Enthoo Pro System Upgrade Log

[nails666]

Hi all,
I've been faffing around for ages on the verge of upgrading my system and my original plans have had to be slightly scaled back due to moving house and running out of money but I have now finally got the first stage of the upgrades so I thought I'd put a build log together in case anyone is interested.

My current system is my sig and the original plan was to do a complete replacement with an i7 4790k, R9 290pro etc but with the limited finances I'm now going to do an incremental upgrade starting with solid foundations that I can improve as and when I have the money.

To that end I've gone for the following new items: -

YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial MX100 512GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter CT512MX100SSD1) £159.98
1 x MSI Z97 Gaming 7 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £139.99
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Pro Mid Tower Enthusiast Case with Window £89.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H75 Performance Liquid CPU Cooler £61.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £43.99
Total : £505.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).



The rest of the parts I will carry over from my existing PC, RAM, PSU, graphics card, Blu-ray drive, 2Tb HDD and all my peripherals.

Cpu wise I was torn between an i3 4330 and the Pentium K and although the i3 is possibly better in more modern titles I just fancied trying out some overclocking on the Pentium. Hopefully with my motherboard and cooler I should get a decent result.

Graphics wise I'm sticking with my 6950 but I've also just bought a second one from a well known auction site (alas the Members market here is a distant dream with my posting rate) for £45 so I can try out some crossfire action and see just how limiting a dual core cpu is for multiple gfx cards

So, onto some pictures of my progress so far.

The rather large Enthoo Pro.








The cable management of the Enthoo out of the box.


A group shot.


The Pentium installed.


Motherboard in.


And that's as far as I've got unfortunately. Real life is calling and I probably wont get a chance until the weekend now to get any further but I'll put up some more pictures when I get a chance.

Ross

 

[nails666]

At last, I've finally had time to actually do some work on my build and post an update.

So the transplant from my old machine was the next step.

My previous very tidy Antec 900.....


Old meets New


PSU in.

I found out my 8 pin motherboard power cable wasn't long enough to run behind the MB tray so had to get an extension cable.

Fans going in.


The H75 backplate.

I have to say this was a bit of a disappointment. The backplate was easy to fit on but when attaching the pump unit and trying to tighten the screws at the front the little metal bits here on the back (in the 4 corners) just span in the plastic frame.

I tried to get a picture of it here, you can see the little metal ovals have started to turn in the plastic mount.


This meant you can't really tighten the pump screws very tight at all and purely because Corsair have cheaped out and gone for plastic backplate rather than metal

The next problem I met was fitting the radiator for the H75 with Push/Pull fans on. The original plan was to fit it top back but there wasn't enough clearance above some of the little heatsinks on the Gaming 7 board. In the end I moved it further forwards and just had enough room over the RAM slots.





The end result looks slightly odd but seems to work ok. I have the fans on it set to exhaust from the case and it does mean it's now directly above the intake fan at the bottom of the case blowing straight up.


I'll see how it works out here but might consider moving the rad to the back of the case where the pre-installed 140mm exhaust fan is.

Lots and lots of cables run behind the tray but the side panal does still fit on


You can see from that one the 2 drive cages are currently still fitted. I only have 2 drives in there, my 2Tb storage drive and the old boot drive from the previous pc. I'll be removing the boot drive once I've copied off everything I need and I've just got some 3.5 -> 5.25 inch adaptors for the storage drive so I can mount it in one of the spare 5.25 bays and then I can take out both drive cages to really open up the airflow from the front 200mm fan.

The final setup with the xfired 6950's


I'm still unsure whether to fit the PSU cover, it does look quite nice but it's very fiddly to put back on and where it's so long it covers up the intake fan on the bottom so I'm not sure if it would actually hinder the overall cooling of the case rather than help it?

I'm still going through getting everything installed and setup but from just 5 mins in the BIOS the Pentium K is now running at 4.5GHz with 1.23v and max temps in Intel XTU of 64 degrees C so not too bad at all

I think short terms plans may involve a fan controller and maybe a full matching set of red LED fans to brighten it up but then it'll be saving up for the major component upgrades of cpu (maybe 4790K, maybe wait for Broadwell), gfx (290 or 780, still undecided) and a psu meaty enough to power them.

I've just had a very nice custom desk built into my man cave (including a beer fridge) so once I've got that tidied I'll get some pictures of the PC in situ.

Any questions, suggestions or improvements feel free to let me know

Ross

 

[nails666]

Unfortunately I'm a bit short of modern games for benching, no BF, Crysis or Metro. Are there any with free benchmarking tools available? I can run the usual list of synthetic benches, so far I've run Heaven, RealBench and Cinebench so I can try and get those results up.
I've not had much time to actually play much yet either but when I have had some time I've been playing Borderlands 2, Civilisation 5 and WoW and they've all been running fine so far.
I've pushed the Pentium up to 4.6Ghz now with 1.25v and after 4 hours of Realbench stress test the max temp was 65. I might be able to squeeze a little more out but I'll probably just stick with that now.

 

[nails666]

Well I've been playing a bit more and have a fresh install of Skyrim heavily modded up and it's been running very well, 60fps most of the time with drops down to around 45 although I do seem to be hitting the VRAM limit of the 6950s now with all the mods

Very conveniently OCUK have also just sent me a code for a copy of Watchdogs as I bought an Asus motherboard for my wife's pc a couple of months back so I can try that out. I'm guessing from reviews that it will give the poor dual core Pentium a bit of a kicking though

 

[nails666]

Been a while but a few updates since I built it. I have moved my 3.5" hdd into one of the 5.25" bays and so have now removed both of the drive cages to open up the airflow from the front fan and it has knocked a couple of degrees of my gpu temps. My next plan is to replace the whole fan set and get a fan controller installed as I just can't get on with the fan control settings on the motherboard with all the fans going through the PWM hub. Hopefully with specific control over each individual fan along with upgrading the 2x120mm fans to 2x140mm and repalcing the front 200mm with another 2x140mm I should be abe to get the noise levels down a bit when not required and get better airflow for when under high load.

I have also tried out Watchdogs now on the little Pentium and the results (as expected) weren't pretty. To be fair to the Pentium Watchdogs really doesn't seem to like my xfire setup but it's basically unplayable even on low settings. Lots of stuttering and freezes even when indoors. If I'd actually paid for the game I might perservere with tweaking to try and get it working better but from what I have played it doesn't seem like a very good game anyway so I'm not too bothered.

 

[nails666]

Yeah the Pro is a lovely case, so easy to work with. I've not fitted the psu cover to mine though, was a bit fiddly to fit and it will cover the bottom intake fan so I thought it'd be better to leave it out.

One other thing actually, I mentioned in the build log that the mount for the Corsair H75 was a bit rubbish so I actually sent an email to Corsair customer services complaining about the poor quality and they have just sent me a replacement mount pack free of charge so I'm pretty happy with that now

 

[nails666]

Hi mate, bit of a bump

May I ask how you mounted the 3.5" HDD in the 5.25" drive bays? I'm pretty much set on getting an Enthoo Pro in the new year to replace my Zalman Z11 Plus o), and was going to remove the 2 drive cages for airflow to my GPU. I have one 3.5" HDD at the moment (will be 2 eventually) and wanted to mount it in one of the 5.25" bays.

The only reason I ask is that going from pictures of the case the right side (window side) has some sort of quick release mechanism, and i'm unsure of how I would install something like this, as that's what I had in mind.

If you could let me know what you did that would be most appreciated!

Cheers!

Hi, yeah I used some similar brackets on my hdd and yes the quick release devices were a bit of a pain. I've since put a fan controller in the other 5.25" bay and when doing that found that you can actually quite easily remove the quick release mounts and just use screws after all which would have made fitting the hdd a lot easier!

Hey man nice build,Just wanted to ask as i'm about to do a build log my self, what website are you using to show your pictures? Thanks!

Yeah as Monkehhh said, I use imgur.com, very easy to use and free to set up a basic account that does everything you'll need for simple images in forums.


As this thread has come back I've actually just done another round of updates to the system and pretty much have it finished now. The little Pentium served it's purpose but has now made way for a i7 4790K, the old 6950's have gone and been replaced by a 295x2 and a new Superflower psu has gone in to power it all. I also did finally get around to fitting my fan controller so that's helped drop the noise a bit now I can properly control all the fan speeds.
I'll have to try and get a few new pictures to put up.

 

[nails666]

That is really good to know, thank you! I've not seen anyone else mount their HDDs in the 5.25" bays (or they've not documented it) so that is a massive help to know that now

I've actually done it in 2 machines now, in my HP Microserver I used exactly those brackets you linked and that was tricky as that case also has a quick release mechanism but it is built into the bay and can't be removed at all. The drive went in fine but it was very loose and rattled so I had to use some black electricians tape to pad out the sides of the brackets a bit to hold it in place. In the Enthoo I had some more basic Startech brackets that almost worked with the quick release but took a lot of fiddling to get all the holes to line up properly and stay in place. Removing the quick release would definitely have been easier but I just didn't think to try it at the time for some reason

 

[nails666]

Quick question....with the superflower replacing the coolermaster psu, did you still need to use the cable extensions to reach the 24-pin and 8-pin mb sockets? I'm planning on getting an enthoo pro and a superflower psu and would like to know if I would need to get cable extensions at the same time.

No the cables that came with the Superflower Leadex Gold 850w were just long enough to reach without the extensions. However it was very tight so depending on exactly where the power connector on your motherboard is it might not be the same for you.

 

[nails666]

No problem, yeah it's the Gaming 7 board in there. The 24-pin connector has plenty of length, it's just the 8-pin that is close.