6x motherboard mounting points

on this side of the motherboard

we've got our 6x SATA Data headers,

and on the opposite side here, we've got our audio, USB

display, HDMI, USB and ps/2 connectors for the back interface to the case.

So now lets install the CPU. Now you may have heard of

'zero insertion force' with respect to CPU installation.

This refers to the placement of the CPU

not the actual holding plate which holds the CPU in place.

To remove this, you take the arm out,

up and back

which will expose the CPU array.

Now, on the CPU array, there are two notches here and here

these correspond to the CPU

here

and here. Now they're asymmetrical, so the CPU

will only mount in one way.

As you see, I'm holding the CPU by the sides, never from the face

or from the back of the pins. Never touch the CPU array either.

So to place the CPU, grab it

top and bottom

and place it down into the CPU array.

low height, NO WORRIES.

Now to fold the mounting place back over, we need to ensure that the arm is back

fold the plate over and down

under the the mounting point there

and now it's usually at this point here that you hear a few unwelcome creaks and sounds

I'll be quiet for a second so hopefully we can pick them up in the sound

eek..

Now in placing the arm back down you do have to exert some force

this is perfectly normal if the CPU is placed

in the correct orientation and seated flat. So it's the same

just as we uninstalled it, arm out

down and under and that's your CPU installed.

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So now we're going to install the RAM

Now we're jumping to this

now as we're doing an aftermarket CPU cooler install

and we need to make sure that everything fits first

so you may notice that we have four RAM slots here

now each *pair* of these represent a channel on this particular chipset of the

motherboard

and in order to run in 'dual channel' configuration

which means the memory data controller bus will be twice as wide

this also means you can get more data through and shorter time frame

this helps aid performance and is quite simple when you consider you just

have to buy and install the RAM in the correct configuration to take advantage

of it.

So to install the RAM, you fold these

slots back (note read the FAQ below regarding the slots chosen)

We have our RAM module here, now you'll notice that the notches on these are actually asymetrical

so if we attempted to install the RAM in this particular orientation

the notch on the slot and the notch on the RAM stick won't fit.

And if you flip it around, they line up

and we're fine. So to install the RAM

put it in like that

and then a vertical force downward

a minor bit of force, and It'll go down and clip in

that's one

and the secondary

and that's got your RAM installed

So now it's time to install our aftermarket

CPU cooler. You see here when I place the cooler

there aren't actually any mounting points currently on the motherboard which

support this cooler itself.

On the board here are the stock Intel mounting points for their OEM CPU cooler

What we have to do is install the additional manufacturer bracket to the board

which supports the additional mass of the heatsink that we're installing.

On the back we have the backing plate, on the front

we have some through hole parts here.

Now as this is specific to each manufacturer, I'm not going to show this process on the video

and I'll pre-install this and then we'll get to installing the heatsink itself

So now that we've got our aftermarket CPU

mounts installed and on the back here we've got backing plate

now should mention here that this backing here is actually

an insulator. It's meant to be on there so don't remove it.

They are also on the underside of the other four mounts on the motherboard

that you see here

So now it's time to figure out what orientation is best for our CPU cooler

the fan intake is through the front of the case, so we've got the bottom of our case here

and the back here and what we want is for the air to draw in

through the front, exhausting out the back

and top fans of our computer case

So you may have noticed that there is no thermal paste on the CPU or the aftermarket cooler that we're using today

to ensure the correct operation of the computer, we'll need to install this.

So you may have noticed that most aftermarket coolers do not come with thermal paste

supplied

You cannot miss this step. If you do you'll have problems with overheating, crashing

and inconsistent temperatures on the chip, shortening its life

the thermal paste only fills very small air gaps between the two surfaces

the paste is much better at heat transfer than air is

so what we're going to do here is install a half

pea size bit of thermal paste on the CPU

Please read the FAQ for any questions surrounding this. Link below

Now we're going to grab our CPU cooler

now it's very important to make sure that you only exert up and downward force on this

you never want to place it sideways or at an angle

when you're sure that you're getting your placement correct, you place it

straight down, on the CPU so the two plates come into contact with each other

at pretty much the same time.

And check your mounting points, and if you're happy with how it's all situated

you can start screwing these items down.

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Now ensure that when you're fastening your heatsink down

that you go in a diagonal pattern and evenly spread the force of

the fasteners down while you're attaching the heatsink.

This is quite important to ensure that your thermal paste is distributed evenly

as you do it up

*turbo time*

So now that's all fastened down

it's time to move on to installing the

fan. So on the side of the fan here, you'll see that there's two arrows

one of them indicates the air flow through the fan, what we want to do here

is if this is the bottom and this is the back of the case, we want the air to flow

through the CPU cooler

an exhaust out the back and top. So the why we have this oriented

that the air will suck through the fan here

through the CPU and exhaust out the back and the top of the case.

Slot it on, ensure it's clipped in firmly

and you're in business. Now what we have here is a 4-pin CPU fan connector that we're going

to plug into the motherboard.

4-pin allows for variable speed to be controlled from a closed loop system

which means that the fan speed can be controlled by your motherboard

which is determined by the temperature of your CPU.

The PDF Build Guides are very helpful. Buy one today!

Now it's time to install our motherboard into the case.

Now if we have a look at the back of the motherboard,

you'll see we've got a whole lot of through hole parts which are conductive

if these touch the back of the case, which is also conductive

your motherboard or other components won't enjoy it (they'll have a holiday, indefinitely.)

So what we need to do is provide an insulating air gap

in the form of a riser as seen here

Now, looking at the motherboard, we need to find our through hole mounting points

on this particular board we have six mounting points

which need to correspond to what you install inside the case

or what has already been pre-installed.

Now the method that I'm using for determining the distance from the mounting points is the very scientific