EldarNi

Love the look of it

Still waiting on the rest of the watercooling pieces...

Watercool is getting me a custom waterblock, it's been ordered and everything. It's the acrylic block with a copper bottom (no nickel plating) and the black cover will be left naked for me (no anodizing). That way I can take the cover and get it anodized gold, leaving me with a copper base and gold top as planned! Only problem is the order got slightly missed by the people handling the nickel plating and all of the current batch got sent off to be plated, so I've been bumped to the next batch (next week). After that I'm thinking I'll hydro dip a scale pattern on the block too.

So since that has been delayed I haven't done much on the liquid cooling front.

But what I have done is take the opportunity to attempt lighting work, play with different tubing and paint.

Since the build is copper and gold I experimented a little bit. The left is gold and bronze alternating and the right is gold only.


I think the gold by itself looks much better so I did a few sticks to test how they look.






Honestly I think it looks great, the paint/marker needs to be touched up, but I really like it. IMO it's better than RGB leds.

Also I've been experimenting with frosted tubing, I'm trying to replicate the effect where the tube looks like it's glowing. But I'm actually on the fence about whether I'd rather just use the new Primochill Vue coolant. But so many people are having issues with it and the color I want isn't even out yet. So I figured I'd take my time and play around while I wait for the watercooling parts.

Waiting for the processor :miffed:  , here are some shots of the Gigabyte X299 mounted.

 

 
With the two Thermaltake Pacific R15 radiators I will make a single tank

 
I will use laser-cut plexiglass parts to create the various supports
 

 




 
Then it will be placed on top of the case, between the two Thermaltake Pacific RL480 radiators, slightly raised ..

So far no leaks

Aaaaand it's time for an upgrade. Not wanted to be honest as i wanted to keep my personal build as cheap as possible but considering I paid only £300 for the Asus GTX 1080 Strix Gaming, why not
 
Will install the graphics card tomorrow when hopefully I'll receive the 2x30cm white LED strips and install them together.

Graphics cards have arrived just missing the core components 

Hi people.
 
Recently I've seen some reviews of the "new" Phanteks Evolv Shift and, not necessarily fell in love, but I felt the need to make a new project for me. I had some decent deal lately and decided go for it. Looking at Phanteks website regarding the case, I saw that there is the possibility to install inside a dual 120mm AIO's setup. That made me even more excited as I have a EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid and will install and AIO on the CPU as well (even though not necessary).
 
Considering that I usually build on used components, for price/performance reason, with this one I had to buy new components as I couldn't find any good deals on used ones. To be fair it all started with the power supply. Why? Because I really wanted a power supply with at least 550W or ideally 600W for powering the 980 Ti easily. Browsing eBay and an Corsair SF600 SFX power supply came into my radar. Brand new, the cheapest one is around £104 here in the UK. The seller was asking £90 for it used and it was missing a SATA modular cable. Negotiating skills in action and sent an offer of £50 with the message "this is my top offer for a quick sale and due to missing SATA cable". And guess what? Yeah, you guessed it. 10 minutes later my offer was accepted :). So that's how all started, from a power supply.
 
Next, the components I'll be using:
 
- CPU - i5-7500 (bought in a bundle) - estimated price £100
- CPU AIO - AIGO Universal Intel AMD CPU Liquid Water Cooling 120mm LED Radiator T120 Ring - brand new eBay £44.90
- MOBO - ROG STRIX B250I GAMING Intel LGA-1151 mini-ITX - brand new eBay £109.99 (did a little bit of research and that was the best price/performance/features ratio for me
- RAM - 1x8GB Kingston HyperX 2400MHz (bought in the same bundle as the CPU) - estimated price £60
- GPU - EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid - from my previous build - paid for it £250 around 4 or 5 months ago
- Storage - Samsung 850 EVO 250GB M.2 SSD - bought used off Gumtree for £30 - that will be my only storage as I use my PC for World of Tanks and WEB Browsing (no downloads) - I have a SATA external power with USB 3.0 connection and I'll used my old 320GB HDD to keep my files or copy from it
- PSU -  as mentioned Corsair SF600 - £50 off eBay
- Case - and of course the star of the show - PHANTEKS EVOLV SHIFT - bought brand new of eBay for £108.95
 
Started working on it already but waiting to receive the CPU AIO to go further. As any mini ITX cases, it's quite challenging, and I'm a cable management freak, especially with see through glass.
 
Notes:
- the PCIE connection to the GPU are a tight fit (very tight - hopefully it will work)
- it is quite difficult using the modular cable as they are very stiff and hard to route them the way you want (but I'll use a hair drier to soften them up when I'll do the cable management part)
- if I were to describe the case it would be a full tower mini ITX (kind of full tower ATX, not mid tower). it's not that small but damn it looks really nice
- I really hope that I won't have problems with the AIO's due to bottom installation of the radiators
- not sure if I should already order a new PCIe riser cable as I read a lot of articles with people having issues with the one included by phanteks (in the Kyle's - BitWit - review, he did not complain about it - so I might be lucky?)

I couldn't help it. Even though tomorrow I got to be awake at 6am for work, I've started.

Realized I never uploaded the final pics. Here are a few I took this past spring. I've sinced moved places and the tubing runs are a little more elegant (hidden behind my desk). There are a few minor things I've been meaning to finish like some fitting changes and painting the PCIe extender. Plus upgrading the SSD capacites. Anyways, hope you enjoy!
 

 

 

 

I haven't finish my build log, but now after more than a year I opened my comp to clean it from dust, so I made a few photos. I also made a list of parts I used. 
Parts I bought
Motherboard:
Intel® Server Board S2600COEIOC (new)                216€
Ram:
64GB (8x8GB) DDR3 1333MHz ECC REG (used)     98€
Processors:
2 x E5-2670 SROKX C2 (used)                                 120€
Case:
Phanteks Enthoo Pro with window case (new)          122€ 
PSU:
RAIDMAX RX-1000AE-B (new)                                 120€
CPU coolers:
2 x LC-CC-120 - CPU cooler (new)                             49€
GPU:
Asus DUAL-GTX1060-O6G GTX 1060 6GB (new)    305€
SSD:
Silicon Power S55 240GB SATA III (new)                    66€
Hard drives:
2 x HDD SATA3 2TB WD Purple WD20PURZ           150€
Sound card:
PCIEx1 7.1 sound card (new)                                      14€
USB 3.0:
PCIEx1  4 x USB3.0 addon card (new)                       13€
Aditional cables and racks:
2 x SAS 4i SFF-8087(sas to 4 satacable new)              3€
2 x Hot Swap Rack (new)                                            30€
______________________________________________________
                                                                                1306€
I also added my old parts
SSD
240GB Kingston 
Hard disks:
2 x 1TB WD Green
BlueRay writer
BH10LS30

 
 
I have to made custom holder for PCIe raid card and I used PCIe extension cable because Asus card is 2,5 slots wide.
 
 
Hot swap racks.

 
 
My 2500VA UPS.

 
 
I use LG 49UH610V 4K TV as a monitor.
 

Finally the replacement Pentium 4 motherboard arrived this week and i could sit down and get back to doing this build. Everything is finally all here. AND working! huzzah!

 

everything for the GPU arrived. just waiting on the pump & new motherboard to arrive within the next week or 2.

 

I've got all of water cooling gear for my Retro'04 from that time too. but been lazy to put it together. Need a new case with a radiator support.
Would be interesting to see your gaming scores against mine)

This thing is beautiful

I used an old HP Compaq case for my AMD FM2 sleeper rig  I think that it turned out pretty nice

Here are some images of the final mods I have done.
 
You will notice the Noctua fan is no longer that horrible brown and beige. Its now a much more satisfying black and silver!

NCase M1 Build by Mathew Teague, on Flickr
 
In more detail, I have re-wired the 8 pin EPS to tidy up the cables and add the cable combs I had spare. Much better! I also repainted the Mosfet heatsink from Gold to Silver to match in with the rest of the build slightly better!

NCase M1 Build by Mathew Teague, on Flickr
 
I then re-wired the 24 pin to get it more looking like a 24 pin and less like a rats nest. I also added a cable comb I had spare to it!

NCase M1 Build by Mathew Teague, on Flickr
 
Even the chipset heatsink has been given a bit of love with some silver paint! I was pleasantly suprised when I took the Asus logo off to see this lovely heatsink bellow!

NCase M1 Build by Mathew Teague, on Flickr
 
Not really an addition from the last photos but I thought I would include it, the two 6 pins for the GPU. They already had cable combs on them but didnt want to leave them out from the cable comb party

NCase M1 Build by Mathew Teague, on Flickr
 
Thanks again for checking out the build log! This is likely going to be one of the final updates, unless I go crazy and do some even more reckless mods!

TPK Awwwaaayyyy

Nicely done

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Now my neck hurts
All thanks to you

Time to work on not quoting pictures next

And final pics!

 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 

And the details...

 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 

Thanks for following along! 

Aaaannnnnddd, the wiring is all wrapped up finally.  Had to wait on a few things to come in to put the finishing touches on it.  First off, I went with a RF controller for the lights so I didn't have to get an IR sensor somewhere where I could hit it with the remote. 

 



 

How much wire do these things need???  Cleaned it all up so that I could fit it in the little spot left where the  5 1/4's were.

 



 

Fits like a glove.

 

Next was taming the cables in the back.  Since I killed 3/8" of what room there was for cables when I replaced the MB tray, there wasn't much room.  I used some more perforated aluminum to carry the look and also because it's stiff enough to hold the cables flat and spread out to reduced their overall thickness.

 

Update 13 - I'M BACK!   Sponsors  
 
  I can now finally go back to work on my modding project. I hope the two shoulder surgeries i've been through is enoug... Those darn side panels are finally done. But, yet again, you will see them soon   I started to modify the SSDs and heatsinks on the motherboard in update 9. Heres the result.   Really pleased with how the SSDs turned out. Brushed with matte coating.   Wait, WHAT?! A GPU?   A MSI GTX 980TI Gaming 6G. A big thank you to MSI Europe whom belives in what i do and spnsored this project with this amazing GPU. I've removed the black paint on the backplate and gave it a brushed finish and finished it by some layers of matte coating     I've also painted the heatsink black and removed the "shroud". Gives a nice contrast if you ask me. Oh, and don't mind the fngerprints...     I removed the fans. THe card will be cooled by two Noctua 120mm which will be mounted on the bottom of the case.     I might be crazy - but it's in the details, right? The NH-D14 is beautiful out of the box, But the colour on the top fin don't match with the rest of the build. I first sanded off the nickel plating. And then it hit me - When sanding between the pipes, the plating on the pipe get's sanded off. THe pipes are made out of copper... NOT GOOD.   So off i went and bought a colour that matched the SSD's - Final result is pending. I do like the feel of the color with a rough sanding. Something for another build?     Sleeving the fans and creating some custom cables to controll the brightness of the LEDs     Time to mount.   Christmas is closing in - christmas feel mounting.

Finally Starting Phase 2!
 
Not so busy with school work anymore so I can finally restart this project and get to water cooling the system. Sad to watch over 10k worth of parts just sitting next to me doing nothing but collect dust.
 

You have no idea how much this picture confused me. 

Aaaaaaaannnnd, moving right along with the storage side of the project, I've cleaned up the SSD mount.

 





 

I even did a little wire brushing on it to give it something of a finished product look.  I'll be doing a little better job of it during the finishing process.

 

Now, let's put the drives on it.

 





 

The spacing is a bit wonky since I didn't get everything to the 1000th of a mm when I brazed the mounting plates on, but it's an easy fix.

 

And now putting them on the MB panel.  I used some aluminum spacers to raise the mount up off the panel and give everything a bit more depth.

 





 

This is all fine and dandy and I love how it came out, but I'm not done yet.  That's a lot of work for something you'll have to take a panel off to see, so let's add some visibility by cutting in a window.

 

First I had to figure out how big and how much to show.  Smaller window just giving a peek on the SSDs?

 



 

Or a bigger window showcasing them?

 



 

I'm going with the latter.  I think it looks better and the smaller window makes the graphics on the drives look weird to me.  Though, I'm debating on covering them with vinyl or decals, because ALL three have paint defects from the packaging.  Really OCZ??? :angry:

 

Marking up the panel for cuts.  Mr. Pump Bracket is happy because he got to help.  He provided the radius for the corners. 

 



 

And next is cutting, but I have to save that for my next update.  Just a little teaser of what's in store after fabrication...Inferno Red!