New Build arrived today!

Mr C · 27 May 2009 at 04:12

So today my new items finally arrived from OCUK! Excellent speedy delivery as usual.
Apologies for the poor photography.

Spec:

Lian Li PC-60FW
Intel i7 920 D0 stepping
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
Asus Radeon 4890
OCZ Gold 6 GB
WD Caviar Black 500 GB
Pioneer DVR-216DBK DVD/RW
Titan Fenrir CPU cooler
Coolermaster Silent Pro 700w

Im currently awaiting some AS5 and some Xigmatek fans from a competitor, delivery should arrive later today so hopefully i can update with the finished article running.

Despite missing those items i decided to put most of it together today, leaving out the GFX card and CPU, since it will be easier to change the case fans with more room and i thought it would be silly to install the heatsink with the supplied thermal paste when i would only have to remove it, clean, apply AS5 and reseat the next day.

It was a troublefree build but not exactly fast due to the limited cabling room behind the motherboard tray. Surprisingly (as previous Lian-Li cases had no markings) the case had the ATX motherboard holes clearly marked with an A, which made the motherboard a peice of cake to install.

Irrating things to note were:

Only 1 clip for the optical drive bay so screws needed for the rest of the drive, if you want it to be secure.
Flimsy rubber to put on edges of the PSU didnt want to stay in place and kept falling off.
Quite short 20+4 pin MB cable.
Lack of room behind motherboard tray.

Not exactly the best cabling but i had very limited room behind the motherboard tray and the MB power cables were quite short. Note my fingerprints all over the case as i decided not to clean them off for now as im only going to make it a mess again when i install the rest of it later on.

More pictures to come when it is finally finished, up and running (hopefully), then i can get down to seeing what i can OC the i7 upto.

S.A.S · 27 May 2009 at 04:15

not bad, nice setup, thats good cable management, i no them cases are quite limited for space behind the mobo

hp7909 · 27 May 2009 at 05:45

If it was me I'd install everything & give the system a good test drive, i.e. I'm inpatient

But nice build

The cable management is not bad, but because of the side window maybe get an extension for the ATX MB cable.

RJC · 27 May 2009 at 07:30

looking good

exia · 27 May 2009 at 08:22

Looks great, I'm about to build a similar setup but using the Lian Li PC-7FW, same case just different front panel I believe.

Nice cable management, I'm taking notes! Dieing to see how much room is left after the Titan Fenrir, was worried about that myself.

Mr C · 27 May 2009 at 20:22

Got everything up and running now and just finishing the installation of vista, which was surprisingly quick.
Managed to sneak the ATX cable round the back too. Was very annoying having to remove the entire HDD tray to remove the front 140mm fan and replace it with the new one.
Lots of room for the Titan fenrir.

Some picture updates of the final build:

Next onto overclocking when i get the time after work tomorrow.

LukeTW · 27 May 2009 at 21:07

Nice build matey.

Is your fan at the front the wrong way?

Looks like its blowing air out to me :confused:

Mr C · 27 May 2009 at 21:21

Nope its the right way, just the filter and case making it look like the back of the fan.

DB_SamX · 18 Jun 2009 at 10:58

Hi there,

I'm about to purchase pretty much the same spec PC and that case as well. What are the cooling,temps and noise like?

jamesgoss · 18 Jun 2009 at 11:15

That looks really nice! I was hoping someone would get some shots of that Lian Li case to see how it looks 'in the flesh' instead of marketing shots. Would you mind taking a couple of snaps of the front face in detail? I think it's literally the only part different than the PC-7F. It'd be cool to see how the orange glow works at the front, I'm intrigued!

Mr C · 18 Jun 2009 at 23:02

DB_SamX said:
Hi there,

I'm about to purchase pretty much the same spec PC and that case as well. What are the cooling,temps and noise like?

The temps are pretty average not much difference from what you would expect with the setup, cpu cores idle around 45 degrees and under stress testing goes up to a maximum of 86 degrees. That is while overclocked to 4 Ghz (191x21)

Noise wise im not 100% on it as the loudest thing by far is the HD4890. With the fan manually set to 20% (Although you can't use the fan at this speed for anything other than idling) It's certainly much quieter, still audible if you are sitting in silence but not loud enough to interrupt any listening.

It's not as quiet as my old PC7 with 800 rpm S-flex Scythes, but a large amount of that is down to the noise generated from the HD4890 in comparison to a 8800GTS. I'm probably going to invest in an aftermarket cooler for the HD4890 but as it is now with my headphones on or TV in background its not too much of an issue.

The front is the only difference between the 60F and 7F. I replaced the standard blue 140mm LED fan with an Xigmatek white led one.

This is as it sits on my desk this moment. Not 100% happy with the yellow cathodes might add some red ones in there to try and make it more orange.

thevet · 18 Jun 2009 at 23:33

nice pc

EdGey · 18 Jun 2009 at 23:39

nice build there

DB_SamX · 19 Jun 2009 at 00:29

Mr C,

Regarding cable management, you mention limited space behind the mobo and reviews mention holes for cables in wrong places, do you reckon cutting better holes would improve things?

Mr C · 19 Jun 2009 at 02:40

This is what the back of my pc behind the motherboard looks like.

Theres only 1 hole to pass cables through and i only just managed to fit the ATX power cable through it. There wasn't much room for anything else but the thin power cables for the gfx card to fit through the hole.

The main problem i had was with the horizontal supporting bar for the motherboard tray, which stopped me from hiding any cables down the bottom part of the case as there is no room between that and the case side to fit any cables over.

Neutron · 19 Jun 2009 at 03:18

very nice build

rexehuk · 19 Jun 2009 at 03:21

How comes the PSU is at the bottom in most of these new cases? Any particular advantages?

jamesgoss · 19 Jun 2009 at 09:28

Excellent, thanks for the extra pics! Looks damn nice :cool:

shame about the back bar supporting the motherboard though for ye olde cable management. There's always the option to take tools to it later later date

Venares · 19 Jun 2009 at 09:32

rexehuk said:
How comes the PSU is at the bottom in most of these new cases? Any particular advantages?

Better thermals basicly.
Instead of the PSU pulling in hot air from the rest of the case and potentialy lowering its lifespan the bottom placment lets it draw in cool air from underneath the case.