banana_havoc

[Update - 3/19/23] Finally all put together as of last weekend. Unfortunately, I got fleeced by the previous owner of the GPU, who not only sold me a broken part, but also neglected to let me know that it had been refused by EVGA's warranty team to be repaired due to physical damage to the PCB. Luckily for me, I found a fantastic service (Northwest Repair LLC, look up his YouTube!) who took care of me and get the card functional again!

Hyte has some REALLY interesting designs, I'd love to get one of their cases in the future. Even the little things like that riser cable that set them apart. Looking forward to seeing this completed!

Its been a while, everything pretty much went on hold while I waited to acquire a newer GPU, and I refused to buy anything while they were horrendously overpriced. Anyways, here's a parts list of things I've acquired that need to be added as of yet, hopefully I'll start on some of this this coming weekend. Asus ROG Strix 1000 watt Gold PSU Darkside 360mm crossflow radiator Phanteks D140 rear distro-plate Phanteks Glacier 220 DDC reservoir A bunch more fittings and thicker wall tubing. And waiting on its return from an RMA..... an EVGA RTX3090 FTW3 Ultra. It'll be run on air for the first bit until my wallet feels like round two for a waterblock, unless I decide to trade or sell it for another different GPU. Stay tuned?

[Update - 5/24/21] So, Had a few major issues. The motherboard I had purchased used off of Amazon, and while it worked fine for the first while. it eventually rendered BOTH my M.2 drives inoperable. Fortunately, Amazon agreed to at least cover the drive I purchased from them. I decided to swap the motherboard for an Asus B550-F Gaming Wifi. At least Asus Armory Crate is a pleasure to mess with unlike MSi's Dragon Center, that program is literal trash. Also lucky for me, the tubes mostly lined up, that said, I'll likely redo the runs soon as I'd like to add a second radiator in preparation for a new GPU and I also found out that stupid me plumbed the CPU block in reverse, so that will need to be dealt with as well. At least the system is FINALLY back up and running.

Which ones? The strips above and below the motherboard? Those are the Phanteks NEON strips - available here.

I just finished rebuilding my old PC for future use as an HTPC, I love how this is going. and that it will just look like an antique if you put it in the livingroom.

- Newest Update - So my old system was getting a little long in the tooth and I was looking for a little more power to possibly try my hand at streaming. I also found myself with some involuntary time off due to the current global situation and put the last couple weeks to good use. Will update as parts are replaced/upgraded. PCpartpicker list - https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/banana_havoc/saved/#view=2gyRK8 And here's a link to my Reddit post with a video of the lighting - Cheers!

[Update - 4/23/21] Been a while, computer has served well, but I may have robbed it of its watercooling glory to enhance a new addition to the stable. This one will be retired to my wife as her PC/household HTPC once we rearrange the livingroom and make the space for a mid tower upstairs. Swapped in a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Black, drilled the intake area to fit triple 140mm Phanteks fans, and swapped out the Corsair HD120s for a mix of "UpHere" cheap white/black 120mm and the left over Fractal 120mm fans from my daughter's case. At idle, the GPU is hovering at 32*C and the CPU stays pretty locked at 26/27*C. This PC will spend a lot of time idle, so that shouldn't be too bad. Once it takes on that duty though, I'll be taking my 1070ti out for the mean time and swapping in a Quadro (I think 2400) I have kicking around.

If you're not going to overclock, you should be fine. Just make sure you have adequate ventilation. In all honesty I was considering the same board. But I have a tendency to overclock. As for the monitor, you would be outpacing it but the up side is you wouldn't have frame drops, and you were speaking about replacing the monitor anyways.

Seconded, the other parts will hold up fine. And IMO, unless you're overclocking, you probably don't need the MB, and if you were to upgrade, I'd suggest going to an X570 board, or one without known heat issues (that said, my friend has one and seems to like it, and I was thinking about getting one purely for the aesthetic), like the MSi Tomahawk MAX B450. And mebbe a 750 watt PSU, because they are around the same price as a 650 and more is always better.

[Update - 3/27/20] - Beware text update coming... So just before all this COVID-craziness, I purchased a new monitor as I was getting a little over 1080p60, so I picked up an AOC CQ32G1. Very happy with the extra real estate going from a 27" to 32". 1440p and 144Hz with Freesync doesn't hurt either. Though after putting it in I sadly discovered my GPU was pretty much at the end of its life in my system. After the last 5 years its definitely paid its due, I'm still a little attached to that card as its one of the few parts that's still from my original build, and one of the first things I modified, but it was time. It will live on inside my daughter's system for now, and eventually get the shroud paint corrected and find a new home on my shelf once she's ready to upgrade. So anyways, I went on Fl-ebay and picked up a used MSI GTX 1070ti DUKE for a pretty decent price. Immediately after its arrival, I torn it down and cleaned everything with isopropyl, and put in some new thermal paste in. Got a decent OC out of it too, 150mHz core and 575Mhz on the memory. That said, it is only a placeholder for something better hopefully around Black Friday/Boxing Day. Still not sure if it will be Big Navi or whatever nVidia drops, but for now its a great replacement. And for what I paid I'm not complaining. Anyways, now that I have some more spare time, I also ordered some of the new Phanteks RGB strips, and I'll likely finally make the pedestal I've been thinking of for a while. The upside of that will be that I'll eventually be able to add another 360 Rad without crowding the case. So there will be a few more updates coming. Like @LauriHimself said, there's always another step in mind. Anyways, the pedestal will also allow me to rotate the case 90* and cover the I/O for a cleaner look, also I'll probably trim my monitor riser to move it closer to me. I also just ordered some more PETG to route the tubing a little differently so it doesn't hide behind the GPU, as the new card is triple fan and a lot longer than the old one. Also, while I have the loop apart...... So yeah, I'll probably finally delid my 6700k, as I already have the Conductonaut. Temps are still a little higher than I'd like under load, and I can't get any higher than 4.5 gHz without crashing. So hopefully this will help that out. I'm hoping to switch to Ryzen early next year, so It won't be for too long. Then this system will likely be wall mounted to replace my HTPC in the living room. Anyways, the case will be rotated according to the following picture, and a hopefully more updates made in the next couple weeks as I'm bored out of my mind. And it'll give me something to try and do with the kids. Thanks for visiting!

[Update: 3/27/20] Small revision, I upgraded the GPU in my rig, and passed down my customized GTX 970 to this machine after a cleaning and some new Arctic Silver 5. I realize the difference between these cards is negligible, but after the work I've done, and its one of the few parts I have from my original pc and this card deserves to be used. Not to mention its a bit of a beast (for Maxwell) for overclocking, which I'll probably play around with tonight when I can actually get her off Minecraft. Also, she decided to rename her PC, its now known as "Watermelon" due to the Razer Keyboard, and I matched the RGB on the eVGA Torq X10 mouse. And for those interested in the final specs: CPU - i7-4770 MB - Gigabyte GA-H85-D3H RAM - 16GB Crucial DDR3L 1600mHz GPU - MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G PSU - eVGA 750-G1 Fan Controller - Bitfenix Recon SSD - Kingston A400 120gb SATA HDD - 1 TB Toshiba 2.5" 5400 RPM Case - Fractal Design Focus G Thanks again for checking it out!

I'm not going to lie, that's a neat idea, though I'd probably build a new case if I were to attempt, simply to fit the monitor inside. And watercooling, because watercooling. Good luck!

[Update - 3/15/20] So with my shifts and people visiting we didn't have the time to get the system built immediately, but after work today we got the time to finish assembling it and get it running. Little girl is very happy with it, though she hasn't had the chance to play on it yet as I still needed to do the installs. but hopefully we'll get some time in tomorrow before I need to go to work. For now it will live in the basement next to my rig, but we'll see what happens once I finally clear out the old shop in the basement and turn it into the office. Also... the obligatory peel.

From this... To this...