Project: Small & Fast!

After deciding on not going for i7/watercooling/eyefinity etc route this year, posponeing it till end of next year, i still wanted to ich the upgrade bug so decided on somthing small and fast

Intel I5
Asus Maximus GENE III
H50
4Gig Patriot Ram
Samsung 1tb HD
Corsair 520w
Powercolour PCS+ 5850
Zalman ZM-MFC1 fan controller
1x92mm
2x60mm Fractal fans
2x120mm Noctua (how to prononse that?)
All compressed into the Lian-Li 351b

Parts

First mods needed




Chopping up the fan to make it fit

Cable routing

Finished


Took about 3 days of cazy work to finish, but was by far the most fun build i have ever done. Finding inventive ways of making it all fit together and getting some first hand experience with case modding (thats why some of the works abit fubar)

Will start on overclocking soon temps seem great at the moment though . Might even try and fit some watercooling in at some point

Edit : bigger imagiz

Looks good from what i can see think you could have made ya pictures smaller lol

Nice case mod, is it a tight fit for the h50?

What are ya temps like i can see that being a hot little box

At stock clocks and volts cpu idles at around 25c not done any o/c or stress testing yet. And the 5850 is about 35/60 idle load (875/1150 o.c). Really impressed with the H50 tbh, amazing bit of kit

so you have cut out the HD cage altogether , and have fitted it in the 5.5" bay?

looks good

Year i have just placed it in one of the 5.5 bays with a little 80mm fan on it whilst i try and get a hold of a slim line dvd drive and a lian-li HD bay that will fit in x2 5.5 bays.

Had to cut out the bay completely to get the PCS+ card to fit.

Quite a slick little machine, certainly powerful by the looks of it, but they chucnky little suckers aint they.

very similar to mine but i just modded the bays so i could still use them, i like the fans at the back, might be an idea im will steal.

I borked my rear 60mm fan cuts but they still work great and the fractal ones push out a seriously surprising amout of air at whisper quiet noise levels even at 2900rpm.
I think the max you can fit in that panel is twin 70mm with really good cuts, needs one of those big industrial (sp) drills that go down at 90 degrees 100% of the time and can control the pressure.

Im doing some test now, but so far the idle and load temps are really stable, will be pushing for 4ghz overclock though so hopeing for nothing more than 60c at full load

haha looks awesome, just goes to show you dont need a monster case for a fast pc

Inc parts for profesional modding overhaul+watercooling

9 x 4mm Black+Red Cable Braid - Sleeving *Dense Weave*
2 x 6mm Black+Red Cable Braid - Sleeving *Dense Weave*
1 x 3M Scotch Clear Mounting Tape #4010
1x Translucent Plexi Red
6 x Aluminium / Steel Countersunk Head Rivet
1 x Needle File Set 10 Piece
1 x Sunbeam PSU Modding toolkit - Heard some terrible things about it, but allso others who have done 2+ psus without fault
1 x EK-FC5850 block
1 x EK-Supreme LT i5 block
1x Thermochill EC6 Non Conductive Coolant - Clear
1x Primochill Anti-Kink Coils For 5/8".OD Tubing Black
1x Phobya G-Silent 12 1500rpm Red LED
1x 5mm LED Ultra Bright Red
1x Masterkleer tubing PVC 16/10mm (3/8"ID) UV-active red
1x Black Ice Pro II X-flow
2x 120mm Noctuas (matt black)
1x Laing DDC Dual Bay Reservoir - XSPC
1x 12V Laing DDC-1T+ Ultra 18W

Aswell as some powdercoated parts on their way. Going to be my first time re-riveting a case aswell as cable braiding. Will be trying to cut some side windows with a jigsaw and useing the plexi to cover, with some kind of engraving/cutt-out into the plexi.

Will be first time useing plexi and dremel engraving too . Going to have a shot at painting the awfully dull coloured Noctuas matt black and the white fractal fans red aswell.

Any advise reguarding working with rivets /painting/cutting plexi would be very welcome. Hoping all that will last me a good week of modding, as before, the case is soo much fun to work on

From my calculations this should be a v.high flow loop so i am hoping for a good results with a cpu+gpu, i5 will be at 3.7ghz as thats nice a cool+stable hovering around 50c with the H50 so not expecting that much better with the LT EK block. And the 5850 will be 900 /1150 and hopeing it will stay sub 60c when gaming

Pics tomorow/friday when parts arive and when i can pinch my bros camera and can learn to take good shots

Black Noctua's and other bits (56k no no)

Got some pics of the watercooling bits.

Painting the internal fan mountings went abit fubar, but tried to make the best of it. Came out abit rough, but works ok
Bare case with no internals:

Painted fan bracket/dive bay housing, for the 240mm rad

Awsome red&black braid, still to need to braid the 24/6 pin cable, but hope to get it done soonish.


Really happy the way the Noctuas came out, they look sooo much better black&brown rather than sickly cream. Done with two good coats, but only because i was running low doing the first coat and so put on as much as i could on. Would recommend 3-4 light coats fo best results.


Likeing the look of the actel EK blocks and hope they work great. Seems the 5850 block needs some laping as its not very smooth.

Fans+Rad+fittings. Not sure if i should paint the rad atm, would be abit garish painted red.


Still waiting on the right sized red tubeing as i ordered the wrong stuff twice . Needed to order more rivets too so will have to wait till mid-week to put it all back together . Should have it all up and running by next weekend. So check back later