Soldato
So my original spec thread is here:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18586592
The aim was for a racing eyefinity setup which will run smoothly at moderate graphics settings. I managed to bag a brand new G27 wheel for £134.50 last week, so I built this at the perfect time! I made a few tiny amendments from the spec thread. I went for the SLI Gigabyte motherboard for more expandability, a Bitfenix Shadow case and a Matterhorn cooler. Obligatory pic of all the boxes below!
(I ate the Haribo before the photo). I decided it was much easier to build the lot and then post a few photos rather than as it progressed as I prefer to get it all done in one sitting.
The PSU was the biggest surprise of all the parts – I expected it to be cheap and cheerful but it seems really good quality and is incredibly quiet:
Assembling the parts in the motherboard. Straightforward:
(Yes I know the white balance in my camera is way off! I haven't installed Lightroom yet to fix it...)
Heatsinks continue to surprise me with their size. I think my first own build had a SLK800 heatsink (or something along those lines…) on an old Athlon XP processor. At the time it seemed massive but it’s dwarfed by this thing and this is not even close to the largest coolers on sale now:
The case has the useful locator pin to line the motherboard up and make adding the screws easier. Only one standoff required for ATX and the rest of the screw holes are already raised above the motherboard tray and all the holes are labelled:
Motherboard fitted:
When I had the cooler fitted I do admit I needed to squat down and eye up the edge of the case and for a moment doubted if it would fit:
I did check it in advance though and as promised by the specs it fit in nicely, although rather snugly!
Next up was the graphics card, another beast:
And finally all together:
The Bitfenix case is a solid option – everything lined up and it looks the part. I quite like the subtle LED glow which can be red/blue/off. With the EVGA PSU it is also almost completely silent. But alas it’s a bit too silent for my spec. With only the CPU under load temps are fine – mid 50s and the CPU fan only throttles up slightly. However with the R9 290 under gaming load there’s far too much heat build-up in the case and system temps start creeping towards 70C (yes system, not CPU) and the GPU stays at 94C (I assume just throttling the fan to maintain this). I tried the case fans manually throttled to 100% but they just don’t push enough air. As soon as I removed the side of the case a big blast of hot air escaped and system temps fell down to 33C within a few minutes and the GPU down to 74C under load with the fans at a much slower speed. I’ll be ordering some more intake fans to try and resolve this and I expect it’s down the extraordinary heat output of the 290 card and the fact that this one blows into the case rather than out the back of the PCI slots like the reference designs. The only other very minor annoyance is the PSU dust filter is under the PSU inside the case – too much effort for me to clean if I have to remove the PSU every time so I’ve removed the filter. I’ve seen other cases with a slot for the filter outside of the case at the bottom – this would make much more sense.
Performance wise I’m blown away. With all three monitors running at 1080p I’m getting 70fps on the single card in Assetto Corsa. That’s with pretty much every graphics setting at maximum and AF/AA at 8x/8x far exceeding the performance I was expecting considering that this is 75% of the pixels in a 4k display! Thanks to the case and heat sink it’s very very quiet when browsing. The Tri-X only gets loud under load.
Unfortunately the build hasn’t been without its hiccups:
When I’ve got those replacements sorted though I’ll be one happy gamer! Photo as it stood before I started returning parts:
Hopefully have it finished this time next week. Can’t wait.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18586592
The aim was for a racing eyefinity setup which will run smoothly at moderate graphics settings. I managed to bag a brand new G27 wheel for £134.50 last week, so I built this at the perfect time! I made a few tiny amendments from the spec thread. I went for the SLI Gigabyte motherboard for more expandability, a Bitfenix Shadow case and a Matterhorn cooler. Obligatory pic of all the boxes below!
(I ate the Haribo before the photo). I decided it was much easier to build the lot and then post a few photos rather than as it progressed as I prefer to get it all done in one sitting.
The PSU was the biggest surprise of all the parts – I expected it to be cheap and cheerful but it seems really good quality and is incredibly quiet:
Assembling the parts in the motherboard. Straightforward:
(Yes I know the white balance in my camera is way off! I haven't installed Lightroom yet to fix it...)
Heatsinks continue to surprise me with their size. I think my first own build had a SLK800 heatsink (or something along those lines…) on an old Athlon XP processor. At the time it seemed massive but it’s dwarfed by this thing and this is not even close to the largest coolers on sale now:
The case has the useful locator pin to line the motherboard up and make adding the screws easier. Only one standoff required for ATX and the rest of the screw holes are already raised above the motherboard tray and all the holes are labelled:
Motherboard fitted:
When I had the cooler fitted I do admit I needed to squat down and eye up the edge of the case and for a moment doubted if it would fit:
I did check it in advance though and as promised by the specs it fit in nicely, although rather snugly!
Next up was the graphics card, another beast:
And finally all together:
The Bitfenix case is a solid option – everything lined up and it looks the part. I quite like the subtle LED glow which can be red/blue/off. With the EVGA PSU it is also almost completely silent. But alas it’s a bit too silent for my spec. With only the CPU under load temps are fine – mid 50s and the CPU fan only throttles up slightly. However with the R9 290 under gaming load there’s far too much heat build-up in the case and system temps start creeping towards 70C (yes system, not CPU) and the GPU stays at 94C (I assume just throttling the fan to maintain this). I tried the case fans manually throttled to 100% but they just don’t push enough air. As soon as I removed the side of the case a big blast of hot air escaped and system temps fell down to 33C within a few minutes and the GPU down to 74C under load with the fans at a much slower speed. I’ll be ordering some more intake fans to try and resolve this and I expect it’s down the extraordinary heat output of the 290 card and the fact that this one blows into the case rather than out the back of the PCI slots like the reference designs. The only other very minor annoyance is the PSU dust filter is under the PSU inside the case – too much effort for me to clean if I have to remove the PSU every time so I’ve removed the filter. I’ve seen other cases with a slot for the filter outside of the case at the bottom – this would make much more sense.
Performance wise I’m blown away. With all three monitors running at 1080p I’m getting 70fps on the single card in Assetto Corsa. That’s with pretty much every graphics setting at maximum and AF/AA at 8x/8x far exceeding the performance I was expecting considering that this is 75% of the pixels in a 4k display! Thanks to the case and heat sink it’s very very quiet when browsing. The Tri-X only gets loud under load.
Unfortunately the build hasn’t been without its hiccups:
- The GPU has been returned as one of the fans was making a ticking/grinding noise at certain rpms. I’m going to replace it with an equivalent card but from a different manufacturer with a longer warranty for further peace of mind.
- The case needs some higher speed fans as above – anyone recommend any? Corsair a good shout?
- The screens have also had to be returned as the bezels didn’t fit together – slim around the outside yes but the protrusion at the front is frustrating and the air gap was just too distracting in games. I’m going to go for the Asus slim bezel models as soon as the refund is processed.
When I’ve got those replacements sorted though I’ll be one happy gamer! Photo as it stood before I started returning parts:
Hopefully have it finished this time next week. Can’t wait.
I'll take some photos of the cable routing when I fit the new GPU next week.