Time to Get Building

A step-by-step guide to piecing together your very own Ryzen rendering PC

1 STRIP THE CHASSIS

SO YOU’VE GOT YOUR PARTS, a suitable workspace set up, free from static-inducing materials, a dependable set of tools, including a couple of Phillips head screwdrivers, a ton of cable ties, and you’re ready to go. First thing you’re going to want to do is strip down the chassis to the bare minimum. Not only does this give you a little extra room to maneuver, but it also encourages you to get rid of any unnecessary clutter, reducing potential airflow problems, or creating turbulent hotspots.

Tempered glass and acrylic windowed panels are best placed in the cardboard box, slotted between the polystyrene to keep them protected. Most cases are relatively simple to take apart, but the 5t is another story. There’s a plethora of screws attaching the top panel to the chassis itself, all of varying shapes and sizes. As pictured, there’s also a radiator/fan mounting panel, held down by four retainable thumbscrews.

2 INSTALL THE POWER SUPPLY

AHH, THE BEAUTY of a modular power supply! Corsair’s RM series power supplies are a pretty affordable way of sprucing up any system. Although generally slightly longer than their non-modular cousins, being able to remove unnecessary cables from any build tends to make your life a lot easier.

With the MasterCase Maker 5t, the rear power supply bracket can be installed prior to sliding the power supply itself into the back of the case. Simply unscrew the four thumbscrews holding the bracket to the chassis, then use the included power supply screws to mount the bracket to the rear of the PSU. Make sure the fan is facing down, because the 5t lacks any top-sided ventilation, then simply slide the power supply into the back of the case, and secure it using the four thumbscrews once more.

3 REPLACE STOCK FANS

ALTHOUGH NOT AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY, replacing the stock fans in any chassis with something a touch more premium helps improve overall performance. As standard, the 5t comes with three black Cooler Master 140mm fans—we’ve replaced them with three EK Vardar 120mm fans, to reduce noise and improve airflow and static pressure.

The original plan was to have the two Vardars at the front of the chassis, drawing air into the case, one exhausting out of the rear, then to use the AIO EK Predator, exhausting out of the roof, running in a slightly negative configuration. By the end of the build, our original plan had changed quite drastically, due to the limitations of the case itself—we talk about that more in our AIO section below, and in the conclusion.

4 INSTALL RYZEN AND AIO PREP

TRADITIONALLY, installing LGA processors tends to be a bit of a nightmare—there’s plenty of opportunity to bend those delicate motherboard pins, which can ultimately kill your trusty build. With PGA processors, on the other hand, it’s a far less dangerous business. Simply lift the retention arm up, match the golden triangle on the corner of the processor to the triangle on the socket, and carefully slot the processor into place. Wiggle it a bit, make sure it’s snug and secure, with each pin in each hole, then lower the retention arm back into place.

Needless to say, this can be done when the motherboard is outside the case, and it’s also the ideal time to install your AIO’s backplate to the motherboard. For this particular cooler, you need to unscrew the default AMD bracket, align the EK backplate with rubber mounting in between, then thread the correct screws through it to lock it into place.

5 MOBO AND AIO INSTALLATION

NEXT UP, YOU’LL WANT to install the motherboard into the case. Lay the chassis down on its side, install the rear I/O plate, making sure to orient it correctly, then screw the motherboard into the stand-offs at all available screw holes. With a case like the 5t, you need to add the stand-offs yourself, depending on the size of the motherboard you’re using.

This is where things got interesting for us. Due to a lack of clearances in the roof, we couldn’t mount the EK Predator up above. After much shuffling, we opted to take the two 10TB HDDs out of the chassis, remove the HDD cage from the case, and install the Predator there, with the fans exhausting out of the front of the chassis. To mount the EK, simply apply a smidge of thermal paste to the center of the processor, place the four springs on each mounting screw, gently line the block over the top of the screws until it slides down over the processor, then screw the AIO down with the included thumbscrews.

6 ADD THE PCIE M.2 SSD

GOING FROM AN SSD TO A PCIE SSD is the equivalent of going from an old-school hard drive to an SSD for the first time. The extra speed, although not particularly noticeable on startup, is astronomical on desktop. Copying and transferring files around a PCIe SSD such as Samsung’s 960 Pro is almost instant for anything less than 5GB.

Installation couldn’t be easier, either. Locate the M.2 port on your board, find the screw opposite the port, and undo the tiny screw on the top of the mounting point. Next, make sure the stand-off is in the correct position for the size of M.2 SSD you have. If it’s in the wrong place, use a pair of needle-nose pliers to undo it, and screw it into the correct position. Then line your SSD up with the notch on both the stick and the connection, and slot it into place, before securing it with the M.2 screw.

7 GPU AND MEMORY

ALMOST AT THE END NOW. To install your graphics card, remove the two PCIe covers in the back of the chassis, where your card is going to slot in. These probably have two thumbscrews holding them in place. Then, lining the graphics card up with the slot, and with the rear I/O pointing to the back of the case, gently slot it into place until you hear a click. Then use those same thumbscrews that you removed earlier to secure the graphics card in place.

It’s a very similar affair for memory. Make sure you match the off-center notch on the stick with the board, lift the two clips either side of the memory slot, and gently slide the stick of RAM into place until you hear the two clips lock into place. Use the correct color coded slots if using only two sticks.

8 MORE LIGHTING

ONCE YOU’VE FINISHED CABLING up your system, and have routed everything out of the way (following the manual for front I/O headers), you’ll want to deal with lighting—or maybe not, depending on your point of view. For us, it’s part of what makes a system pop in a windowed chassis.

There’s plenty of LED lighting in the MasterCase Maker 5t already, with a long strip located on the PSU cover, and our Aorus is littered with the stuff. We would have loved to have thrown a couple of extra white LED strips in the roof, and along the back or front, to really bring attention to that white motherboard, perhaps even disabling that red bar at the bottom, so as not to swamp out the white color theme in a murky shade of rouge.

9 MIGRATE A WINDOWS INSTALL

SO, YOU’VE GOT FRESH HARD DRIVES, everything’s ready to go, the system’s powering on, everything’s spinning, and you’re not getting any memory issues. What next? You’ll want to install your OS. For us, that’s Windows 10’s Technical Preview. Ahead of time, utilizing a laptop or your old system, you need to take an 8GB memory stick of some description, back up the documents on it elsewhere, and download the Windows Media Creation Tool from http://bit.ly/ Win10MediaTool. Run the program, tell it you want to “Create installation media for another PC,” choose which version you want to create a USB installer for, hit “Next,” then point it at your USB stick.

The tool then downloads the OS and creates a bootable USB stick, ready for your install. If you’re migrating a build, now is a good time to find your activation key, either in an email, if you bought your install direct from Microsoft, or on your last Windows CD.

10 INSTALL THE OS AND DRIVERS

PLUG THE USB STICK into your new machine. Power on your PC, and hammer that Delete key to get into the BIOS. Head to the “Boot” menu, and make sure “UEFI [insert name of USB stick]” is your first boot option. Then hit F10, save, and exit, and wait for the Windows installer to boot up. Go through the Windows setup option. Don’t worry when it asks you for your activation key—you can skip this until later if you don’t have it immediately available. Choose which drive you wish to install the OS on (ideally your M.2 PCIe SSD), let it install, and then once it restarts, pull the USB stick out. Windows then gives you the usual privacy invading options (we suggest switching them all off), and asks you to sign in or create a Microsoft account, which you can skip.

With the Aorus, you need to install the appropriate network and chipset drivers. Head to Gigabyte’s website, search for your mobo, and download the latest versions under “Support.” Then Google “AMD Ryzen drivers,” click the top link, and download the latest AM4 chipset drivers.