Project: Pheonix Prime

[gerico]

Project: Phoenix Prime

So after 5-6 years out the game, and using the same system I finally decided enough was enough and it was time to get with the times. I'd like to mention a massive shout out to a few people who really helped me and continue to be a source of inspiration for this build.

LtMatt - for all his AMD wisdom and just having a cool name.
Pgreenwo - for all his water cooling help and letting me pester him on email with endless questions. Your help in educating me means phase two will be a reality as your words about buying the right parts for aesthetics was bang on.
Stulid - i posted a lot of threads and im sure on many occasions your suggestions improved my direction in parts

There are many more people that have helped massively and if I've forgotten you, please let me know and you'll get a mention!

I'm a massive gamer and I love computers, I've just never had the money to upgrade very often. I decided to go all out on this one though.

My build is split into two phases - the first being getting all my desired components and building (on air) and phase two will be putting everything on water. I had a real time choosing parts and deciding if I should go water from the start, but in the end I couldn't afford all the lavish fittings that I wanted and rather than settling for second best I figured I'd play the long game.

A little note on my choosen spec. I decided to give the noctua industrial fans a go for many reasons, but one being that the 750d has an awkward front panel that obstructs airflow and I wanted to see if the high pressure, insanely overpowered notucas would keep my sexy 290s cool as ice. It was mainly due to worries of the 290s that i invested.

My initial component list looks like this:

YOUR BASKET
2 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11227-04-40G) £339.95 (£679.90)
1 x Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £259.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Force Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard **Overclockers UK Exclusive** £159.95
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £129.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian 750D Full Tower Case - Black (CC-9011035-WW) £124.99
1 x Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit with DHX Pro Connector (CMD8GX3M2A1866C9) £119.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060016-WW ) £89.99
1 x Corsair Fan, SP120 PWM Low Noise High Pressure Fan 4 pin, Dual Pack (CO-9050012-WW) £25.00
3 x Noctua NF-A14 IndustrialPPC 3000RPM PWM 140mm High Performance Fan £22.99 (£68.97)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Cable Bundle - Orange £21.95
2 x BitFenix Alchemy Premium Modding LED Strip - Connect White 12cm £9.29 (£18.58)
Total : £1,716.95 (includes shipping : £14.75).



First two, dedicated to LtMatt:

Dam these fans get me all excited.

This coming soon:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Lamptron FC Touch Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x MTN Fixer Matt Varnish - 400ml £4.99
1 x MTN Primer / Undercoat - 400ml £4.99
1 x MTN 94 Spray Paint Fluorescent Orange - 400ml £4.99
Total : £74.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 

[gerico]

Brilliant - Good to see you landed the spec.

Looks like its going to be a stunner. Subbed to your log mate - good luck!

Thanks bud, hopefully will be a goodun. Appreciate all the help thus far - looking forward to phase 2, down the line

 

[gerico]

The blue on the GPU's would look great in orange.
could do the fan rings - H105 centre insert.

That's my thinking. Def going to do the CPU cooler ring. If I muster the balls I'd love to spray the 290 fan hood as it'd look the part in my orange theme, but need to look into how hard it is to get to.

 

[gerico]

I think I might have to sub this one, looking forward to seeing it once you get started.

Thanks

Awesome Matt, those vapor x's look mint!

Don't they just! Can't help but keep looking at them... mmmm

Phoenix, surely?
Some drool-worthy hardware going in! I've always wanted Dominator Plats but could never justify the cost =(

Damn, well spotted and thank you I've amended that little typo. Dominator does come with a price tag although for me it was all about looks.

 

[gerico]

Its one of those, if the look is important to you, it justifys the cost.

Exactly my thoughts i dont do this often, but i want to do it right.

Looks good

Cheers man

 

[gerico]

Update

Ok so building is going well. Had some issues getting things running and in the end the beta bios drivers fixed some SSD issues. Still have one issue where one of my noctua fans in the front is not working.

It's plugged into sys 4 fan header at the bottom of the board and it just isnt spinning so I need to look into that.

Anyway, here is some more pics of the build itself.

Some nice 750d — don't she look purdy

Dirty...

Got straight to work stripping out the stock fans and removing some hard drive bays for more room.

Something sexual about them?

Next installation of the CPU

This is a sex shot, look away if your easily offended, because this baby is hot.

Coming together in the case

Sexy PSU

I then got to work placing my most cherished possessions in..

Still to do

Ok so most the parts are in place and cabling done, however I have the fan issue and at the moment no way to control the speed of the fans. Although I think I can do that via software, at least until I can a fan controller?

Also need to add the LED lighting and finish the cable management at the back of the case. There is also some spray paint on order as I intend to paint the plastic ring on the CPU cooler to match the mobo orange, as well as the white circle ring on the corsair fan at the bottom which you can see in some of the last pictures.

I might also look at if it's possible to paint that blue on the GPU's as it really doesn't go with my theme.

** NOTE ** I know I had the RAM positioned slightly wrong in the pictures, that is actually corrected now.

Feedback welcomed.

 

[gerico]

Looks great, how's the H105? Considering one of those, and are you keeping the blue of the graphics cards or going to change the coolers or modify the colour?

Thinking about modding the colour to be honest. I'm looking into if it's a viable option and how hard it'd be to get them off to spray. But I sure plan to try. Would help keep things flowing nicely in terms of my theme! The 105 seems good thus far!

 

[gerico]

The blue and orange look good together with the black. Really classy build enjoy it!

Thanks mate, enjoying it so far

I'm seeing how this blue grows on me (if it does).

 

[gerico]

Problems

Update

I had begun getting afterburner setup along with testing some fps - everything was working a treat.

This morning i added another molex power cable to get my LEDs hooked up to some juice. When i went to boot after it says my drive is not accessible? Ive seen this a few times but after bios update i thought it had gone. Ive checked the cables and they are all connected so im at a loss.

And still the fan plugged into sys fan 4 on the mobo is not spinning. Does anyone know if this hints at mobo issues or ive just not set things up right?

 

[gerico]

Blue and orange! BOLD!

Nice though

Thanks, it will take shape soon enough. I need to do some spraying and im look at other things to customise... Addictive stuff.

 

[gerico]

2 intakes 4 exhaust ??? Gunna get dusty

Do you think I should change the rad fans so that they're pulling air into the case?

 

[gerico]

Just wondering if you meant to put the psu in that way? On the 750D the fan should be facing towards the ground and has it's own filter for it.


But awesome build the colour scheme is going to be interesting

You know.. I did think to myself balls when I was looking at my photographs today. I need to adjust that, however I'll wait until the fan controller arrives and do it all in one go as I need to rejig the cabling anywany, but thanks for pointing it out!

 

[gerico]

UPDATE

Ok so after days of stressing out due to boot issues I *hope* I've sorted the issue. Turns out some of the slave drives had a primary 'active' flag on them which could have been causing conflict.. so far it seems since removing those flags that I am able to boot ok.

Back to the build. I'm going to spray some of the fan rings and look at getting some custom cabling done as im not happy with the finish on the bitfenix cables i ordered. They just don't sit right.

Also getting a fan controller soon and maybe a new SSD. I'll post some pictures once I get spraying!

 

[gerico]

Dust filers won't help that much when you have negative pressure as air and dust are sucked in through the gaps in case.

I must admit I'm no expert here so feedback is appreciated. Do you think turning the rear fan around will help avoid negative pressure? I want to get this right !

 

[gerico]

I honestly see no harm in it. It should just decrease CPU temperatures as a lot of the air that will be going through the rad will be fresh from outside.

I am a bit worried about the amount of hot air those 290s will put out though. For some reason nearly every GPU manufacturer has made the retarded decision to use perpendicular fins in their heatsinks. All of the heat gets blown on your motherboard or into your case whereas with parallel fins most will get blow towards the back of your case.

Basically have an experiment with temps and fan orientation. Theory can only get us so far.

Yeh agreed. I'll have a play tomorrow and see if I can get a better setup and compare temps. I'll let you know if it works out

 

[gerico]

Looks freakin awesome!

Thanks my lover

Great

Cheers

Will post some updates soon along with some shots.

 

[gerico]

The blue on those graphics cards look so nice. This build makes me jealous.

Thanks. Defiantly going to incorporate it more into my scheme as it's grown on me massively. Getting some blue spray paint in order to customize the fan rings etc. Might also look at new braided cables!

 

[gerico]

I spotted that too. I would have front, top & bottom IN and the rear OUT.

Seriously nice build though

Thanks im going to look at changing the fan config

Loving the colour scheme, It's nice to see someone is will to mix and match colours rather than a colour and black/white.

Are you going to spray thos fan rings?

I am indeed! My primer arrived today

That will look awsome.



This

Thanks mate

 

[gerico]

****** Update ******

After a lot of stressing I thought I'd finally fixed my boot issues. It was apparently a flag that windows had set on my two HDDs and was a simple case of removing the 'active' tag and I was booting fine.

That was until last night. After installing my new fan controller I'm getting boot issues again. It keeps saying, please select a boot device. It's like the SDD keeps vanishing from the boot menu.

Second to this, I've also noticed that if I reduce my notucas down to 65% speed and shutdown, then boot a few hours later, often the fans dont start spinning again - not until I whack them back to 100% then turn them down again? Does anyone have any thoughts on what the hell is going on?

It seems if I boot from a powered down state, it takes two boots to get into windows, on most occasions. The first attempt I just get please select a boot device etc.

The search for answers continues.

 

[gerico]

Hi Walder, yeh i did managed to find a new bios which i installed. Unfortunately hasnt done the trick for me