|:Project Titan:|

[WalderX]

Hi all! So it's that time of year again for PC upgrade

Despite the name of my build it won't have a GTX Titan in it, that just happens to be the DNS name I have always given my PC for the past few years. Plus it sounds cool so yeah!

This isn't going to be the most revolutionary or exciting build log ladies and gents, but at least it will have the new GTX 970 in it and the point of the log is to get ideas and help from you guys and to see how it can evolve over time with modding etc...

With some help from other members I have just gone ahead on the below, with delivery tomorrow:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 - Devils Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£43 Saving** £351.98
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £299.99



Hope I made the right choices. The above is being installed alongside the below kit, the majority of which I have had since 2010 and has served me very well:

Kit I have already:
8GB G.Skill 1600MHz RipjawsX
120GB Kingston SSDNow V300 SATA3 (Windows, programs)
2TB Western Digital Green SATA2 (Storage)
Corsair AX850 PSU
SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic PCI-E (probably won't use)
DVD RW drive (is there any point lol)
Windows 8.1 64-bit

Case and Fans
NZXT Phantom Case White (original version, with windowed side panel)
Corsair H100 AIO CPU cooler
4x 120MM Corsair Fans
2x 120MM NZXT Fans
2x 120MM Scythe GT fans (these will go on the H100 for sure)
1x UV cathode
1x Blue cathode
4x Red LED's

Periphirals already owned
Iiyama Prolite GB2773HS-GB1 27" 144Hz
Corsair M65 Mouse
Corsair K70 Keyboard Cherry MX Red
Razer Sphex mouse surface
Denon 2.1 Amp
Mission Speakers and Subwoofer
Corsair Gaming Headset

I appreciate the RAM and SSD are not the fastest although even if I upgraded to the fastest I doubt I would see more than 2-3 FPS increase in games.
I would have liked to have upgraded the case to a Corsair Carbide or H440 but I figured the £100 would be better spent on going for the i7 over the i5, and I can upgrade the case in the next month or two.

So that's all I have for now, will be stripping my current rig down tomorrow and the installing the new bits!

Lots of pics to follow

 

[WalderX]

So the system is up and running and all is well

Here is how my rig looked before the transformation:



The puny micro ATX board and lack of graphics card looks ridiculous in this case!
So glad I kept my Corsair AX850, saved me the hassle of buying another and it's still such a top class PSU.
Will look at changing my case come Christmas time.

Gona be reusing my RAMS:



Still decent timings on these sticks although I know Haswell benefits from higher MHz RAM so will be looking to upgrade that soon.
Won't make much difference in games I know but I do like benching too.

DHL arrived! Wohoo!



My H100 from previous build:



I cleaned up the plate with TIM cleaner and Scythe GT's fitted for best static pressure.

Mobo removed and H100 fitted into top of case



Set it up to exhaust through the top which is the only way that really makes sense.
The GTX 970 dumping hot air into the case will affect the CPU temps but as the 970 runs much cooler than most GPU's I think will be fine.

Motherboard out and RAM installed:


Love the look of this board and the RAM looks like it was MEANT to be there! Perfect

Prepping the CPU with Arctic Silver 5:



Spread nice and thin with a bit of old credit card:



Installed in the socket:



I was worried that because the layer of Arctic Silver was so thin that it might not get perfect contact with the H100 base so I put a blob of it in the middle. Perhaps too much but we will see with temps later...

Motherboard and H100 installed



Showing how I have mounted the rad on top with the fans underneath:



From the side:



I had 2x UV cathode rods which I cable tied to each side of the rad:



Should bathe the whole case with UV light nicely:



GPU unboxed. What a stunning bit of kit!



All metal frame, weights about 1.2KG - very chunky and fantastic build quality.

Installed into the case and power cables hooked up:



Arty shot



Filling up the case very nicely:



Thank god for the cable routing tray:



At this stage I hooked up my 120GB SSD, 2TB HDD and DVDRW drive.
Also hooked up the UV cathode sticks and some red LED's to give some colour to the thing.

The finished article



Side:



Window:



Powered up first time yey!



Sneak peek of the UV and LED's in action

Window view:



Quite chuffed with the purple/red/blue theme - I tihnk it looks pretty cool.
Windforce logo lights up on the GPU which I didn't know beforehand so that was a nice touch!
Also you will notice the H100 tubes look very different, I did a simple mod with some Primochill UV blue tubing, just cut it to length and cut a slit down the side and slipped it over the Corsair tubes. I think it looks great although perhaps the tubing is a tad thick?

Another side view:



Shot from inside:



Side panel off:



Looks a bit different with the flash on...



All up and running, temps looking good:

Spoiler

*** Please place large images inside spoiler tags *** - Will Gill
As you will see I did a bit of playing and setup a CPU overclock to 4.6GHz at stock volts. CPU hits around 65 degrees tops in Prime95 and about 55 degrees tops in BF4
GPU hits about 60 tops in BF4 so very happy overall!

So there you have it, as I said not the most unique and modded build out there but I am sure it will evolve over time and welcome your comments people!

Cheers,
Adam

 

[Ucof]

Any chance you can remove the spoiler tags please?
It'd be great to just see some pictures.

 

[WalderX]

Could do? Whenever I post without spoilers people complaint though!

 

[leigh_boy]

good work walder!
what you playing these days.
ps congrats on the wedding

 

[paulstung]

Those spoilers are a nightmare mate, it makes people not want to look.

 

[Ucof]

people only complain when its really large images (or quoted images) not behind spoilers.
At the size your pictures are, its fine to just display them

 

[paulstung]

If you use Imgur they resize for you.

 

[WalderX]

Sorry guys spoilers removed!

good work walder!
what you playing these days.
ps congrats on the wedding

Cheers man
Taken up BF4 again - haven't played it since May and am loving it, new map packs and patches - its all good!
Hope all is well with you

 

[cwgk91]

Nice voltage to get 4.6! Is your chip an L3 or L4?

 

[WalderX]

Nice voltage to get 4.6! Is your chip an L3 or L4?

Not sure! How do I find out?

 

[Ucof]

That looks beautiful! Fantastic job!

Thanks for removing the spoilers!

 

[cwgk91]

Im guessing it'll be one of the later batches as its new now! Its written on the packaging if you've still got it.

Mine needs 1.2 to get 4.5 Though Ive just changed my motherboard to an asus from an MSI and its already running both cooler and with lower voltage, so will try reducing it further to find out if it was just a motherboard problem!

 

[WalderX]

That looks beautiful! Fantastic job!

Thanks for removing the spoilers!

Cheers dude!

Im guessing it'll be one of the later batches as its new now! Its written on the packaging if you've still got it.

Mine needs 1.2 to get 4.5 Though Ive just changed my motherboard to an asus from an MSI and its already running both cooler and with lower voltage, so will try reducing it further to find out if it was just a motherboard problem!

Ive just checked and it's an L4 batch.
I actually reduced the voltage even further to 1.150 and still seems stable! 1 hour in Intel XTU anyway - must have won the silicon lottery!

Not such luck with the 970 which has an ASIC quality of 63% however it will still clock to 1500mhz core and 8000 mhz mem so really can't complain lol...

 

[cwgk91]

:O very jealous, currently resisting trying out another 4790k

Thats still a great clock on the 970! Tried any firestrike/other benchmarks yet?

Need to start to try clocking my 980s...

 

[BATTLE99]

Thats the case I tried to get when I got a new rig,was out of stock and went for the HAF-X.
Your rig looks great,good work.

 

[mallihmalliha]

thanks very much for your useful information

 

[WalderX]

:O very jealous, currently resisting trying out another 4790k

Thats still a great clock on the 970! Tried any firestrike/other benchmarks yet?

Need to start to try clocking my 980s...

Yeah I am currently sitting in 27th position on the Firestrike leaderboard thread got the i7 to 4.8GHz at 1.250v (wasn't stable but good enough for a suicide run on Firestrike!).

Score: 11841.
GFX Score 13886.
Physics Score 13600
CPU 4790K @ 4.8 Water cooled
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2827235

I just got some more goodies for the rig today so will be updating this log tomorrow...

Thats the case I tried to get when I got a new rig,was out of stock and went for the HAF-X.
Your rig looks great,good work.

Yeah I have had it since 2010, can't fault it really and still in perfect condition after years of lugging the PC around to work and friends house - really well built and great to work with. I would still buy one and recommend them today.

thanks very much for your useful information

Assuming you are referringto my posts - no problem!

 

[WalderX]

**UPDATE**

Got some new goodies for the machine yesterday







Some lovely looking ram stick in my opinion! The fan is probably bit excessive and quite loud I expect so I wont be fitting that for now - still a bonus to have it though!
Wasted no time in hooking it up:





Similar in looks to my previous kit - very happy

I was interested in seeing what going from 1600MHz to 2400MHz would give in terms of performance so I did some before and after benchies - check out those timings on the 2400MHz kit!:

1600MHz kit:


2400MHz kit:


So a nice little boost there! The latency has dropped by exactly 11ns, and the overall bandwidth has increased from 22.02GB/s to 25.30GB/s - an increase of 3.28GB/s
Whether or not this will transfer to an increase in FPS in any games is yet to be seen but still, cant be bad!

One more little upgrade:


I went for an additional 120GB SSD so I could set them up in RAID0
With the single 120GB drive I was already down to like 30GB free with just Windows and BF4 installed... So RAID0 will give me twice the space and lots more performance. Naturally I ran some benchies:

Single drive benchmark:


2 drives in RAID0 benchmark:


So that benchmark speaks for itself really - more than doubled the performance across some of the tests! I know that may not translate as double speed in real life usage but again - can't be bad right?
Very happy with 995MB/s write speed and 985MB/s read speed

So there you have it, a little update for you - needless to say this rig is tearing up games! Might grab a second 970 next year and a 1440p screen....