Mike Tyson

[ALXAndy]

A large slab of good karma landed on my doorstep. So I am building my second dream rig. I did one in 2013 and vowed never to do it again but, well, you know how that always ends. "I'm not mad bro".

So this build is going to be everything my other builds are not. No flamboyancy, no lights (apart from some white LEDs) and that is it. It will easily punch well above its weight. I am also avoiding water cooling. I have had some rotten luck with that lately and my Alienware is so complicated that diagnosing anything turns out to be a crap shoot and can take months.

This is also the first time I have ordered everything from OCUK. So I'm happy to be supporting them at a time like this.

More is to come, and this rig changed several times in the last few days but I decided firmly last night and pulled the trigger.

Why Mike Tyson? black shorts, black boots, no frills (unless monstrous hardware floats your boat).

So here is what I ordered last night. I still need maybe a fan hub, and maybe some more cables as the GPU is 3 8 pin lmao.

CPU is the 3950x. I originally planned on 3970x, then it was all getting very daft. This is a gaming only rig, I have tinker toys and fidget spinner PCs for everything else.



I got an MSI originally, then found out it was terrible. So I phoned OCUK and changed it for the best in class at this price.



Cooler. Again, no frills. The fans will only go in the bin any way.



RAM. 4133 8 Pack.



PSU



Two SSDs. One 256 for Windows, one 1tb for games.



I got this case.



Which has dual chambers and can take two GPUs vertically. It's pretty insane and absolutely gorgeous.

Cables.



9 fans.



And a GPU



The case does not work with air GPUs. Mostly because of the chamber. I don't want to "properly" water cool this rig, and this was the best solution. Besides, the money I saved on water cooling paid the £500 premium for this.

I need a few more cables I think. I also want that Der8auer bracket to shift the block, thermal paste and some sort of USB WIFI solution. I'll go and shop for that shortly. Oh, and a Oculus Rift S when they are back in stock.

 

[ALXAndy]

Got the rest.



Didn't fancy £45 on another full set so just got what I needed. Will look nice. Got this too for the sound card.

 

[ALXAndy]

I'm not ruling it out tbh. Right now though I don't want the headaches.

 

[ALXAndy]

They're ace for rads. Very quiet, slow spinning but fantastic static pressure.

I've used them in two builds before in white and trans blue. They're just amazing. It's only RGB that has made them unpopular tbh.

Asus and others have gone with the ring design. It keeps the large blades from flexing. It also lowers the tolerance and air gap around the fan.

At £30 each on launch they were expensive. Now they're £15 so a complete bargain.

What also helps is the motor is small unlike the Vardar and thus dead spots are greatly reduced. They don't jitter like the Vardar either.

Sadly noctuas new world beating fans are still beige and brown with no black ones yet. Plus they're honkingly expensive.

 

[ALXAndy]

It's a bit of a pile atm lol.



Unpacked the case. Got a thankyou letter from the president of Lian Li lmao. Any way, they stiff you on the second ribbon and you can't get it any more. Not that I would want to, it's about 80 quid. So I did my research for the best X1 ribbon as it's only for the sound card and I got this, for £17.

 

[ALXAndy]

The case did come out but I forgot to snap pics. The box was battered so I wanted to check it over.

The eloops were made for rads. Not sure how they shift air, but I used to use 600rpm once and they still did a great job on rads. They're beautifully made too.

 

[ALXAndy]

Pretty much. OCUK have shipped the second order of bits I forgot and the ribbon for the sound card should come quick too.

I've ordered the der8auer shifter brackets but they're not out yet. Still that shouldn't stop me

 

[ALXAndy]

OK so the build was pretty much done last night. I hit a few pitfalls along the way though.

Firstly because this is a water cooling specific case I could not fit a rad in the top on push pull. I wanted the Kingpin up top, but had to remove the rad as it was a good 3cm from seating. The hoses were hitting the mid plate.

I mounted the GPU in the bottom slot, then found out the ribbon cable did not reach the top X16 slot on the board. This would not be an issue on a HEDT, because many of the lower slots are X16. Sadly on mine it's X4. So I took it all apart for a third time and put the GPU in the top section. Ribbon fits OK. Bit of a curve, but it does look nice coming into the board. I can't fit the two SSDs. I didn't realise just how few lanes these CPUs have, and I didn't want my GPU not running at all (8x minimum will do me). So right now I have the 1tb in the top slot and I will put the 256 into my triad (as I robbed the one out of there for my TR build lol). The H100x lives in the top on pull.

Other than it being really super difficult to build into (because you have to do things in a weird order, so GPU first for example) and having to take it all apart on three occasions to rethink and start again I did get it all in. The kingpin rad is in the front on push pull (because that is how the air gets in so I wanted the second fan just to shove it along a little bit and that worked well) and besides the outer fans are controlled by the GPU so will spin up when needed.

Big shout out to Asus for the Strix PSU. It's absolutely lovely. They give you magnet plates to put on if you want it to be extra gamery, but I decided against that as you won't see the PSU. I don't have much more to do now other than general tidying and removing all of the fingerprints. Few cable ties and I can reassemble it.

The 1X ribbon was woefully too short, so I am going to have to bite the bullet and get a longer Lian Li one for the sound card. I don't mind, and I am hoping to possibly pick up a Nu Audio for it but the STX is more than good enough.

In short it is an absolute beast. Even on my potato BIOS set up it scored 4200 in CB15 which is pretty barbaric. IIRC the 16 core gen one TR scored 3000.

Then I need to figure out how all of the BIOS options work and so on. It's been ages since I even bothered. I would imagine enabling PBO is good though right?

The carbon CM cables look stunning. The whole rig does really. It's just black on black on black on black etc with the Corsair pump lighting up white. The board has some RGB, but that is being set white. As are the LEDs on the Kingpin when I figure all that out. Was seeing 90-120fps+ in Timespy, about the most I have ever seen before is 60-70. It's also very quiet indeed and I am thrilled with it. Does need one minor mod, but I will show why and what I have planned for that tomorrow.

Few pics. The sun is brutal and this is with the curtains closed. Note, it's covered in prints and still has a few umbilical cords. Cables need shaping and training, and tying etc. I will do that later today when the codeine kicks in lol.







And the panels.

 

[ALXAndy]

Cheers. Still fighting to get my sound card in there. Some one suggested using two risers and connecting them together, but I measured it up and the riser I have still wouldn't be long enough. Plus it comes out at the bottom, which would force the sound card up

However, I found a much better and dirt cheap solution. I never thought I would be thankful for mining for any reason but this was just over a fiver.



It sits flat, so no pushing the card up and the USB cable is just a SS cable so easy to get a black one. It also exits the slot sideways, so won't stick up like a sore thumb. I decided to stick with the splashes of silver on that side, mostly because the side glass is tinted and will tone it down. I'd already got a power cable for the sound card



So I nipped on OCUK and got this for the power for the PCIE board.

 

[ALXAndy]

I got it all finished last night. Still need to revisit it when I get back to it as I need to try and get the sound card sorted. I ran a load of benchmarks and as you can guess it's pretty barbaric. Wasn't sure how the boost clocks all work and the overclocking, but the card was boosting to 2150 straight away. And it's fast. Very, very fast. I didn't get any pics because it was dark but it's all cleaned free of fingerprints and is waiting for my return. I'll upload the stock benchmarks then, and then set about overclocking the CPU and RAM.

 

[ALXAndy]

Some of the inner parts are steel. Everything outside is alu. TBH the glass weighs as much as the rig without it lol. I think I will have to remove that before moving it.

It looks absolutely stunning when all back together. I did get it finished but it was 2AM and no chance of getting decent photos given it's so black and dark.

The only issues I could complain about is the ribbon not reaching the top slot (when it appears to on cases on websites, which is odd) and the lack of the second ribbon. Well, unless you want to fit a second card of some sort. I do want my sound card in there quite badly so it's been some work to find a way around that.

But yeah other than that it's absolutely beautiful.

Oh, my only other grumble is the huge opening for the back of the board. I am going to have to get a piece of matt acrylic cut to cover that, as even with the sound card in it will still be noticeable.

 

[ALXAndy]

Again thanks to OCUK for a great price

 

[ALXAndy]

It worked



woohoo.

 

[ALXAndy]

Nah this rig is staying as it is. It's as cool as a cucumber. You can't get water blocks for the GPU either, so yeah this is my gamer (and needs to be reliable as it's all I have here).

Sadly the sound card clicked out after a few songs, then repeated that pattern. The relays on the Asus cards are a total PITA. Even in regular use this happens on certain boards. So I will wait for the Soundblaster before writing that fiver off.

I have asked about this elsewhere but I will ask here too. OK, so this is what my manual says.



So would this work in there? it's an M key SATA. I don't want to lose lanes, and I really don't want to be running SATA cables either. I'd rather keep it as clean as I can.

 

[ALXAndy]

Yeah, both confirmed. It will work, it won't use lanes*

And then I read about X570, and how the PCH adds 16 lanes. So *that's* why it has two M.2 slots, a X16 slot and a X4 slot lol. It doesn't matter as it's only for games and was significantly cheaper than a top spec NVME which would cost double.

The good news is I can now get something like this.



And also use the 256gb Viper that is still sat in the box lol.

The ZXR came today. Not opened it yet. Have been testing the mining riser with the Xonar STX before I go ahead and fit it to this rig. Firstly it was cutting out a lot. The relays on the STX are a bugger. Any way, it turned out that powering the riser was what was causing the issue. I would imagine it provided too much current, and is only strictly needed for GPUs. Since removing that and securing the socket onto the card with some masking tape (test stage) it's been rock solid.

I've ordered a much prettier USB cable for that also.

Oh also. M.2 SATA may eat a couple SATA ports, but I don't care about that. Not using them any way.

 

[ALXAndy]

OK sound card and riser fitted (and installed and working). SSD worked too, so thanks for the advice there guys.

The blue USB cable looks a bit crap, but I've ordered the above. If they are too long I can just get a black 60cm for about £3.



There is one thing I don't like, mind. The front rad mount thing has 140mm holes and 120mm holes. I am using a double 120, so it looks a bit "gappy". Even though the filter.

So I got these in gunmetal. They are 140, so will cover the gap. I won't be hooking up the RGB but they weren't too cheap given they are alu.



Still, £36 in the grand scheme of things didn't seem too bad.

 

[ALXAndy]

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian-li-pc-o12wx-midi-tower-case-black-ca-76a-ll.html

 

[ALXAndy]

Nice build there fella
You loving the gpu?

It's an animal. I've not gamed on it yet but I ran it through every torture test I could think of. Straight out of the box it was boosting to 2050, which easily increased to 2150 with just an automatic scan. I've not got into the round two of benchmarks, because I've been working on the rig itself. I wanted to get it all built and stable so I could get back to decent settings if it wouldn't post. Got the RAM to 3600 last night, will probably work on timings later

Hoping to get 2200 out of the GPU. It should do it, but I am wary of installing the BIOS that gives full voltage control. Firstly I don't have a clue what I am doing, and secondly it invalidates the warranty.

One thing that is pretty annoying is that there is nothing under the PCIE slots to hold the tabs on add in cards. I guess they designed it to be held by the socket, but I am not using the stock socket. So that will need a piece made. Nothing too hard to do, and I think I have some 8mm black plex left over. It's just to stop the sound cards bending when I install things into them.

I'm not rushing it. I don't really do much any way, but I want something to do whilst all this madness is going on.

 

[ALXAndy]

OK, those USB cables don't work. So it's plan B.



I've ordered it in two sizes (10mm and 15mm) and will see how I get on. I also got this



So I am sure that I can come up with something more suitable.

The one thing that is super annoying is that the sound cards are not being held at the bottom of the PCIE slot. Even if I had the genuine Lian Li cable it would not stop the secondary input card from doing it. They bend in when you connect things. I had two options. Drill through the bottom of the slot so I could bolt into the holes in the cards (not a fan) or make something out of 8mm acrylic and stick it in with 3m to stop them doing that. I ordered the 3m and acrylic. If that fails I will have to drill the case, but I would rather not.

 

[ALXAndy]

Ugh. Decided to hook up the frames. I had to get this to do so.



I wouldn't have, but HWC did a video on the neons today that I was looking at and I cracked.



I suppose it will be nice to actually see the hardware in there.