I thought I'd get this thread going even though I'm still waiting on Asus to supply retailers with their Rampage III Extreme boards. OcUK are expecting it early May so hopefully I'll have it within the next couple of weeks.
I've been planning to do this build for quite some time now as I decided to play the waiting game for Fermi, which for most people, turned out to be a complete waste of time. So I decided to go the 5870 route instead. One thing that annoyed me though (when I decided not to go with Fermi) was that I could have bought all the products for my build 6 months ago, so I decided to wait a couple more weeks for Asus' 2nd revision of the 5870. There's not much difference apart from a larger fan and copper fins but it should give me a little extra headroom when overclocking.
Anyway, here's the spec of the build:
- Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard
- Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz
- 6GB G.Skill Ripjaws PC3-16000 2000MHz
- Asus ATi Radeon HD 5870 V2
- Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler
- CoolerMaster SickleFlow Red LED 120mm Fans (x2)
- Lian Li PC-P50R Armoursuit Mid Tower Case
- Corsair HX-750W Modular PSU
- Samsung B2230H 21.5" 1080P LCD (Not pictured)
- WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
- Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard
- Logitech MX518 Gaming Mouse
- Logitech X-140 2.0 Speaker System
As you probably guessed from the title, the theme of the build is red. Since the R3E and the 5870 are primarily red I decided to stick to this colour with the other components. The G.Skill RAM has some red on the heat spreaders and the case and LED light colour of keyboard is red also.
I bought a couple of extra Coolermaster black (with red LED's) fans to replace the absolutely horrible yellow/brown colour of the stock NH-D14 fans. Pics to follow of this when I get the motherboad.
The next thing to sort out was the case. The PC-P50R is a well made nicely designed case but is unfortunately ruined by the AMD dragon window on the side. This had to go. So I did some research and even though Lian Li's website does not have the PC-P50 as a compatible case, the W-LM2AB-1 side window is a direct replacement.
Before:
After:
Much better!
Next up was the PSU. The HX-750W has a blue sticker which doesn't really work that well with the red colour scheme. So that had to go too. I read a thread in this section before where Diggsy had very kindly offered to create some Corsair PSU images in the OP's requested colour, in vector PDF format. I contacted him through trust and he e-mailed me over the files. Many thanks Diggsy if you're reading.
I then had stickers made up with Diginate and decided to get five made in gloss and five made in matt; I wasn't sure which would look better. Why five? It was ~£1 extra to get 5 instead of 1, you effectively pay them for their time instead of the stickers. It was £16 incl. shipping for the 10 stickers. If anyone want's red HX-750W stickers (gloss or matt), let me know!
Before:
After:
I chose the matt on my PSU as the original Corsair sticker was matt, but they look equally as good (I put a gloss sticker on the other side of the PSU to see what it would look like).
Unfortunately I don't have much more to add at the moment as I'm pretty stuck without a motherboard! But, once I get it I will take pictures throughout the build until it's finished.
Thanks for looking.
I've been planning to do this build for quite some time now as I decided to play the waiting game for Fermi, which for most people, turned out to be a complete waste of time. So I decided to go the 5870 route instead. One thing that annoyed me though (when I decided not to go with Fermi) was that I could have bought all the products for my build 6 months ago, so I decided to wait a couple more weeks for Asus' 2nd revision of the 5870. There's not much difference apart from a larger fan and copper fins but it should give me a little extra headroom when overclocking.
Anyway, here's the spec of the build:
- Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard
- Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz
- 6GB G.Skill Ripjaws PC3-16000 2000MHz
- Asus ATi Radeon HD 5870 V2
- Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler
- CoolerMaster SickleFlow Red LED 120mm Fans (x2)
- Lian Li PC-P50R Armoursuit Mid Tower Case
- Corsair HX-750W Modular PSU
- Samsung B2230H 21.5" 1080P LCD (Not pictured)
- WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
- Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard
- Logitech MX518 Gaming Mouse
- Logitech X-140 2.0 Speaker System
As you probably guessed from the title, the theme of the build is red. Since the R3E and the 5870 are primarily red I decided to stick to this colour with the other components. The G.Skill RAM has some red on the heat spreaders and the case and LED light colour of keyboard is red also.
I bought a couple of extra Coolermaster black (with red LED's) fans to replace the absolutely horrible yellow/brown colour of the stock NH-D14 fans. Pics to follow of this when I get the motherboad.
The next thing to sort out was the case. The PC-P50R is a well made nicely designed case but is unfortunately ruined by the AMD dragon window on the side. This had to go. So I did some research and even though Lian Li's website does not have the PC-P50 as a compatible case, the W-LM2AB-1 side window is a direct replacement.
Before:
After:
Much better!
Next up was the PSU. The HX-750W has a blue sticker which doesn't really work that well with the red colour scheme. So that had to go too. I read a thread in this section before where Diggsy had very kindly offered to create some Corsair PSU images in the OP's requested colour, in vector PDF format. I contacted him through trust and he e-mailed me over the files. Many thanks Diggsy if you're reading.
I then had stickers made up with Diginate and decided to get five made in gloss and five made in matt; I wasn't sure which would look better. Why five? It was ~£1 extra to get 5 instead of 1, you effectively pay them for their time instead of the stickers. It was £16 incl. shipping for the 10 stickers. If anyone want's red HX-750W stickers (gloss or matt), let me know!
Before:
After:
I chose the matt on my PSU as the original Corsair sticker was matt, but they look equally as good (I put a gloss sticker on the other side of the PSU to see what it would look like).
Unfortunately I don't have much more to add at the moment as I'm pretty stuck without a motherboard! But, once I get it I will take pictures throughout the build until it's finished.
Thanks for looking.
, this build is looking very nice mate will keep an eye on it.
