[Lshuman]

Dang nice build there partner!!!

 

[TheHarvman313]

Nice looking build there!

Subbed

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZuuligaN

Looking damn sweet bro! I know it's a bit late now, but had you considered the Swiftech Komodo 7970 full cover blocks? They would have fit the overall aesthetic perfectly: Swiftech Komodo 7900 series full cover water block.

Yes, I did... I really do like them better (especially the fact that the VRM bank is actively cooled - as opposed to passively on these Razor blocks). However, at the time I wasn't able to find anyone that had them in stock and the cheapest they could be found was right at $155 ea. I paid $176 for BOTH of the XSPC blocks.

I'm figuring that I'll be updating the hardware in a year or so anyway and wanted to allocate the 'extra' $150 towards other upgrades.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eskamobob1

looks awsome... sub'd

Thanks and welcome! It should look even better in a month or so after I spend some time on the OC/stability - then it's time for bling... well if you can call sleeving the tubing and adding lights 'bling'... not likely to go crazy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lshuman

Dang nice build there partner!!!

Thanks... it's definitely not the fanciest around here but it's the nicest one I've ever owned... yet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheHarvman313

Nice looking build there!
Subbed

Thank you. This is phase one... I'll be working on the aesthetic treatments next and making some adjustments after awhile so stay tuned! For the time being I just want to get to finally use it after a month!

 

[Fuganater]

Nice build. I just picked up a M8 and pedistal a few weeks ago.

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuganater

Nice build. I just picked up a M8 and pedistal a few weeks ago.

Thanks... can't wait to see what you do with it. Your TJ11 build is a really great one!

 

[jamaican voodoo]

if you can could you tell me the temps you getting on your 7970's including vrms... i was looking at those xspc blocks but i couldn't find any review on how they perform, so if you could give me an insight on their performance i would really appreciate it..... by the way awesome build it's very clean man keep up the good work

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamaican voodoo

if you can could you tell me the temps you getting on your 7970's including vrms... i was looking at those xspc blocks but i couldn't find any review on how they perform, so if you could give me an insight on their performance i would really appreciate it..... by the way awesome build it's very clean man keep up the good work

Sure, I'll be happy to once I actually get to USE it...

I'm not looking for maximum overclock on this system (wanted silence over speed mostly) but I certainly hope to have at least 1GHz on the cores and a small bump on the RAM. I was able to get that much with nominal stability (good for 36-48hrs between crashes bitcoin mining) on the OEM shrouds without any voltage bump and full stability at even higher rates with a voltage bump of 10% - but the heat was scary (~89C) so I didn't run that way for any appreciable time other than a bench run.

The one thing I can say for the blocks is that they flow pretty damn well - that was apparent during my leak-testing period... granted the MCP35X is a powerful pump, but until I put the little anti-cyclone fitting on the intake it was hitting the top of the res with force! From the tests I was able to find on this site and a couple of others it seems that it's in the lower third of comparables in the cooling department (mostly due to passive cooling on the mosfets I believe) - but in the upper third as far as flow rate is concerned.

I will post much more detailed results on my system performance after I get a system on it and run some benches - so I'll let ya know soon!

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Some updates... more to follow...

CPU-Z Validation
GPU-Z Validation

As far as the XSPC Razor blocks for the 7970s - I can't find any real flaws. Although it's definitely possible I could hit a higher OC on the cards with a better pair of blocks... it's unlikely that I would be able to hit more than 10-15% higher IMO. Considering the blocks run about 35% less on average than competitive blocks (depending on promotions, etc.) I think they are a great buy. If they had cost more than $90/ea I might have a different opinion, but for what they are and how they look/work... I'm very, very satisfied.

As far as the GPUs themselves... well, although I can't say I'm impressed with the headroom - I wasn't expecting that much and did buy the cheapest reference 7970s on the market (~$395/ea) at the time. Both cards appear to be stable (they're bench-stable and I'm getting ready to mine coins for a 48-hour run to verify) at 1025Mhz/1400Mhz core/mem with a 15% bump in power. The fit between the VRMs and the block is so tight that I can't really fit a thermal probe in there ATM so I can't verify temps but the card appears stable so they can't be out of control.

On the CPU front... well things there are pretty impressive as far as my expectations are concerned. I knew the chip I had wasn't too bad, but considering I'm stable (not 24hrs primed - so just 'usably stable' ATM) at 4.7GHz with only a bump to 1.4V at the core... I'm very confident in this chip being able to hit and pass 5GHz without any significant problems. However, that will require de-lidding and I'm not only hesitant to do it... but I want to actually get to use my system for awhile before I mess with tearing it down and rebuilding it again. I can tell de-lidding would benefit this chip significantly however - considering the difference in temperatures - the difference between Core0 and Core2 is 13C under load!!!

Coupled with the fact that even with the obvious issues with the TIM eveness (under the IHS that is) I'm still barely passing the 80C mark on the hottest core under load (1hr OCCT) - I'm sure after de-lidding I can hit 5GHz at roughly the same temps.

I call this build a success, but I have to do a little more stress-testing before I'm fully confident in my OC stability. Will update further as things progress... next up - appearance and DISPLAY!

 

[jamaican voodoo]

thank you soo much on the information you provided ...it really help me decide on what i want to do with my build

1+ rep
those results look promising

 

[TheHarvman313]

Yeah I was kinda unlucky with my chip. I also have a > 10C delta between cores. I really only have one core with decent temps. I definitely want to de-lid mine but only after I have some cash to buy a new chip just in case I mess up. I'd really like to see what temp deltas I could get after de-lidding.

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Well, I actually consider myself pretty lucky with my chip... I mean despite the fact that I've got two cores that get to ~80C under load... the fact that the other two cores are under 70C and the fact that the chip itself can hit 4.7GHz stable at only 1.35V bodes pretty well for a final OC being >5GHz. I know what you mean about having the extra cash for a chip 'just in case' however. I'm not particularly worried about spending ~$225 these days, but wasting that much would really irritate me - after all... I could spend that on something better than a CPU keychain!

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamaican voodoo

if you can could you tell me the temps you getting on your 7970's including vrms... i was looking at those xspc blocks but i couldn't find any review on how they perform, so if you could give me an insight on their performance i would really appreciate it..... by the way awesome build it's very clean man keep up the good work

I know someone else was looking for cooling performance on these but I can't remember who it was... anyway I've finally had a chance to do some torture testing and work on a little better OC for the GPUs and here is the result after running Heaven on my setup. I first let it run through the non-bench mode for 15 minutes to heat things up to normal operating temps and then ran the benchmark... I ran it on max everything including extreme tessellation and still wound up slightly north of 60FPS at full resolution (2560x1600)!

So at least until I get the urge to do a true max OC (which I don't really care that much about on this system as it's my daily driver) the final, stable settings for everything are:
CPU 3570K = 4.7GHz @ ~1.37V (varies between 1.34 and 1.41 depending on loading & heat).
GPUS 7970X2 = 1100MHz GPU 1400MHz MEM (20% voltage boost in afterburner).

Results with VRM temps:


Note that although the current (at the time of the screen shot) the GPU loading was 0% - the history shows the fact that they were both loaded 100% for the entire polling time previous to the shot... I did have to close out the Heaven window to get the shot of GPU-z after all.

So I guess I could probably get a little better OC, on the memory especially, if I had GPU blocks with active VRM cooling - under normal conditions (intensive gaming for an hour or so) the VRMs never get close to their limits. I'm perfectly fine with those results... YMMV of course.

 

[moonslug]

Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out aesthetically! Subbed.

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moonslug

Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out aesthetically! Subbed.

Thanks - I'm in the middle of a huge project at work at the moment - but there will be some pretty major changes in the works. Probably a full teardown and rebuild in fact since I'm thinking of either adding a pedestal or at least getting a higher top cover so I can go push-pull on the rads and use some more 'attractive' fans on the intakes. Of course I think the GT AP13's are attractive as they are so I might just go the sleeving+lighting+acrylic route and call it a day.

I've got my tripod found and better lighting now so at least the pictures will be better from here on out!

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Well, it's been a long time coming, but I'm about to finish up my project at work so expect to see more activity here in the coming weeks. Not going to do anything too insane but I'm definitely going to be ruining the aesthetic that build is named for... not going to be very 'dark' after I'm done.

After considering the fact that almost every LED in my office that's not located on the MVE itself is blue... I've scrapped the plans I had initially to go with all red lighting. So blue it is.

Yes it's all been done before - and my aesthetic changes will be pretty minor for the most part - but hopefully I can keep with my function-over-form parameters and still wind up with something that's a little more visually interesting than it started out. To that end the following is going to (or likely to as plans might change while underway) be adjusted:

• Change loop component order - I'm moving the rads from the top of both sides to both being located on the PSU side, as well as once again moving the drives over to that side as well.
• Fans add/move - to deal with the more restrictive space and potentially slightly hotter air to one of the rads I'll be putting all of my GT AP13s on the rads so they'll both be in push-pull rather than push only. I'll also be adding 9 silent LED fans to cool and provide general illumination.
• Further illumination on the MB side will be in the form of an 'sLight' style plate at the bottom which will be an experiment and depending on how it works out may just be replaced with bare LEDs where the lighting is weakest from the fans.
• Sleeving, tubing, etc. I'm going to mess with some res placements and for grins got a full-plexi version of my res (same size though). I'll either sell the other one or put it in my 'goodie closet' for use on a later build. I ordered some PrimoChill Advanced UVBlue tubing - but will not be adding UV lighting... just blue LED lighting so hopefully it will look good. I also got some sleeving from MDPC so I'll be adding some colors to the sleeved wires - but probably just accents with much of it still black.

I'm debating whether to go all blue/black or to actually do a blue-black-red build to pull in the red from the MB into the theme. Maybe something like all wires are black or red, all cooling components are black or blue, etc. The nice thing is that with blue lighting the reds shouldn't look red but more of a purple-black which should almost disappear when lit, but will provide a nice visual cue under normal lighting (liquid=blue, electricity=red, hardware=black).

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

WOW... If you don't have a decent sized (and largely unfurnished for that matter) area to work with these larger CL cases... I have no idea how organized you have to be during the build... but it's definitely more organized than I've ever been. Of course, that's only during the build process... I could never live like this on a daily basis...

Things are progressing fairly smoothly, but with work intruding somewhat... I can't say when the next update is likely to happen.

EDIT:
Well picked up some additional SSD storage - so no more platters for me (well in this build... obviously until they make a 20TB SSD I'll have plenty of platters in my home server).


So going to use the Antec TrueQuiet 120 Blue fans for all of the airflow - should eliminate the need for separate lighting, and on the quiet setting (600RPM) are completely silent. I'll have to use multiples as intakes against the GT's on the rads... and I've added another of those as well.

Going push-pull on one of the UT60s and then push only on the rest. One of them on the PSU side will be fed partially from the output of the lower rad... but with the extra cooling and 3 more intake fans it will keep positive pressure so the side-vents don't pull too much dust hopefully.

 

[Jeffinslaw]

Ooh looks like I am just in time to see the rebuild!

Jeffinslaw

 

[lego95]

good stuff man!

 

[DiGiCiDAL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffinslaw

Ooh looks like I am just in time to see the rebuild!

Jeffinslaw

For what it is... it's definitely not going to be the level of refinement or customization you've got in your MurderMac build. I've contemplated many options for lighting, etc. and basically, I want it functional more than I want it pretty. Not to say I'm not going to be neat about it - but I'm putting off re-sleeving (at least for the moment) until I get a chance to see it up and all together with the new fans. I'm kind of at a 'thinking point' at the moment - trying to decide if I even want to mess with cramming this much crap into the standard M8 configuration. Hard to imagine a case this big being "too small" but I'm starting to feel that way just running the tubing. Might just say "screw it" and buy a pedestal for the two UT60s, run the UT45 in the top of the PSU side and have tons of room for things like maybe an sLights panel on the bottom of the CPU side (wonder where I got that idea?) but that will put off having a usable computer (and home office for that matter) for another couple weeks.

Additionally, then I can't fit it under my desk any longer I think - or if I can it will be really close!

Quote:

Originally Posted by lego95

good stuff man!

Thanks!

EDIT: OK... I've thought about it enough apparently... pedestal, 2 rad mounts, and flex bay just ordered from CaseLabs... now I get to undo the work I just got done and start over a third time on the whole project. SIGH Just have to measure and figure out where my tube routing will go for the pedestal and then I'll start thinking about doing that light panel after all... may re-think the LED fans actually... but I'll take some shots to see what I think and get some OCN feedback on possibilities.

 

[Jeffinslaw]

Hmmm... I say go for the pedestal! Make life easier

and I also like the sLight idea as well! That would make things really pop in the all black case!

Jeffinslaw