[NEW UPGRADE QUESTION] Corsair Heaven (56K warning!)

Please leave comments or questions!




Corsair Heaven

It’s been a long time coming, but it is finally here. To make this an in-depth build log I decided to write it blog style. I must warn you its long and drawn out. So let’s begin!

Tax season rolled around this year and my wife and I did our taxes online. Since we have 2 kids and I am a college student (again!). We noticed that we would have a large chunk of cash that we did not have to spend on anything else. At first she asked which parts of my current computer that I would like to upgrade. I list the motherboard, processor, RAM, and video card. All the parts really needed to upgrade a computer. We set aside $450 to do those upgrades. I was fine with this chunk of change and started my research. I found the parts I wanted and saved my wish list. The next night over dinner she was asking me how much more I would need to just build a new one. I said no more than $800 should be enough. I set out again and started getting parts in mind. I got yet another wish list built when she was complaining about our current monitor. I said well let’s get a new one. She decided $150 would be a good price to spend on one. I started going through the monitors and she didn’t like how big they were, she gets motion sick when playing WoW. So I said ok well get a smaller one but I’m spending the rest on the build.

So there it was my final budget. $950 for the build + monitor. Naturally I looked at the least expensive monitor and she liked it, $94.99 out of the way. I had more money to spend so back to the egg to make another wish list. It happened to be the day that Sandy Bridge was released. I built a system around the 2500K chip and it looked decent. The days grew longer and we were waiting on a form from my school before we filled the taxes. The day that form finally came we filled and I went to tweak my build once again. Most of you can agree that spending time on Newegg can be more fun the zoning out in front of the TV. I go to my wish list and two things are missing, the CPU and motherboard! I flipped out and instantly went to other sites scrambling for answers. A recall on the motherboards had occurred and now I had to rebuild once again.

That night I was looking around on YouTube and saw a review about the Corsair 600T.
I fell in love with the case. I was tired of cutting into a case the day I bought it just to hide the wires. Not enough time anymore to spend at the in-laws using their tools. I looked at other cases like the HAF 912 and the NZXT Phantom. I liked the look of the HAF but the NZXT had some great reviews. I watched every video I could find of the three cases and finally decided that the Corsair was the way to go.
Watched my favorite Canadian Linus do a review of the case and I was hooked again. I started finding parts. Since the Sandy Bridge was out of the question, I decided to stay with AMD which I have always used. I was torn between the quad or hex core. After thinking about it for a long time I decided I would rather have the cores and rarely use them or to not have the power and need it. I’m studying for my second degree in Information Technology and I can always upgrade other parts cheaper than just the CPU alone.

I got together the final parts list:
CASE: Corsair Graphite Series 600T Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C9

PSU: CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-650HX 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Motherboard: ASRock 880G EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT90ZFBGRBOX

GPU: XFX HD-685X-ZNFC Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

DVD: LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04

Monitor: Hanns•G HZ194APB Black 18.5" Tilt Adjustable WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers

This seemed like a really decent build to me. But I kept noticing this thing call murdermod cable sleeving being done. Of course it peaked my interest and I started looking into it. I loved the way it looked. After showing my wife the final build, she then tells me that her parents want to purchase my older rig from us after we get this one built. I agreed on a super low price under one condition, I get to spend more money on my build! She finally agreed when I said that we could get the vacuum and the steam cleaner she wanted. So that opened me up another $150! I was excited once more. I started trying to find a place to get the sleeving after reading up on how to do it. I then decided not to tear my new build apart every night to work on it and I decided just sleeving some extension cables would suffice.
I found a set on the egg that would give me a 24-pin and 8-pin with a 4-pin to spare (for practice). I also found a 6 to 8-pin PCI-E for the GPU. After doing the math I figured 22 feet of cabling should be enough. So I decided to find a 50’ roll so I could screw up and not care. After telling some friends about it they said I should have colors instead of black. So I looked at the theme of the motherboard. Blue and White. It made perfect sense to me. My high school and the 4 colleges that I have attended all had the same colors, it was like it was meant to be. So I found 2 50’ rolls of blue and white sleeving, but it would have cost $80 with the heat shrink and shipping included. Being the cheapo that I am, I had to find something cheaper! Then I found it, paracord! It is super cheap and looks great! I did the math on it and it comes to like $30 for it and the heat shrink. But that leaves me a lot of extra cash to blow. I reviewed my list and noticed I forgot something, a cooler for the CPU!!! I was looking around and all the air coolers seemed nice and everyone seems to have an opinion about it. I was wondering which coolers Corsair made and saw the H50! It was perfect, just the right price and an easy way to get into liquid cooling before I dump a bunch of money into a custom loop.

So there we have it. All the parts picked out and I’m ready to build.

The day the taxes came in we had a slow day at work so I was ready to leave. My supervisor is awesome and let me go only 4 hours into my 10 hour shift. So I drove home at top speed so I could place my order. Once I got home my iPod notified me of a new email. It was from Newegg. I love those things. I looked through it and my case had dropped the $20 shipping and also had a $15 promo code. This dropped the price even more! So I quickly ordered the system. I only spent $922.13 out of my $950 budget! Which of course means I have to find somewhere to spend it. Thanks to CorsairGeorge from the overclock.net forums I knew that the 600T would have a side panel with a window that would be for sale soon. I guess I found where I can drop that money into.

So the tower and the monitor have been ordered. The extension cables ordered. The sleeving and heat shrink carts are filled out and awaiting me to hit the place order button, and the H50 is just begging to be thrown in a cart and sent to my house.

I will be trying to do a FULL build log for this build. Pics and videos (if my daughter doesn’t scream the entire time I am building it). I will also answer any questions about the build. If I am screwing something up during my build let me know so I can fix it. Please don’t throw those comments of “You should have gotten this” or “why not spend more on that”. My parts have been ordered and I am not returning anything (unless it is a dud). So guys wish me luck!
Edited by OolerTheInventor - 9/16/12 at 6:10pm

WOOHOO Got my first part for my build today.

Well its kind of a tool that I will be using during my sleeving project.





HAHA I know its not the parts I want to show, but as I said it will be FULL build log.

Look what was sitting in my kitchen when I got home from work.



Now you know I couldn't wait for the kid to go to bed, I popped him in his highchair and started having some fun, it was quite loud at this point so I decided to give up on the videos for this... I may make one after the computer is finished and use those 6 cores to process the video







Man that case is Awesome!

The next box I went for because my wife wanted to see what she picked out.





Ok now down to the nitty-gritty and the fun parts














Edited by OolerTheInventor - 2/23/11 at 5:20pm

Revlon Style HairDryer : I picked this up at Wal-Mart after my failed trip to Olive Garden, I do not suggest the Herb Roasted Salmon. I picked this one out because it was the cheapest one Wal-Mart had. A whole $10! I also chose this over a heat-gun because I have 2 small children and we can use it to dry their hair after a bath on the cold nights in my state. Not only am I a cheap-o, I also like to purchase things that have multi-purpose. This will be my last joke of the build. My order is still currently sitting in the "Charged" state on Newegg. That means Monday they will pack and ship and then 2-3 days for it to show up at my door. Which means I will get it after work. So the box openings and picture taking will not happen until after 8:30PM EST, after my 2 year old goes to bed. Check back for more later!

Corsair 600T: My first impression: man that's a huge box. It was taller then my son! I was super excited to open this. I couldn't take it anymore.... I popped the kids into highchairs and found my pocketknife. Opening this thing was a task in itself. The box was enormous. It was packaged very well, I found that the Styrofoam was perfectly molded to the case and I love the non plastic bag that Corsair used. It was still full of static, but that's why we always open the case first right? I wanted to say screw the pics and just dive right in but I refrained and started snapping photos. I uploaded the best ones I got.





The entire front panel is mesh. Even the pop outs on the 5 1/2 inch drive bays have mesh in them. This leads to believe that if I put enough fans in it I could circulate the air in my living room with my computer case. The front fan is 200mm and is clear with white LEDs. I am not a fan of flashy cases but it is not obnoxious at all, just adds a glow to the case. I'll keep them that way for now. In front of the fan is a removable dust filter. My old case has a dust filter in it, but I had to remove the side panel and the front panel to clean it. This one I just push at the top and it pops right off.



This is also my first mostly tool-less case. I still needed my screwdriver for two things, the motherboard and my old SSD. I like the way that I just had to push my DVD burner into place and it snapped right in. The tool-less on the DVD drive mount feels sturdy and I did not fear that I would break it. Also the HDDs mount were pretty cool, just a bit of stretching and the HDDs fit right in, on the other hand getting my SSD in it was a little bit of a pain. I could not figure out how to remove the metal thing that holds a full size drive in, it is currently trying to get into the SSD. The screws were tiny, but thats to be expected when the drive is so small.





The drive bays are split. 3 and 3. and both are removable and there is a place infront of the PSU for one of the cages. I would have loved to only use one cage, but I have 4 HDDs. I have them stacked on top of each other right now and may change the configuration if I get rid of a drive or mount my SSD somewhere else.



Overall I am extremely happy I bought this case. Just a few minor annoyances, but nothing that makes me regret purchasing it. I would recommend this case to anyone who can afford it. I think it was worth the investment as I will use this case for many many many builds.


Hanns-G: What else can I say? It looks nice but I have seen it turned on past the fact it was asking me to insert bootable media when I did a bench test. More after everything is installed and powered on.

ASRock 880G Extreme3: This is probably the best looking motherboard I've ever owned and I am using an EVGA 730a in my current rig. I love the layout of this board. It does not feel flimsy what-so-ever which is a huge plus. The color scheme is amazing; black pcb, blue and white everything else. Perfect!

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T: Its a chip as far as I know. More to come after I install everything!

Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz: The RAM was a lot heavier then the G.Skill RAM I have in the old machine. The colors match my scheme perfectly, it's like Corsair knew something. I'll add more when I get it up and running.

XFX HD Radeon 6850: This card looks rugged, and is a lot smaller then I thought it would be. I like that fact, it will make my build look cleaner. More after I load some programs and test it.

Corsair 650HX: WOW! This things weighs a ton. You know that's quality. I love the black cords, one thing I would change is the 8pin connector, it doesn't clip to itself which made plugging it in for the moment a bit of a pain. I'll add more after I cable manage it!
Edited by OolerTheInventor - 2/25/11 at 4:30am

Now here are some of the parts being unboxed. I would have gotten video but I had two kids up and my wife actually got curious about what I was doing. Sorry guys if she wants to learn about computers my attention goes that way and I answer all of her questions.


The ASRock 880G Extreme 3 motherboard:



As you can tell there is a lot of stuff in this box. The manual was a book! But alas only about 20 pages were in English. I think I should get hired onto a motherboard company just so I could write a detailed manual for one motherboard. It also came with 4 of the ugliest SATA cables known to man, I'll have to use them for now until I can buy some black or blue ones. The driver disc seemed worthless to me, but I read things about the ethernet not working out of box so I tucked it away for safe keeping. I/O Shield panel had some nice color coding on it.... kinda worthless in my opinion but I just reach my hand back there and find the correct location for the connector by touching (I tried to not make that sound dirty, but if you're mind is in the gutter have fun with it.)



Wow Wow Wow look at that. Well its a nice shiny anti-static bag. Pretty standard, what wasn't standard were the 2 things inside of it. The motherboard (which we will see more of later) and a nice piece of foam padding. None of my other boards have come with this and it impressed me that much more about the company. ASRock has a new customer!



Can we say awesome? Man this motherboard is amazing looking. The placement for all the connectors is exactly where I wanted them. Just enough SATA connectors I can add another storage drive when I need it without having to purchase another SATA controller. There is also something to say about the power and reset buttons on board. Oh yeah I almost forgot. On the I/O part is the Clear CMOS button. That means if I ever need to do that I don't have to move my monitor and spin the case then open it up to mess with a tiny jumper! (i'll post pics of my little desk later on)

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2GHz:



There isn't too much I have to say about this CPU (for the building part of the log). It's small, it's got tons of pins, its grey. With any new build this was the centerpiece of the entire thing, too bad its also the part that you will never see in a computer. The stock heatsink that came with it is crap. I hate having to use it right now, but I've got a surprise coming in the mail soon.

XFX Radeon HD 6850:

There wasn't too much in the box at all with this thing. No power cord, no DVI-to-VGA adapter (thank the computer gods that I have about 4 of them laying around), no case badge. It did however come with a door knob hanger with my serial number and registration code on it. I know that thing was meant for teenagers, but still they could have made the print larger so I could read it. I'm a young guy, but I have horrible eyesight and with glasses at 4 inches from my face I still could not get it right. Thankfully my wife can read small things and she lead me in the right direction when signing up to download my drivers. I really don't like that fact about XFX, you must create an account to download drivers. Just let me download the thing so I can start gaming!



Here is the Pic of the Video card.



Corsair 650HX:



I am so glad that I chose this PSU. A lot of people complain about the flat wires being difficult to manage within the case, and all I have to say....BUY A BETTER CASE! This was super easy to manage in the 600T. I love the fact that all the modular cables are pure black. Helps keep a clean look inside the case. Plenty of connectors for everything and the cables were long enough to reach with no problem. I did run into one issue with it. I have 5 SATA devices in the computer! 4 HDDs and one DVD Burner. I got the three storage drives going to one cord no problem. Then I tried to get the DVD drive and the SSD to share a cord. I could not make it work. The cord reached fine between the two, but the connector was upside down on the cord. And how I mounted my HDD cage I could not get it to work. Luckily Corsair is generous with the cords and each of those devices got its own power.

Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600Mhz:



This is my first experience with Corsair RAM. It is a very pleasant one. The heat spreader is nice and thick and very sturdy. Its also blue, black, and white. Which works perfect for my color scheme. There isn't too much to say about it right now. It's in, it works, what more could I ask for?

And now for the test bench build....

As most of know its best to build the computer before actually building the computer. First I installed the CPU into the motherboard. ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) is the best thing ever invented in computer building. It was so easy to do it. Open the lever on the motherboard, align the arrows on the CPU and the socket, then close the lever. If you are building a computer and have to push in your CPU then you are doing it wrong! Then I had to fight the stupid stock heatsink into place, it is not forgiving. I'm not going to give detailed instructions on how to do this... just fight curse scream and then sigh with relief as you get it set into place.





Next step was inserting the RAM. A very simple process if I must say so. Open the tabs on the motherboard, find out which slots you need to use as per the motherboard manual.... usually color coded anyways for dual channel. Align the notches and push until it clicks into place. The sturdiness of the RAM and motherboard help greatly with this process. Both of my pieces were solid as a rock and it went smoothly. With my older build the DDR2 was a pain in the butt to force into my EVGA 730a motherboard.



Now to give it some power. First step was to give the CPU some power, so I installed the 8-pin connector. This is the only complaint I have about my power supply. The connector is divided into 2 4-pins that sit next to each other, they do not connect to each other to form a solid 8-pin and are very annoying to install. My extension cable will resolve this when I get around to sleeving it.



Then the 24-pin power. It went smoothly with no problems what-so-ever. The board was sturdy enough I wasn't worried about bending it to get it plugged it.



After getting everything plugged in I hooked up the monitor and pressed the power button on the motherboard. Nothing happened. I began to flip out, I checked the 8 and 24 pins....both secure... checked that the PSU was plugged into the wall, it was, checked the switch on the PSU and it was turned on then I noticed that the power plug to the PSU was loose. I pushed it back into place and pressed the power button. The fan began to spin and the Dr Debug started cycling through numbers. It tossed up the ASRock splash screen then informed me to insert bootable media to the motherboard. Success! I knew that my motherboard, CPU, and RAM were all working!




I then disassembled my bench rig and moved all the parts out of the way. I laid the case on the side and noticed that all the motherboard standoffs were already installed for an normal ATX motherboard. Sweet, I hate installing those things. I popped in the I/O shield plate into the case which took a bit of work.





After getting that out of the way I installed the motherboard. One of the standoffs did not require a screw as it came through the motherboard and held it into place.



I installed the 8 screws needed to hold it in place but I also found a hole that did not match up with the standoffs. It was in a strange place for an ATX motherboard so I thought it might be for a mATX installation even though its a full sized board. You can see it to the left of my top PCI port.



Next step was to prepare the front panel audio connection. I carefully used my trusty scissors and cut the AC97 audio off of the main connection. It now resides in a garbage bag in the dumpster outside of my apartment



Then I popped in the power supply and graphics card. Both easy installs. The case even had a movable stand for the power supply to help hold it in place once installed. It was so snug I almost forgot to add the screws to secure it to the case. Video card installation was cake. I removed the thumb screws holding the PCI expansion slot covers for the two slots that the card would take up. I then simply pushed it into place. I then tucked the cables through the cable management holes, and then pulled them back through the holes again to go to their respective areas.







I then started added my front panel connections to the motherboard. It was super easy... plug the cord into the port and tuck the wire behind the motherboard tray. The only thing I wished could have been different was the front panel USB port. A convertor adapter would have been nice to actually plug the cord into the USB motherboard header instead of routing out of the back of the case. But I think I pulled it off successfully.



I pulled it throw that hole and ran it along the I/O area then out through the provided PCI slot and then into the port on the motherboard I/O panel.




Edited by OolerTheInventor - 2/27/11 at 1:15pm

Figured I would finally fill this part out since I have the pics later in the thread I will just post some of the decent looking pics here.

Here is the Paracord that I am using. It is 100' of White and Colonial Blue.


A test run of the white paracord on the yellow wire of an extension.


Another test run... this time the blue on a black wire


Here is all of the 8-pin connection with the sleeving on the wires.


8/6/24 pin all with sleeving on them.... At this point I did not have the heatshrink as I had ordered the wrong size....


Gotta love Lowe's... they had the right heatshrink in stock (so I loaded up!)


8-pin extension finished!


6-pin finished!


24-pin!


All the fans sleeved!


H50 Power sleeved


Here is the rig with the sleeved extensions in place.... I was leak testing the H50 for a few minutes that is why the GPU power is not connected.


Then my mobo blew up and I had a few days without the rig up so I decided to sleeve the PSU cables that would be seen. Here is the 6-pin PCI-E fully finished.


The 4 pin molex that is used for powering the fan controller and a single fan.


Here is the 24-pin finished.


Here she is almost complete.... still need to correct the white parts on the wires that are showing and replace the red SATA cable.

Edited by OolerTheInventor - 4/3/11 at 11:31am

the H50 is coming.... Man I hope this next 3-4 days flies by so I can start building.

no need for headset at this point...we game in silence.... can't hear anything over two kids anyways