Replacement system project

Calranthe · 6 Sep 2014 at 15:24

Project name Stygian

A month ago we had a power cut, casualties included a ps3, hp laptop and my pride and joy White Monster.

At the end of 2007 I took my first steps into custom gaming and liquid cooling systems, built a monster of a system based around the Q6600 go cpu and dual ATI 3870x2's a full cooling system including cpu, graphics and north/south blocks.

It ran stable at 4.2 for many years.

Over time the graphic, north and south blocks got removed, sadly I can not even remember the name of the parts but apart from two refills when I removed blocks it has worked without maintenance for 7 years and kept different cpu quite cool.

Sorry about the state of the insides since the power cut and subsequent surge a lot of part testing has gone on.

One of the most important lessons from that build was if you strip and then powder coat an entire case like that all of your screw holes and fittings get a mm at least added to them and you will pay for it in many ways for years to come.

but it did look nice.

Now the replacement build.
On Tuesday I am going over to Overclockers to pick up the parts (pictures will be added then).

Before then I would like some input on parts and ideas if anyone thinks that I should change anything before money is spent.

It is going to be a gaming system and media pc, connected to my BenQ 24" monitor and our 47" LED main room TV.
We already have a 4TB nas4free pc that feeds our films and series to every online item in the house.

Parts that I have recovered from the dead build.
Logitech G600 mouse,
Logitech G13 Pad,
Sennheiser PC 363D headset,
Black Mini keyboard.
X52 Saitek system,
Radeon R9 290X MSI (really happy this survived),
Seagate 2TB drive,
Windows 7 home premium 64bit.

Parts that will be bought on Tuesday.
Corsair Obsidian 750D Full Tower Case - Black (yes this is going to be another monster),
Intel 730K "Jackson Ridge" 480GB "Overclocked" Solid State Hard Drive
Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon)
Corsair Vengeance Pro Gold 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3
SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Platinum" Power Supply,
Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler,
Iiyama Prolite E2773HS-GB1 27" Widescreen LED 1MS Monitor
Belkin Surge protector

,
Once it is all built and running then I will add shiny parts to make it look nice or weird.
Also I am holding on to £350 if the next revision of nvidia cards come out soon I may replace the 290x because this pc will be on 18 hours a day and that card is a power hog.

pigeonguyuk · 6 Sep 2014 at 16:13

1000w psu is a bit overkill

850w would be okay if not planning on going xfire

Calranthe · 6 Sep 2014 at 21:51

I am building this with the future in mind, the superflow 1000w I decided to go with is getting amazing reviews around the world and a 5 year warranty plus it is platinum certified and has one of the most efficient systems in place.

Even though I may only use 500w-700w that extra power is never used unless needed plus an idle state of something like 0.18.

Calranthe · 6 Sep 2014 at 21:58

If Nvidia's new cards are not that much better than the 290x then I may grab myself a AK Racing Premium Gaming Chair to finish off the fun.

jimbaw · 6 Sep 2014 at 22:38

I've got an AK racing premium and it's really comfortable. definitely worth it!

Calranthe · 7 Sep 2014 at 07:32

The graphics card is the only uncertain product in this build, the new nvidia cards will have to be a lot faster or a lot more eco friendly, for me to buy one to replace the 290x which for at least a couple of years should handle a dual monitor setup at 1920*1080.

jimbaw · 7 Sep 2014 at 11:12

you'd be better off going for a second 290x. especially considering how cheap you can find them nowadays

Calranthe · 7 Sep 2014 at 19:02

I would have hoped that a single 290x would last awhile with only being used to run 2 1080p monitors or am I wrong on that, happy to go on advice but just did not think it would be needed.

jimbaw · 7 Sep 2014 at 20:31

It'll be plenty for dual monitors. Depending on the game you might have to dial a few settings back but nothing too drastic

Calranthe · 8 Sep 2014 at 23:59

Old system is disassembled desk is covered in cables and peripherals all waiting for just after 2pm tomorrow when I visit the shop.

I just realised that pc desk has lasted through three house moves and was bought flat pack from Argos in 1990.

Calranthe · 9 Sep 2014 at 20:51

Back from Overclockers.

Amazing case.

MB, CPU, HD's and PSU installed.

Memory and cooling system.

Graphics card.

Looked at the bios, will poke it later, at the moment doing a test install of windows 7.

Calranthe · 9 Sep 2014 at 23:21

Basic build was very smooth, all the parts were a joy to work with, will sort out cables and decide if any other items are needed.
Just letting windows do all its updates.

Case is one of the best I have ever used in a build,
iiyama Prolite 27" is beautiful,
H100i is so quiet had to check it was actually working,
SF PSU is also very quiet,
See what tomorrow brings.

Calranthe · 11 Sep 2014 at 00:58

Had some fun with the H100i cooler, I noticed my idle temps were hitting around 45c on stock, it is now 00:55am and I just got it sorted, seems the backing plate needed some spacers and I replaced the thermal with some arctic silver 5 I had spare, now it is idling at 27c which is not bad as the room is at 24c and in line with the other system temps.