Liquid Cooled Thermaltake Level 10GT Build - Page 7

Didn't make much progress today that you can see. I did, however, get all of my fan connectors sleeved along with one of my power cables for my SATA drives (that thing was a royal PIA!!! )

Here is a shot of the power cable.



I have about 1/2 my cables done and keep putting off finishing the main PSU since with the shortening work, it is VERY time consuming. So I decided to focus on the easier cables to make me feel like I am making progress. I only have 4 left to do on the case itself (2 x USB cables, the HD Audio cable, 2 x temp probes - all pretty easy.) However, I have the heavy lifting left to do with all 4 GPU cables and the aforementioned bear PSU cable. I am heading out of town to see Five Finger Death Punch so won't be back on this till the weekend.

I did place the PSU cover to see if I like it - I don't think I do. I was going for a real rough and tumble kinda look since this is a build named after a dragon, but I don't know. More to the point, I think after all my hard work sleeving I would hate to cover it up with this - your thoughts? This is just set in place so it isn't really fitted properly (you can tell in one of the shots.)

Sorry for going a little dark, but on a dark note, my mother passed away on Halloween of all days and I just got back home. Very depressing, but hey, that's life right?

Getting back to the build was tough and to be honest I wasn't in the mood, so I said EFF IT, threw it all together and started playing around. So my mods are mostly half-finished or in some cases totally abandoned - see below.

I will say that I now am finding a few things I don't like about this case and it all comes down to space. The space in the rear is rather tight for all my cabling (of course it is a bit of a rat's nest since I tossed it all together in a half hour.) But even with careful cable management, I think it is too tight. Also, with my new toys - see below - the interior is really squished. I suppose I am used to my old 800d cavern and would like this case to be 800d supersized.

I got my hands on 2 EVGA GTX 580 3mb Hydros. Man these things are works of art. Sooooo, my well planned and executed vid cover for the now old 560s is obsolete. Wow, that only took a month! I now have to sell off my 2 560s (not ti) and Koolance water blocks. Oh well, I couldn't turn these down when I was offered them. Here are some crappy unboxing shots. Most of my sleeving is half done so I used the power cables from another rig to get this one hot. Again, this is a bit of a mess inside!





So as I sit here I have my old 800d staring at me with this - use me I'm bigger - look and I start to wonder. I love the look of the take, but man it is a little too small inside once I started doing all I wanted. The other problem I would have is I would need to re-do my water setup for the 800d since I could go bigger on just about everything. This may happen one day since my idle temps are too high for my taste - 35-38 - at 4.5 with 1.3. I had to drop from 4.8 to 4.5 to play Skyrim without crashing on load (even though I ran Prime stable overnight - about 10 hours.) I still get the random crash to Windows issue many are getting, but at least I can play! Good news is I only hit 58-60 on full load although I still was hoping for lower temps than that.

Overall, I am pleased with all the bits and pieces and how they seem to work well with one another. I did the Windows install via this guide - CLICKY - and am very happy with the results. I also have my Western Digital Caviars in RAID 0 and that seems very quick as well. I initially used this guide to OC my rig and get it stable - CLICKY - worked well and I was able to get to 4.8 at 1.375 I believe was the final number.

If Skyrim gets a patch that addresses the crashing issue I will run up to 4.8 again. For now, I am happy and stable (computer-wise that is!) I will have to say that playing Skyrim, Dirt, Crysis, etc with 3D surround is AMAZING! I was truly impressed with how good it looks and the result really went beyond what I was expecting. I thought the bezels would bother me, but I really don't notice them anymore. Plus, IMO, Skyrim is a work of art - a truly incredible game (with some obvious issues, crashes, rendering, all of which are due to the console deal - but still an amazing play.)

I am looking into the potential parts list if I do decide to ditch the take for the cavern. I think I will leave it alone for now and just play some games. Once I feel restless I will finish the final sleeving and do a decent cable management job. For now, it's game time.

A cheesy, but important note as we enter the Holidays - CHERISH THE ONES YOU HAVE WHILE YOU HAVE THEM. LIFE IS SHORTER THAN YOU THINK.

Hugs and kisses - Scribby