System Builder Marathon Bonus: Newegg Customer Choice PC

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Building Your Beast

Updated and republished in 2010, our classic PC building guide outlines all of the basic steps needed in order to get this PC’s hardware installed. We’ll outline the few unique traits of this case, however.

Antec’s Nine Hundred uses two three-bay adapter cages to hold up to six 3.5” hard drives, but did not originally support any 2.5” drives. Rather than include 2.5”-to-3.5” adapters, Antec simply added holes and grommets to hold a single SSD below its bottom drive cage. The photo shows the SSD with the drive cage removed, and the SSD is attached using long M3-0.50 (small drive) screws through the Nine Hundred’s bottom plate.

This is the part we removed for the previous photo, complete with the system’s single 3.5” disk installed. Wires hanging from the back supply power to a front intake fan, and the drive itself is secured to the sides this cage using long #6-32 UTS (big drive) screws.

Nvidia's SLI bridge connector is this PC’s final deviation from methods described in our building guide. That's the little blue card visible on the left side of the above photo. It simply fits over the gold fingers atop each card, in the shown orientation.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
75 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mikenygmail
    Nice, but would have been better with 2 x 6970 2 GB or 2 x 6950 2 GB unlocked to 6970.
    Reply
  • Pezcore27
    Is it sad I liked this build the best out of them all?
    Reply
  • a4mula
    Interesting, still not surprising given recent results in group dynamic studies. Groups will often make better choices than individuals, that's not to say a group can replace or perform on par with an expert individual, just better than the average.
    Reply
  • aznshinobi
    Just saying, Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 would save some and not bad rated. Could go for something like the OCZ ZT 750w which also is solidly rated, both saving money and offering similar if not better performance. For the GPUs, probably would've been better just to go with 2x7850 just to see how it does after all I haven't seen a whole bunch of those benchmarks.

    Understood that this is best on best rated components, just saying it would've been nice to see the ones I mentioned for a value build.
    Reply
  • mikenygmailNice, but would have been better with 2 x 6970 2 GB or 2 x 6950 2 GB unlocked to 6970.
    Yeah that was what I was thinking, if you have a 2560x1600 monitor then the 2 6950s wont see that performance hit at that res like the 560ti's do. And would outperform the 7970 as a result while still costing enough less to move up to that 2500k.

    When I can drop $1300 for a Dell U3011 or HP ZR30w I doubt I would be pairing it with a $1300 PC, so I wonder if its even necessary for a mid range build as how often are you really going to find that pairing. Though hopefully soon Apple is going to push the LCD makers kicking and screaming into the 4k and 8k display era!


    Reply
  • hmp_goose
    Wow: And here I was thinkin' "maybe the SBM should work like the monthly Best X articals, where it's not anchored to a price point".

    Drunk Min's t'ink alac, and all that.
    Reply
  • ammaross
    "...with none of the compromises that plagued Don't maligned build"

    Last page. Should be "Don's" but "Don't" works good enough :P

    Definitely would have loved to see a pair of 2GB cards duke it out though. The base system called for it (nearly). Take the price from the hide of the mobo.
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Not a bad system at all. Im just waiting for people to start whining about 680s like in the other builds.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    mikenygmailNice, but would have been better with 2 x 6970 2 GB or 2 x 6950 2 GB unlocked to 6970.Better choices outside of "consumer choice" are irrelevant to a "consumer choice" selection.a4mulaInteresting, still not surprising given recent results in group dynamic studies. Groups will often make better choices than individuals, that's not to say a group can replace or perform on par with an expert individual, just better than the average.Yes, the motherboard could have been better AND cheaper if not for the fact that it was picked by the group rather than an expert individual, but the complete unit was still acceptable.aznshinobiJust saying, Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 would save some and not bad rated. Could go for something like the OCZ ZT 750w which also is solidly rated, both saving money and offering similar if not better performance. For the GPUs, probably would've been better just to go with 2x7850 just to see how it does after all I haven't seen a whole bunch of those benchmarks.Understood that this is best on best rated components, just saying it would've been nice to see the ones I mentioned for a value build.Right, part choices were limited to the top two rated parts, based on which of the top two customer rated parts most closely matched the rest of the system.DarkersonNot a bad system at all. Im just waiting for people to start whining about 680s like in the other builds.LOL, I'm waiting for a stream of "Why didn't YOU pick THIS" when Newegg Customers were the pickers and the "THIS" they're screaming about doesn't even have a customer rating :)
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Im sure it will be inevitable. ;)


    Stupid TomsHardware, Y U NO PICK MY PARTS! :P

    Edit: Obvious sarcasm is obvious. Ah well, Ill take this as all the non article reading 680 noobs being offended. I dont care.
    Reply