PUBG crate. The spares build.

Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2010
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West Sussex
Another one :D

So I had pretty much quit gaming on PC. I bought an XB1X and a PS4 Pro and had taken to being a couch potato pretty well. Then a friend of mine from Hampshire told me he gamed most nights with his pals, but they only played PUBG. And that was when the love affair began.

Absolutely cracking bunch of guys, my age, who share the same sense of humour and fun. So basically I have fallen in love with the game, but for more reasons than it just being a game. I had never really played online much before, but the highs and lows of PUBG are just epic.

I built a new PC when the pandemic kicked off in early 2020. I never even really used it until I began the PUBG. Now it is literally most evenings. So for the first time in years I had a valid reason to upgrade my 2080Ti, and I bought a 6800XT. Literally because I only really play PUBG on that rig now. I have another 2080Ti rig at my mother's house, but I game a lot more on that with other stuff because I don't have anything else there (no consoles, no surround sound, etc). She needs quite a bit of help now she's nearly 80, so yeah having one there was a must. I did think about swapping out the 2080Ti in it (as it has slightly dodgy VRAM) but worked out it was more trouble than it was worth.

So, I had a spare 2080Ti and a bloody good one at that.

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So I upgraded that to a 6800XT, then wondered what to do. Thing is, GPU prices are through the floor, and with it being such a lovely card I really don't want, or need, to sell it. I put it back in the box a few days ago, then started with the ideas.

Right now I am running 3 rigs in my flat. One is a NAS, which I was going to change out for a full blown server (which I built) but never bothered setting up (I just don't need it TBH) and then of course the rig above, which now has a 6800XT in.

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And then the server is literally just sitting there.

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Doing absolutely nothing. I also have a PC I use for music.

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As well as two consoles. Too much. So, I advertised the consoles, one has sold. My aim now is to replace the music PC, consoles, server etc with a PC. A PC that can store all of the audio locally (a much better idea) as well as play games, well, and replace the consoles. It would be a pig to try and hook my gaming rig to the PC, and would require a £250 DP cable from QED that can reach that far. So, I am going to take the Threadripper gear out of the server (which has 64gb RAM, and god knows how many SSDs in it !) and have sold the audio PC to a mate of mine.

So other than the Kingpin this is what I will be harvesting from the server.

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TR 1920X, 64GB RAM, 960gb Revodrive 3 X4, and several SSDs.

So now I needed a case. One that can hold both of the AIOs. This soon becomes a problem. Most mid towers have mounts in the roof, but only enough space to either have a rad with no fans on, or just fans. Which is stupid. That extra 30mm? usually pushes you to a full tower, and that costs about £200 entry level. I looked around at a lot of cases. Hours upon hours, yet nothing was affordable enough or big enough.

Then I found out NZXT did this in 2018.

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But the chances of getting one now? practically zero. I have searched, numerous times, for the Fallout 4 or Nuka World case they did. No chance. I don't know why, as they make 2000 of them, but it seems people either never get rid of them or just buy them and put them fully boxed into a wardrobe. So imagine how stunned I was when I found a used one (from a company, not a user) for £99. The inner child in me just went mad :D The main important thing is though that it has tons of space, and can easily host a rad with fans on in both the front and the top. Which is essential.

So I bought it. I then thought about cabling. I only have black or silver, and they wouldn't look right. So, off to OCUK and I ordered two kits of Phanteks. One red, one blue. I also needed one 120mm nice looking fan to bring air in at the back, and have 4 black Eloops which will be pushing that air through both rads and out (front and top).

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For cabling it will go like this. 24 pin red, with the four last wires changed for blue. GPU, two 8 pins in red, with the final one being blue. CPU one 8 pin in red, the 4 pin in blue.

Case shipped out today, so should be here mid week. No doubt I will have other ideas for the theme. It's tacky AF, but I have a very reserved PC for my main gaming, this is going to be 100% fun.
 
Oh yeah forgot to add. Apparently the non window side has marks. I think it was a review unit. So, just in case they are bad I bought these. They are official, and were handed out at comps a few years back.

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TBH with placement you will only see the front any way.
 
"To see how it pans out"

Genius :D

The case is coming tomorrow. The OCUK stuff arrived at my mother's earlier. I need to collect the PSU, the OCUK order and a few other bits. So it was better to send there because it can be a pain here.

Talking of pans. I should have a miniature replica somewhere. I bought them for my friends as keyrings.
 
Not ranked. We play usually in squads of 3 or 4 in FPP. There are sometimes 6 of us, so either the two waiting play duos or we rotate for a break (we're old :D )

Problem is most nights we just troll other players or each other, then end up arguing lmao. As I said in the OP, I do love the game (it's about as serious as this sort of game can be without being for kids only) but it's the lols we have, and there are tons. Mostly just ripping on one of our squad as he is usually the brunt of all of the jokes. But we have all grown pretty close which is awesome. I go down to them on holiday once a year (Christchurch/Mudeford) and we have a LAN night etc.

I bought every one one of those pans. A fellow team mate got us all these last year when medals became a thing and it started turning into a really funny competition about who has the most beaten up medals LOL.

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Just pure fun and laughter. I have tons of pics, but this one was about the funniest. Sticking a crossbow bolt in your team mate. Which turned into "If you do it and someone has an uzi they can kill you" and etc.

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We titled that one "Crossbow bolt in the foot face palm"
 
Thanks fella. Maybe one day we will cross paths. Just don't tea bag me :D

When your "used with minor marks on right side" case turns up and is brand new.

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Ruddy heck it is heavy. Dear god that was a struggle getting that up 7 flights of stairs :/
 
I vowed after buying the Phanteks neon RGB kit that I would never use normal strips again. I love the way the LEDs get diffused and literally look like neon bars even though they are not. Given the case turned out to be new and mint I decided to treat myself. Behold, AIRGOO !

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Nice thing is they are half of the price of the Phanteks and don't need a £25 controller. I also CBA using those velcro things. They are annoying.

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Ruddy 'eck it's hot. I managed to get this far before tapping out.

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One thing really nagging me was the memory. I really don't fancy buying 8 memory heatsinks at around a tenner each, nor do I want to try and remove them (each one is in three pieces and there are 8) but it was really eating at me. Bloody OCD.

I did a search on that site and found these for a tenner each. The centre ano piece can be changed out and they come with silver, red and blue. Perfect.

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Air drop.

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I did double check to make sure it isn't the splodey one.

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Behold, the air goo.

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Found a hose clamp too. I should have two more of these. They are ace for stopping hoses on AIOs annoying you.

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This ought to do it for cables. Now I must practice removing them in order to mod the red 24 pin with 4 blue cables.

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Crazy to be going with the GB PSU but the PC seems to be coming together nicely.

I used it for over a year. With a Threadripper. The splodey one was recent. Got it from OCUK ages ago for £55 B grade. The smoothing caps are a pain, but I have cable extensions :)


It would be crazy to replace it, given it RRPs at £100. And is a very good PSU.

They are idiots though for making those cut down nasty ones. Really does screw your rep when you do that.
 
OK. So I found an EVGA SATA run on a 6 pin that fits. It's wired differently, but a quick buzz through it and a comparison to the GB cable should provide me with the last connector. I may not need that many, but I will only know when I start building. Due to that I coughed up for a tool. I don't want to wreck the Phanteks cables, and given I need to remove another 5 I just thought it better to get the tool.

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Especially after the nightmares with that Enermax PSU in the server.

Moving on, the Lian Li fan has a 3 pin connector. Annoying. Thankfully I have found a pinout

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Credit goes to Thrasher on LTT forum. The Air Goo use that connector to join together, so I have a spare male to 4/3pin plus one blocked ARGB cable. So I can buzz that too and swap the pins if needs be.

You know one day I will do a build that doesn't get really technical FFS.
 
For a spares build this is pretty insane!

Looks good though, very well thought out.

Yeah it's quite mad the crap I have managed to accumulate tbh.

I did consider selling it but the losses involved are ridiculous. Like, the 1920x cost me £120 brand new three years back but the board was closer to £300. It still worked out an epic deal, but selling now just isn't worth it. The GPU? crikey. That said it still performs brilliantly so there is just no reason to sell it.

Being a completely spare rig too I can throw my inner child at it. Which really has been a lot of fun. I suppose that sums it up really, fun.
 
I do need a spare. Not that I have ever had any serious issues with the main PC at my place, but I do think I would suffer not having one if it did go down. I'm autistic and agoraphobic, so having the PC is essential, given it is my main means of comms and gaming etc. This is why when I built the dream rig (the Lian Li PC12) I did so using AIOs, because the main cause of down time before was sodding about with a loop switching out parts etc. I do still have all my WC gear in my set up at my mother's house, but thankfully it has been very reliable so far and I don't get itchy wanting to continually mess with it and change out parts etc.

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It also has a 2080Ti which is slightly dodgy. What I mean is the VRAM does not work at the stock forced overclocked setting. It is fine in everything but Unreal Engine and Bethesda's engine for FO4. I then have to under clock the VRAM and the card simply does not work on air at all. It just gets way too hot, and crashes due to said VRAM issue. I did think about possibly modding the Kingpin with one of these.

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And then putting it in that rig but in all honesty there is just no point. Modding a £1700 GPU would be a bit daft, given that the Aorus behind the Bitspower block does function very well once you take 100mhz off the VRAM. In PUBG of course, which again is about all I play now. I did play through FO4 on it a while ago and had to down clock it by 400mhz, but again it was more than enough to smash the FPS limiter of 60 FPS at 4k with the 4k extreme texture pack.

That's why the spare rig will be AIOs again, and reliable. I would buy a second gen TR for it but man they sell for insane money. In fact, looking earlier the original TR4 boards still fetch £300 on their own which is pretty mad.
 
Oh ho ! up yours Lian Li.

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I knew it would have to be somewhere. To avoid any confusion in the future I think I will literally just solder in a proper RGB connector. Like they should have done.
 
Oh yeah dude I am always doing something. My mind never stops. Just finished the subwoofer, and major upgrades to my bike.

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Always doing something.

I don't like selling things tbh. If it's not a really high value item I just donate it to my gaming friends. I don't have any kids, so I am OK. One of my pals works his ass off and has an autistic son, so I gave him my monitor when I upgraded, and sent down some parts for the guy who hosts the LAN (they go every Weds) to keep the rigs running.

But yeah, I do like to keep my brain busy.
 
Wow. That tool is actually insane. I've never used one that required absolutely no force whatsoever and no yanking and wrecking your hands. I figured I would be there all day, it took about 5 mins to do all of it !

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I originally did 4. I thought I was brave doing that ffs. But it wasn't enough, 6 looked better. I then changed two of the blue 8 pin to red (so it works out the same on 3 8 pin PCIE) and removed the extra 4 pin from the secondary EPS (I need an 8 and a 4).

So the cabling is done.

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SSDs were in a bad way. Labels were torn and scraped. So I tarted them up a little.

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Still waiting for more decals. That said you don't see much of them any way.

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Rear fan in, first hose clamp fitted.

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GPU and tons more wiring later.

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I've also double clamped the hoses. Stops them from pushing out onto the case window.

I managed to get the RGB working beautifully. It comes out of the mobo into the left side of the lower strip, up the case into the right side of the top strip and out of that into the fan. So any chase effects go around the case beautifully. Right now she's farting rainbows as I am way too busy on the software side to worry about it.

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I ended up going with the SB ZXR.

Still to do. Get more extensions on the fans and fit the hub to the floor of the case. Then fit the memory coolers and wire those in.
 
Gotta love a spare bits build from ALXAndy. Speaking of spare bits, you content with that Threadripper 1920X? Or want something with a bit more poke?

haha I am only 3 months or more late...

As you know now it wasn't in the budget. Got too many AV things going on right now. I did finish this rig, and was using it on the TV at 4k. Stray was amazing. Sadly I am changing out the stand and it won't fit where it was so it's literally a spare rig now.

Will try and get some pics tomorrow.
 
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