Gaming PC Build - AMD FX-8350 / GTX 780 / Fractal Design Define R4

Hello everyone, this is Ryan from PCPartPicker and today we're doing a gaming build. Inside of this build we're going with an AMD FX-8350 processor. We'll be cooling that with a Swiftech H220. That will be all going on to an MSI motherboard and we're pairing that with an 850 watt NZXT HAL PSU. Inside we'll have a 512 gigabyte Samsung SSD, 16 gigabytes of Vexor Core Series RAM. On top of that we'll have a GeForce GTX 780, the Super Clock Edition with the ACX cooler, and all that will be going inside of the Fractal Design Define R4 white with a window. Let's get started. Normally our first move would be to install the CPU directly into the motherboard. In this case however, we'll be using the H220 instead of the stock cooler, which has custom brackets. So we'll first need to remove the stock brackets on the processor, or on the motherboard, and once we have that complete we will install the H220 brackets. So let's get these removed. Nice and simple, just a couple screws. They should come right out and then we will install the bracket in just a minute. Now that those are off, you'll want to remove the stickers on your motherboard. You can't put a processor in if there's something in the way. So let's take those off very carefully right now from both the CPU socket and then there's another one over the PCIe lanes right here. Now that we've removed the brackets from the motherboard, let's go ahead and install the processor. The first thing you'll want to do is open the latch on the socket, and the next thing you'll want to do is look on the socket itself. There should be a little arrow pointing to the corner, and on this motherboard it's right here, and you'll notice that there is also a corresponding arrow on the corner of the processor itself. All you have to do is go ahead and gently put it into place in the socket, and then grab the latch and pull it down. Our next step is to put the motherboard into the case, but on top of the case when you first receive it, there's two pads here that block the top fan grates, and because we're going to put the H220 in and mount it on the top of the case, we need to take those off. So it's just eight easy screws right on top. There's one. Our next step is to put the standoffs in the case to separate the motherboard from the case itself. So we'll go ahead and put them in. On this case, it is the A and the AM slots. It's going to vary a little bit depending on your case or your motherboard. Obviously, if you have a smaller one, they'll go in different spots, or if you have a larger motherboard, they'll go in different spots. So go ahead, we'll put these in here, and then we'll put the motherboard on top. Then we also have a tool that we can use. This little black piece here lets it go right on top of the standoffs and lets us tighten them just a little bit more. The last step before you put the motherboard in the case is to install the I-O panel. This goes in the back of the case right here, and you want to make sure you put this in before you put the motherboard in, or you're going to have to take it out and do it all over again. So let's put this right back here, and it should click into place. It may take a little bit of force, and it should audibly click a little bit as well. So you got one side, and there's the other as well, and you're all set. With the processor now in the motherboard, we can go ahead and install the motherboard into the case. It's a very simple process. Just gently lay the motherboard in the case and line it up with the standoffs that we have already installed. Before we install the Swiftech H220 into our case, the first thing we have to do is swap out the bracket. The one that comes pre-installed is for a variety of Intel sockets, but with this build, we're obviously using an AMD processor. So we just go ahead and unscrew the current bracket, and we'll put on the AMD bracket in just a second. Now that we have the Intel bracket off of the H220, let's go ahead and install the AMD bracket. We'll go ahead and put them from the top down, one on the bottom, and then one on the top, and we'll go ahead and screw these in, and we'll be all set. With the AMD bracket now in place, we're going to go ahead and install the H220 into the case. Because it's a little bit of a tight fit here, we're actually going to go ahead and install the four-pin fan header first, and then we'll put the block up against the top fan slots, and we'll go ahead and screw it in from the other side. So let's set this into place right here. When you install the thermal paste, there's several different methods that you can use. We're going to go ahead and use a small grain of rice. Our next step is to install the RAM. We were initially going to go with this Avexor Core series RAM, but unfortunately, after installing the H220, we noticed that the hose on the block actually obstructs the first RAM slot if you have anything other than low-profile RAM. So thankfully, we have a spare couple sticks around. We're going to go with some Ballistix Sport VLP RAM, low-profile, and we'll go ahead and put that in the slot. Very simple. The first step is to open the clips on the RAM slot, and then just go ahead and slide it right in. Like I said, it's a bit of a tight fit around the radiator and the block with the tubing, but it should go right into place. Click in, and as you can see, the clips pop up. On this motherboard, we're going to go ahead and use DIMMs 1 and 2, which are the two black spots. With the motherboard and the RAM in place, we're going to go ahead and do the power supply next. You'll notice on this case that there's a fan grate on the bottom, so we're going to line up the fan from the power supply to the bottom of the case as well. Our next step is just to screw the four screws into the back of the power supply to secure it into the case. Unfortunately, with this case, there's a little bit of padding here, so I've enlisted some help to hold the power supply in place while I screw it in. For this build, we had some custom sleeves made, so we're first going to install that. We tried to match the color scheme a little bit here, so let's go ahead and the 24 pin goes right in here, and we will route that right up through the top, and then we will plug the 24 pin also into the power supply. On this one, it's down at the bottom, and there's actually a little fan connector as well. Next cable is the 8 pin, and then we already installed the 8 pin extension up here. It was a little bit of a tight fit, so we wanted to do that in advance. With the power supply now installed, let's go ahead and put the graphics card in the case. The first thing we're going to have to do, though, is remove the PCI slots from the back of the case, the expansion slots, so let's go ahead and, because this is in the second slot, we're going to have to remove the second and third one for the graphics card. With the slots now removed, let's go ahead and put the graphics card gently into the slot. There we go. Now that it's in, secure it with the screws. Our next step is to install the SSD into the computer, and we've already removed the tool-less drive bay, so let's go ahead and flip this over, and we will screw the solid state right into it. After installing the hard drive into the tray, we just go ahead and take the tray, squeeze the ends right here, and slide it directly in. It should click into place, and you're all set. With the 24 and 8 pin now in place, our next step would be to plug the graphics card power in. We had these really nice sleeves that we were going to use, but unfortunately, between the time that we purchased our initial parts, got our sleeving, and started to build, the 780 actually came out, and we forgot to double check the pin layout on the graphics card. So instead of 8 and 8, it's actually 8 and 6. So while we're having new cable made, we're going to go ahead and go with the stock cables this time around, and we'll give you an update once we redo the cables. So you put the 8 pin directly into the power supply. It'll only fit one way. Route it through the back, bring it back out right above. Let's do the next cable. Our next step is to connect the front panel cables from the case to the front panel headers on the motherboard, and with this MSI motherboard, we actually have these really nice modular pieces that allow us to plug the cables in, and then plug those directly into the motherboard itself. So our first one is going to be the power LEDs. You find the corresponding piece, and plug them in. With the power LEDs in place, we'll go ahead and do the power SW cable, and on the connector as well, you can see there is a little power SW, and so we'll make sure that the plus matches up with the red cable, and the minus matches up with the black. Plug that in, and our final cable is the reset SW, which is on the other side here, and just follow the same process. Now that we have them plugged into the connectors, let's go ahead and fit them to the motherboard. Our next cable to install is the HD audio, which is down here at the bottom left of the motherboard. Our next cable to install is the USB header, which will go right here. Next, let's hook up the solid state drive SATA controller. So we'll just push this back a little bit, and with the SATA cable installed, let's go ahead and put the USB 3 cable into place. So this is our completed build. We're going to tidy up the cables a little bit, and once we get the new sleeves, we'll go ahead and post a little bit more content about this build, additionally with benchmarks, and we'll fully show off the new sleeving and the backside of the build as well. So keep an eye out, and thanks for watching. This is Ryan with PC Part Picker, and have a great day.