A Night of Modness - Overclock.net

*CyberDruid* · 06-18-06

Well I finally lured my friend up here from Carrborro NC and we went OFF on every Rig in sight. He brought his brand New 2-Day old CM Stacker up here as well as his Kandalf. I had just bought an Aerocool Extreme Engine 3T to put the Claw into and had barely finished putting together the Crunch Rig Cage when he arrived--so I put away the chop saw and pop rivet gun and dusted off the Aluminum flakes and helped him carry in a pair of cases still in their boxes the size of steamer trunks--I mean these thing are HUGE--the size of the kind of suitcase you take on an extended Ocean Voyage.

Just so you know--I keep trying to build smaller and more powerful PCs into tinier and tinier enclosures--obssessed with noise, with almost no skill at gaming I usually save big by going with lowe end Vcards...LOL

My friend runs high bandwidth game servers from his home and is usually fragging, headset on, Oblivious to the massive whirring from his Uber Towers running eVGA 7800 phase cooled somethings I don't even know what--but $1200 of SLI goodness.

So it was hard to get excited about my "tiny" Extreme Engine when he pulled that CM Stacker out of the box--holy crap--perfect lines--heavy gauge mesh inserts in really interesting bevelled and angled windows--the mobo tray pulls out on tracks--enormous footprint. Ready for water cooling or any thing you could think of.

Spiitz (my friend from NC) had brought along an unoped box from NewEgg contining Hiper 580 modular. I usually sneer at modulars--but this was righteous--amphenol screw on connectors and black sheathing--black chrome exterior and chrome fans...tight--this he wasnted to to put in the new case--which had already been filled with his X2 4400+ SLI rig and the non-modular X-connect PSU with wonderful silvery ribbon cables. I managed to talk him out of pulling the X Connect PSU--although i generally sneer at X Connect--this PSU is gorgeous--the cabling is perfect. He had it all neatly routed with velcro ties--a neat product I hadn't seen--

So after much debating he pulled the TT PSU fromt he Kandalf and Put the new Hipwer modular in--I have to say I am now I fanboy for modular--if you ree going for aesthetics! Wow--it was tight seeing just the bare minimum of wires.

Having just hit a road block with the Crunch project (the PSUs I ordered have no bottom fans! A major oversight on my part that became a windfall--inspired by the idea of going modular I swiped one of the Silverstone 560 Zeus PSUs from Crunch and began revamping the Extreme Engine--working away n my "little case" I was constantly distracted by the efforts of my friend--it's hard to work when you are drooling...

Nonetheless I was of some help to him, having just loaded up on cables and AS5 and the usual odds and ends, we swapped bits from each others collection of parts--and I ended up giving him the TT that came with my BT (having already put a Silverstone 121 on the day before) and he gave me a sweet aerocool crystal clear 120 LED fan from his Stacker--I popped that in the back and it brought Claw to life--that was cool.

Originally I had started collecting IDE HDDs for the Crunch project--until I went with USB Flash Drives and RAM for space reasons--having a mess of HDDs laying around and a K8NSpro with header for 4 SATA and 8 IDE--it only made sense to fill the ample HDD bay on the Engine with all the HDDs.

I had a pair of SATA 80 gigs that I was for sure running in RAID 0--but the rest of the IDE I just wanted to put wherever however looked best. Of course the Big Typhoon is so huge getting the drives in and out of the bay required major dissassembly--but that is what I am used to with my "tiny" cases.

Across the room my riend had made some major progress--tightening up a already nice cabling job on the stacker and then repowering the Kandalf with a meticulous attention to detail. He then pulled out the Zalman 9500 Platinum for AM2--what a gorgeous finsih--all black chrome like the Hiper PSU--even the base of the HS is silvery looking--wild--with an intense Nvidia green LED.
One small problem--the clip it comes with is not for his mobo (A8NSLI)--lyuckily I have 4 Zalman parts kits left over fromt he crunch install--it turns out the bracket he needs is right there...then later after seeing the Zalman on and glowing away he is easily persuaded to purchase one of my Zalman's off Crunch and put that on his 3700+ in the Kandalf--what a huge diffrence from the itty bitty black plastic and aluminum HS he had on there--the Coppery fins and overall hugeness really filled out that giant space in the Kandalf--perfectly positioned in one of the three windows.

By this time I had gotten the drives all nicely cabled up and routed and was ready to install XP on the RAID array--lots of round copper IDE cables in Claw right now--7 HDDs altogether and one NEC DVD burner are happily powered by the Zeus--actually ran out of molex connections right at the end--was not able to dig up a splitter for the CCL lighting--oh well.

The intense blue from the new clear fan in the back lights up the BT and shines throught he blades of the eormous 250 fan on the side panel--overall a good deal--the Silverstone was a good choise--because the ClawHammer loves the juice--and then it gets really hot Folding. At 2344 RPM (max) the Silverstone is prettyloud--but it does the job--if not Folding and over volted the Claw runs really cool-and the fan can be run at about 1800 rpm almost silent.

I like the built in fan controls in the front of the Extreme Engine--but they are not powerful enough to run the Silverstone 121 faster than about 2000 rpm--the wires also get really warm (they are very thin) but are fine for the smaller draw fans.

Over all I was pretty successful in routing the cabling neatly. I then installed the ATI 85o which already had the Zalman Heatsink installed--a nice card--and certainly more than I needed--but it has great quality to the image on the monitor.

It was about 5 in the moring when we gave it up.

Next morning before he left we got the idea to put a plexi window in the Side Panel--I talked him out of cutting or otherwise altering the new case--we simply bent the tabs on the meshinsert, removed it and made a pattern--and then I cuts a piece of 1/8" to fit into the mesh panel--which I then reinserted--bendig the mesh tabs back and trapping the plexi windo on the interior--behind the mesh--the visual impast is very subtle--but the noise it killed was major--with both mesh panels sealed off by plexi the Stacker was now the quietest PC in the room--hard to believe something that large could be quiet. I thought small was quiet. Hmmmmm

Anyway it was time to start rolling up the mod shop and help my friend get his rigs back into the car--what a blast. He is so completetly stoked about my Crunch project (from LAN perspective for gaming LOL) and I am so completely awed by his Stacker--it was good for us both.

When I figure out where I put the camera I will be posting major shots for you to drool over.....

tylerand · 06-18-06

Can't wait till you get the pictures up. I wish i had friends that shared the same interests as me.

*CyberDruid* · 06-18-06

And then we moved on to the Kandalf!

**TheLegend** · 06-18-06

The Stacker 830 is such a pretty case. Maximum PC gave it a 10/10 for case awards. Its a little too expensive for me, but then again I might grab one if prices fall just a bit.

Ace of Spades · 06-18-06

WOW

Glad you two had fun

*CyberDruid* · 06-18-06

I did not think much of the last stacker I saw--but the build quality is the best I have ever seen. The whole top looks like it is predesiged for a slip in water cooling unit--I would not be surprised to see on available soon. Usually I think little of Uber cases because there is not much you can do to them--especially the pre-modded looking ones--but the 830 is looking to be drilled, cut, lit, pluimbed, and generally molested. Super desirable case (if you have that kind of room...LOL)

Renegade5399 · 06-18-06

That case is fricken huge.

*CyberDruid* · 06-18-06

*CyberDruid* · 06-18-06

That little HS and fan went next--but I was getting into my own work so much I dod not take photos--on this camera anyway--but I think I have some finishedshots on my other camera--which I still need to DL--so more to go--the Zalman goes onto Kandalf rig--and than in the morning we modded the Stacker with windows BEHIND the mesh--wierd--but very good for killng noise.

Love that stacker--only wish I had seen it first...

*CyberDruid* · 06-18-06

Amazing how happy it made Spiitz to eliminate all the unsheathed fans....

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A Night of Modness