Arclite

Well if you imply more demos of the product itself, more benchmarks, comparisons, and quality tests of it into the video, then I'm for it.
 
We as a community want quality and information that we can trust.

This was really tough... There were things that stuck out as issues to me about all of them... 
 
1. Low density memory modules. I always prefer to populate fewer slots with higher density modules for better compatibility now, and to have an upgrade path in the future.
 
2. Small hard drives. 1TB or even 2TB hard drives don't represent as good a value as 3TB drives right now in many cases, so I'd rather compromise on a Noctua fan for more storage. With that said, if anyone had downgraded the rig a bit and worked in a redundant NAS they would have won for sure.
 
3. Pre-filled liquid coolers. I'm still not 100% sure what my own feelings are on them to be honest. I love the idea and I love the look of them, but the reality is that unless you go for a Swiftech one or a dual 140mm one they don't really perform much better than an NH-D14. So no right answer there...
 
4. AMD vs NVIDIA. Right now for a high end single GPU rig, the only right answer is GTX 780. Maybe that changes in a little while here though
 
5. Sound cards. I really liked venomz' build, but I wouldn't have gone for the RoG Hero board and a mediocre sound card. If you're going to get an add-in sound card, I'd cheap out further on the board and get a better one in most cases. Especially because with Haswell the board doesn't affect overclocking much. I saw a couple external sound cards in there, and I'm still not 100% decided about those. Getting an internal sound card has benefits such as giving you a cleaner mic in compared to crappy onboard. An O2 doesn't achieve that.
 
6. I don't like plastic cases, so most of you kinda lost me there, but I understand we were working within a budget I liked the FT03 build, but honestly I've never been able to achieve the silence I seek with a small form factor build so I've yet to feel like I could actually move my personal rig to ITX or even mATX. 750D was a great choice from ilikemacandpc, but he could never have won with a forum handle about liking mac anyway (jk)
 
7. RAID0 SSDs. Saw this show up a couple of times. I run them, but I really really don't recommend them except in VERY rare circumstances. If you build included an external nightly backup solution, then, AND ONLY THEN are you allowed to configure your ideal Linus rig with a RAID0 boot drive.
 
8. Everyone did really well on the monitor. I guess that makes sense since the PB278Q is the last thing I actually bought for myself
 
9. Small boot drives. I saw quite a few folks go for 128GB-class SSDs. I find 240/256 the minimum for me these days. YMMV though.
 
10. Power supply choices. I saw CoolBeans nailed it with the Corsair RM series. That's what I would choose if I was shopping today. Maximum silence. Mmmm.
 
11. I didn't see any dedicated fan controllers or means of controlling fans. That means the folks who chose ASUS boards were thinking ahead a bit more since their Fan Xpert II control is pretty cool.
 
 
All in all this thread was a total blast to read because in spite of everything I said above, it's amazing how closely you guys have nailed down the stuff I really like versus the stuff I wouldn't recommend. There wasn't anything in this thread that raised any major alarms for me and I think that's really cool. It makes me feel great about the PC recommendations new builders are getting on this site.
 
I don't want to choose the winner because I just really liked seeing this thread and how closely everyone pays attention to what we do.
 
Linus

I agree with you 100%. This build is fiscally irresponsible.
 
Which is why we all love it...

As you can see i Swapped parts a few times because I wanted to make sure it was just right!!!
Also I have yet to use the ram dominators, they dont fit on the platinums -____- Anyways here are some finalized pics!  
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
And thats pretty much that! Hope you like!
 

Hey everyone!

I am starting a thread here on LTT for my upcoming water cooled upgrade for the ROG Gene V TJ08-E. I was wanting to have a watercooled build that did not look like all the others... It is especially hard with a small case such as the Silverstone TJ08-E as there is only a handful of WC products that work in my case... So I decided to use hard acrylic tubing with the help of B Negative's tube bending guide. I must just warn everybody that this thread is photo heavy, so there is a 56k modem warning here for those of you using dial-up internet, or with a limited mobile surf packet!

First I would like to explain where this build has come from, and what I plan to do with it in the future. Best to explain with pictures! Here is how my PC looked in January this year:








At this point, I had gained enough courage to try my hand at some modding. I was wanting to have something more unique, something with my stamp on it. So I started out with a couple of projects on making my computer stand out from the rest. What I had in mind at that point was just to sleeve the PSU, and try to make a floor which lit up white to show off the components in my case... The sleeving took a long time, and the light panel failed and looked like poo.

So I had to come up with something not just OK, but PERFECT! I wanted to do a mod that had not been done before, and have this mod cover the many bare spaces within the case. Suddenly, I found inspiration from the SupremeFX III sound chip design which can be found on my Asus Z77 Maximus V Gene motherboard. This is what the design looks like on the board:




So, here is my journey to replicating my design on my own PC with the help of a few hand tools, elbow grease, and time. Enjoy these pics:






















Let’s just say that the kitchen wasn’t looking so happy after all this work… Neither was the wife!



After a doing the light panels, I had the inspiration and motivation to do something special about the back of the PC. Something special with the cabling, SSD placement, and maybe use some aluminium to "spruse" it up a bit. It was nothing advanced, but in my opinion, it tied in with the general feeling that I washoping to acheive with the upgrade! This is what I had come up with:











So, 5 months had gone by since I had started this rebuild. I had bought some more hardware, sold some hardware, filed and sanded like a "mofo", and in the end, I ended up with a computer that I was 100% happy with!!! This is what it looked like:


















Once completed, in May 2013, fans who had followed the build nominated me for overclock.net's "Mod Of The Month", of which I was 1 of 4 contestants gunning for glory. After 8 days of voting, I had won the competition with 58% of a total of 310 votes.

But the story doesn't end there... Sadly, after having the computer up and running for a week, I noticed that the SLI setup ran too hot because of the aluminium mid-plate sitting directly above the top GPU, and my Corsair H80 CPU AIO (All In One) solution's pump died. This forced me to send it back as RMA to where I had bought it from. After 3 weeks of having a dead computer, I was told that the H80 would not be replaced, but that I would get a refund. More stress! BUT, After some thinking, and planning, and determination, I decided to take it to the NEXT LEVEL (again?) and WATER COOL!!! So, after some more hard work, I would like to present the final pictures for this watecooling upgrade:
 

 

Thank you Aquatuning for your sponsorship!


MetallicAcid
 
 
Awards and commendations: OCN's "Mod Of The Month" May 2013 Linus Tech Tips WAN show "Build Of The Week" Featured on Rog Nordic Facebook page Featured on Sweclockers Facebook page Featured on Perfect PCs Tumblr page

Only a little bit

Nice! Take those stickers off the case though

Introduction:

I'm Adi, 28, rooting from Israel. Oh ye, we love the Tech Tips channel out here too ! :)

Like others, I'm a rather causal subscriber to the channel, I've been following it about 2 years after it's initiation and learned a lot from it. Linus has that spot on attitude for videos that are fun and easy to watch. :)

This project started back in October 2012, but I went through a Long-a$$ learning curve. I've never done such project before, but I looked at other people's work and knew what I want my project to look like. So I aimed high, but my skills are rather low-mediocre at best. Also, part of the learning curve was learning (and still learning) hardware and what stuff exactly to get... it's tough when you have such huge variety of pc parts, AND it's even harder when most of the project has to base on parts imported from over-seas (shippings costs, customs, delays, oos, etc'). So far though, I believe I've done it right with perhaps minimal mistakes. So far. ;)

* This log is also posted on various other forums, content may differ a little. My nickname is the same on all forums so you can look them up if you want. :)
** Some pictures may not depict colors as they are in real life. Well obviously, but my camera is extra crappy and has a broken screen display so I can't really see what I'm shooting.

Here's the official spec planned:

Board - MSI Z77 Mpower (former board was GB z68x-ud3h)
Cpu - i5 2500k
Gpu - Evga GTX 670 ftw (SLI planned once I hunt down another ftw).
Ram - 16gb G.skill Sniper 1866 CL9
Psu - Seasonic X-560 (this beast can carry a 2500k and two 670 ftws! prolly not the best idea, but for a fact, it can)
Case - Fractal Design Define R4 (well, obviously lol)

Water cooling equipment:

Pump - Swiftech 655 -B D5 w/Bitspower modkit in matte black.
Radiator - Black Ice GTS (2nd gen) 360mm
Tubing - Nickle plated copper tubings in conjunction with Bitspower Multi-link adapters
Coolant - Ice Dragon Nano Fluid
Cpu Block - EK Supreme LTx (nickle and plexi edition) or XSPC Raystorm
Gpu block - EK FC-680 (old style, also nickle and plexi edition, this one is from the last 2012 batch in October)
VRM & Chipset blocks - Liquid Extasy (should be here by April)
Res - Bitspower multi-z upgrade kit for D5 (also have 80 and 250mm versions)

Sleeving:

MDPC: Orange, Shade, Black, Aqua Blue MKII, White
Techflex Clean cut: Black & Grey (only colors available)

* The first post is gonna get updated from time to time so be sure to check it out for some new info.

Lets go:

Taken apart anything that won't be used, hdd/od cages & gromits.



My first interaction with sleeving was cleancut so I used that for the first sleeving tasks:

Black & grey cleancuts:



- mdpc yellow -



- mdpc b-magic -



Sleeved the front panel with clean cut:



Quick test assembled:



Gonna give the usb 3 wiring a special treatment which I like to call the "mdpc treatment", more on that later. :)

Sleeved some sata cables, some for practice and some for using in the actual build:



In black (mdpc):



And as an extra practice, these two short satas:



Sleeved one of my fans:



And various other fans:







Painting the i/o shield white is a must (all pci brackets are white):

Prepping:



Quick assembly review:



Got an acrylic piece that will cover the perforated floor of the R4:



Cut into size:



New board:





New ram:



Close up:



The stickerless G.skill Snipers:



Yellow covers removed and heatsinks cleaned from sticky residue:



IO area cleaned from stickers:



Assembled:



Close up:



A'right, water cooling parts started to arrive:

Black Ice GTS 280... it's nice and everything but gonna need a replacement since it's slightly defected. Edit: Black Ice were kinda enough to ship a new radiator to me, a GTS 360 and as a bonus another 120mm radiator + free shipping with Fedex. Brilliant customer service in my book.



The new radiator:



With eLoops attached:



First attempt at making an adapter plate for the radiator:







First attempt went ok, but not good enough. I will use my first attempt to make a new piece, this time using the first adapter as stencil and duplicating it (minus the defects) using my Router.



Good old' XSPC Raystorm:



Unboxed:



Another block I got off ebay, it's an EK Ltx Nickle/Plexi edition:



Arrived a bit dirty so cleaned it up:



Also had to get a proper backplate for it:



"Old style" FC-680:



I also plan on getting this set of blocks for the motherboard. It was just released by a German brand called "Liquid Extasy". It's not a popular brand, but it looks serious. Their shop is a bit weird as you have to wire-transfer your payment (no Paypal option atm). Anyway, it should be in stock around April so it may get added after the build is completed:



Bitspower multi-link adapters, some new sleeving (Mdpc orange):





Rest of the colors:



Close up (the blue is way way off, I promise better pictures later on):



First attempt at uni-sleeving:



Swiftech "uber" 655, -B model with BP modkit & v2 top:



BP 80mm multi-z res (tube only):



Complete res, 250mm



I also got the upgrade kit so I'm covered in both tube size (I've got 80, 150 and 250) and both variations, either attached to the pump top or separated because all parts are interchangeable! :)

Close up:



BP res brackets for 140mm radiators:



Unboxed:



Close up shot:



Lian Li case feet (also got the wheels, not sure which I'm going to use yet):


 
// Updates from May-June 2013
 
Psu cables wip pics:
 

 

 

 

 

I'm gay and I made an account for the sole purpose of replying to this post. The only people that are offended by the term "homo" are the people that have a flag pole up asses about being politically correct. Anybody that listened to what Linus said in context would realise that he obviously wasn't trying to offend anybody by saying it.

Not really, at least not to me. I'm in a relationship with this lovely wide hipped Japanese/Scott-Irish woman that I love dearly, but I get called "homo" by some of my gay friends out of jest. We joke about things. It's funny, really. Some person who isn't even the "target" will go off like "You shouldn't say faggot it's offensive!!!!1111!!" when it has nothing to do with their lifestyle. While someone who is actually homosexual (at least not someone uber sensative) will say phrases like "You faggot" all the time. Haha, they are just words and I love my gay and bi friends dearly. People need to stop self inserting themselves to play victim and grow up.
 
As the late George Carlin used to say, words are just words. It's humans that give them meaning. Words aren't offensive, people are.

"Full homo" is a colloquial term used to imply that a relationship is sexual rather than platonic.
 
The "homo" part means that the relationship is between two members of the same sex, so while adaptations could exist that are appropriate for use with a member of the opposite sex, I didn't need to use them because Slick is male, and I am male.
 
It's about like any other joking around that friends (of same sex, opposite sex or anywhere else on the spectrum) might do. I've said similar crap to girls too, and no one cares about that. As long as everyone involved is comfortable with kidding around in such a manner, then it's all between consenting adults, and everyone else can just move right along.
 
If anyone was offended, then two things:
 
1. I'm sorry your feelings were hurt.
 
2. Lighten up.

If you're spending 500-600$ on a graphics card and youre still using vga... I believe thats what linus would say

Like any other year, look for deals at the time of purchase.

As for the OP, I disagree with two things:

1) Your fear of bottlenecks is irrational. If you have $20 extra to spend, and that will get you the next tier of GPU but not both a tier up in CPU *and* GPU, there is no reason not to get a better GPU. 90%+ of new games, including many games that aren't released yet, do not leverage the CPU as much as they do the GPU, and thinking you HAVE to upgrade your CPU every time you upgrade your GPU is irrational, wasteful and unfounded. Because you have an i5-3570 and GTX 680 now, does not mean that you won't get a benefit from upgrading just the GPU the next generation. You get slightly less of a boost, but a boost none the less. I see a lot of people swapping out almost their entire system every generation of new hardware, and I just feel sorry for them for being so wasteful.

2) You are clearly biased towards AMD and the 8350 "hotfix" BS has been refuted multiple times. In fact, you still get what you pay for (what a shock!) until there are a lot more, and more diverse, games to leverage 6+ cores. I say 6+ cores because 6 AMD cores roughly equals 4 Intel cores at this tier. Also, recommending AMD to everyone because of Crysis 3, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 - three games of which the first is bad, the second is soon dead and the third isn't even out yet, is terribly silly.

The Bitfenix Spectre Pro Copper Edition
I'll let the pictures do the talking for the most part.
I hung the frames on a thread (still had to rearrange them to cover all the angles).
(click image for full res)

The masking took about two and a half hours for all fans...
(click image for full res)

...because I had the genius idea to paint them both front and back, even though
nobody will ever see the back side again, ever. But the perfectionist inside me
just wouldn't shut up. You can also see that I desoldered the wires. Considering
how close together the contacts are on the PCB that's going to be a bitch to solder
back on. Ah well...
(click image for full res)

First coat of copper paint applied. The paint I'm using is Weicon Copper Spray.
The copper colour comes from actual copper particles (so, it's a metal spray, not
just something that looks like copper). The upside: It's copper! The downside:
It's conductive (most likely, I don't have a multimeter to test this, but I doubt
the epoxy matrix in which the copper particles are embedded serves as a good
enough insulator to make it non-conductive).
I found the paint on eBay, if you google "Weicon copper paint" you should be able
to find more info on it.
(click image for full res)

Aaand we're done. To be perfectly honest, the paint job could be improved upon.
But considering I don't have a spray booth and practically all imperfections are
well hidden when they're mounted I'm still very happy with the results. I'll
definitely change my procedure though if I ever do this again. It's a learning
process.
Also, to prevent the paint from tarnishing, I gave all the painted parts a clear
coat for protection.
(click image for full res)

And now, some glory shots:
(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

Well, at least the masking did its job.
(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

I also painted the hex bolts for mounting the fans. They also have a clear coat.
(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

That's it for today. Next: Re-wiring the fans.

Dat thermal paste is too much.

edit1: updated CPU, headphones and link to video
 
edit2: updated motherboard and graphics card
 
edit3: added in italics some substitute parts if someone wanted to build something similar but wanted to get a reasonably good value for their money rather than overkill stuff like what I have

edit4: changed monitor & keyboard
 

 
I get a lot of people asking me about this, so I should probably post it.
 
I'd like to preface this with the following disclaimer: A lot of the stuff I run makes NO sense, and isn't the kind of thing I would actually recommend to others. Much of it is discontinued and/or not available for some other reason. Contrary to what many believe, I don't actually have a lot of extra money to spend on PC upgrades, so some parts of my machine are weirdly state-of-the-art (usually samples that I was allowed to keep), while others are ghetto as all hell. I will try to include some justification for each component so you understand where I'm coming from
 
CPU: Intel Core i7 4970X - This was a sample. Everything I said before about the 3970X applies here...
 
retired: Intel Core i7 3970X - This was a sample. There is no way I would spend $1000 on a CPU that performs marginally better than one that costs hundreds of dollars less. I'm not planning to upgrade to IVY-E because I can't justify the effort of removing the CPU block to put in a CPU for the marginal performance improvement. I really want the additional cores for video exporting. It makes a big diff. Anything else I do benefits NOT AT ALL from the 6 core processor, and if I wasn't doing that I would just use a quad core. Similar thing I'd actually recommend: Core i7 4930K
 
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79-E WS - Love this board. Zero coil whine. Unbelievably well built. Rock solid stability so far, and perfectly compatibility with my RAID card. Zero complaints. Also looks great and has an unbelievable amount of expansion (7 PCIe 16x physical slots capable of running 16x/8x/8x/8x/8x/8x/8x/ gen3... Not to mention the Tesla/Xeon/ECC RAM compatibility! The only issue with this board is it's $500... Can't really recommend it to people who pay for their hardware unless they really need something that's designed for 24/7 workstation operation. Similar thing I'd actually recommend: ASUS X79-DELUXE
 
retired: Gigabyte X79S-UP5 - I really liked this one at first, but now I'm not as impressed. A BIOS update bricked my SSD RAID array, the front USB3 ports cause the machine to blue screen whenever I plug in my Android phone, and sleep is broken when my RAID card is installed. With that said, it was one of the few X79 boards I could find that didn't coil whine (and matches my colour scheme) so I'm still using it for that reason.
 
RAM: Crucial Ballistx Tactical Tracer 2x8GB (x2) 1600MHz for a total of 32GB - It's fixed with current inventory, but I'm using the old revision that's broken on X79. This probably isn't helping the system's sleep issues. I love the LEDs on them, but I really wish Crucial hadn't overlooked the two most OBVIOUS LED patterns: off and solid.... They have a whole bunch of goofy flashy patterns, but they omit these two. Oh well.
 
Graphics: NVIDIA Reference GTX Titan with Koolance full cover GPU block and backplate. I don't really recommend Titan. It's way overpriced for pure gaming use unless you're also a CUDA developer or something. The only reason I went with it is that I had to move from the 590 to get Shield streaming compatibility, and this was our only Kepler card (other than a 670 with a reference tiny PCB...) that had a water block on it. Also we have two of them so I wouldn't be impeding our ability to run the benchmarks we need to run on the other card by yoinking it. Similar thing I'd actually recommend: GTX 780 or GTX 780 Ti
 
retired: NVIDIA Reference GTX 590 + EVGA Classified GPU block - (Sample. EOL) I really don't recommend dual GPU solutions these days unless you really need the extra performance, and this card in particular consumes a lot of power and outputs a ton of heat. Fortunately I don't have to deal with the loud fan because it's liquid cooled (and all GPU fans are loud. Even the quiet ones under load by my standards). The only reason I'm using this card instead of a single 580 even is that I don't have water blocks for any of the other cards that I don't need for the test bench.
 
Sound: This is complicated... In my system I have an ASUS Xonar Xense (sample. EOL) that I use for my speakers and my mic input. Externally I have an Objective 2 amp and ODAC combo unit from Mayflower Electronics. It was a sample and it's absolutely outstanding.. Performs better than the Essence One I was using before at half the price. I use Corsair SP2500s. I didn't buy my pair, but I did buy a 2nd pair for my wife. I love these speakers. Similar thing I'd actually recommend: My recommendation is an E10 or O2 these days... Internal audio just doesn't make much sense unless you also need to upgrade your input. Corsair SP2500s get a thumbs up from me if you want some nice PC speakers, and for headphones... It gets complicated. PM me if you really care...
 
retired: Steelseries 7H headset. They're not spectactular, but they're VERY comfortable, they sound VERY good for gaming headphones (like REALLY good for gaming headphones) and the mic is excellent (and retractable). There is a flaw with the early shipping units that causes them to break pretty easily, but the Fnatic edition is apparently fixed. I'm using my Fnatic version. My old ones broke after a couple years.
 
retired: ASUS Xonar Essence One - It just doesn't perform as well as the Objective 2 & ODAC unit that I'm using now unfortunately...
 
Storage: 8X Corsair 120GB Force (refurbished) SSDs in RAID0 on an LSI 9260-8I. I didn't pay for the RAID card, but I did pay for these SSDs. I spent about $1000 on them back when $1/GB was a big deal. I basically wanted to get to that magic ~1TB class of storage on my desktop (all I've ever really used since I offload music, pictures, and video to my server) so I wouldn't have to worry about changing it for a long time. In retrospect it was kinda dumb to spend that kind of money on what is essentially a boot drive, but you STILL can't buy something faster/better/bigger for that price, so I guess not much to feel bad about. To be clear I DO NOT RECOMMEND RUNNING RAID 0 ON A DESKTOP. I'm doing so in a very safe environment (nightly backups and I don't keep ANYTHING of value on my desktop. RAID0 compounds the chances of TOTAL DATA LOSS due to drive failure with each drive you add to the array. 8 drives in RAID0 is insane, and the fact that they're refurbs isn't helping anything... Oh yeah I guess I have that awesome LG blu-ray/HD-DVD drive as well. I bought it for lulz when they went under $100 because then I wouldn't have to worry about which format won the war. Similar thing I'd actually recommend: Just get a big phat Samsung 840 Evo. Win.
 
I am planning to add a network iSCSI device as a game drive soon so I can install my entire STEAM library. Some stuff doesn't fit on my SSD array. #FirstWorldProblem.
 
Case & Power Supply: Silverstone TJ07B-W. I've been asked many times why I don't "upgrade" my case. The simple answer is I've yet to encounter something else I think is better. It features full metal (aluminum no less) construction, lots of room for components and liquid cooling without being so big I can't move it, exceptional craftsmanship (particularly the old ones. They're not as good anymore), and with a little bit of modding (internal powder coating job, some cut outs for CPU, cable management, replace front bay covers, and a few other things here and there) the feature set is actually reasonably modern. Aside from all of that, it's one of the first "big ticket" gifts that my then-girlfriend and now-wife got me. Sentimental value is a thing for me, particularly for something that exists solely for the purpose of looking at it and housing my computer junk. I use an XFX 1000W platinum PSU because the fan turns off at low loads. Unfortunately it coil whines anyway, so w/e. I sleeved it, so I'm not replacing it any time soon. Similar thing I'd actually recommend: Metal is king. I would never get a plastic case for myself. The TJ04B-W from Silverstone is a solid value metal case, the Corsair 750D is excellent at a higher price point. Past that, premium Silverstone stuff like the TJ07/TJ10 is my favourite but needs a lot of work to get it modernized (black interior, cable management)
 
Cooling: I'll split this out to make it more digestible.
 
APOGEE HD Gold Limited Edition: I may have been one of the first customers for this in the world. I paid full pop to own this extremely cool (one of 200) piece of liquid cooling history. I love it. I will be using it 5, 10, however many years from now regardless of performance. I powder coated the hold down plate to match the rest of my build.
 
Thermochill PA120.4 radiator: Back when I was actually acquiring liquid cooling components, Thermochill was a big deal. I haven't seen any tangible performance improvement since then anyway (other than just making them bigger), so no reason to upgrade really.
 
Hardware Labs Black Ice Pro II: This is my first water cooling radiator and the only piece of my original liquid cooling loop that is still in my machine. Also the oldest component in my machine. Still performs great.
 
MCP655 (D5) pump: The only pump that matters. Anyone who tells you a DDC is quiet needs to get their hearing checked. The built in speed controller is awesome too. Pump performance doesn't ACTUALLY matter much (even in my loop with 2 rads, and a couple blocks, the difference between 1-5 speed is like 1.5 degrees) so it's great to turn it down and get super quiet performance.
 
Silverstone AP121 fans: They look better than Noctuas and also perform very well. They also undervolt gracefully (no tick) which is important because I run them at very low RPMs
 
GELID Wing 12 fans: They look even better than the Silverstone ones due to not having the air channel things on them. They also are UV blue (match my blue) and also happen to be excellent fans. They're not Noctuas, but they'll do. They undervolt reasonably well (the 92s less so, but I just leave them off with my T-balancer)
 
Primoflex Pro LRT 3/8" ID, 5/8" OD tubing in UV blue - the only tubing that matters. Anything else is not worth looking at. Go ahead and prove me wrong.
 
Bitspower True Silver 3/8" straight compression fittings - Back when I used to upgrade every month or so, angled fittings made no sense for me. It would be a huge investment in something I'd keep for like a few weeks then need to change to something else, so I usually took a "one size fits all" approach to acquiring water cooling gear. I also really like the silver fittings, and they don't come in all the different variants, so I stick with my old school style. Not only all of that, but having some silver in your loop (even plating on your fittings) helps prevent microbe growth. It's a great solution.
 
mCubed T-balancer - I own this (bought it) but I don't talk about it much because I really don't want to give it much publicity. Once you get it working it's amazing, but the software, manufacturer website, and documentation all totally suck. I just don't want people to buy this thing them come asking me for help with it. I can hardly remember how to make it work (I set it up ages ago)
 
Monitor: ASUS RoG Swift PG278Q - It's still a TN monitor.. but it's the best one I've used featuring 144Hz refresh rates, 2560x1440 resolution, negligible input lag, relatively decent colour vibrancy, and (most importantly) G-SYNC. It really makes gaming better, so (for now) I've abandoned IPS in favour of a very feature rich TN.

retired: ASUS PA279Q - It's so beautiful. It's completely unnecessary for what I do, and at a cost of $850 I really couldn't recommend it for gamers who just want beautiful colours over the PB278Q (another awesome monitor)... They both have acceptable input lag, and motion blur (ghosting) that doesn't really bother me, but I think I'm just used to it. I've got mine slightly overclocked at 70Hz. I tried 80 and no success, but I didn't try anything in between. Not looking to push it too far. Just want that little bit of extra responsiveness. It really does help. The 10-bit panel on this monitor is something that due to hardware/software I can't take advantage of, but I can really appreciate the uniformity of the panel and the natural appearance of the colours it *can* display. Similar thing I'd actually recommend: ASUS PB278Q. If you want high refresh rate, the BenQ XL2420TE is excellent.
 
Mouse: Corsair M45 - It uses the 3310 sensor, which is a "perfect" sensor, which means no acceleration or other tracking-destroying nonsense, and the ergonomics are solid. It's nice and light, but has a removable weight system so you can load it up to be heavier if you like. It's also available at at great price. I think it's simply the best overall mouse available right now.
 
retired: Steelseries Ikari Laser - I just can't get over this mouse. This is my 3rd one and I love it as much now as I did the first time I put my hand down on one. It doesn't have the greatest build quality, in fact the right click of this one feels a little off, but I'm more tempted to buy another one "just in case" than I am to keep trying to find something else.
 
Keyboard: Corsair K70 RGB - Frankly I don't use a lot of the fancy lighting features. I just like being able to colour match my keyboard to the UV lighting in my rig - something that's usually not easy to do. The fit & finish of Corsair keyboards is awesome, but I really wish this one had at least one bank of macro keys
 
retired: Mionix Zibal 60 - Something about this keyboard just feels right. It uses Cherry MX Black keys, which is... an unusual thing for me to like. I'm usually more of a browns guy, but this one just feels exactly right for me. I'm faster and more accurate on it, and because it uses blacks it's not as loud as some others. It's got good compatibility with motherboards (getting into BIOS screen and stuff like that) and while I wish it had dedicated media keys and a volume knob, I don't have any other complaints. Nice solid build quality.
 
Headset: I am using Sennheiser HD8 DJ headphones with an Antlion Modmic 2.3 on them as my daily driver headphones. They're absolutely amazing. Great noise isolation, great sound, and bass just pounds without overpowering everything else.
 
retired: Steelseries 7H Fnatic Edition - I think I'm the only person on Earth who like the 7Hs. Build quality issues with the original aside, they sound GREAT for gaming headphones, and I find them very comfortable. They also have a very solid microphone, so I use these whenever I need a mic. Other than that my go-to headphones are still my (now ancient) Sennheiser HD555s.

Again, what feature?

What feature?
I doubt they lied. The problem is probably on the user's side and not the company lying.

This contest is now closed!! Winners are below!
 
GRAND PRIZE: WINTHER
RUNNER UPS: SUSHISKY & WING2K5
 
INTRODUCTION
 
Western Digital is taking a "go big or go home" approach to at least two things right now. One is the all new 4TB 3.5" Red NAS-optimized hard drive, and the other is this giveaway. Western Digital provided us with an incredibly generous EIGHT 4TB Red drives to give away. Because these drives are RAID-optimized, we thought it would make sense to group up the prizes so that you guys can run them the way they're meant to be run!
 

 
Again... HUGE thanks to Western Digital for making this giveaway possible. They've been so supportive of Linus Tech Tips. They sponsored our trip to Computex, sponsored our trip to PAX, and they're giving awesome stuff away to our community
 
PLEASE TAKE SOME TIME TO READ THE SPONSOR MESSAGES BELOW!
 
 
SPONSOR MESSAGES
 
1. Check out this excellent review of the WD Red 4TB over at Storage Review. These guys are awesome and know far more about testing drives than we ever will!
 

 
2. Check out the WD Red lineup even if you're not planning to enter the contest: http://geni.us/YQabkT
 
3. Check out this video outlining the advantages of WD's Red lineup of drives: 
 
 
 
WD RED 4TB GIVEAWAYS RULES & REGULATIONS 
 
I decided to split things up into one GRAND PRIZE and two runner up prizes. The big winner (who will be drawn first) gets FOUR 4TB WD Red 3.5" hard drives. That's right. FOUR. That's enough to store 12TB of data in RAID 5, or 8TB of data in RAID 1. Each runner up will receive TWO 4TB WD Red 3.5" hard drives. That's enough for 4TB of RAID1 safe storage! This is a Linus Tech Tips giveaway (WD is providing the drives to us to decide what we want to do with them) so it's WORLDWIDE!
 
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
 
This giveaway is only available for Linus Tech Tips forum members, and as usual you can either get ONE entry to win, or you can get more!!
 
1x entry - Post about your storage setup in this thread. The most important thing is WHY you run the hardware you run. There are NO bonus points for talking about WD, and there are no wrong answers. It's okay to say what brands you're using, and it's okay to have a reason that's as simple as "my friend recommended it at the time"
 
1x bonus entry - Include a link in your post of you sharing the giveaway on your personal Facebook

1x bonus entry - Include a link in your post of you sharing the giveaway on your personal Twitter

1x bonus entry - Include a link in your post of you sharing a link to this giveaway announcement thread in some other community (forums, social networks, super-active community websites other than linustechtips.com like Digg... etc). We aren't trying to spam so make sure you are sharing with people who you genuinely think will care about it!

You can get a maximum of 4 entries by including links in your post to the three eligible sharing places. Here is an example of what an optimal maximum entry (4) post would look like:
                                                                                                                                                                                    
1. I don't have a desktop, but I run an OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD for my boot drive because it was a great price, and offers great speed with a 5 year warranty. I don't keep any storage drives in my system because I use spotify for all of my music and I don't watch many movies, but I do have a 1TB external USB3 drive that has 1-touch back up, so I plug that in once in a while so that if my laptop gets lost I will still have my data. 
 
2. Facebook share from (Name Goes Here): (insert verifiable link here)
 
3. Twitter share with Twitter handle @Example: (insert verifiable link here)
 
4. Community Site share with nickname (nickname goes here): (insert verifiable link here)
                                                                                                                                                                                    
 

The contest closes September 30th, 2013 and the winner will be contacted after we've had a chance to tabulate the entries. Good luck everyone! Thanks for participating, and a big thanks again to our sponsor, WD!