Project OTT

Catanonia · 15 Jul 2013 at 21:16

This is my 1st project log on OCUK and it will be to refresh my ugly current setup.

Currently I have a mess of a system, functional, powerful, but let us face it a bit of a mess and cobbled together throughout the year with no real thought to aesthetics.

Current specs are

Old Antec 900 series case, can't even remember the model number
3930K CPU overclocked to 4.8 with RayStorm Water Bock
32GB Corsair Ven 1600 RAM OC to 1866
Sapphire AMD 7990 with EK Copper Water Block
NVidia GeForce 8300 GT 512MB
Single 240 Generic Radiator
Samsung 830 256 SSD as OS Win7 64bit
2 x Generic 1.5TB HDD in Raid 0
1 x Asus PQ278B IPS 27 inch Monitor
2 x HP 22 inch side monitors
1 x HP 17 inch monitor
QPAD Mechanical Keyboard and RocCat Gaming Mouse.

Corsair 850W Power Supply

All this is water cooled with a XSPC Rad / Pump

All of it dusty and in need of a complete clean.

"Ignore the kink in the tubing, only there when I took side off for pictures"

I mainly use this for iRacing, hence the 4th pit board screen run by the older VGA card, the odd other gaming such as Crysis, Diablo III, Astrophotography processing (lots of processing) and mining LiteCoins. Also gets used for multiple VMWares building and testing domain solutions.

I want and need an upgrade to get this all in a nice new shiny case along with a good clean and loads more rad space for the CPU and GPU's

So arriving tomorrow from OCUK

£124.99 x 1 - NZXT Switch 810 Ultra Tower Case - Matt Black
£42.49 x 1 - Hardware Labs Black ICE Radiator GTX-Lite 360
£6.66 x 2 - EK-CSQ Adapter 90° G14 Black
£4.99 x 1 - XSPC HighFlex Hose 716" ID, 58" OD, 15.911.1mm, 2m, ClearUV
£1.49 x 2 - XSPC G14" to 12" Barb Fitting (Black Chrome)
£0.41 x 1 - XSPC Radiator Screw Set 6-32UNC (Black)

It will be a complete strip down and rebuild to incorporate a 2 rad solution and hopefully get these temperatures down for gaming and mining.

More to come soon when DPD arrive with my new kit tomorrow.

Catanonia · 15 Jul 2013 at 21:17

Well it arrived and spot the obvious mistake !!!!

Yes I ordered matt black and the order says so, but yes it is white !!!!! Comon OCUK, it is not that difficult.

However, I was considering the white and with the CDROM cover (nice touch) and the fact I can't wait another 3 or more days due to work, white it shall be. I will of course be contacting OCUK venting my frustration and asking for the £10 difference back

Ok so here are the goodies as they arrived

The case

It is big

Loads of accessories

360 Radiator, 2 x 90 bends, 2 x barbs and some tubing

Really nice case and my 1st proper one. Love the easy access, the swappable HDD unit, the tilted fan to cool graphics cards. Love the whole lot and a really quality item. 4 Fans are included all connected to a 7x3 pin pan splitter module included power by a standard molex. Sweet

Also has 2 x removable filters on the bottom and of course the top grill that can be opened or closed.

So I have started to strip down the parts I didn't need.

I am going with the 360 on top and the 240 on the bottom
So out with

Swappable HDD = Reservoir and pump are going here with a silver XSPC face.
Lower drive cage, 240 rad is going here.
Switched the fans around. The radiators will draw in cold air and the fans on the front and back will pull it out again. Kind of hope this will work

Airflow idea

Blue is the Rads, Red are the fans

Removed the lower cage and place another fan in to draw out air

Also added in the top 360 radiator, nice simple fitting here.

The 7 splitter fan connector included, not sure how I am going to use this, might just keep the fans 100%, not sure yet or to use my crappy 6 fan controller which is black and well crap.

Some more piccies of the case.

So overall, very impressed with the WHITE switch 810 case. Very nicely built and so many options. Looks like cable management, radiator placement, airflow etc etc are all covered here.

So now the thread stops for a while whilst I destroy this machine I am typing on and build the cuts of the OTT project.

Catanonia · 15 Jul 2013 at 21:18

Here are some pictures of the finished build. I was quite wary of the black front fittings, but I personally think it works and so they are staying.
So hard to take pictures of such a large case in my office with a 18-70mm DSLR lens

Hopefully they are clear enough

Have a few cabling issues to sort out, but I reckon this is a vast improvement over the initial build I had. Looks nicer too, but boy is it heavy

The front and rear fans are exhaust and during mining, I have the front cover off to get max unrestricted output from the fronts.
The radiators are intakes to bring in as much cold air as possible. I am probably going to swap out the crappy rad fans for Corsair SP 140 fans soon to try and get more air over the radiators.

Also going to add some blue strip lights into the case to light it up at night as it is dark through the window.

Temperatures got the hottest yet in the office whilst I was at work, still at 30 degrees ambient when I got home to take these pictures.

The GPU's maxed out at 59 degrees, so impressed, considering the GPU's were at full 100% power for all night and all day mining.

Had a couple of crashes, got to sort out the reasons for this, probably due to me moving the 7990 to another slot now I have the room.

Hope you enjoyed this little build, I did

Cat

Catanonia · 15 Jul 2013 at 21:18

Link to some benchmarks in the official 7990 owners thread.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18527255

Catanonia · 15 Jul 2013 at 22:43

GoogalyMoogaly said:
Why a GTX-Lite?
Surely there are better radiators than that?

I have more than enough rad spec and it was in budget for a triple. Still not told the wife yet that on top of the £150 I spent over the weekend on a GPU block, I just spent another £230 or more

Catanonia · 16 Jul 2013 at 08:34

GoogalyMoogaly said:
True, money is as good a reason as any to pick something!
To be honest they may well be good radiators, I just get put off by the word 'Lite', which is probably unjustified.
Also, to be honest I looked it up afterwards and I was confusing the GTX-Lite with the GTS-Lite.
Still, with those 2 rads it hopefully shouldn't matter if they're not the absolute top of the range rads.
Hope it all goes well for you, both the build and when the wife finds out...

thanks mate, I would love to get gold plated top spec stuff, but I have blown the budget on the CPU and GPU and other stuff

To me a rad is a rad, and when I have probably 50% more than I actually need, skimping a bit on it hopefully will be ok. The GTX-Lite is a chuncky thick rad too, so fingers crossed.

I had to tell the wife as she is at home today whilst I work and the delivery will happen

... She is actually ok with it, but I do now have to take her underwear shopping :eek:

Catanonia · 16 Jul 2013 at 09:21

Delivery expected at noon today. Bet the wife will be surprised how big the package is whilst I am still at work. oh eh, that doesn't sound right

Not been this excited for ages about my computer. Somehow having a new case is like a brand new computer

EDIT : 1 large box and one smaller one delivered at home for me

Now I have to wait till clocking off time to get home

Top notch OCUK and DPD

Catanonia · 16 Jul 2013 at 19:28

Kit arrived, 1st update posted in Reserved 1. Wish me luck, powering off now

Catanonia · 17 Jul 2013 at 00:39

4 hours hard slog, it is running

Whilst mining the CPU (not used) are back to normal 30 degrees and the GPU temps have dropped about 10 degrees. All due to the extra 360 rad

It does look good in black and white, except for the front with a black CDROM and Fan Controller

The fans on the front were set to intake, swapped them to exhaust as per my diagram.

Not sure if my pump / res is powerful enough, time will tell I suppose

Just swapped the XSPC front plate from silver to black. Black on white is really doing me actually

The £10 that OCUK owe me for the white compared to black case, hmmmm, some blue LED case lights

Pictures will follow tomorrow.

Catanonia · 17 Jul 2013 at 02:17

2am and testing, up at 6:30am

Ok an hour of very hard Litecoin mining on the 7990 and the temps refuse to go above 53 degrees compared to 63 and climbing before. Also the CPU temp (still stock 3930K) is under 40 pretty much idle.

Considering I am pushing both of the GPU cores at full overclock and 100% max for over an hour I consider this a RESULT

Gaming, well expect the GPU's to hardly touch 40 and the CPU to take more cooling power

Bedtime, piccies to follow tomorrow night. Thanks all.

Cat

Catanonia · 17 Jul 2013 at 07:16

kaku said:
All on a single 360 rad?

Nice to know, I've been looking in to a WC setup for myself and been doing a lot of head-scratching over how much rad space I need and how it affects temperatures.

Not quite, I have a 240 (existing from previous build) and a new 360 Radiator.

Catanonia · 17 Jul 2013 at 09:07

Now I have a bit more time, some thoughts.

The build has been hard graft mining all night both GPU's @ 100% and the temperature has not budged from 53 degrees on the GPU's

Will leave it all day and monitor from work when it gets hotter during the day, hopefully we have a result.

The Switch 810 is a beautiful case, I did wonder at spending £130 on a case, but I can see where the money goes and it is wonderfully made. The white, yeah really glad I kept it now. The paint quality on it is fantastic, no rough edges, nicely put together with a lot of thought behind it.

Some Pros and Cons

Pro
Beautifully made and fitted
Easy to remove hard drive cages along with simple rubber snap caddies
Hot swappable option.
Loads of cable management gromets
2 lots of filters below easy change and clean
4 free fans + 7 fan splitter included
Nice angled fan for cooling GPU's
Plenty of accessories and screws included, everything and more that is required.
Plenty of room for w/c and radiator layouts.

Cons (not many so being picky)
Thumb screws over tightened on shipping
Top vent cover could be designed better for fastening
Front cover could have more airflow for exhuast options

So impressed with this case, definately worth the money and if you want a w/c case and are wondering which to get, get the Switch 810, you will nto be disapointed.

Catanonia · 17 Jul 2013 at 18:33

Updated with final build pictures as promised.

Catanonia · 17 Jul 2013 at 21:04

tomparker95 said:
Lovely case that, really nice build. Congrats! Could you explain what Litecoin mining is though? Not really heard about that before.

It is like folding or seti@home using graphics cards to process massive amounts of virtual coin transactions to earn virtual coins.

Do a Wiki on Bitcoins to learn more, very similar.

Catanonia · 21 Jul 2013 at 12:51

Almost finished.

Swapped some of fans around, got some 140 nx fans for the top and moved the blue led fans I have to the bottom to give some colour in the case.

My LED strip arrives on Monday and I have also added a new fan controller to the front to replace that horrid nasty one I had before.

Next up will be some shiny compression fittings, should really finish off the whole build.

Catanonia · 22 Jul 2013 at 21:12

All finished now.

Added some NZXT blue LED's to light up the dark case.
These are really nice, standard Molex connector and board is mounted onto a standard card plate to attach to the PCI plate holders like a graphics card. From there and outside you can select 1 - 3 intensity of the lights as well as power them off. Recommended and only £10 for 1m strip more than enough to light a NZXT Switch 810 case.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-057-NX

Some final pictures. I will change the mouse to blue LED as well

Side view

Front view with front cover off in this heat to aid exhuast fans.