Bitfenix Shinobi XL

Soldato
Joined
24 Mar 2008
Posts
4,654
Location
High Wycombe
Firstly a massive thank you to my good friend Phill, as without his help this build wouldn't have been possible so a big thanks to you!! Also a massive thank you out to Bitfenix and OCUK themselves as I won the competition they ran here, so thanks! :cool:

Been a long time since I had a PC and through a combination of wanting to get back into PC gaming and a couple of other things this was needed sooner rather than later.

Very nice case, very good cable management options and if the opputunity arises further on down the line then good for watercooling too. Can easily fit a triple in the roof and a double in the bottom with no modding required (though would need to move the HDD's to the front drive bays). Can't really improve on Stulids fantastic review here

So.. onto the build itself, here are the specs:

Intel i5 2500K
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H Gen 3
8GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance 1600mhz 9-9-9-24
Phanteks PH-TC14PE White CPU cooler
1280MB EVGA GTX 570 Superclocked
850W Corsair Enthusiast Series PSU
1TB Seagate (I think!) HDD
23.6" Acer G245HQbid 1920x1080 Monitor
Harmon Kardon Soundsticks 2.1 Speakers

Decided on the 2500K over the 2600k or 2700k as was just going to be for gaming mostly and could not see a real world use for HT for me. 8GB of RAM was plenty and the mobo is ready for Ivy Bridge and has PCI-E 3.0 if it ever comes useful in the future.

The GPU was a bit tougher but decided on the 570. Firstly I wanted to get back to NV after so long with ATI, secondly was budget. Could have gone for a 480 which would have been cheaper but louder and hotter on older tech - seemed 570 was the sweet spot for the moment. As it is it performs fantastically.

Seeing as I had some old enermax cluster fans, white sata cables etc from a previous build I was aiming for a black and white build on this one to keep a theme going

Pic of everything arriving safely:

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Motherboard, quite nice looking for something above the budget range:

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Next up was fitting the beast of a CPU cooler. I chose this cooler after going through the in depth write up on Vortez when initially looking at the Alpenfohn K2 here and seeing it was performing slightly better

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Knowing the size of this thing would need low profile RAM that is what was ordered, RAM clearance shown here, its a snug fit:

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Now was getting everything into the case, decided on a cluster for the rear fan to provide some lighting and keep the white theme from the standard black fan included, probably quieter too:

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Now with the GTX 570 and PSU in, fully cabled up. Quite easy to keep it nice and tidy in the case. I got quite lucky as the 8pin CPU cable is JUST long enough to reach the connector on the mobo at the top. At one point was thinking it would need an extension:

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Overall I am extremely pleased with the build. I didn't run into a single issue with and everything worked first time (usually I forgot to plug the PSU in to the wall or turn it on, or get the panel headers in the wrong way round!)

In the future I might look at watercooling it when funds are better though the CPU cooler is extremely quiet and the 570 is suprising even when being pushed, its certainly a lot quieter than the 4870x2 I had and the 5970 which NEEDED to be under water to be bareable to use.

The monitor itself is also a nice suprise. It was cheap at £120 but is very nice for a TN panel and viewing angles are not as bad as I thought. Only thing its lacking is being height adjustable but at that price you really can't complain.

Any comments/feedback appreciated :)
 
You blatently need to get that massive case filled with more goodies/watercooling ;)

How are you finding the noise of the case as it is? I'm only running one of the original fans, and didn't get chance to run the case "stock".
 
Water would be nice as was what I was used to on my previous builds though its money at the moment after getting all this a lot sooner than i planned. Case does look quite empty to be fair!

Noise wise its quite acceptable. I certainly can not complain at the noise of it to be honest. Haven't looked at replacing the stock fans as they are doing a good job at the moment, even more so given the heat we have had recently.
 
Quite impressed with the noise levels of the stock fans, albeit ive moved the rear one to the case floor. Still deciding wether to use my fan controller and add a few more fans, though it would spoil the clean lines of the front of the case.
 
Sorry for the late reply. The Phantek is actually really quiet, quite impressed by it :)

Having more trouble keeping the 570 cool for some reason. Going to take it apart later and re-apply the TIM to it and go from there.

Testing 4.6ghz @ 1.344v load out but got a 0x124 BSOD at some point during the night. I know it lasted 4 hours at least so annoying it did so after all that time. Think will play with the System Agent Voltage and VTT next rather than vcore.
 
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