First thread - my PC build.

[geraintthomas]

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!

 

[geraintthomas]

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.

 

[geraintthomas]

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.

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.

Looks good.

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

Thanks! As above

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.

nice work with the spray painting

Thank you!

 

[geraintthomas]

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

 

[geraintthomas]

Bit of a late reply - thanks for the responses!

Going to upgrade the system in the next few weeks to a Ryzen by the looks of it. Probably along the lines of a Ryzen 2600, some 3200Mhz DDDR4 16GB Corsair ram and a B450 board to throw it all into (probably the Asus Prime as the bios looks lovely). As soon as I finalise the parts I should be good to go.

Good thing is, I can sell my i3570k, my Dominator Platinum ram and my motherboard for a decent whack. I've worked it out and, if my parts sell fine (which they always do due to keeping boxes), I can upgrade for £150.

Woo!

 

[geraintthomas]

All sorted. I'm used to working with automotive paint and high temperature/durable applications (worked on my own cars quite a bit), so it's all good here. They're still going strong.

 

[geraintthomas]

Had a fan fail - the top mounted Scythe Typhoon. Was gutted as these are exceptional fans!

Decided to mount the radiator for the AIO onto one of the front 120mm's instead (pull config) and mount two 140mm's to the top of the case as an exhaust.

Temps are the same, which is great.



Also the computer now lives in its own room rather than in the bedroom!





Bosh.

 

[geraintthomas]

Thanks!

Ish. Though those games are still played, I jump back and fourth other titles too, as well as doing heavy VFX work (I'm a VFX artist/lecturer by trade), so the multiple threads is quite important here, hence the pending CPU upgrade as mine is still only 4 cores 4 threads.