[dissonance]

euphoria : air540 haswell build : :

hello ocn!


presenting euphoria! a sexy watercooling air540!
(SCROLL THROUGH ALL OF PAGE1 OR THE GALLERY TO SEE BUILD IMAGES, FINAL ONES AT THE BOTTOM UNTIL I GET A BETTER CAMERA)

hardware : current/done : :

• Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 High-Airflow
• Intel Haswell 4770k
• Asus Sabertooth z87
• 2x Nvidia GTX770 SC ACX
• Kingston HyperX Beast 2400 cl11
• Samsung 120GB SSD
• WD Blue 1tb
• Corsair hx850 psu
• 5x Corsair SP120 High Performance
• 1x AF140 Quiet Edition
• EK Supremacy Acetal+Nickel CPU Block
• EK Geforce GTX 770 Acetal+Nickel GPU Block x 2
• EK Terminal Block Black Acetal
• EK Reservoir + pump top + D5-Vario Pump Combo
• Black Ice GTX Xtreme 360 Radiator
• Black Ice GTX Xtreme 240 Radiator
• Alphacool 3/8" x 5/8" compression fittings
• PrimoChill PrimoFlex Advanced LRT tubing (3/8x5/8)
• Mayhems Pastel White coolant
• nzxt sleeved bright led kit
• Sleeving (white)
• new sli cable (orange is ugly)

Always looking for suggestions or ideas! Let me know,

Now some pictures of the current case: (sorry for the pictures from my galaxy s4, neither me or my lady own a digital camera surprisingly)

new case arrives / aftermath of build: : (last case was a HAF XB)

looks like fedex rolled this thing in the dirt. was nice and secured on the inside, first thing i noticed was the large bag the case was in? construction quality is nice, everything fits well and i can see alot of possibilities for modding on this case, although there probably won't be much on this first build.


one thing i wasn't aware of was that the side window was tinted, i dont like it much with normal lighting. however with some light strips in there it will probably be a benefit.

hmm


for some reason ocn rotated these pictures? oh well im too lazy right now to fix it, you get the idea.


closeup of the hyperx ram and h100i


sideshot, hdd's will be mounted on the other side of case once finished with WC loop.


try this cameraphone with some flash!

side/angle shots without the covers off!

first conclusion of case: nice easy case to work with, decent quality, visually appealing, i didn't experience any better temperature from the airflow design. (i came from a haf xb which i believe had better airflow around the gpu/rad on the top compartment, however this one is close there with it) case is a must have! different from the norm, and fun! has my recommendation.

 

[dissonance]

update: ordered cooling setup! should be here shortly, will provide a more in depth build log with the loop, as i didn't decide to make a build log till i was mostly done with the hardware/casebuild.



ek supremacy block, ek vga blocks, black ice gtx2 rad (240/360) ek d5 res+pump+top, white mayhem coolant.

 

[Furore]

Sick build!

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Furore

Sick build!

Thank you! It will be sick as soon as the rest of the parts arive! haha

 

[crazedsilence]

Nice build so far!

I like the 540 case, however the one thing I hate about it is where they chose to put the hard drives. You'd think with all the extra space in the back they could have put in a little HDD rack

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazedsilence

Nice build so far!

I like the 540 case, however the one thing I hate about it is where they chose to put the hard drives. You'd think with all the extra space in the back they could have put in a little HDD rack

Thank you! and i Completelely agree about the HD locations. since i am not using my 5.25 bays, im going to velcro either the drives themselves or a housing from another case in there. not sure if i want to cover the holes on the bottom yet. only design flaw i feel like of the case.

update: all of my loop supplies arrived on Thursday, except frozencpu.com forgot one my my waterblocks in the package. Quick call during the workday friday and they got it shipped out and will be here today.


quick picture of most of the supplies. missing is the second waterblock, a few fittings, 5way pwm fan splitters, and white psu cable sleeving. detailed pictures coming as the build progresses. I hope to be finished with most of it by sunday night

 

[greywarden]

Sweet, my Air 540 will be in on Tuesday

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greywarden

Sweet, my Air 540 will be in on Tuesday

Nice! You will love the case, it is my favorite ive worked with so far and ive had a few.

update time! loop is all done, leak tested all night going to finish assembling hardware, do some cable management and add my mayhems to the loop today, and the LEDs.


removing the EVGA ACX cooler on the 770.


sexy EK waterblocks, they are of great quality/craftsmanship. im impressed with all of the EK products.


naked cards! NSFW!

notice what looks to be wet on the innerbackplate on the acx evga cards? at first i thought there was moisture/water in my cards! upon further inspection i noticed the thermal pads on this card seem to be bleeding or coated with a sort of oil? strange either way.


the quality of the machining on the blocks is the best ive seen. thumbs up to EKWB.

shot of them installed on the two cards!


next up was adding the convenient EK terminal, i went with the paralell dual 3slot, as thats the spacing on the sabertooth board. all assembled the product is very sturdy, and was easy to tighten up.




water block assembled! backplate rubber for this waterblock pushes into a resistor/soderpoint on the back of the motherboard, but the rubber is soft enough it shouldnt make a difference even tightening this all the way up. and this thing tightens down very securely. more quality work from EKWB. reminding me again why i chose them for this build.


next up i had to figure out where to put the harddrives (one ssd one wd disk) for this build because they damn sure werent going to sit in the front of the case where corsair designed them (silly design really), another reason was the speeds i was getting through the sata hotswap cables where significantly less than the previous installation (normal sata cables). not sure if mine was defective but who cares, unscrewed and easy as pie to remove. i mulled around where to put them, and since i wasn't going to use my 5.25 bays this was the right spot! the divider between the two bays provided the perfect push stop for the harddrive, and its sata power and data connectors lined up perfectly with the hole below! perfect!


using some rolled up packing foam to make sure it doesnt jump around, and also absorb some vibration. looks shoddy but this is actually very very secure and it doesnt move at all.



next problem was figuring out how to put the SSD in there, i thought about using the SSD tray that comes with the case but imo its of poor quality so decided against it. what i ended up doing was taking the hotswap tray from the front of the case, and cutting the thumb pushes off the front (scissors, its very soft), spacing worked perfectly, wedged it inbetween the foam pieces.


picture of the case pre-tubing! i didn't take many pictures of the tubing process, as i was more worried about getting my loop right. i ran into a few problems maybe others can look out for: first, the fat radiators and certain motherboards will make it impossible to use the top right wire hole of this case to route the tubing. there was just no clearance on this 58mm radiator. i had to redesign my whole loop to make the return go back through the bottom, ended up making it look okay though. second, alphacool compression fittings. and primochill advanced tubing (3/8id 5/8 od) i went with this thick tubing because of the original plan of a sharp turn in the top corner of the case, and i wanted it to be somewhat rigid. this tubing did not like these compression fittings at all, was hard to get over the barbs, and even harder to tighten the outer sleeve over the barb, my fingers are not happy.

and lastly, my two EVGA 770 backplates for the video cards ended up sitting in the corner, so i dont think i will even go with a backplate now. i had all types of screws but sadly none of them fit, so i couldn't mount them to the ek vga block. im sure i could do some research and find the same size as the ek stock screws, just longer and i could make it work. but i was ready to get this done. sad because they looked great next to the ekwb and terminal.

filling and leaktesting time!


good news everyone! NO LEAKS! the extra work on my fingers must have paid off! i papertoweled the whole loop up expecting the worse and.. nothing. 15hrs no leaks, im going to drain the loop and refill/bleed again.

sorry for the lack of detailed shots of the fittings, drain t-line, pump, etc. but i was more interested in building it and i only have my phone camera. sorry for the crap quality, maybe ill take more with a better camera when its completely done! stay tuned for color/lighting shots later!

 

[dissonance]

update: build is mostly done, white pastel mayhems is in, leds are in, temps are good with fans low, better with fans high obviously with these rads, only want to use them that high when testing overclocks etc though. seems good so far!

pictures!


back shot showing my res window lol

night time shot!



some side shots, ended up having to change the whole loop order because the 58mm radiator didn't fit. still looks good even with the cpu block return going out the side.

mayhems pastel white looks good!

 

[greywarden]

Looks awesome! Case came in today, going from a Lian Li V351 to this is like moving into the Playboy Mansion! Sort of.

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greywarden

Looks awesome! Case came in today, going from a Lian Li V351 to this is like moving into the Playboy Mansion! Sort of.

awesome, you will love the case. my favorite ever so far

 

[WhiteWulfe]

That's a nice and clean, sexy build!

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteWulfe

That's a nice and clean, sexy build!

Thank you very much

 

[Adam182]

Loving this build Dissonance! just wondering how are you finding the Sabertooth z87? i know its not touted as an OC'ing board but have you partaken in such activities? if so, how is it?

Im weighing up between this and the Gigabyte Z87X-OC, i will be overclocking but nothing more than a single 360rad can handle.

I really like the armor idea of the Sabretooth and its looks like ill be doing a white build so it will be idea for spraying. On the other hand is the gigabyte which i guess will be better for OC'ing but its kinda orange!

Thanks - Adam

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam182

Loving this build Dissonance! just wondering how are you finding the Sabertooth z87? i know its not touted as an OC'ing board but have you partaken in such activities? if so, how is it?

Im weighing up between this and the Gigabyte Z87X-OC, i will be overclocking but nothing more than a single 360rad can handle.

I really like the armor idea of the Sabretooth and its looks like ill be doing a white build so it will be idea for spraying. On the other hand is the gigabyte which i guess will be better for OC'ing but its kinda orange!

Thanks - Adam

it still has the same type of bios basically as the rog boards, which are sold as more geared for OCing. i had no problems OCing with this board. although all ive done is 4.5 @ 1.2v stable, was surprised at how easy my chip took to that speed. right now this build flies and i see no reason to push it at the moment, if the chip even wants to go much further. only problem is aisuite (asus' motherboard software) doesnt really let you oc the chip from windows, so you will be doing alot of rebooting, or using intel xtreme tuning software. the bios itself is basically the same as any other asus though.

i picked this board for the colors, and all mid-high end boards will yield a good overclocking experience. so if your build flows around colors, pick the one that matches the best.

 

[Adam182]

Thanks for the feedback its very much appreciated! you may well have just swung me towards the Sabretooth, its good to know you've had no problems with OC'ing. Ive still got a month or so before purchasing so i might get lucky and see a price drop by then

- Adam

 

[Zabran]

Have you noticed any extra noise or vibrations with the way / location that you mounted the pump? I am considering a similar mounting style, but wan't to minimize noise.

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zabran

Have you noticed any extra noise or vibrations with the way / location that you mounted the pump? I am considering a similar mounting style, but wan't to minimize noise.

none at all actually. it sags just the slightest from the weight. pretty much silent.

 

[Zabran]

If you move the pump up one hole, and over left one hole, can you fit at least 1x SSD mounting cage behind it?

 

[dissonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zabran

If you move the pump up one hole, and over left one hole, can you fit at least 1x SSD mounting cage behind it?

i doubt it, there are a few other places where you could find a way to mount that cage inside the case though.