X99 Phantom 820

[runit3]

This is my freshly completed OC'd build! Finally got the last lights soldered and loomed in.

 

Parts List:

     Hardware:

NZXT Phantom 820 White (First revision case -not the new segmented window)

ASUS X99 Deluxe MOBO

Intel 5960X

x2 GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2 1.5Gb cards in SLI

16Gb G.Skill 3000MHz DDR4 RAM

EVGA 1000G2 PSU w/EVGA White wiring kit

ASUS BW-12B1ST BluRay Drive

LG DVD/RW

Samsung 840 EVO 250Gb SSD

x2 WD Se 2TB HDD's in RAID 1

     Water Cooling Loop:

Frozen-Q Liquid Fusion Dual Bay reservoir w/attached Swiftech MCP655-B Pump and UV Cold Cathode light + Inverter box

Primochill Advance LRT 1/2ID 3/8OD White tubing

x2 Alphacool NexXxos ST45 Full Copper 240mm radiators

x4 Corsair SP120 High Performance Fans

x5 Bitspower White 45deg. Compression Fittings 1/2ID 3/8OD

x2 Bitspower White 90deg. Compression Fittings 1/2ID 3/8OD

x2 Bitspower White Compression Fittings 1/2ID 3/8OD

x1 Bitspower Black T-Junction G1/4

x3 PrimoChill Black Compression Fittings 1/2ID 3/8OD (attached to T-Junction)

x2 EnzoTech Stopper barbs (Black)

x1 Bitspower Aqualink pipe White 41-69mm (From GPU to Res Fill)

x1 Bitspower Aqualink pipe Black 22-31mm GPU link

XSPC Raystorm copper CPU Block (x2 White/x2 UV lighting LED's)

Prolimatech PK-3 TIM

Thermal-Star LCD Media Panel 7 in 1 Card reader + Thermal Sensors

     Miscellaneous Parts:

Kobra High Density Purple UV Heatshrink (various thicknesses)

White heatshrink

M3 Shorty Hex bolts + Washers

NZXT supplied case fans

99.997% Isopropyl Alcohol

5 Gallons Distilled Water

Primochill Sysprep

Fill bottle

x2 19.7" LED UV light strips from superbrightleds.com If you're comfortable with soldering and custom wiring looming I can't recommend these enough. MUCH higher quality than any standalone kit you can get, and cheaper.

 

All of the parts were sourced from Frozencpu, Newegg, and Amazon. Props to Frozencpu for being extremely easy to deal with and always getting my packages shipped out/arriving on time.

 

 

Build Notes/Problems/Rationale:

I had originally planned most of this equipment to be used in a Node 804 w/Z97 and 4790k but when X99 dropped and the ridiculous Corsair $500 DDR4 kits turned into a much more reasonable G.Skill $330 kit I finished up OCing the Node build, transferred it onto a Corsair H105 and sold it. My last rig has lasted me 5 years (i7-980X) and the only reason I hadn't considered building a new 5 year platform was the cost, and 5960X encoding benchmarks hadn't been released, so it was still up the air as far as performance was concerned. I had originally wanted a new Overkill HTPC/video encoding/media server platform as I had started doing more of that as opposed to gaming (just don't have the time anymore) and the 4790k would have been a decent platform for it. Instead of living with what I had (that 4790k turned into a 4.8Ghz beast) I went the insane route, which has turned out extremely well.

 

I went with the GTX 580's because I picked up the pair for $320, one 780ti Hydro would run me ~$5-800 and since I am using it primarily for CUDA encoding/acceleration in Premiere/Xilisoft, running higher than 1080p for gaming was a secondary concern (still need to pick up a 1440p monitor). The X99 w/40 lanes on the 5960X gives me pretty unlimited options for future GPU upgrades, the only limitation is going to be reconfiguring SLI for x16 and moving around the Res/pump.

 

I wanted a fairly unique loop and I had not yet seen a hardlined fill port res. Understanding that it is an ill-advised way to run a loop I went ahead with it anyway and slapped a fill port extension on the top rad and put the T-Junction drain port at the bottom of the loop. This essentially turns the entire loop into one big res, which in my opinion looks better than having the res be a side feature designed for ease of use. The Frozen-Q res itself is an extremely nice piece of hardware, however 8 hours into the test run it started leaking out of the left hand side cathode tube. Some urethane glue and a few hours of curing later, things are all good now. I absolutely hate the Primochill "compression" fittings but they were the only kit I could get with 2 day Amazon Prime shipping. No matter how they are advertised I would NEVER call them compression, there's 2 interior O-rings that keep the tube in place, you can literally pull out the tubing with a moderate amount of force -terrible design. The Bitspower fittings are as you would expect, you would have to impart enough force on the tubing to rip it in half to get them to let go

 

The rig is running an 8 Hour XTU RAM+CPU stable 4.375Ghz (validation in my sig) and tops most of the Cinebench charts. Still need to put in some time doing some real-world x264 encoding passes with and without CUDA, but the spare videos I had lying around get absolutely destroyed compared to my i7-980X, couldn't be happier in that aspect. OCing on the X99 is a gigantic PIA, very similar to my X58 that I picked up near release. The XMP settings do not load properly, are not reflected properly within the BIOS, and caused a great deal of trouble getting a stable boot cycle into Win 7. To make matters worse ASUS's XMP/TPU/SLI dipswitches on the board simply do not work properly, over volt the hell out of the system, or lock the system down to a certain pre-set OC. After dealing with ASUS customer support they recommended throwing the XMP dipswitch to "on" which immediately reconfigured my OC and locked it into a 3.75Ghz core clock, which was unacceptable. I've had to go back multiple times and manually input every RAM timing setting to get it stable. The SLI dipswitch is the only thing that has functioned as intended but I'm forced to run them in x8 because the PCIe lanes were wired for 1/3 support and not 1/2 (thanks double/triple height card manufacturers ).

 

The results of the cooling system are pretty outstanding, far better than I anticipated for a CPU pulling 262w under load and cards pulling nearly double that. Max Tcase I've been able to get is 40.2C with the T-probe I put directly on the VRM and 38C within the lower exhaust area. Intake is pull at the top/back and exhaust pull at the bottom of the case. I had to mount the rad over the NZXT drive bay bracket with the Corsair's behind it. Another NZXT (200mm?) fan is pulling exhaust out over the drive bays to the front of the case. Max CPU temp got to 82C @1.36v core, 1.33v cache, 1.93v input when I was briefly attempting to get a 4.5Ghz Cinebench score, the OS is stable at that clock on a MUCH lower voltage (think it was 1.29v) but stable isn't stable if it can't handle Cinebench (IMO). I might be able to do an offset tune and increase the LLC to get it there, but it's flirting with the voltage threshold I like to stay under. Max temps at the current clock/voltage is sub 72C on the CPU and sub 52C on the GPU's (valley).

 

For an overall stressful early adopter build it has turned out well and I'm happy with the OC, although I'll inevitably try to squeeze some more out of it pending BIOS releases and software support.

[harrynowl]

Looks awesome I like the mancave

 

Also what car is that?

[runit3]

Looks awesome I like the mancave

 

Also what car is that?

Maserati Granturismo. Not mine, wish it was

[Johanmyst]

Awesome build, I really love the swirly-pump/reservoir thingy. It looks brilliant in that. Love the white-purple combination and I hope it stays nicely white over time  

Also, awesome car, shame it's not yours

[Titania_WD]

Just what I was thinking: 

Awesome build, I really love the swirly-pump/reservoir thingy. It looks brilliant in that. Love the white-purple combination and I hope it stays nicely white over time

Also, awesome car, shame it's not yours

runit3, This is such a beautiful work! Great inspiration. I hope you'll have a wonderful time with it. 

Cheers,

Titania_WD

[runit3]

Awesome build, I really love the swirly-pump/reservoir thingy. It looks brilliant in that. Love the white-purple combination and I hope it stays nicely white over time

Also, awesome car, shame it's not yours

I was somewhat amazed that I was able to get a Frozen-Q so quickly, as the last I had heard frozencpu was selling out of them like crazy, although that may have just been the separate non-combo res which is much larger. I only use distilled water in my loops besides the sys prep that was flushed with more than 2 gallons so I'm not too worried about discoloration. I fully expect the UV cold cathode to burn out though as most people can't get theirs to last more than a year

 

I'll try to get some better macro pictures uploaded next week when I borrow an SLR, iPhone camera's have a hell of a time taking nice pictures with UV blasting in the frame. I also need to swap out the nasty bronze SLI bridge for a nice black one, and sleeve the pump sensor wire which is driving me nuts...like a little blue worm messing everything up...

[Johanmyst]

I was somewhat amazed that I was able to get a Frozen-Q so quickly, as the last I had heard frozencpu was selling out of them like crazy, although that may have just been the separate non-combo res which is much larger. I only use distilled water in my loops besides the sys prep that was flushed with more than 2 gallons so I'm not too worried about discoloration. I fully expect the UV cold cathode to burn out though as most people can't get theirs to last more than a year

 

It's a shame they burn out so quick really, they look amazing.

[runit3]

It's a shame they burn out so quick really, they look amazing.

I'm not too worried about it. I think ill order up some replacements just to have on hand. I can hot swap them fairly easily although the port does have a urethane glue plug in it currently Shouldn't be too much trouble to rip it out, ill probably repatch with 100% silicone but I'll need to do some research to make sure there will be no reaction with acetal or acrylic.