The Beast is Alive, pictures inside! (56k be ready)

[cdenny1]

TADAH! I promised I would take pictures, so here they are!

Thank you all for helping me the last couple of days.
Here is what I got:

------AMD Phenom II X4 920
--2x(2x2gb) Mushkin DDR2-800 ram (5-4-4-12 timings)
-----Gigabyte MA770-UD3
--LG SATA DVD Writer
-----Coolermaster Centurion 534
--Seagate 160gb 7200.10 HDD (already had)
-----Sapphire HD 4830 video card
--PC Power and Cooling PPCS500 500watt
Total = $600, with shipping $640.

The Process:

Got my case the day before everything, so I had time to look it over and plan it out. Only took two days shipping for the case, and the promised three for everything else

I like it. When I received the case, I noticed the reset button was gone so I looked around for a while and found it hidden in the cardboard box--I was sweating bullets for a while.

Interior and what it comes with:

Side fins/fan:

I was worried at first because this inlet sucks air IN, and has the slats angled towards the back where hot air goes out. It doesn't seem to be a problem so far. Overall the case is very quiet with no audible fan noise, all you hear is the movement of air.

The back:

Nothing special here.

The next day I received everything else in one medium sized box, I was surprised at how well everything was packed in (Kudos NEWEGG!)

Motherboard:

The Brain!

Oodles of RAM:

I'm glad I got 8gb of it, performance comments are below.

Video Card:

Powah!

 

[cdenny1]

After setting most of the stuff onto the motherboard:

The previous computer I had built was intel-based. The differences in the heatsinks were amazing! The AMD heatsink had a latch mechanism to lock it into place and was huge--heatpipes weaving in and out. Intel, however, uses a ridiculous brute force tab mechanism and is honestly puny (the one that came with the e8400 was anyway; solved that by buying the Artic Freezer Pro 7)

After setting everything into the case:

Cable ties make me happy

I was able to stuff all the extra power supply cables inside of the bay that holds the DVD drives.

AND VOILA! DONE! Everything took only about 40 minutes, and was stupid easy since I had built one before. To all those who may be questioning their ability to put one together--DO IT, the money you save, the performance, and reliability you gain is invaluable. You would have to smear a 9V battery along the motherboard to screw it up. Just read the instructions (I only glanced at it when I didn't know what to do)

All setup and running perfectly:

The side "tunnel" for the cpu isnt perfectly aligned, but the force of the suction can hold up a piece of printer paper.

Performance:

I have only installed Vista 64-bit, CS4, and a couple misc apps. This far, the performance has amazed me. I can open up photoshop in 4 seconds, and load a 1.5gb .PSD in 11 seconds. Creating a 37:1 panorama of 24megapixels took only 14 minutes! (which is really fast for those who don't understand) Multi-tasking is limitless, I even disabled my page file. For example, I was running itunes, defragmenting the hard drive, playing with photoshop, and watching Hulu all at the same time, with no noticable decrease in ANY of the apps. I plan on firing up a game once I find a good one, so that should be fun. Sad thing is, I only have 76gb of HDD space left

Questions I have:

The side fan/vent sucks air in, but the GPU blows air out (down). This makes me think that I should flip the side fan so it pulls air out, but since the fan blades are curved, the amount of mass of air moving would decrease (probably substancially). Is that a problem?
Also, what can I use to monitor the temps of everything? IE CPU, GPU
I plan to get a Western Digital Caviar Black 640gb HDD sometime in the future (or something faster or bigger), I don't want to have to install all of my apps and reinstall Vista if I don't need to. Is there a way to transfer everything without crippling performance or making everything unstable? BTW, I can backup the entire computer to an external HDD if that helps.

If anyone has questions regarding specific parts or whatever, just ask.

Thanks again for all the help you guys have given me!
I did this so you all could see the results of your help, and I've gotta say, the results are FANTASTIC!

 

[Proximon]

Leave the fan, you need enough air moving into the case that you don't burn up the exhaust fans creating a vacuum.

Hardware Monitor is a good all around app. Ignore the voltages, they mean nothing.

Real Temp is the one you want for serious and accurate CPU monitoring.

Catalyst Control Center has a GPU temp monitor.

It's always very nice to see a different case in action. While I wouldn't have picked that one, it's far better than I thought.