The reason why I went with the Predator over the ROG Swift is my preference for TN panels > IPS panels.

TN panels are like - I've never used one on a computer before, but I see them all the time on laptops. When you look at the screen from different angles the colour distorts. IPS panels don't do this. That's... my laymen's understanding of it.

The Predator is unique in that it's the first ever IPS panel at 144hz, to my knowledge. For some reason TN panels are a lot easier to get higher refresh rates on than IPS panels for some reason.

I'll make another thread about the monitor itself because I'm excited to talk about it.

Halp!

So I got all the parts, assembled, thermal pasted, screwed in, ran wires, plugged in - and poop.

So, I powered on, I get a little noise and the fans spin and there's an orange line of lights that come on on the mobo, but on my monitor I just get a no signal. I tried taking out the mobo battery, using a screwdriver to touch the CMOS pins, remounting the mobo making sure there's no supports touching the back, and powering on with only 1/4 RAM slots.

What do I do next?


Edit: that little noise is from the optical drive. When I disconnect the optical I get no noise on powerup.

Check your motherboard's documentation to see what an orange line of lights means.

Also try connecting the monitor to the integrated graphics instead of the graphics card and see if that gives you a signal.

Monitor is connected to integrated graphics (tried both mobo HDMI and DVI)and the GFX card is completely out. I cannot find a damn thing about the 9 orange LEDs that light up either in my physical manual or online.

Check all your PSU connections and make sure they're solid and the right cable. I'm not sure what happens if you plug VGA cable into CPU but I believe it is possible.

If you werent sure if the motherboard was correctly mounted the first time it could well be that you have a dead mobo after shorting it. Also try different cables to the monitor, like VGA,DVI, and try a different monitor as well if you've got one.

Basically start removing stuff until it works, then try and figure out which component is causing the issue.

Ok so, I've gotten it to boot! No idea what I fixed. Basically everything is working now except the GFX.

I am confused as hell, I need an 8-pin cable and a 6-pin cable. For the 6-pin, I have a cable with 8 slots/6 metal on the PSU end, and 6+2 all with metal on the GFX end. I also have a cable with 8 slots/7 metal on the PSU end and 6+2 metal PLUS 6+2 metal on the GFX end. Wtf? From what I've googled it looks like I shouldn't try using the one cable to power both GFX slots, but when I try using 2 cables I get no boot. Anyone know what the hell is going on with my power cables?

What's the "metal" you're talking about? Are there pins/holes on the connector that seem to be empty (no metal to connect)? I'm not sure (it could be a manufacturing fault) but I wouldn't worry when single pins seem to be unused. It's common in other connectors.

Here's how it should go:

Your GFX side should look something like this:

A 6 and a 8 pin connector.

On the PSU there can be a couple of different cables:

This one obviously can only go to the 6 pin connector.


This one obviously can only go to the 8 pin connector.


This one can go to both. On the 8 pin connector put in the extra 2 pins, on the 6 pin leave them out.

Make sure they're properly seated. The latch on the cable needs to lock in place.
That's all you need to know. If you've done it as explained above it's not your fault and there's something else wrong.

I've had strange behavior like this solved by removing RAM, and turning the computer on without a connected power cord (to remove residual charges) and then putting everything back in place.
The other obvious cause could be the GFX card not being properly inserted. It should fit only into slots it supposed to go in, but it may not be properly seated despite the lock being engaged (!), especially when cables are in the way etc. If the mobo supports it you could try another PCIe slot.
Another thing just in case: Monitors connected by DVI (and possibly other types) must be present before turning on the computer or you won't get a signal.
Finally there's always a chance that you got a faulty part. There's a couple of candidates that could lead to this behavior:
RAM - easily tested by trying single RAM sticks at a time
RAM bank - easily tested by trying different banks
PSU - cannot deliver the rated power. Try removing everything non vital, including the HDDs+SSDs, fans (even CPU fan - which is fine for like a minute, which is enough to test, but don't try it longer) and keyboard, mouse, etc. Just enough to get past POST.
or, of course, the GFX card itself. But there's no simple way of testing it. You'd have to plug it into another computer.

There are cables liek this too, which only use one VGA port on the PSU instead of two. You can use these to power the graphics card, and usually there's no problems.

I'm not sure what the power differences are between two VGA slots versus one VGA slot though. Maybe some really powerful GPUs would require two separate cables instead of a splitter like in the above image?

Your PSU comes with six of these. Use two of them to hook up your GPU.

Well thanks a bunch guys! Everything is up and running and working correctly. I still don't understand the pins on the GFX connectors, but basically I had 2 cables that worked. On the PSU end they have 8 sockets but only 6 of them have metal connectors in them, and on that GFX end they have 6+2 sockets with all 6+2 sockets have metal connectors in them. I still have 2 weird ass cables that I didn't use with 8 sockets, 7 w/ metal connectors on the PSU side, and then 2x(6+2pin) on the PCI-e end. Do not understand, but don't care anymore

Thanks for all the suggestions and stuff, woOOOoOOooOOooooOOOOoo!

Weird ass cables = I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you're talking about molex cables. They're legacy cables used for dated tech and some random peripherals.

A picture would help. Like this?

You mean 2 separate cables that have an 8 pin socket (7 metals) on one side and 6+2 pin connector on the other side, fully "metaled"? Those are to convert your 8pin cables from the PSU to 6pin connectors on the graphics card (just in case you had one with 6pin connectors). The missing pin is most likely ground which will be transfered through other pins. So, to save costs they left out 1 metal pin. (Pin 8 in the picture.)