Hey guys after a long month from start to finish my new rig is finally done, It started off as a full upgrade with the following parts:
Intel i7 4770k,
Asus Z87 Maximus VI Formula,
EVGA 780 GTX Hydro Copper SLI,
Corsair Vengeance Silver 16GB 1866MHz,
OCZ Revodrive 120gb PCI-E SSD card,
OCZ 480GB Bigfoot SSD
XSPC RayStorm Twin D5 AX360 Kit
XSPC 240mm radiator
Corsair 1200i psu,
NZXT 820 case
Ordered all the parts and they turned up next day, felt slightly sick once I'd seen the bank balance take a massive hit but cracked on as be worth it in the end.
Start to build the rig up to get an idea on how to run the WC tubes, Plan was 360mm in the top,240mm at the bottom, and run down through all parts with only 3 'up'' areas, these being the motherboard block and from the 240mm rad back to the res and from res back into the 360mm rad.
I fancied trying something abit different with the tubing from the last gfx card to the 240mm bottom res, This meant ordering some angled barbs which took a week to turn up and then it was dummy mock up time:
Looked well but after leaving it over night the tubing was trying to bend the opposite way and nothing was sitting to the point of me being happy with it.
Whilst waiting for this reading up on the Revodrive realized I'd made a schoolboy error and that it wouldn't work on my board with two 780 gtxs as it required the last pci-e slot which would knock the timings down to x8x4x4 stopping the sli from working, so that was sent back and I decided on two ocz 128gb vector ssds and to run raid 0 on them.
Next was the dummy wet run, filled the system up with parts installed for leak testing, just aswell we shaked the case around as the alphacool barbs decided to leak coolant out, luckily it was caught in time and only a few drops got out but it was still tense testing parts after this and making sure they were ok. Luckily everything was!
After a drain and removal of the alphacool barbs I then switched to cheaper XSPC ones as they were finally back in stock but they are a much better quality fitting compared to the more expensive ones I've seen (with the exception of bitspower)
Filled ready for leak test 8 hour run with all hardware in to get a idea of the 'finished product' before the paper towels went back in:
All is well PC ran fine for a full 8 hours with no leaks, hooked all the hardware up ready for a Windows 8 install ( I know most people hate this, I was one of those people however it is actually quite decent now I know my way around it)
Several hours into this and the PC starts randomly rebooting, leave it running in bios and still does it, Remove the Corsair 1200i to self test and it throws a red light up every time. Great that had to go back and I needed another good psu, Moved away from Corsair and ordered a Seasonic 1000w Plat psu and this arrived next day. Complete strip of all cables and re cable tidied the rig runs fine and the psu runs extremely cool even on hybrid fan setting.
Once that was all sorted the bigfoot decided it wanted to start locking Windows up and randomly drop off the PC then come back minutes later, So it was removed and sent back and replaced.
After four more days of leak and running in tests which threw the occasional BSOD, this turned out to be the chip not liking running at 4.6ghz after knocking the OC down slightly to 4.2ghz it runs fine and it was finally ready to bring home.
Temps are currently CPU - 30c idle and 38c on a full load and both 780gtx's idle at 25c and on a full load 35c.
Finally after a month of anger,annoyance and the odd moment of sadness, Project Red Mist as it became known was finished.
Final Spec is:
Intel i7 4770k @ 4.2GHZ,
Asus Z87 Maximus VI Formula,
EVGA 780 GTX Hydro Copper SLI,
Corsair Vengeance Pro Silver 16GB @ 1866MHz
Seasonic 1000w Plat PSU,
128GB OCZ Vector SSD x2 in Raid 0,
OCZ 480GB Bigfoot SSD,
XSPC RayStorm Twin D5 AX360 Kit,
XSPC 240mm radiator,
XSPC Blood red coolant,
NZXT 820 case with all Leds set to red.
Just like to shout out to Overclockers for great support on the faulty parts and getting the issues resolved within hours.
Heres a few pictures of the finished product:
Apologies that the pics aren't that great, only have a iPhone camera available.
Intel i7 4770k,
Asus Z87 Maximus VI Formula,
EVGA 780 GTX Hydro Copper SLI,
Corsair Vengeance Silver 16GB 1866MHz,
OCZ Revodrive 120gb PCI-E SSD card,
OCZ 480GB Bigfoot SSD
XSPC RayStorm Twin D5 AX360 Kit
XSPC 240mm radiator
Corsair 1200i psu,
NZXT 820 case
Ordered all the parts and they turned up next day, felt slightly sick once I'd seen the bank balance take a massive hit but cracked on as be worth it in the end.
Start to build the rig up to get an idea on how to run the WC tubes, Plan was 360mm in the top,240mm at the bottom, and run down through all parts with only 3 'up'' areas, these being the motherboard block and from the 240mm rad back to the res and from res back into the 360mm rad.
I fancied trying something abit different with the tubing from the last gfx card to the 240mm bottom res, This meant ordering some angled barbs which took a week to turn up and then it was dummy mock up time:
Looked well but after leaving it over night the tubing was trying to bend the opposite way and nothing was sitting to the point of me being happy with it.
Whilst waiting for this reading up on the Revodrive realized I'd made a schoolboy error and that it wouldn't work on my board with two 780 gtxs as it required the last pci-e slot which would knock the timings down to x8x4x4 stopping the sli from working, so that was sent back and I decided on two ocz 128gb vector ssds and to run raid 0 on them.
Next was the dummy wet run, filled the system up with parts installed for leak testing, just aswell we shaked the case around as the alphacool barbs decided to leak coolant out, luckily it was caught in time and only a few drops got out but it was still tense testing parts after this and making sure they were ok. Luckily everything was!
After a drain and removal of the alphacool barbs I then switched to cheaper XSPC ones as they were finally back in stock but they are a much better quality fitting compared to the more expensive ones I've seen (with the exception of bitspower)
Filled ready for leak test 8 hour run with all hardware in to get a idea of the 'finished product' before the paper towels went back in:
All is well PC ran fine for a full 8 hours with no leaks, hooked all the hardware up ready for a Windows 8 install ( I know most people hate this, I was one of those people however it is actually quite decent now I know my way around it)
Several hours into this and the PC starts randomly rebooting, leave it running in bios and still does it, Remove the Corsair 1200i to self test and it throws a red light up every time. Great that had to go back and I needed another good psu, Moved away from Corsair and ordered a Seasonic 1000w Plat psu and this arrived next day. Complete strip of all cables and re cable tidied the rig runs fine and the psu runs extremely cool even on hybrid fan setting.
Once that was all sorted the bigfoot decided it wanted to start locking Windows up and randomly drop off the PC then come back minutes later, So it was removed and sent back and replaced.
After four more days of leak and running in tests which threw the occasional BSOD, this turned out to be the chip not liking running at 4.6ghz after knocking the OC down slightly to 4.2ghz it runs fine and it was finally ready to bring home.
Temps are currently CPU - 30c idle and 38c on a full load and both 780gtx's idle at 25c and on a full load 35c.
Finally after a month of anger,annoyance and the odd moment of sadness, Project Red Mist as it became known was finished.
Final Spec is:
Intel i7 4770k @ 4.2GHZ,
Asus Z87 Maximus VI Formula,
EVGA 780 GTX Hydro Copper SLI,
Corsair Vengeance Pro Silver 16GB @ 1866MHz
Seasonic 1000w Plat PSU,
128GB OCZ Vector SSD x2 in Raid 0,
OCZ 480GB Bigfoot SSD,
XSPC RayStorm Twin D5 AX360 Kit,
XSPC 240mm radiator,
XSPC Blood red coolant,
NZXT 820 case with all Leds set to red.
Just like to shout out to Overclockers for great support on the faulty parts and getting the issues resolved within hours.
Heres a few pictures of the finished product:
Apologies that the pics aren't that great, only have a iPhone camera available.
Last edited:
!
yup closer to £3000.
