Updated - Knight Rider - NZXT S340 - AMD Buiild(Now Intel) with modded Noctuas.

[PDArm]

I am in no way endorsed by ROG.

UPDATE -

So after a long ponder over how to increase my system performance without spending much, I switched too intel. Game wise my system was fine. though in terms of VM ware, editing and rendering... I honestly wanted more power.
A lot of people will be like, 'lol', told you so for choosing the AMD FX9590 and in a way they were right. The AMD FX9590 although a good cpu, just couldn't compare to an intel i7-4790k. After returning my motherboard and cpu, only paying £80 more, I swapped it out for a Intel i7-4790k and a Asus Maximus VII Formula. Needless to say I'm alot happier. An for an extra £80, for a top of line motherboard and a intel i7-4790k, it was a good deal.

It also meant I could ditch my gigabyte wifi/blutetooth card, which in my opinion wasn't aesthetically pleasing. As the ASUS MVIIF came with a Bluetooh/Wireless/M2 adapter.

The original build can be seen below, though first, here are a few pictures of my updated build.

All the changes are -
FX9590 swapped out for i74790k
ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z swapped out for a ASUS Maximus VII Formula
Custom Sleeved Red/Black cables
LED/MSI Logo on the R9 390 customised to no longer light up and the logo itself swapped out for a ROG logo to match the motherboard.
Gigabyte Wifi/bluetooth swapped out for the Asus adapter
& the red LEDS taken out as in honesty I thought they looked a tad tacky.

In the last picture you'll see my solution for fixing gpu sag   :lol: 

Unfortunately due to poor lighting the cables don't present that well, due to the light being reflected on taking a picture. IRL they don't, 'glimmer'.


To do the logo essentially I took out the 3 screws holding the old logo in place. Pulled it out and disconnected the LED from the pcb. Covered the connector to protect it and slid it behind the chasis. Used a piece of black plastic with a cut out of the metal logo from a ROG badge and then slid it in. 

I think it looks a lot better than before.


Original build - 

Hello guys, new to posting on the forum but not new too computers, long time lurker.

I recently built a new rig for myself and thought I'd share my progress. I've tried to take pictures each step of the way, but sometimes the mind lapses and I totally forgot.

I needed a new PC as I had been using a laptop for various things and an old 360 for gaming, I really needed an upgrade. Trying to run multiple VMWare or do the basic of editing on a laptop is near impossible and The 360 is getting a little outdated. Xbox ones just don't seem worth it.

I know a lot of people go for the whole Red/Black theme, it's nothing new in terms of colour choices. Though I still think the red/black theme looks sexy so chose to go down that route. It's a medium/high end AMD build, tailored towards Gaming and Editing/VM tasks(hence the 32GB of RAM), so needed Graphical performance and a lot of processing power. Pretty standard in terms of setting up the hardware, though I did custom paint parts of my noctua fans and the bracket for my water cooler(pics down the post).

My build Parts were:
Case -                      NZXT S340 Black/Red
Motherboard -          ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z
CPU -                       AMD FX 9590
RAM -                      32GB(4 x 8) Corsair Vengeance Pro 24000Mhz 
GPU -                      MSI R9 390 8GB
Storage -                 2 x 120GB Samsung Evo 850 SSD 1 x 1 TB WD Caviar Blue HDD

PSU -                      Corsair RM1000w Gold Fully Modular
Fans/Cooling -        Corsair H110 Water cooling kit, with the 2 stock corsair fans replaced with two Noctua NF-A14 2000RPM PWM. An the 2 NZXT stock case fans replaced with 1 x NF-A14 2000RPM PWM and 1 x NF-F12 2000RPM PWM. The rad is 280mm.

Other bits -
Gigabyte Wifi/Bluetooth Card dual band
NZXT 1m Red LED kit 
Some GELID GC-3 to replace the stock TIM on the corsair cooler
 

Before I started doing anything in terms of building the PC, there were two parts of my hardware I wanted to modify. The rubber dampeners on the edges of the noctua fans and the mounting bracket for the pump/heatsink of my Corsair Cooler. As much as I praise Noctua for updating the style when they designed and started manufacturing their Industrial line, I still don't like the brown. 

I used some Hyperlex Rubber Paint (Same as Plasti Dip), In matte red and was pretty happy with the results. Painting rubber is a tricky task and found that simply laying the dampeners down and painting caused them to stick to the cardboard. Using some pins and tape, I created a makeshift solution to keeping the dampeners in the air. A lot easier to get at all the angles.






After having finished painting what I wanted to modify, I took a short break before starting the next part.... building the actual PC. 

I started off pretty standard, installed the CPU, RAM, my wireless card, LEDS, routed a few cables and started installing my exhaust fans.




No problems so far, everything going good.

Next up I installed the top 140mm exhaust fan and installed my SSDs/HDD. 



I admit, I really do like the NZXT S340. It was so easy to work with and fit all the components well.

It was time to get to the nitty gritty and install the Radiator/mount the cooling block. I cleaned off the old TIM from the Corsair block, waved goodbye to all the stock fans and got down to installing the fans, radiator and mounting the block. 
Even though the stock TIM on the corsair cooler is supposed to be fine, from what I researched Gelid GC-3 is great for being use on water blocks and could shave a couple of degrees. 



Now I had finished what I considered the brunt of the work. It was simply time to install my Graphics card, route all my cables and install the PSU and I was done!

If I had taken pictures at every single step, I think I'd have taken 100s. So I've bunched chunks of the build into one.

Here are some pictures of the finished build, I'm pretty happy with how it went. 



An that's it folks. Booted up and posted first time, no errors, windows 10 install was a breeze.

Under full load after 1hr -
my max CPU Temp is only 58c with my fans running under 1300RPM (for an FX9590 is pretty good)
Idle temperatures tend to be around 25c-32c essentially ambient room temperature.
My GPU is OC slighlty over MSIs standard OC for the R9 390 Core clock at 1065Mhz , Memory Clock 1530Mhz. No change in voltage. I have yet to test further stable overclocks.
My RAM is clocked at 1866mhz with a stable CPU OC of 5.19Ghz. 

In the near future, I'll be swapping out the cables for black/red braided cables. As at the moment the stock corsair cables look pretty shabby and aren't supple enough to bend properly. I went for higher end parts so If i ever choose to upgrade my case, or go for dual graphics, I have the power to be able to do so.

Always find it enjoyable to see others build's, so thought i'd post mine.

Enjoy guys, happy building! 

[KRImSIN]

Yay another fellow S340 user.

 

Btw looks amazing!

[FaZe Booce]

The only problem I have with it is the Twin Frozr LED. Seeing a white LED in the middle of red LEDs turns me off. Otherwise amazing build.

[PDArm]

Thanks!

I do admit, the S340 is a pretty nifty case, especially for the price. For me, it was just the right size. Not too big, but not too small.

An it is a pretty good looking case. 

[PDArm]

The only problem I have with it is the Twin Frozr LED. Seeing a white LED in the middle of red LEDs turns me off. Otherwise amazing build.

In honesty I do agree. Though I'm pretty stuck of ways round having the LEDS showing.

 

[FaZe Booce]

In honesty I do agree. Though I'm pretty stuck of ways round having the LEDS showing.

 

If I had red LEDs everywhere and a Twin Frozr, that LED would be covered up in seconds.

[airdeano]

In honesty I do agree. Though I'm pretty stuck of ways round having the LEDS showing.

 

could always do this as per JayzTwoCents:

[PDArm]

If I had red LEDs everywhere and a Twin Frozr, that LED would be covered up in seconds.

There's probably some kind of red translucent paint I could use, to paint over the logo so it would glow with a red hue.  Depending on how recessed it is, I could maybe just plasti-dip it and peel off round it. 

[PDArm]

could always do this as per JayzTwoCents:

Pretty clever! Seems easy enough aswell.

[airdeano]

usually any hobby store will have color vellum or tint sheets of a sort and cheaply.

[PDArm]

usually any hobby store will have color vellum or tint sheets of a sort and cheaply.

I can order some off Amazon. Since the logo is under the heatsinks and around the fans, shouldn't be too hard to unscrew the front off and slide some tint in. 

[ELSknutson]

Looks good But I would have went with White LED's

[ELSknutson]

I also think painting the LED is a bit silly white goes fine with your system 

[PDArm]

I also think painting the LED is a bit silly white goes fine with your system 

I'm 50/50 really. I think either white or red LEDs would be cool.

At first I was going to go with a subtle white, just to kind of light up the case at night. Then chose to go for red. In honesty and this is no offence to anyone with LEDs as they are pretty cool. Adding red LEDs, kind of made me feel like a boy racer adding a spoiler to his beat up 1l engined car.... an that isn't in a good way. 

I have a few things I want to do, like add some braided cables, another 2 HDD, maybe crossfire 2 x 390's depending on the space. and possibly switch out the LEDs or as someone suggested mod the graphics with some tint. 

 

[ELSknutson]

I'm 50/50 really. I think either white or red LEDs would be cool.

At first I was going to go with a subtle white, just to kind of light up the case at night. Then chose to go for red. In honesty and this is no offence to anyone with LEDs as they are pretty cool. Adding red LEDs, kind of made me feel like a boy racer adding a spoiler to his beat up 1l engined car.... an that isn't in a good way. 

I have a few things I want to do, like add some braided cables, another 2 HDD, maybe crossfire 2 x 390's depending on the space. and possibly switch out the LEDs or as someone suggested mod the graphics with some tint. 

 

I would not mess with the graphics card and a can build you a white led strip to try for free plus sipping 

[mikeeginger]

Nice Build 

 

Ps: Follow your own topic 

[PDArm]

Cheers mike.

Not sure what following does, but I have done it anyway. 

[PDArm]

If I had red LEDs everywhere and a Twin Frozr, that LED would be covered up in seconds.

I took your advice and sorted the LED issue.

Disconnected it from the PCB so it no longer lights up,then replaced the MSI logo with a ROG logo to match my new board. Updated the build with new pics. 

[FaZe Booce]

I took your advice and sorted the LED issue.

Disconnected it from the PCB so it no longer lights up,then replaced the MSI logo with a ROG logo to match my new board. Updated the build with new pics. 

dem twin frozr mods

[PDArm]

dem twin frozr mods

Aha, it had to be done. That white msi logo was awful.