2700K Mid Tower White/Black/Red ROG Build

Received a package today.... Can you guess what it is?

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Yep my MDPC braid from Nils over at MDPC-X! I've heard so much about this stuff that I'm really looking forward to trying it out... I know! Looking forward to braiding?! I must be mad! (Ok, it's been a few years since I last braided anything!) ;)

I also ordered a couple of clips for securing cables (behind mobo tray etc) and some new fan headers & pins (should I break any & to replace existing beige fan headers)

Not quite sure what I'm going to do with the crazy coloured extra braid Nils has sent me! :o
 
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Thinking more about my cooling and fan controller choice...

The Define R4 has literally no clearance behind the door for any controller knobs (unless they're recessed, pop in/out, flip down etc)

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The Scythe Kaze Master Flat 4 Looks great, but I'd have to spray the front white... Also OcUK don't seem to stock Scythe for some reason?
Picked one of these up for just over £20 delivered elsewhere... Painting the front doesn't look like an option as it's an all one piece of Perspex...

Looking into how much load I'd be putting on each channel (and to determine how many channels I need) I'll first take a look at the fans I have, their power requirements and where best to use them.

Fans I have currently:
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3x 120mm Bitfenix Spectre PRO.
From BitFenix spec page:
Voltage (V): 5+
Current (A): 0.11
Speed (RPM): 1200
Max. airflow (CFM): 56.22
Max. pressure (mm H2O): 1.24
Noise (dBA): 18.9

These have great airflow but not ideal radiator fans...

2x 140mm Fractal Silent Series R2
From Fractal spec page:
Voltage (V): 6+
Current (A): none listed
Speed (RPM): 1000
Max. airflow (CFM): 66.0
Max. pressure (mm H2O): 0.84
Noise level (dBA): 18.5
 
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Picked up a Zalman ZM-MFC1 in silver on the MM for a fiver, it's missing all cables but I've tracked down the power connector used and know the pin-out so will replace/directly solder to the contacts. I'll probably remove some of the sound dampening behind the door to accommodate the knobs... Which I'll probably shorten and not have the silver covers on (so they're smaller)... It's not like I'll need to adjust them frequently! ;)

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Also grabbed the NZXT Kraken X60 after Gibbo kindly dropped the price by a few quid... The 2x140mm layout should fit the top of my R4 better than 2x120mm. Fingers crossed my calculations/research are correct! (They were a bit 'off' - see below!)

PSU should be winging it's way towards me too... Also ordered another 140mm Enermax Everest! So the next couple of weeks will see me changing things with some progress shots! And to finish my sleeving! ;)
 
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Well I finally had enough time to go about a few changes...

Mainly a White PSU (I picked up on the MM) and the Kraken X60... As anyone knows a 'few' changes like this only take a 'few hours' ;)

So to start with, this was the current build with H60 and AX1200:

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I hit a 'few' clearance problems with fitting the X60 as intended into the roof... Clearance (I'd calculated) from the motherboard was fine (1-2mm gap next to ram slots!)... Rear case/USB ports were not...


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So that lead me to mounting the radiator internally with the fans mounted on top in a 'pull' config... So anyone experiencing this will find a 'problem' with getting fan power cables into the case... I removed them from headers and threaded through a hole, then reattaching the headers... Worked well!

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Next problem was routing the fan cables, would've been nice to bend some rad fins and thread them through the rad, but I didn't want to trash my new rad already! So I mounted some washers on it to give clearance to thread cables over the front...

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And it fits! Quite impressed by my handywork! ;)

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Exterior fans are not as ugly as I first thought! Need to get some nice 140mm fan guards now though (as all I hard are lots of silver 80mm and some 120mm)...

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I came across a problem with the PCI-E power cable I had with the PSU and I was one short already (as running CF with these MSI OC BE's/TFIII requires 3x6pin and 1x8pin)... I need to track down some compatible modular cables as the ones with my Corsair AX1200 are not compatible...

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'Finished' build! At least until I get some more PSU cables and do some braiding... Roll on Christmas and I'll get some time to properly finish it! ;)

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A 'burn in' test of the Kraken... VERY impressed is an understatement! That's using another 120mm intake (at the bottom) and on 'Silent' mode! With my 2700K back up to 4.6... ;)
 
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The Corsair AX1200, has lots of modular cables. The PC Power & Cooling 600W, has very few modular cables. Simple to swap Corsair modular cable to PC P & C, no. :(

The basic 'modular' ends are the same (8 pin) but on the Corsair a couple of the 'sloped' edge connections are 'square' on the PC P & C, 2 of them are even 'bridged' together (with plastic).

I've gotta repair one of the modular PCI-E cables dodgy connection, through my troubleshooting I found a short on one of the cables, when isolating which it was - the cable came out from the plug! :o

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I looked at getting some from PC Power's webshop... $9 each (not bad), $32.50 international shipping (ouch!) = $50.70 for 2 cables... No thanks!

Best solution I think is me sourcing some of the modular ends used and fitting to the AX1200 cable (the one I have has 6 of these anyway - more than enough!)... (As I'm sleeving cables its not a huge headache).

The PCI-E power cable ends are easy to source, but how do I identify which particular end (model number?) the modular end is - so I order the right one!...

Differences:

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:o
 
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Yup, total rip off!

Well I did some braiding... Braiding PCI-E power cables is tricky - not as easy as the molex braiding I'd done (many years) previously! The MDPC braid I bought is great stuff... But I'm gonna need twice as much as I first thought!

A good 4-5 hours of work:
2x PCI-E power (1x 6+2 pin, 1x 6 pin, 2 SATA cables
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One of the PCI-E I braided had all black wires (great), one had 3 yellow (not so great). Under certain lighting you can see there is a slight 'hue' to the white... Part of the danger of using white I think! :(
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Routing the cables and more how the braiding looks under normal lighting, the yellow discolouration is hardly noticable:
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Looks great under 'normal' lighting with my case lighting... Quite enjoying the look of Red at the top and White at the bottom! Thoughts?
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I need more pactice at getting my braided ends even... You'd think PCI-E power cables fitted to the same connector were the same length... Not so! :o
 
I purchased some of the small stuff from OcUK and I've found it fantastic! After a conversation with davido (sleeving supremo) before I bought it, he said it was 3:1 whereas the 'stuff from germany' is 4:1... The OcUK stuff has a thicker wall and that made it easier for me, it shrinks slower too (which made it easier for me to use).

Sleeving really is a test of patience - I spread it over several weeks - so far it's taken over a month (and still more to do) but I've fitted it in around watching the Rugby/Winter Olympics etc on the weekend so it's never been a huge long slog of a session!

Making a template for your PCI-E sleeving (and cutting each individually) to length makes a huge difference with making the finished product look great... The sleeves I did with my PC Power & Cooling PSU were not perfect (measured and cut braid, rather than directly cut to length and didn't use a template for the heatshrink), the ones done more recently on my NZXT Hale (using a template & cut individually to length) look loads better! :)
 
snips86x said:
Get some of these - http://www.e22.biz/CC001E2.aspx#.Ux8N6_l_uKI
Click to expand...

Wow! Love the look and idea of these... Just what I need! Thanks snips!

*goes off to post in product suggestion forum* ;)

andy_taximan said:
One of the PCI-E I braided had all black wires (great), one had 3 yellow (not so great). Under certain lighting you can see there is a slight 'hue' to the white... Part of the danger of using white I think! :(


Would it help to wrap the wires with white electrical tape first? not that i tried it, just wondering
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I've heard wrapping wires works...

But an easier solution is to replace your wires to wire of all the same colour. Certainly all the wires being black makes things look uniform, the braid I used (from germany) is quite a thick weave so the wire colour doesn't show through, but you get a slight 'hue' under direct light and camera flashes... Certainy 'day-to-day' use you shouldn't see it. Remember that wrapping will make your wires thicker (nightmare with refitting ends) and also less flexible! Best avoided as I imagine it's not a very easy job and sleeving takes lots of time already! ;)

EYE_ON_ME said:
Love the build, I'm going to start on one soon just buying all my bits, can you recommend the Avexir RAM?
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I love my Avexir! I've not clocked it (no real need) but I'm fairly sure I could get 1866 out of it... Check around the Memory forums for better info or see what the mem guys say! I got it due to the first set being on a good TWO price when memory prices were rising and the colour to match my ROG theme :)
 
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jimbaw said:
haha ok. I think I'm just going to go straight to making my own so I can keep the stock ones in case I need to RMA. which pin extractor did you use?
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I got one from the german guy (Nils, as ordered my sleeve from him) and after sleeving a couple without (using flattened staples & small screwdrivers) it makes life soooooo much easier! It does look flimsy (the pins have to be very thin) but is much stronger than it looks! Well worth the investment :)

I've used both the german guys heatshrink (4:1) and the stuff sold by OcUK (3:1) and actually prefer the OcUK stuff, I've not used the sleeve from OcUK though.
 
I've always loved clean 'lines' to a build and never been one for the garish bright colourful types ;)

I'm still tweaking things, so this is my ongoing 'to-do' list:
  • After the GFX cooler benchmarks I'm doing, I'll have settled down to 2x 7970's, one of them custom cooled (with the Arctic Accellero you see in pictures).
  • The lower case fan will be changed to a 120mm Enermax Cluster which will match the rear 140mm one.
  • I'll be trying some 'slimline' Raijintek fans on the X60 to go with a push-pull config on the radiator (rather than just pull).
  • I've still yet to sort the lighting as my rudimentary electronics understanding hit a stumbling block and I've been unable to power two LED's in parallel from the motherboard header... I'll probably go back to powering them from the PSU as they're only for the power LED...
  • I'm not happy with the Bitfenix Recon controller (touchscreen is rubbish, looks & feels tacky, software control is buggy & has a mind of its own) and I was a bit pushed for space in the top bay I have it installed. So I've picked up a NZXT Sentry external controller (I'm buying more and more NZXT stuff and very impressed). It has a 'controller card' which takes up rear slot, but doesn 't need a PCI-e slot so I'm hoping to fit it above my top card (so I can route fan cables to the edge of the case).

And then I'll be finished... At least until the second hand 280x prices drop and I can't say 'no' to switching my 7970's for them lol :eek::p:rolleyes:

As for the cable braiding... Probably 20-30mins for an 8-pin PCI-E modular/extension cable (both ends) from start to finish... Starting out took much longer, but once you have the right tools and 'knack' things soon speed up! I have some more to do as I need to go to 8-pin+8-pin on my lower gfx card (from 8-pin+6-pin). I've not done a full ATX-24 pin and imagine that'd be a killer! I was probably averaging 2 PCI-E cables every hour or so and only doing an hour at a time (while I was semi-watching TV) really broke it up.
 
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