The Haswell Build...Finally

Hey Everyone,

Sorry for putting the cart before the horse..or in this case the benchmarks before the build. But I have been pretty busy lately and haven't had time to sit down and work on my build guide but here it is.

Motherboard:
For this I went with the MSI B85M-E45. This is fit all my needs for less than $60. It comes with plenty of SATA connectors for hard drive, has extra USB 2.0 headers for AIO coolers, USB 3.0 connector if your case has front USB 3.0 ports, and a PCIe x16 3.0 lane for modern GPU's, and 4 DIMM slots for DDR3-1600 RAM up to 32GB. If SLI or Crossfire is something you are interested in this board will not support either option.

CPU:
My CPU of choice for my budget upgrade was an i3-4150 Haswell Dual core with hyper-threading. People tend to bash i3's for their gaming potential and no one is going to argue that 2 cores and 2 logical compare to 4 real cores. BUT that doesn't mean you cannot get good gaming performance from them and I intend to show this in my recorded videos. Plus with the advances of hyper-threading technology CPU bottleneck isn't as much an issue as it use to be, especially with appropriate settings.

RAM: 

I carried this over from my previous build because they are very reliable and have high compatibility. If you are new to PC building and are unsure of all the manufacturers you honestly cannot go wrong with G.Skill. (No this is not a sponsored ad, this is my personal opinion and should be taken as such)

For now I am using 2x 4GB sticks of 1600mhz memory, I plan on upgrading that to 16GB before the end of the year. I know 8GB is still the sweet spot for RAM and video games but you can see recent titles like GTA V and Arkham Knight both accumulate RAM usage as you travel around the map. 

CPU Cooler: 

I am also reusing my Cryorig C7 low profile cooler. I chose this and continue to use this because it preforms well for a low profile cooler. Its not the quietest low profile available but this is a nice mix between noise level and performance. I can tell you from experience I hardly hear this little cooler even when doing an extended gaming session. 

Case: 

I have done a few builds in this case. It is unique, has decent cable management and drive space, and plenty of airflow. Plus it saves quite a bit of space on my desk. The main chamber can support 1x 240mm radiator if you use a mATX motherboard and 2x 240mm radiators if you use a mITX motherboard. You can use full size ATX power supplies with room for cables even if it is non-modular or semi modular. The second chamber also houses 2 drive cages each hold 3x 3.5mm and 2.5mm drives respectively. I can do a much more in depth review if anyone would like to hear more about the Corsair Air 240. 

Graphics Card: 

I'm currently using a GTX 750 Ti the previous budget 1080 king and its still running just fine in all the games I use it for. The 2GB Vram hasn't given me any issues even in GTA V. The card idles around 25C in my case and barely reaches 60C even under heavy load. 

Thanks everyone for reading. Now you can get an idea of my current hardware. As always if you like the blog please follow and if you enjoy the youtube videos please like or subscribe to the channel.