Project Radster - Case Labs S8

Colin, some pics for you :)

Unfortunately when I put side panels on, windows reflect light and all pictures look moved so sorry, but won't be posting those.

Instead I made a few showing areas I will be working on, mainly cable management and left/right side view without panels.

1. EVGA also fails sometimes. Like here, I got this nice I/O panel/shield. A pity it's for X79 Dark:


2. Most PSU cables are to long, so I managed to put them above PSU:


3. And behind this side panel. Also showing how many options I will have for routing the tube when I instal water cooling. Also, most likely position of a water pump (next to the fan).


4. Right side view. In the back of motherboard panel you can see very nice feature, a cutout for CPU power cable.


5. Left side view. Shows all the fans I have currently installed. And I can't hear them at all. Only thing I can hear is GPU when it's under load :D



That's it for now.
Next week I will be sorting some cable management, mostly fan cables - I bought a Zalman FC5 controllers and some 3-Pin Y splitter cables for the fans.
I'll post pics when I get the stuff (this time will try to make some during work, not after :D ).

Cheers
 
It will be mostly fans. And I'll exchange the SATA cables, because I have 3 different cables there.
I won't be touching the PSU cables, because they need new sleeves anyway, so no point tidying them.
By the way, did some overclocking on the CPU, first time in ages.
I was running it on stock ever since I bought it.
Overclocked it only because wanted to do some benching.
Had my first BSOD, trying to get it to 4.5, didn't feel like messing with this EVGA bios, it is way beyond my knowledge so I settled for 4.2 ghz, which is fairly ok on air, I guess (that's with Megahalems and 1 slow fan on push).

I managed to get better score in Firestrike Extreme than last time:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/2610756

and first try with Unigine Valley, apparently I can overclock my EVGA a bit more than in Firestrike:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18489026&page=60

So had some fun and few moments of panic when Valley crashed, flashing my screen spectacularly :D

Couldn't be more happy with temps either. CPU idles at 27-32 C, under load goes to 59 C max (that was only in Firestrike Extreme physics test so far).

I'll make another update sometime next week, Tuesday probably.
 
Thanks.
I love S3 and S5, but this was supposed to be a full evga rig.
S3 was to small for my needs and unfortunately evga doesn't make mATX motherboards.
I considered going for S5, but would have to choose different motherboard.
Evga z87 Classified was my dream ever since I heard of it last year.
Naturally I felt reluctant at start, because of early bios'es having many bugs and compatibility issues, but eventually I bought it.
And this is one if those things I won't regret buying, like 4770k or my 780. This motherboard is a monster, it seems to have a text written all over it saying 'OVERCLOCK ME!!!' :D
Triple bios, large heatsinks, temp meter, overclocking bios, very clean looking pcb. I found all the pin headers I needed just by looking at the board.
Anyway, enough about evga, lol, you can tell already that I am a fanboy :D
 
Hey guys

Time for a small update.
Today was the day of anger management...
I mean, cable management :D

I was first planning to sort it out much later, but changed my mind today, when I had to instal new HDD. The maze of cables looked really bad and was blocking airflow from side fans almost completely.

At first I thought it was such a brilliant idea. I did not take into account, that I just got back from work and was pretty tired. All thoughts about that completely disappeared from my mind as soon as I heard a knock to my door.

1. I opened the box in a record time and started to drool on the sight of goodies :D


2. Started with plugging in that sexy keyboard, just to see how it's going to match the rig. It looks great :D


3. After that, I decided to paint the fan controller face plate. Black is nice, but just doesn't fit with the rest. So, I made something new. Lamptron FC6 Custom :D


4. Well, time for anger management to start. SATA cables were an inch to short so had to plug them to closer ports. And they kept falling off the my os ssd (wrrrrrrgrrrroarghhhhhh....)


5. I re-routed power/reset/led cables as well. They are almost completely hidden now. Only minor rage storm happened :D


6. In the meantime I heard a letter being dropped in my mailbox, so I checked and was very happy to find these - Phobya UV Red Y splitters :D


7. No ragestorm here, but took me a while to sort out fan cables. I used the Velcro kit to tie fan cables together, then Phobya UV Red Y splitters to connect them to the fan controller, finally again used Velcro to tie them together and stuff them in the corner :D


I didn't even notice when it was already afternoon.

I am quite happy with the stuff I bought. Didn't really do anything with HDD yet, its supposed to hold fraps and movies from ESO PvP fights :D
Keyboard is very nice but I need to get used to having those extra keys.
I am not used to macro keys at all.
Few features it has are really awesome. I downloaded the drivers and small program to re-assign keys etc. I assigned some keys to control Winamp, so now I can easily switch tracks while gaming, without alt-tabbing. Cool stuff.
As you have seen on the first picture, I've set the color to red as it looks great with rest of the rig.

I may have to change my plans a bit again what to buy next.
My PC desk suddenly started to be small.
I will need to buy a much bigger one, so that is the plan for the end of the month. Next real upgrade will be on first week of April - most likely second 780, but I have other options in mind as well.
My screen is getting old and it have poor stats, so I was looking at 1440p and 1080p/144hz screens.
And here I have a dilemma. Most cheaper 1440p screens come from Hazro and I heard a lot of bad stuff about them some time ago. Have this changed at all? If it didn't change, could you recommend me an alternative? Max 400£ :D
Thanks in advance

As usual waiting for your comments
 
Well, there is one flaw.
It is really loud.
I had cheap Microsoft keyboard for ages and it was much quieter.
I have my winamp at around 25% loudness and I can hear the keys click when writing.
But at least I won't fall asleep while gaming (which happened before with hilarious side effects :D)
 
I wish I could start thinking about watercooling sooner, but as someone said before, build log never ends, it expands all the time :D

So I have already decided to buy a bigger desk for this pc, as the one I have is to small. I also want a bigger screen, but not decided what type yet, 1440p, 120-144hz or even ultra wide, hmm :D

I put the second 780 on the end of my buy list, just before watercooling.
After that, its just the rads, pump(s) and fans, some smaller bits and pieces as well.

So it will most likely take much longer than I anticipated.
Nevertheless I will try to make smaller updates rather than big ones, to keep the log active. That's what I always like in other logs and I am sure you do as well.

Anyway, enough chit-chat, back to work - but no pics today :D
 
I have the location specified, but the whole loop is going to look like hydraulic's mad dream.
Trying to make it simple, but it's a bit tough.
Watercooling is still miles away, I need to sort out cables and get 2nd gpu first, new ram etc, so I am looking at mid May to have it finished.
 
I am not sure what to do with cables :/
I calculated sleeving would cost me around 100-150£ and extensions max 50£.
Might have to go with those to be honest.
Cables will be mostly hidden anyway, only ones that are exposed connect to gpu's.

It is a hard decission, but I checked how much I have left to buy - neccesary stuff only - and it's a bit over 1k. Didn't include 1440p screen, speakers and new desk.
So will need to cut corners a bit.
 
Hey guys

A small update :D
Just bought this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 780 SC ACX Superclock 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (03G-P4-2784-KR) £399.95
2 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC780 GTX Ti - Nickel (Original CSQ) £79.99 (£159.98)
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Full Nickel £66.95
3 x EK Water Blocks EK-CoolStream PE 360 (Triple) £49.99 (£149.97)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Cable Bundle - Red £28.45
1 x EK-FC Bridge DUAL Serial CSQ Plexi £18.98
1 x Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra Thermal Paste £8.99
2 x Mayhems X1 UV Red Premixed Watercooling Fluid 1L £7.99 (£15.98)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy 8pin PCI-E extension 45cm - Red £6.98
1 x BitFenix Alchemy 6pin PCI-E extension 45cm - Red £6.49
11 x Enermax T.B.Silence UCTB12 120mm Fan £4.80 (£52.80)
Total : £915.54 (includes shipping : ).



Delivery probably sometime tomorrow :D
I won't be assembling the loop just yet, as you can see there is no pump on that list. XSPC D5 combo I wanted is currently out of stock, so I will have to wait a bit.
But don't worry, there will be some updates, like painting rads and more fans more anger management... erm, I mean more cable management :D
I bought EK PE rads after all instead of Black Ice GTX's because it's cheaper and they look better plus it wqill give me more clearance with reservoir.
I also bought some cable extensions. I decided to try these and if I am not satisfied with the look, I will go for custom sleeve.

Anyway, I'll post update when I get the goodies.
 
I am curious how are they going to perform with those Enermax fans.
I first thought that they won't have enough static pressure but then I remembered using Akasa Apache's before and I had them running at 50% speed because of the noise.

I think they will be fine in push/pull with those PE rads, besides 3 360s for cpu and 2 gpu's is plenty :D
 
Hey guys

I received the delivery today and did some fan painting, un-packing etc.
I did some cable management with the extensions I bought, but it's not worth showing really.
This is ridiculous, I got red cables, but some are in dark red, some in lighter red etc, PCI-E 6 pin were just horrible to fit. On the other hand, motherboard and cpu cables fit perfectly. BitFenix have to seriously work on their production and quality, because this really shouldn't happen.
Anyway, I will be changing those cables sometime in the future.
I've added second GPU, mostly to see how the case looks with 2 780s.
I used PCIe slot 5, to give first card more room to breath, so temps are pretty good.
One weird thing, apparently this new 780 clocks better than the first one and at lower voltage. I think I should use it as my primary gpu, when I start building the loop. It's not much, about 14 mhz on the core/memory but always something.
About EK PE rads:
I like them very much the way they are, so I won't be painting them after all.
The matte black finish is just perfect. Also, they are very light, I was surprised.
I will start assembling the loop as soon as I get some tools to cut acrylic and OCuk stocks the pump/res combo I wanted.

Few pics of the stuff :D

1. These boxes are good for playing mahjong :D


2. Some water cooling gear, another 780 and MOAR FANS !!! :D


3. Not so empty anymore :)



There will be some smaller updates soon.
Loop is still on hold until my pump/res is back in stock.
 
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Thanks.

I have a lot of watercooling gear arriving every day this week and waiting for some last bits and pieces.
Will start assembling after the weekend - ESO is launching on Sunday and I really don't want to miss it :D

ps. I did first damage to my case, lol, intended though so it doesn't really count as damage.
Had to drill some holes to mount a pump holder plate.
I think I am going to have the weirdest drain port ever.
I couldn't figure out how to make it more simple, so it consists of ball valve, T fitting, some LRT 13/10 tube, sealing plug and EK 13/10 fitting and some male/male connectors.
Really a mad hydraulics's dream.
 
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Found only 2 pin stations and I have 3 pin cables.
After all, I found a molex powered and sleeved nicely twin led for few £, should be enough :D

ps. Expecting to have the rest of parts within few days.
If everything goes well, you will see a whole gallery on next Saturday :)
 
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Hey guys

I must have really bad luck.
I tried to bend some acrylic tube and nothing was going right.
Also, I found out there is no way I can have a radiator on left side because fittings interfere with power/reset cables.

Right now I am after few hours of struggle and I feel I wasted a lot of money for nothing. Acrylic tubing, fittings, some angled fittings, few fittings for drain etc

I had some thoughts about the whole thing and I will just go for normal tubing and 2 rads instead of 3. I'll be selling some of the stuff on MM like one of the rads, flow indicator etc

I guess It was either bad luck or I just wasn't ready to build acrylic loop yet.
I am going to finish this log of course, this is my rig for next couple of years after all. There will be some pics in next few days, unfortunately not as pretty as I'd like them to be but hopefully my bad luck streak will end today and I will be able to do the rest without any problems.

Thank you for all your advice and support along the way

Bart
 
Hello guys

As polish proverb say, 'misfortunes go in pairs', but this time it was a threesome.
I received the parcel from OCuk with some fittings and tubing, installed the loop etc
I had problems with air in gpu blocks, eventually managed to deal with it, but pump died in the process ( I think it died, tried to connect it to 2 different psu's and doesn't work with either).
At this point I decided to drain the loop, so tilted the case to the side and remived top of the reservoir. Most of the liquid came out, but some was still left. I removed a hose from one of the fittings and had some liquid spray all around motherboard, gpu's etc.
I managed to dry everything ( I think), but dissasembled the pc anyway, just in case I missed anything. I'm glad psu is under the motherboard plate and none of the liquid reached it.

Anyway, at this point I made a hard decision.
I won't be trying to build a loop again with this project, considering the cost and amount of bad luck I had along the way.

If I have at least that much luck and nothing got damaged, I will be getting back to air cooling.

All of the rads, blocks and fittings will land on MM, after I flush them. Will be selling them for half price so if anyone wants to grab cheap blocks and rads, it will be good chance to do so ( check MM on Monday morning).

Thanks for the support and advice

Bart
 
Well, I am going to leave all the bits till the morning and check if they are dry then.
I think cpu and cpu socket are fine, but I am worried more about motherboard as a whole.
There were loads of small drops around capacitors.
I think I reached all of them, was searching with a flashlight, literally.
Pci and ram slots looked fine.
I can only hope that it will be alright.
 
Ofc it wasn't, I'm not a noob, just very unlucky :(
Onnly thing connected was pump, mobo cable had this connector thingy on, the one which immitates motherboard connection.
As for not giving up...
I spent well over 700£ for watercooling bits for this loop.
I think I'll give it a go some time, maybe next time I decide to upgrade, but for now I'll have to pass.
I need a working pc and can't afford not having one.
 
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