Associate
Welcome to project ALUMIA, originating around EK's new all aluminium Fluid Gaming kits which informed and reinforced the deeply rooted theme of Auto Union Grand Prix cars. However it won't be a 'themed' build in the commonly accepted sense, I have no intentions of building an augmentation between a race car and a PC. Instead it will be a sympathetic reflection of the cars materiality, purpose and craft.
This build will eventually be a successor to my previous system alphaclass, with an excessive amount of GPU prowess to comfortably push 4k. That way I can relieve Chocolate Box of daily duties and return it to rapid deployment LAN status. Using a single GPU system every day is wearing thin having had SLI since I built my first PC so i'll definitely be stepping back up. Perhaps not to quad again, an appropriate balance between raw power and VRAM needs to be reached. Following graphical power acoustics are by far the most important characteristic for me so i've held back my excellent Essence STX and a pair of Aquaero's to keep all the rotational devices in check.
CPU - Intel i7-7700k @5.2GHz
Motherboard - EVGA Z270 Classified K
RAM - TG Xtreem 4x8GB 4133C18 "8 Pack Edition"
GPU - Nvidia GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti x2
Audio - ASUS Xonar Essence STX
SSD - HyperX Predator M.2 960GB x2
PSU - EVGA Supernova 1000T2
Case - Caselabs Bullet BH7
Fans - Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 24v 3000 x4
Controller - Aquaero 5 LT x2
Watercooling - EK Fluid Gaming A240G x2
I can't exactly remember if it was the Auto Unions which came to mind when I heard EK would be making aluminium components or if I hounded EK into sending me aluminium components because they would be a great fit for an Auto Union build. The important thing is the result and I now have the joyous task of reproducing what I have envisaged. So to start things off i'd like to familiarize everyone with the beautiful 1939 Auto Union Type D twin-supercharger.
(Unfortunately these aren't my photographs, I believe credit goes to Audi themselves)
When building PC's we often try to reduce the different finishes, metals and textures visible to a minimum in favour of consistency and colour. Yet the variety and harmony of so many different and purposeful elements on display within the engine compartment is exceptional here. Cast, machined, polished, painted and tarnished surfaces all co-exist elegantly. There are no philips or allen head screws, just slotted, hexagon nuts and bolts everywhere. Nothing is bonded or welded, just rivets and fringes of copper gaskets. Not to mention the louvres and drilling.
Now we could just look at cars all day, but I get the feeling at least some of you would rather see hardware. The Z270 Classy K really chose itself as soon as I saw EK's parts, I did wait out all of Computex to see if they would bring this aesthetic over to X299 but i'm glad that didn't happen actually as this has just the right amount of slots for me to completely fill out.
With the first major piece in my hands most of the remaining hardware choices have been locked down and are on the way. I've even decided on a case which I ordered from a shop (weird), using some kind of currency! So strange, it's been so long since it worked like this. Don't worry though, i'm sure the Parvum team will get involved when there is machining to do and dankness to be added.
JR
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