Corsair Carbide Air 540 Builds

Was going for a stealthy power build no flashy stuff
5930K
ASUS X99 WS-E
32GB TeamGroup Ram (2400mhz)
2x 980GTX Ref
2x 128GB Samsung Evo 840
1x 256GB Samsung Evo 840
1x 1TB Samsung Evo 850
1x 3TB
1300w Superflower
Beautiful cpu cooler


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OCUK logo :)
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Hey guys, forgive my humble submission but I couldn't resist when I saw there was a thread dedicated to my favourite Case. I've swapped out the 140mm front intake fans and replaced them with 3x 120mm Corsair 'silent' AF fans with the white LEDs. As you can see I've gone for the silver case, that's a Lamptron FC2 fan controller. I have independent control of the 3 front intakes, 2 top exhausts (140mm Corsair white LEDs) and the push on the radiator which is a 120mm Corsair SP white LED.

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Now for the money shot ;) not quite as advanced or tidy as the previous submissions but I'm proud of her.

Full system specs:

asrock 990fx extreme3
AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor OCed to 4.2GHz
8gb dual channel DDR3 1600Mhz
Corsair h55 cooler
128gb Samsung 840 Pro
2x Seagate 1TB Hybrid Internal Solid State Drive in RAID 0
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
2x Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz edition GPUs in SLI (same BIOS, rev etc despite differences with decal and heat pipes, odd!)
Superflower leadex 750w Gold
Inateck PCI-E to USB 3.0 2-Port PCI Express Card (for the USB 3 front panel as the mobo didn't have a USB 3 header)

All the fans with LEDs are manually controlled, the only one connected to the chassis fan header is the pull/exhaust fan on the back which is set to only kick in when the CPU goes above 50C.


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My whole set-up, monitor is an Asus PB287Q 28" 4K 60Hz 1MS, Cambridge Audio Topaz AM1 amp, Wharfedale Delta 30.2 speakers, Cherry mouse and keyboard (I don't like fancy mice or keyboards, these cost £30 for the pair and are absolutely fine).

4k gaming is so-so, most games work but because the game textures aren't designed for 4k I find the benefits are marginal. Most games I've tried it's just not worth the heat and noise running 4k. Sims 4, Rome 2, Elite Dangerous, Wargame European Escalation, Civ 4, Metro 2033 Redux all look better at 2560x1440 with the setting on full compared to 4k with the AA off (the FPS is usually lower in 4k too). May just be me but I find running games in 1440 with AA on full on a 4k monitor looks lovely, the wife's Sims 4 looks like a Pixar movie and Wargame looks like Google Earth at times.

What I was surprised at was my Skyrim Realvision ENB mod actually runs fine in 4k and is quite happy with the SLI despite people saying ENB and SLI don't get on. I do actually have some 4k textures in my mod as well as many 2k textures and you can really tell the difference. Only thing is the characters, their weapons and armour are all crystal clear and the furniture around them is all fuzzy pixels.

Top GPU runs about 10C hotter than the bottom one, the 3 120mm fans does seems to help as the bottom one basically blows right in the gap between the two. The windforce coolers on the GPUs do seem to manage to keep them from going much over 80C during benchmarking but they do get a bit noisy when they get up to the higher usage percentiles.

No photo of the other compartment as it's just a mess of wires with a glowing white PSU block in the middle like some kind of Borg creation.

That's about it, thanks for having a look :D

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Thanks String, to be honest though I'd like a little more side intake to get some more air between the cards. Guess I could cut a hole in the perspex, drill a few holes and screw another fan on! Either that or go for reference blowers in future as they function better stacked up so I hear.
 
Thanks String, to be honest though I'd like a little more side intake to get some more air between the cards. Guess I could cut a hole in the perspex, drill a few holes and screw another fan on! Either that or go for reference blowers in future as they function better stacked up so I hear.

Reference blowers, or water.
 
After seeing some of the builds you guys have done, one of these is definitely on the cards along with either a pair of 390x's or another 290x and a shiny watercooling loop.

Won't be until i pass my driving test though :(
 
Cheers String :)

Andy, if you just want a simple panel that sits on top of the hot swap cages, then you just need a rectangle of sheet aluminium/steel/plexi around 175x370mm or so. Measure the bottom of your case to get it bang on (but do leave 5-10mm-ish of play to get it in and out) and if you don't have the tools (Jigsaw/nibbler etc) to DIY, then just order it to size on ebay mate.
Other than that, grab some vinyl wrap or paint/plastidip and job done :)

Mine was a slight pain due to there being two vertical panels sitting on top of it which meant I had cut notches and stuff to slide it in last.
 
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