Right, let’s get this done before 2018!!! I made some crazy progress before Christmas and with FTW and i1.0-II out of the way it's time to get it posted. The first stage of attack, take every single thing apart!
The system had been used for a few months (with huge stock GPU power cables trailing around the case) and then just sat for the best part of year full of it's Aurora silver + X1 black mixture. And actually despite common internet 'wisdom' nothing was clogged in the slightest, all fins clean, just a reservoir full of sediment and the usual traces of dye everywhere.
With the very top of the loop drained the reservoir lifted off so I could take out the PSU and it's special support cube. Definitely don't want that getting wet.
Then back end of the case removed to get at the cards.
Subsequently repeated with the front end, very glad I opted to stash a 4-pin to 4-pin ATX style connector between the rads!
After that the top lifted off the base, board came off, pumps off etc etc. I won't show all that stuff as it's been done in the thread once before and I also need to rebuild it.
So lets skip ahead to the good bit where everything is clean and ready to go...
While editing the above photos I fell in love with the gold hue to the CPU block, except it was regular nickel just with some oil leached out of the o-ring.
So I ordered a real gold plated Supremacy, and immediately took it apart to swap in the neat little 2011 mounting bracket. All gold hardware was too much.
But this was just right...
...perfect fit for the WS.
Fast throwback to the 10th.
Now I just needed all the other blocks up to the same standard, cleaning the plexi was easy, nickel less so.
Just some aurora m80s
All refitted, greased and torqued down.
<3 AMD POWER!
Time to commence rebuild, the EPS stayed in, 24-pin discarded as it just wasn't quite consistent enough.
All the D5 work remained, except they now utilize a spare VGA connector on the 3rd row instead of individual peripheral connectors on the Silverstone.
The WD Blacks switched from 2x6TB to 2x1TB, reason being I lived without them for a whole year and most likely will never use the HDD's at all in this build, so losing 10TB is no big deal. £500 of swag saved for another build.
Board is back in black.
Powerful vibes even before the GPU's hit. Pixels kneel before your God.
With one push and one clip the bottom rads are back in the game.
Extra 280, check.
Now it's time to the ridiculous task i'd been putting off for so long. I feel like I need to explain. The original Silverstone was 1:1, the 24-pin was at the bottom near the hole in the midwall and the PCI were all up top. The EVGA on the other hand, weird pinout, completely swapped layout so every single thing had to overlap.... AND THEN.... just as if all those obstacles were somehow easy to overcome this 1600W is 20mm longer, which when there was about 40mm to play with kinda made a difference.
Neatness wasn't optional here, it was completely mandatory if everything was going to fit inside the case hence I took a new approach to the problem.
First up instead of cutting wires to a rough length everything was excessively long to start out then layered out of the PSU in the most efficient order.
But to keep the pinout correct I had a cunning strategy.
I took an old 24-pin connector and drilled out each hole to a close fit on the 3.1mm OD wire, then I could poke it from the correct pin on the PSU to the corresponding pin at the 24 end.
So then all that remained was to trim each wire to the appropriate length, pretty easy when they were all held in the correct position and I could push/pull them through as needed on either side.
PSU out it was just time to sleeve.
Wire by wire I removed the PSU end, inserted the white wire to mark its exact route, then crimped the 24 end. Sleeved in Shade-19 and replaced back into its original position.
Several hours or maybe days later (I don't really recall early December) all 24 were done.
Such an improvement from my original EVGA set and moreover greatly reduced bulk in the back.
Time for the angery power bois!
They cleaned up purtty good too.
Best to get the toobs in early.
All the 8-pins would be a little more relaxed relative to the 24-pin, with a uniform layout not unlike the Silverstone each wire was a consistent increment longer than the previous. So once I got 4 wires to sit neat it went pretty speedy.
One 8 down, completing the set was just a case of continuing the progression, working up and across.
The entire set complete for the primary card. All layered over each other and stacked in, the next set was a repeat to the front row of VGA connectors. CPU1 squeezed between and then CPU2 tight over the top of everything.
And there we have them all, absolutely colossal ratio of power to size.
Screw what you guys think, I’m absolutely overwhelmed with the form of the cables as it stands now, in fact I think they may even be prettier than the first set.
The SATA's aren't connected yet, I’m going to check that out tomorrow, but I’m really not fussed about ever using them. So unless the additional cables are going to make an improvement to the overall look I may leave them out. Aesthetic drives are fine with me, at least they won't make any noise lol. Buuut if they fit in just right, could be even more epic.
JR
and the 1200 Platinum is doing perfect in FTW.
