First thread - my PC build.

geraintthomas · 28 Jul 2018 at 17:03

Hey guys,

So first post on here, have been following for years but never actually posted, so thought I'd make a start by showing my build.

I used to be hugely into PC gaming and modding, up until the GeForce 660Ti era, but with work and general life I kind of drifted away slightly, casually tweaking and upgrading the odd part here and there.

It's a medium-spec build, nothing fancy, but there's the odd cosmetic/performance tweak or two. For the gaming that I do on it (No Man's Sky, PUBG, etc), it's exactly what I need.

Specs

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series™ H75 Liquid CPU Cooler
CPU Cooler Fan: Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850rpm Fan
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H - Rev 1.1 ATX - LGA1155 Socket
GPU: ASUS GeForce® GTX 1060 Turbo 6GB GDDR5
RAM: Corsair Dominator® Platinum Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 DRAM 1600MHz C9
Case: Corsair Carbide Series™ Clear 400C Compact Mid-Tower Case
PSU: Corsair CS Series™ Modular CS550M 550 Watt 80 PLUS® Gold Certified PSU
SSD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200rpm 3.5" Drive
HDD: SanDisk Extreme 120GB SSD 2.5" Drive
Case Fans: 3x upHere 120mm 46CFM Case Fans
Monitors: 2x Dell S2400L 1920x1080 LED Monitor
Speakers: Harmon Kardon Soundsticks II
Keyboard: Apple Keyboard Full Size UK
Mouse: Tecknet 2,000dpi Gaming Mouse

Overclocks

CPU: 4.4Ghz (3.8Ghz standard)
RAM: 1866Mhz (1600Mhz standard)
GPU Core: 2100Mhz (1708Mhz standard)
GPU Memory: 9000Mhz (8008Mhz standard)

Unigine Heaven Standard: FPS 56.0, Score 1409, Min FPS 11.6, Max FPS 101.6
Unigine Heaven Overclock: FPS 70.4, Score 1774, Min FPS 27.1, Max FPS 144.0

Was quite surprised how much overclocking had improved performance here...

Build Photos

I built this PC quite a while ago, but I recently tore it to bits to upgrade a few things and to tidy it up in general, so here's what I did.

First things first, everything was laid out ready to go.

Anything not matt black needed to be resprayed. The key was for a black build, with RGB lights to give any colour I fancied if I wanted a change, rather than being stuck to a single colour scheme.

This also includes the Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans that I have, which were grey in colour.

Before:

After:

The most annoying part was the motherboard, as the input casings were reflective and heatsinks were bright blue. So they had to go.

Before:

]https://tweakers.net/i/U3jTg25ivJLADd_l3DFZzwSf7n8=/i/1333548770.jpeg

After:

Much better!

The standard fan in the CS500M power supply was cut out and swapped for a Gentle Typhoon

Annoyingly, the upHere RGB 120mm fans have 4-pin Molex connectors, so are full-on, making them louder than I'd like. After some testing, it seemed the left two (5v) pins in the connector were powering the LED's, and the right two (12v) pins were powering the fans. Knowing this, I soldered up a connector that split the fan's power into a 3-pin type, so I can run them from the motherboard and set the BIOS fan speeds to Silent. It worked a charm, making these £25 (for three!) fans well worth the money.

The acrylic transparent panel of the 400c was scratched over time. I used my car detailing machine polisher along side Meguiars PlastX (used to restore headlights), which made the panel look new again.

Cable management

Almost done

And here's the finished product

All I need now is some cable combs for the 24-pin plug, and I'm good to go!

So there we have it guys. Some components are quite old now (5+years), but it's a clean build, overclocked nicely, and serves me well for what I need. Though I'm sure in the near future I'll be upgrading that mobo, CPU and ram at some point.

Cheers for looking!

LuckyBenski · 29 Jul 2018 at 01:39

Nice work! The black on the motherboard is very neat, did you spray that? I've had heatsinks re-anodised before, because motherboards with red heatsinks are a bit limiting!

Is that a Festool polisher as well?

Ganelon · 29 Jul 2018 at 10:17

Loving the fans. Something about a blue/purple lighting scheme is so elegant. Going through the extra effort to black out offensive colours is also a major bonus. Top notch little build as far as ATX towers go.

ade555 · 31 Jul 2018 at 17:21

Very elegant, I do wonder what would RGB looked like if the inside case was painted that have nice shine to it.

harvey.l12 · 6 Aug 2018 at 11:42

I love this case, I did my dads PC build in one of these. With the right components and colours it looks mint

Iron-man · 6 Aug 2018 at 20:21

looking like nice work on the build

geraintthomas · 15 Aug 2018 at 21:44

Thank you for the kind words guys. I've just fitted 2x cable combs on the 24-pin braids, and it looks far better.

I agree on the colours too! The best thing about the fans (and behind monitor lighting) is that they have the same RGB colour choices, so I can sync the monitors with the computer - all teal, all blue, RGB, etc.

Todd Greene · 26 Aug 2018 at 20:08

how did you get the paint on the motherboard to look so clean? no overspray.
was it dedicated taping up of every crevice or did you take the heat sinks off?

Vapo Reaper · 1 Sep 2018 at 14:40

Looks very neat and refreshes the build. As above, I don't suppose you'd be in a position to share any tips regarding the painting process?

I had contemplated using a compressor and airbrush, but not sure that'd be suitable for large surface areas. Cheers.

Distracted · 1 Sep 2018 at 16:03

Looks good.

The paint work is great. Did you just mask and spray? It looks so neat!

Rammix · 2 Sep 2018 at 08:11

Is it ok to paint fans like that? I thought it would unbalance them. Got me thinking I might get the spray paint out...

almostgfx · 3 Sep 2018 at 17:58

nice work with the spray painting

geraintthomas · 7 Sep 2018 at 14:51

Todd Greene said:
how did you get the paint on the motherboard to look so clean? no overspray.
was it dedicated taping up of every crevice or did you take the heat sinks off?

Masked the ports on the motherboard with tape (cut to shape), then used cling film to mask the rest of the board up. Only had to be precise with the areas that needed spraying then.

Vapo Reaper said:
Looks very neat and refreshes the build. As above, I don't suppose you'd be in a position to share any tips regarding the painting process?

I had contemplated using a compressor and airbrush, but not sure that'd be suitable for large surface areas. Cheers.

Around the metal areas of the in/out ports on the mobo, I cut slices of masking tape up, laid them in between, and kept going until the area around the ports were covered (including the front of the ports). When that was done, I used cling film as a larger mask to cover the rest of the board.

Distracted said:
Looks good.

The paint work is great. Did you just mask and spray? It looks so neat!

Thanks! As above

Rammix said:
Is it ok to paint fans like that? I thought it would unbalance them. Got me thinking I might get the spray paint out...

I though that too, but it's a very thin layer and people have been known to do it. I didn't prime or lacquer, just the matt finish. Much better than gloss as it's almost impossible to get a matt finish looking bad.

almostgfx said:
nice work with the spray painting

Thank you!

geraintthomas · 7 Sep 2018 at 15:01

Just a couple of photos to show the desk cable management and scratch-less acrylic door.

Vapo Reaper · 7 Sep 2018 at 18:29

Neat setup

, by scratch-less do you mean that it doesn't have any scratches yet....

Distracted · 7 Sep 2018 at 19:21

geraintthomas said:
Masked the ports on the motherboard with tape *SNIP*

Thank you.

It looks very clean. Great job.

Robzere31 · 8 Sep 2018 at 21:17

Nice job, looks a vrey nice bit of work.

did you dissemble the fans to spray them?
I have some EK fans that are grey & have thought about spraying them but the thought of having to strip them all down puts me off.

Iron-man · 9 Sep 2018 at 13:06

really neat and tidy job on that nice job

FlyingScotsman · 11 Sep 2018 at 15:02

Nice build mate, looks really tidy.

adey · 23 Sep 2018 at 19:42

Very nice!