Built a custom PC myself, no kits, all hand-picked parts.
I have been building myself a new PC every 4 years or so since 2004, and keep getting more experienced with every build. I started out with one of those "barebone" kits way back then, but my latest build is all hand-picked parts and it came out awesome! :)
I did this latest build about exactly a year ago, but figured it's still a fairly new rig and you all might enjoy checking out a couple pics and the specs on it with links:
Rosewill Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case CHALLENGER-U3 Black
CORSAIR CXM series CX750M 750W 80 PLUS BRONZE Haswell Ready ATX12V & EPS12V Modular Power Supply
ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB Kit (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM - Blue (HX316C10FK2/8)
AMD FD8350FRHKBOX FX-8350 FX-Series 8-Core Black Edition Processor
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan (RR-212E-20PK-R2)
ASUS Xonar DSX PCIe 7.1 GX2.5 Audio Engine 192K/24bit Playback Support Sound Cards
WD Blue 1TB SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch Desktop Hard Drive (WD10EZEX)
Note on the Hard Drive: I just got this SSD Drive linked below in the mail yesterday. Will be using Clonezilla to clone my current Hard Drive over to it later this week (these are amazing compared to old school Hard Drives, just upgraded my laptop with one and the difference is incredible):
SanDisk X400 SSD SATA 2.5" 7mm 1TB SD8SB8U-1T00-1122
The card reader and Bluray drive you may notice in one of the pics below were not purchased for this build, rather were recycled from the PC I was using before this one. I also replaced my old PC's CPU / Case fans while I had it opened up, and blew the dust bunnies out of it with canned air...now it's a great backup computer.
And of course the pics (click on them for a larger view)...
Notice all the zip-tied wiring. This helps keep the wiring safe from the fans, and increases the airflow cooling:
Here I have finished the build, and am running a "Burnin" test with Unigine Valley Benchmark to make sure everything is working properly (I did a 24 hour open case "Burnin" before this test, to be safe and make sure no sparks, overheating, or fires were occurring from dud parts):
Hope you enjoyed checking all this hardware out, I sure had fun building it! :) It's still running great a year later.
Oh, and if you ever try building a PC yourself, the number one rule is ALWAYS ground yourself out by touching a large metal object before picking up or touching internal PC components. I always touch the metal of the inside of the open computer case to do this. Otherwise you risk damaging the components with static electricity.
