Saber: A 2011 Build

[TazarZero]

Hello everyone!  I'd like to take some time to share this rebuild I did for two reasons: one, it was Saber's completion day (March 17, yes, St. Patricks Day), and two, for you guys to see this magnificant beast from bare case to full operation.

As the title states, Saber is a 2011 build, so for it's 2nd year of flawless operation, I decided I was going to dust it out completely, repair/replace a hard drive, and give it a 32Gb RAM upgrade.  Suitable b-day presents for a PC, wouldn't you say?  The following pictures were taken before the hard drive replacement and memory upgrade arrived.  Overall, Saber was built for video editing and 3D rendering, but also does games without a hitch (system specs are listed at the bottom of this post).

 

Oh, and for anyone who's wondering, Saber gets its name from the Sabertooth P67 motherboard that the system is built around.  I also have a second tower named Lio, named after the case itself, the Xclio A380COLOR.  Project THOR is next.

 

 

Saber's HAF X case stripped down for deep cleaning.

 

 

Front and Top 200mm and Rear 140mm case fans cleaned and reinstalled.

 

Glamour shot for Saber's Core i7 case badge for the 2600k CPU.

 

Front and Top panels reinstalled, and preliminarey cable routing started.

 

Saber's internals on the test bench.

 

 

Yes, Saber does feature a V10!

 

Sabertooth returns to the HAF X.

 

Yeah, 1200W may be a tad excessive.

 

My corkscrew way of getting the 24-pin connector into position; the biggest disadvantage of the V10.

 

 

Data cables before video cards.

 

Old fashion cathodes!

 

An internal fan used to suck air from the front through the hard drive cage, onto the video cards.  It's more for trying to cool the hard drives since the video cards utilize the side fan for cooling and exhaust out the back.

 

Dual 6970's in Crossfire.

 

 

 

Heavier video cards can always use the extra support.

 

 

Blu-ray and DVD drives.  Call me old fashioned (again), but I still like movies played from the original disks.  With the two drives installed, I can play Blu-rays and have a game (that requires the disk) loaded at the same time.

 

The 1Tb C drive (in hand), and the 1.5Tb D drive below it.

 

Pre-startup glamour shots~

 

 

 

Post-startup glamour shots~

 

 

 

 

 

And that my friends is Saber in a nutshell.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Also, for those who are curious, Saber's specs at the time of this posting are:

 

Asus Sabertooth P67

Intel Core i7 2600k @ 4.6Ghz

G. Skill Ripjaws X 32Gb (4x8Gb) @ 1866Mhz

XFX Radeon HD6970 (x2)

HDD1 - 1Tb, HDD2 - 1.5Tb, HDD3 - 1.5Tb, HDD4 (replacement drive) - 2Tb  ---  All Western Digital Black's

ODD1 - Blu-ray/Dvd Rw combo drive, ODD2 - Dvd Rw

Aft Pro-55u Media card reader

Asus PCE-N13 Wireless Network card

Cooler Master 1200w Silent Pro Gold

HAF X (spotless and on its casters)

 

[Guest]

Looks pretty badass. Might even be on the stream :)

[Oisin Maguire]

nice...

[Sizark]

Really nice choice of hardware, never been a big fan of Cooler master's HAF cases though.

[Cluso]

Love this build, and that CPU cooler is a beauty! 

 

Can you still get the CM V10 anywhere? 

[Nicktrance]

Looks beast, I like how you tried to make use of every case feature you can :D.

[FireFox]

I don't usually like case light but you've done well there, looks pretty epic.

 

Also that is one hell of a cooler, I'm surprised it hasn't snapped the board due to the weight.

[TazarZero]

Hey guys, thanks for the props thus far. 

 

Cluso - I bought my V10 from Newegg.com, and I just checked as I posted this reply and it's currently a deactivated item.  :(  With that said, I'm not sure what kind of luck you'll have with trying to buy it now, but it's a great cooler and if you can find it, I'd recommend it...  granted your case can accommodate it.

 

As for a general note; as far as updates go, Saber is pretty much set and no further updates are planned.  If anything, when the cathodes go out, I'll replace them with light strips, but the memory is maxed for the board; the CPU meets the expectations I have for the system; video cards should have enough horsepower for a few more generations at least; and upgrading to ssd's right now for 1tb+ is out of the question.  Bottom line, when I'm ready to upgrade, I'll be ready to buy a new system... a.k.a. Thor.  :)

 

Again, thanks to the kind words so far.

 

[andrevautour]

Love the Sabertooth.  Nice looking build.

[<boss2939>]

it looks smexy just get sleved cable extensions and it would look amazing i have an ocd about color wires

[Keeper_of_Precepts]

it looks smexy just get sleved cable extensions and it would look amazing i have an ocd about color wires

100% agree!

those cables will be the icing on the cake!

[TicTac]

Nice man your systems decked out :) i like how you took the photos of when your installing stuff nice job man!

[Crion]

Nice build.  If you could sleeve those PSU cables, it'll look even better.

[TazarZero]

I agree with the posts about the PSU cables being sleeved, it would indeed aid with the look of the internals.  I would have that done, but I'm not familiar with the proceedure, nor do I have the tools to remove the connectors... and I don't have the money to have someone else do it for me at the moment.  I've seen Linus' video about sleeving wires, and yes, it does provide good insight on how it's done, but I'm the same way about water cooling...   too much of a risk at the moment for me.

Part of the pride of Saber comes from the fact that it looks as good as it does with the parts looking the way they do out of the box.  :)

Thanks again though for the suggestions.  If I did manage to get sleeving done, my first thoughts would be either all Black, or Black and Red.  What do you guys think?

[MzCatieB]

looks awesome, cant ever understand people that use that massive cooler though, seams to always dominate the build

[dOug]

Looks great. I think black cables if you decide to do it. I like how the system is jam packed and has a lot going on but it's still clean.

[MPX309]

wow that looks great. . . . the only small niggle i have is the wires coming off those top exhaust fans. . . . haha and that's real nit picking. love it though. looks like it means business!

[TazarZero]

MPX309 - Now that you point it out, I can see where that'd be a sore spot in the pictures.  If I come around to sleeving cables, I'll see about doing something with those fan wires as well. So thanks for the tid bit.  :)

 

Pixxie_Payne - I decided to go with the V10 in this case because they are both from Cooler Master, as is the PSU, and they are BIG.  The case is BIG, the cooler is BIG, and the way I see it, they balance each other out.  A big case with a small cooler is like a neutered dog, and a small case with a big cooler is like,....  silly.  So yeah, I understand what you mean, and I would agree otherwise, but in this case (pun intended??) the cooler is justified.

 

dOug - I think much of the credit of the 'clean' look is due to the Sabertooth's Thermal Armor...   which was part of the plan when I listed the parts.  :)

[XiaoPigs]

That's one beast looking of a machine! Looks really neat overall except for the fan cables on the top :p It gets my OCDness tingling. I would suggest sleeving your cables too in the future if you have the time.

 

 

Overall it's still a great build. Good job :)

[Nit3Rid3R]

Is that a CoolerMaster V10? I rarely see those used on builds anymore, good job! 

[Doorht]

Where did you get that huge red neon looking light? I like it.

[TazarZero]

Doorht - The red neon looking light is a 'cold cathode' light.  If I remember correctly, the long one is 10", and the short one (somewhat hidden) is 4".  People usually prefer LED light strips to cathode lights these days.  I wasn't familiar with LED strips when I built this rig, so that's why I don't have them.

[That Norwegian Guy]

Nice. I would paint the white off the optical drives and card reader, other than that this is pretty cool.

[mjKneafsey]

Pretty nice. I didn't know people actually used the little graphics card thing coolermaster include or at least I don't use mine and the one person I know with a CM case doesn't use his either.