6 MAXIMUMPC FEBRUARY 2007
$1,
ULTIMATE12 STEPS TO YOUR NEXT-GEN GAMING PC
Before starting, read over the steps to make sure you have all the necessary parts and understand the process
2
INSTALL THE OPTICAL DRIVE
Guess what, man? You don’t get Blu-ray or HD-DVD
when your total system budget is $1,500. Instead, you get the
Lite-On It Super AllWrite drive, which burns everything you
could possibly want. To install this drive in the Nine Hundred,
remove a front bezel, push the drive into the slot and fasten it
down with two fi ne-threaded screws on each side. You’ll have
to remove both the port and starboard case doors to access
the screw mounts. We recommend that you place the drive in
the top-most bay if possible. This usually gets the drive up and
away from the RAM slots, so you avoid any clearance issues.INSTALL THE CPU
When installing the CPU, use the strip-club rule: Don’t touch a thing
unless you are told to touch it, OK? Good. Land-grid-array sockets
feature delicate pins that are protected by a plastic cover. To begin,
pop off the cover and save it—some motherboard makers won’t
take returns or make repairs on a board without this cover (image A).
Open the socket by unclipping the metal arm and fl ipping open theload plate (image B). To install the CPU, use your thumb and forefi n-
ger to grip the CPU on the sides with notches. Get the chip as close
to the socket as possible and lower it in while keeping it parallel to
the socket (image C). Do not lower one side before the other and do
not slide the CPU around in the socket. Lower the load plate and lock
the retention arm in place.4
ADD CPU COOLING
If your heatsink came with a thermal
pad or thermal paste preapplied to it, you
won’t need to apply additional thermal paste
before mounting your heatsink. However,
if you are reusing an older heatsink, you’ll
need to apply a small amount of paste to
the CPU. This paste fi lls the gaps between
the heatsink and CPU. Add too much or
too little and you hurt the heat transfer. We
recommend a BB-size bit of paste (image A).
It should be just enough to cover the heat
spreader and fi ll in the microscopic nooks
and crannies.
Once you’ve pasted your core, you’llneed to mount the cooler. Stock LGA
heatsinks are the easiest to install. Make
sure each latching mechanism is in its
opened, counterclockwise position. Lower
the heatsink into the four holes in the moth-
erboard and push down on the top of the
mounts until they lock into place with a snap(image B). You can do two at a time or snap
them in one at a time using a cross-star pat-
tern, similar to how you would mount a tire
on your car.1
MOUNT THE PSU
Antec’s TruePower Trio 650-watt PSU is affordable and
certifi ed to work with GeForce 8800 GTS cards, which means it’s
good for our confi guration today and will even work should you
drop in a second graphics card. Mounting the PSU in the Antec
Nine Hundred case is the fi rst thing you should do. Line up the
four holes in the case with the holes in the PSU, then slide the
PSU into the case and screw it down using the four coarse-thread
screws provided. You can mount the PSU with its fan up or down
in this case; we opted for a fan-up position to maximize airfl ow
and cut down on wind noise.3
A B C
A B