[Build Log] CM Stacker T01 ~ 5th Incarnation! ~ Ivy style!

So I have this Coolermaster Stacker T01 that I have had for like 8 years... and it has been home to some really sweet systems over the years starting with an Athlon M back in the day, a few Opteron systems, a Thuban system, and now it will be home to a new Ivy Bridge system.

Working with this case has been a blast over the years, and I am looking forward to this latest build! I have been an AMD man since 2000, and this is my first personal Intel build, so I am really excited to get this thing together. Being such a loyal AMD fan I do not feel guilty as my old gear has been assinged to server/BOINC duty

For some history on the case, and the last build out which includes lots of the customizations for the case, see the 4th incarnation link in my sig if you are curious.

I have a whole new theme for this build, that will be revealed later on, but we'll go ahead and get started with guts of the system!



As you can see, the core of the system includes a 3770K to be mounted in an Asus Maximus V gene board. We got 16GB of 2400Mhz CL9 Vengence RAM, and a couple of Mushkin SSDs.

The reason for the small form factor build in this huge case is that I figure when it is time for the 6th incarnation of this beast, I will put this hardware in a tiny case

Also to note, I am going to use some of the WC gear form my last build, including my trusty EK Supreme HF block, 2 XSPCs pump res combos, and some Black Ice GTX rads (120mm and 360mm)

Lets get started here!







CPU installed with waterblock, mounted to MB tray for some quick leak testing. In this and the next few pics, don't mind the tubing or the fitting arrangement, as all that will change once the real build begins
Edited by Phobos223 - 11/9/12 at 5:19am

Originally I was just going to roll with my 5870CF that I had in my old rig as I don't really game very much, but then I realized what a silly idea that was and picked up a pair of EVGA GTX 670s from a fellow OCNer! Little do these guys know what's in store for them!!



I reamed these 2 out pretty good for about a week crunching on GPUgrid work units, and they performed great. With my warm ambients (25-30C), and the fans on about 75%, they sat at about 75-80C, at the cost of the mind numbing hair dryer sound...

Well, at least I won't have to listen to that anymore! Came home yesterday to a nice heavy box from Sidewinder Computers with some goodness from Germany



I wasted no time in removing the stock fans and heatsinks! Looking at the size of the PCB of these cards once the stock cooling is removed is why I wanted 670s in the first place. These suckers are tiny! Crazy how powerful they are in such a small package! These will make for a great small form factor build in a few years



Installation of the Heatkiller blocks was breeze, especially with the backplates





After about 40 min or so, the cards had been reborn and were ready to rock


Edited by Phobos223 - 11/9/12 at 5:18am

After a quick break for a cold beer I was ready to try these guys out. First I had to prep the rad. I tested out some of the Corsair SP120 fans a few weeks ago, and really liked how they performed on the Black Ice GTX rad so I went ahead and decided to use them throughout the build.



Got everything hooked up for some leak testing. Again, don't mind the random mix match of hoses and fittings I have a box of goodies coming in from FrozenCPU tomorrow that will get me sorted



Still can't belive how small the 670s are with the blocks!!





So after a sucessful leak test, I couldn't wait any longer and went ahead and hooked everything back up, powered up, and got BOINC running again. Got some great results on the GPUs!

So full load on GPUgrid, was sitting at 75/82C for the cards with the fan maxed out and loud as hell. After the block install, same ambients (~27C), after 2hours of crunching, sitting at 38/42. I am quite pleased with those results.

So that's pretty much it for now. Big shipment of case gear comes in tomorrow, so will be a fun weekend! Planning on de-lidding the CPU as well sowill have somes and benchmarks if anyone is interested. I may also switch the TIM on the GPUs over to LP Ultra that I have coming in, see how it compares to the MX4 I used today.

Hell yea dude! Your 670s got quite the makeover

Well today is going to be a big day! Got pretty much everything else I was waiting for in yesterday... so today I will begin putting all the pieces together!

Got me some Cool Lab Liquid Ultra TIM to try out, as well a a new fan controller, a Lian Li SSD bay, some LED strips, and a couple other odds and ends..





Can't wait to get it all together!

Thanks! I'll have some pics of the case itself here in a bit! The MB tray is covered in 3M DiNoc carbon fiber. Stuff is great. If you click the "4th incarnation" link in my sig you can see the case, the carbon fiber install, everything.