"DarkWind II" core system upgrade and case mods finally complete

[Arct1c0n]

Been working on upgrading/improving my ASUS ROG themed case mode project after CoolerMaster donated an upgraded EVO chassis after showing them my first built at Pax Prime 2013! Needless to say, i've spend almost a year just adding and improving things to the new chassis, the last of which was to retire the solid and reliable but aging and small mATX Gene-Z build with an i5-2500k at 4.6ghz on air cooling with a 670FTW that I stupidly upgraded to a 780 a month before the 900 series came out because I was impatient.... Live and learn the hard way
 
Feel free to comment or ask questions!  To help keep this post shorter, I didn't include pictures of me painting the parts but feel free to ask about how I did it or if you wanna see them!
 
 

 

CoolerMaster HAF XB Evo case

Intel i7 4790k at stock settings on Thermalright 140 True Spirit Power

Asus STRIX GTX 980 @ 1470mhz core/ 7.6ghz memory

Asus ROG Maximum HERO VII

16gigs G.Skill Trident X DDR3 2400

Samsung 850 evo 500gig

Western Digital 640gig Caviar Black

Corsair AX860 PSU

Aerocool CoolTouch-E controller

Soundblaster Z

Asus DVD LightScribe *last of its kind*

 

The sum of all its furry parts. Or something like that...
 

 

 
 

Goodbye ye faithful i5 2500k and Gene-Z, you've been good to me. 

 

 
 
First things first. Man, that is a lot of crap to just mount a HSF

 

 
Lol, seriously Intel? I don't think so...

 

 
 

Time to retire the old Xigamatek Dark Knight after 5 years of good use

 
 

Oh yeah, now that looks kick ass already!
 

 
 
Just the right amount. After the 5th try...

 
 
Someone thought they were applying mayo to a sandwhich at Asus plant?

 
 
One cleaned up the much more expensive one to go

 
 
Tools of the trade

 

 

Much better!

 

 

 

The full red LEDS' of my Sounblaster Z were boring and overbearing, so I decided to change that up...

 http://i.imgur.com/z9rUsTG.jpg?1[/img]

 

 

Tools of the LED removal trade

 

 

 

Easy dissasembly 

 

 

 

Choose the bigger 5mm LED to make sure enough white light emmitted out

 

 

No more!

 

 

 

And done!

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, mucho better!

 

 

 

Now thats what I'm talking about!

 

 

 

 

 

Windows 7 install, drivers and crap tons of updates later.... she finally done. I'll let pics speak for themselves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Decon]

-snip-

definition of amazing...  terrific work

[Fulgrim]

[Falcon81]

Wow, very nice system, I am loving that case, I didn't know CM made a CUBE case like the Air 540.  Great job!!

[R_Golden]

I think a tear just streamed down my face looking at her. She's beautiful,

 

Seriously though, amazing work!

[Arct1c0n]

Wow, very nice system, I am loving that case, I didn't know CM made a CUBE case like the Air 540.  Great job!!

 

Yeah, its my most favorite case in years ever since Antec went to hell which used to make my favorite cases of all time. The HAF XB series launched late 2012.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Power-Supply-RC-902XB-KKN2/dp/B00FFJ0H3Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425428619&sr=8-1&keywords=haf+xb+evo

[Falcon81]

Quick question, what case fans are you using, and how quiet are they on idle and under load?