JR23

A few readers have been asking about performance, particularly when it comes to power usage and i'd imagine there is some serious inquisitiveness as to how CF scales too. Today i'm just compiling numbers from synthetic benchmarks rather than games purely because they are consistent and repeatable. The chosen few are Firestrike (Graphics!), Heaven and Superposition all in their most extreme 1080p form. So the first set of data is taking a look at Crossfire scaling, the 'perfect' result here would be 400%. In order to control as many variables as possible all runs were at the same settings: 4.8ghz, +100% power target and 1095MHz rather than the highest achievable score. The CPU was clocked high to mitigate it's impact on scaling just as you would when comparing two different cards. Firestrike: CF off - 18174, CF on - 63826, 350% Heaven: CF off - 1838, CF on - 6620, 360% Superposition: CF off - 3557, CF on - 13795, 388% To help interpret the CF scaling results I ran another string of tests with the CPU frequency as the controlled variable. If these revealed a significant disparity between stock and overclocked CPU speeds that would account for some of the losses which may be falsely attributed to CF scaling. To save me making yet another run of all 3 benchmarks the GPU's are stock for stock this time. Firestrike: 3.5GHz - 42881, 4.8GHz - 57797, +34.8% Heaven: 3.5GHz - 5512, 4.8GHz - 6127, +11.2% Superposition 3.5GHz - 11656, 4.8GHz - 11740, +0.7% Now for the fun variables! Just like recent Nvidia cards raising the power target lets the GPU throttle up to an elevated TDP. However unlike Nvidia, AMD didn't mess about with +20% and instead +100% is a welcomed option, so obviously I went for that. The cores can run right up to 67°C without deviating from the desired clock speed so with the EK blocks that issue was completely removed. So in this set of data we see the difference between +0% and +100%, the clock speed remains the same at 1000MHz however with +0% the card is restrained to 350W rather than being free to take as much as it likes. Firestrike: +0% - 57797, +100% - 60436, +4.6% Heaven: +0% - 6127, +100% - 6254, +2.15% Superposition: +0% - 11740, +100% - 12784, +8.9% And exactly how much extra power (peak draw from the wall) did the cards take to achieve that performance gain... Firestrike: +0% - 1065W, +100% - 1368W, +28.5% Heaven: +0% - 1023W, +100% - 1138W, +11.2% Superposition: +0% - 1010W, +100% - 1285W, +27.2% For the final set we look at the same thing again only this time raising the voltage, core frequency and power target simultaneously. So not only is the card free to take as much power as it needs but the demand has also increased in a true reflection of stock vs. overclock. Because the GPU's are now allowed adequate power and are sufficiently cooled this is a completely static overclock, locked to 1267mV @1095MHz as soon as 3d clocks are enabled. As in the previous set the CPU remains at 4.8GHz for both runs. Firestrike: stock - 57797, +100% - 63826, +10.4% Heaven: stock - 6127, +100% - 6620, +8.0% Superposition: stock - 11740, +100% - 13795, +17.5% Firestrike: stock - 1065W, overclock - 1509W, +41.7% Heaven: stock - 1023W, overclock - 1266W, +23.8% Superposition: stock - 1010W, overclock - 1452W, +43.8% Right then, some form of conclusion is in order. Personally I think it's fair to say that the Crossfire scaling is exceptional, to achieve 366% on average is more than anyone would've expected at such a low resolution. To do that with PLX and PCIe bandwidth alone is impressive, but then when you consider Firestrike is still CPU limited it becomes something else. When it comes to power though it's pretty clear that the Fiji cores will quite happily take all that's going and not give much back in return. Perhaps that was a harsh perspective to take but as a percentage the gains come across somewhat small at the side of the power thrown at them. It's clear that they very rarely operate at peak efficiency, infact the 1000MHz stock clock is stretching them out considerably but that does make them very fun to play with in 2018. Once furnished with a waterblock (or a very speedy fan on the aio) when you type in a core frequency and voltage then it either will or won't run at that exact frequency. There are no offsets, no dynamics at play it just does as asked and even more ridiculously the 200% TDP 1267mV setting is literally in the drivers. TLDR; big numbers right here! 4.8GHz, 4.6GHz cache, 3200MHz C15, 1100/500MHz, 1525W 4.8GHz, 4.5GHz cache, 3200MHz C15, 1120/500MHz, 1286W 4.8GHz, 4.5GHz cache, 3200MHz C15, 1115/500MHz, 1472W Running flawlessly all day, 51°C was the absolute hottest the cards ever got, PSU didn't trip. Might run some games tomorrow, check out how GTAV scales. JR

It's been long enough already, lets save the writing until the very end... Right, writing, some thanks are definitely in order! As always the Parvum crew for being down with whatever wild idea we gotta get done yesterday and Noctua for getting the best PC fans in the world on the way to me faster than I could type an email. Things have moved on somewhat since I started this project but I’m extremely grateful for all of OverclockersUK's input especially Ian '8Pack' Parry. I will bring it over to see you guys one day! Not forgetting Corsair either, I probably wouldn't of picked this project back up for a long time had they not been gracious enough to sub in the SSD. Since I drew the first R1.0 I wanted one for myself, I must have built 20 or 30, everywhere I went I just built R1.0's but now I finally have one distinguished enough to call my own. What I’ll do with it I don't know yet but it sure looks good next to LIGHTNING. It was a long journey particularly with the entire PSU debacle that put me off for so long. However now it has prevailed and 1600W+ of Fury can be unleashed at a moment’s notice it all seems to be worth it. The change of coolant and gold CPU block take it to a different level, I know I didn't show it before but the clear is a much better fit for the spirit of this build. Like a lot of things I was uncertain but when it started to perplex people at LAN as it appeared to have no coolant at all then it was obviously right. XFX Radeon Pro Duo x2 ASUS X99-M WS Intel i7-5960X Haswell-E Corsair Dominator Platinum 3200C15 4x4GB Corsair Force Series MP500 480GB Western Digital Black 1TB x2 EVGA Supernova 1600T2 Parvum R1.0 INDUSTRIAL Aqua Computer Aquaero 6 LT Aqua Computer Aquaero 6 Passive Heatsink - Black EK-Supremacy EVO X99 - Goldl Plexi EK-FC Radeon Pro Duo - Nickel Plexi x2 EK-FC Radeon Pro Duo Backplate - Black x2 EK-XTOP Revo D5 PWM - Plexi (incl. pump) x2 EK-CoolStream PE 360 (Triple) x2 EK-CoolStream CE 280 (Dual) EK-HD Adapter 10/12mm - Black x30 EK HD Tube 10/12mm 2-Slot (2 pcs) x2 EK-AF Angled 90° G1/4 - Black x4 EK-AF Extender Rotary M-M G1/4 - Black x2 EK-CSQ Plug G1/4 - Black x2 Noctua NF-F12 IndustrialPPC 2000RPM IP67 PWM x6 Noctua NF-A14 IndustrialPPC 2000RPM IP67 PWM x2 Noctua NA-SAVP1 Chromax - Black x4 MDPC-X sleeving - Shade 19 Now I’m on an absolute streak of finishing builds it might just be time to start more! See you all soon. Quad GPU be praised. JR

Right, let’s get this done before 2018!!! I made some crazy progress before Christmas and with FTW and i1.0-II out of the way it's time to get it posted. The first stage of attack, take every single thing apart! The system had been used for a few months (with huge stock GPU power cables trailing around the case) and then just sat for the best part of year full of it's Aurora silver + X1 black mixture. And actually despite common internet 'wisdom' nothing was clogged in the slightest, all fins clean, just a reservoir full of sediment and the usual traces of dye everywhere. With the very top of the loop drained the reservoir lifted off so I could take out the PSU and it's special support cube. Definitely don't want that getting wet. Then back end of the case removed to get at the cards. Subsequently repeated with the front end, very glad I opted to stash a 4-pin to 4-pin ATX style connector between the rads! After that the top lifted off the base, board came off, pumps off etc etc. I won't show all that stuff as it's been done in the thread once before and I also need to rebuild it. So lets skip ahead to the good bit where everything is clean and ready to go... While editing the above photos I fell in love with the gold hue to the CPU block, except it was regular nickel just with some oil leached out of the o-ring. So I ordered a real gold plated Supremacy, and immediately took it apart to swap in the neat little 2011 mounting bracket. All gold hardware was too much. But this was just right... ...perfect fit for the WS. Fast throwback to the 10th. Now I just needed all the other blocks up to the same standard, cleaning the plexi was easy, nickel less so. Just some aurora m80s All refitted, greased and torqued down. <3 AMD POWER! Time to commence rebuild, the EPS stayed in, 24-pin discarded as it just wasn't quite consistent enough. All the D5 work remained, except they now utilize a spare VGA connector on the 3rd row instead of individual peripheral connectors on the Silverstone. The WD Blacks switched from 2x6TB to 2x1TB, reason being I lived without them for a whole year and most likely will never use the HDD's at all in this build, so losing 10TB is no big deal. £500 of swag saved for another build. Board is back in black. Powerful vibes even before the GPU's hit. Pixels kneel before your God. With one push and one clip the bottom rads are back in the game. Extra 280, check. Now it's time to the ridiculous task i'd been putting off for so long. I feel like I need to explain. The original Silverstone was 1:1, the 24-pin was at the bottom near the hole in the midwall and the PCI were all up top. The EVGA on the other hand, weird pinout, completely swapped layout so every single thing had to overlap.... AND THEN.... just as if all those obstacles were somehow easy to overcome this 1600W is 20mm longer, which when there was about 40mm to play with kinda made a difference. Neatness wasn't optional here, it was completely mandatory if everything was going to fit inside the case hence I took a new approach to the problem. First up instead of cutting wires to a rough length everything was excessively long to start out then layered out of the PSU in the most efficient order. But to keep the pinout correct I had a cunning strategy. I took an old 24-pin connector and drilled out each hole to a close fit on the 3.1mm OD wire, then I could poke it from the correct pin on the PSU to the corresponding pin at the 24 end. So then all that remained was to trim each wire to the appropriate length, pretty easy when they were all held in the correct position and I could push/pull them through as needed on either side. PSU out it was just time to sleeve. Wire by wire I removed the PSU end, inserted the white wire to mark its exact route, then crimped the 24 end. Sleeved in Shade-19 and replaced back into its original position. Several hours or maybe days later (I don't really recall early December) all 24 were done. Such an improvement from my original EVGA set and moreover greatly reduced bulk in the back. Time for the angery power bois! They cleaned up purtty good too. Best to get the toobs in early. All the 8-pins would be a little more relaxed relative to the 24-pin, with a uniform layout not unlike the Silverstone each wire was a consistent increment longer than the previous. So once I got 4 wires to sit neat it went pretty speedy. One 8 down, completing the set was just a case of continuing the progression, working up and across. The entire set complete for the primary card. All layered over each other and stacked in, the next set was a repeat to the front row of VGA connectors. CPU1 squeezed between and then CPU2 tight over the top of everything. And there we have them all, absolutely colossal ratio of power to size. Screw what you guys think, I’m absolutely overwhelmed with the form of the cables as it stands now, in fact I think they may even be prettier than the first set. The SATA's aren't connected yet, I’m going to check that out tomorrow, but I’m really not fussed about ever using them. So unless the additional cables are going to make an improvement to the overall look I may leave them out. Aesthetic drives are fine with me, at least they won't make any noise lol. Buuut if they fit in just right, could be even more epic. JR

Some powered on pictures too... JR

Seems to be standard procedure for me that final pics come over a year after actually finishing the build, still these things take time! Quick update of the specs, mostly the same aside Aquaero 5 > 6 and a Noctua NF-A14 fitted inside the PSU to keep it super quiet. EVGA GTX1080 FTW EVGA Z170 FTW Intel Skylake i7-6700k HyperX Predator 4x8GB Samsung 950 PRO 256GB Samsung 850 PRO 512GB x2 Western Digital Black 4TB x2 Silverstone Strider Platinum 1200W Parvum R1.0 ATX Prototype II EK-Supremacy EVO - Acetal + Nickel EK-FC1080 GTX FTW - Acetal + Nickel x2 EK-FC1080 GTX FTW Backplate - Black x2 EK-XTOP Revo D5 PWM - Acetal (incl. pump) EK-CoolStream XE 360 (Triple) x3 Bitspower BP-WTP-C47 Multi-Link Adapter x34 Bitspower BP-90R 90° Rotary Extender x10 Bitspower BP-WTP-C39 90° Extender x8 Bitspower BP-WTP-C04 Pass Through x8 Bitspower BP-WTP-C06 Stop Fitting x4 Bitspower BP-WTP-C60 15mm Extender x4 Aqua Computer Aquaero 6 LT Aqua Computer Aquaero 6 Passive Heatsink Noctua NF-F12 IndustrialPPC 2000RPM PWM x9 Noctua NF-A14 IndustrialPPC 2000RPM PWM 24v Noctua NA-SAVP1 Chromax - Blue x5 Next week final pics for R1.0 INDUSTRIAL and PARVUM K! lol, actually not joking. New photo studio toys making shoots of complete builds far more enjoyable so time to revisit everything! JR

Heading out to LAN later today and the R1.0 is coming too! Massive and beautiful update of many sleeves inbound when I have time to compile and edit. Just a little tease from bleeding... JR

Time to reveal what was inside the well-travelled package! After a fast airline blast Chocolate Box was looking quite neat again, just a little dusting and disassembly needed Removing everything is pretty simple, luckily the standoffs can't fall out of the back and the loop doesn't get in the way at all. Obviously it couldn't be just 'a' 7700k, can't leave anything to chance with such an awesome Titan XP and b-die. They were getting impossible to find in Europe but still some good silicon out in Texas! As always a nice clean for the L12 which is the oldest PC components i'm still using regularly. Still love the fitment, flush with the EK heatspreaders and tight to the GPU. The only thing I don't love is attempting to plug the fan in around the heatpipes and the EPS cable. Complete once again, time to test! So to revisit the last benchmarks the i7-6700k was running 4.9GHz on air in the Stinger achieving a physics score of 15860. Firestrike - 24164 The i7-7700k is consistently clearing 17000 at a clock speed of 5.3GHz with 5.0GHz cache and 4000MHz memory, so an improvement of ~8% for physics and a distinct bump in combined score. Somewhere along the way i've lost 4fps on GT's, hopefully I can get the card running that well again and get on the high side of 25k! Lots of other benchmarks to try too, i'm sure this setup will shred Valley. Firestrike - 24678 Temperatures are firmly in the 80°C's to run that frequency under load however it's proving to be solid for repeated Heaven passes, definitely not something I will run every day but awesome that it's possible with such a small heatsink. And of course still looking as handsome as ever! JR

Well, it's been nearly a year now and I still haven't just quite done those cables, there were a few things I wasn't quite happy with, other more pressing projects came along (like that Ultimate GeForce PC thing) and no progress was made. I stole the HyperX Predator for ALUMIA and left R1.0 INDUSTRIAL in a bad way. But Corsair stepped in, graciously combining my Bit-Tech prizes and gave me reason enough to resume action! So maybe, just maybe it will be complete for this Christmas, now the disheartening feels of sleeving every cable for the second time have been forgotten. I had some serious studio upgrades, new 3x8m vinyl backdrop all hung on brackets and rollers ready for more colours to be added. Covered my table with a sheet of acrylic so the vinyl stays super flat instead of being pressed into particle board texture. New lights too with a boom arm instead of a ghetto stack of boxes. Pretty legit all in all which is saving me a huge amount of time on the editing front, the background hasn't been artificially smoothed like before just dialed in and individual dusts spot healed out. Here he comes, a 480GB MP500 rated at 3000mb/s read and 2400mb/s write! Shortly after the NVMe arrives in his new habitat a wild EK M.2 Heatsink appears... Because the MP500 is kinda fat with a chip on the reverse side thermal pads didn't fit exactly as anticipated by EK, with a 1mm pad to fill out the the exposed PCB area it clipped over with just the right amount of tension, any more would be broken NAND territory. But still looking super tidy and helping out thermals, not that a life of benching Firestrike and occasionally running GTA V was going to upset the M.2 that much. So plans for R1.0 INDUSTRIAL now are to strip everything down, clean all wet components, fit the M.2, swap the 6TB WD Blacks for 1TB WD Blacks and then build everything up completing the cables along the way! JR

Phase III is drawing to a close after an astounding performance at LAN, surely one of the most demanding environments for a gaming PC, so I think this configuration will stick for a while now. I will have to turn my attention back to some larger rigs so I can run the same settings at home. The fact this tiny pupper runs circles around my triple 780 X79 rig simply won't do. I hope my LAN recovery time was well spent editing the remaining pics, not including all 400 or so was the hardest part and there's still more i'd love to shoot. Perhaps after the next LAN there will be more, so for now! Intel i7-6700k EVGA Z170 Stinger Corsair 8 Pack 2x8GB 4000C12 Nvidia Titan X Pascal HyperX 3K 120GB HyperX 3K 240GB Silverstone SX600-G Custom Parvum X1.0 Noctua NH-L12 Noctua iPPC NF-F12 2000 x2 EK-FC Titan X Pascal - Acetal+Nickel EK-FC Titan X Pascal - Black EK-SF3D EVO Adapters - Black EK-DDC 3.2 PWM EK DDC X-RES 100 XSPC AX120 - Black Bitspower Enhance 10/12 - Silver Bitspower brass 10/12 - Silver Chocolate Box, Lightning and FTW are now awaiting rapid deployment to LSUCS LAN only tomorrow! JR

Right, intense speed is required on this update because it's 3am, LAN is tomorrow and I spent waaaaaay too long picking through hundreds of shots! I finished the build last Sunday, ran some benchmarks... got very close to topping a few leaderboards and then got very obsessed with that instead of updates or photos. Then FURIA died, which was about to make comeback with a new riser, pump and fans but now I need a new motherboard and CPU... so back to it. Some of you might have caught my mini update about the case and all of the little changes, but i'll keep that to the end before its revealed. First thing was to fit the freshly adjusted cables into the midwall, very literally. And then neatly tuck them all into the motherboard. It all went back together just as before with the modded EK X-RES hanging out on the triple M-M snake. Getting very speedy at building up Parvums these days. Also EK SF3D spreaders on the memory with shortened black M3 dome head screws to complete them a little. Right, time for benchmarks! I was able to get the 6700k stable at 5.0ghz for 3d runs on the NH-L12, 4.9ghz for physics, both with 4000mhz C18 memory and 4.8ghz cache. The Titan ran even better than ever with its new block too sitting in the 2114-2139mhz range for every test. The freshly released Unigine Superposition, 1080p Extreme and 4k optimized presets. And of course some Firestrike, physics suffered a tiny bit compared with my bench tests using the EK S240 kit however keeping the Titan under 40°C easily made up for it overall. Well now I know you know it's finished I can't just leave it at that. So some teasery glimpses before LAN! Right, sleeps, gon. JR

With the air cooled testing concluded (I thought) the card was stripped down ready to send nudes get blocked. But wait... ...wats dis. Well while reading 1080Ti reviews I got a bit wrapped up in an uncorking guide and noted quite an elegant power mod, rather than shorting the shunt resistors with liquid metal 3x 10Ohm 0805 resistors were added to the capacitors on the power monitoring circuitry. I don't really like the idea of liquid metal long term but this seemed viable so onto RS to order some resistors. Must admit, I was very surprised how small 0805 was when they first arrived, so quickly nipped out to a friend to solder them on. Not that I didn't trust myself, but it was easier for him as I didn't say how much it was worth until afterwards. They can be seen above labeled C252, C253 and C257, notably hand soldered and weird at that being on top of another component, nonetheless well attached both physically and electrically, we checked. Glad to say it worked really good, they don't influence the amount of power supplied to the core, instead they offset the cards monitoring so it never reaches '100%' power target and starts to throttle. With a substantial overclock it now runs at ~75% power target, on air that translated to a ~1.5% performance gain, hopefully it will start to help out more when the temperature throttle conditions are also removed. And on that very subject, a delivery from Slovenia! I think a lot less me writing stuff and more you looking at stuff is called for at this precise moment. Just the way it should be, a brutally obvious sandwich of nickel, copper and acetal. More tomorrow. JR

Once again Chocolate Box returns, this time for a massive upgrade! Even at this early stage it's obvious what will be going down and i'm very very excited about it. After the previous platform upgrade to Z170 there was certainly no shortage of CPU speed or efficiency and now it's time to apply the same ethos over to the GPU side of things with just a hint more brutish ignorance. Momentarily I had planned to swap in a 980Ti K|NGP|N which would have been a significant undertaking of swapping PSU's, many cables and lots of little tweaks to make it all fit. But then while contemplating how to orchestrate that elaborate transplant a Titan X Pascal was bestowed upon me. So now I must go forth and do what I have to do! The super vigilant among you, or just everyone, may have noticed that was slightly too many TXP's to fit on an ITX board. Well you were correct, and no I won't be using 4 this time, sorry. However I will be using the best one of this set, because 'a' TXP clearly wouldn't have been good enough for a build with one of the best 63840K's and DDR4 kits in the wild. So to determine a clear victor and a worthy companion for the current hardware a huge amount of overclocking and benchmarking took place. Here are some of the highlights... Now you may have expected that one card in the pack shone through, clocked higher, scored like no other and those 5 screenshots were all from one of the finest examples of a TXP to ever exist. Well I must admit, I did too, but that wasn't the case at all. Card - Core - Mem - FS eff - FS - Heaven - Valley TXP1 - 220 - 600 - 31877 - 32074 - 4145 - 6679 TXP2 - 220 - 700 - 31836 - 32214 - 4170 - 6707 TXP3 - 220 - 700 - 31791 - 31621 - 4117 - 6809 TXP4 - 250 - 700 - 31739 - 32279 - 4124 - 6838 On all four cards I tested the highest achievable core and memory offsets with the stock cooler, once I established they could all easily achieve +200mhz core and +500mhz memory I ran Firestrike Standard graphics with the same settings on each card to determine the relative efficiency. The same thing as an ASIC value attempts to represent, the deviation was quite significant and it gave me a great insight into what I could expect from them without investing hours and hours into watching Firestrike. The two most efficient cards were able to achieve the highest Unigine Heaven scores while the higher leakage cards fared better at Valley. Firestrike made things very interesting as it took advantage of the very high clocks TXP4 was able to achieve while at the same time the more balanced blend of efficiency and clocks TXP2 offered also did well, unlike earlier in Valley. With all that information picking the optimal card wasn't a simple decision as they all performed reasonably well under different conditions. In the end it came down in favor of TXP2 as it had great efficiency and was still able to achieve relatively high clocks, visible in its strong performance across all 3 benchmarks. The shear speed and leakage of TXP4 were very alluring and i'd be excited to see what it could do at lower temperatures, however with only a single 120mm radiator efficiency seemed like a more suitable asset. Plus I did a little SLI testing and TXP2 was by far the most cooperative as a primary card. So enough of the boring reading, many sexy pictures! All the credentials are now ready for action, I just need a little watercooling gear to suit the new card, few cables, few tubes and I will be ready to hit LAN's with some next level Farm Simulator settings. No seriously, only a few weeks until i60 and there is lots of farming to be done!!! JR

Yeah, just about all of them will need to be made again, not only because the pinout is different on the 24-pin (8-pins are the same), but the PSU is a different length and the connectors are in different places and orientations so nothing neatly reaches where it should anymore. I may be able to use some of the wires again or just keep them for another project. JR

It has been forever and as such I bring extremely mixed news, R1.0 INDUSTRIAL was for a few days up and running, the loop was excellent, all of the hardware lived and it even managed a pretty extraordinary initial benchmark. Firestrike Score 30266 with AMD Radeon Pro Duo(4x) and Intel Core i7-5960X But... as the lack of final photographs suggests all was not perfect. The 1200 Platinum failed to provide stable power, so I had it replaced and the second unit was exactly the same. After a lot of testing exactly why it didn't work out is still a bit of a mystery, the peak load was only ~1050W but I think ultimately the instant spike from 300 to 1000W when all 4 cores came onto load was just too much and the extremely sensitive WS board shut it down when the +12v drooped. I used the PSU in my Tri-780 X79 rig for a few days and that had no issues at a similar peak load. I then tried a 1500 Gold Silverstone in the R1.0 and everything ran beautifully for hours so I had to take several steps back with the build and swap out the PSU Knowing I needed to go bigger than 1200 didn't leave too many options, either the 1500 Gold Silverstone or 1600 Superflower/EVGA, as the 1500 only has 4x PCIe power connectors across two rails splitting 24 GPU cables seemed a greater evil than dealing with Superflower's awkward 24-pin. So the unit not adorned with butterflies and an octagonal fan grill won! At 40mm longer than the Silvertone's accommodating this beast would be a challenge and also it's immense weight required a cunning plan. Didn't need that sticker anyway. Right, all the gubbins, no idea what this stuff does, just that getting fine bits of metal all over it is less than ideal. The top and inside end came away easily leaving the PCB screwed to the base, I didn't want to unsolder the plug hence wrapped the internals up in a bag while drilling the base. With a 3.1mm hole drilled a Parvum cube was attached using a button head M3x6 screw ensuring it didn't intrude onto the PCB. After marking the same hole location onto the top casing that was drilled to clear the head of the screw and slotted out with a dremel allowing it to neatly slot back into place. It might now look like an odd cube resting on a PSU, however I already have a location for this drilled into the case. So my elaborate and cunning plan is complete, and yes, I could of just put a cube under the power supply for it to rest on, but I want it to levitate! Well, i've got a hell of a lot of sleeving to do, again, let's hope it's done in time for the snowy 4k ultra grass on Christmas day. JR

Luckily I was so productive last week as a spontaneous 400 mile road trip stole most of my time this weekend! Still I had all of Sunday to make 6x PCIe cables, 2x SATA power, one molex and a 24-pin, which wasn't too impossible but it did mean I didn't really take any photographs of the process. (I will on PARVUM FTW next week, promise) The PSU which spawned in last week without introduction is Silverstone's new 1200W Strider Platinum, they have added lots of much appreciated features over the Strider Gold, a semi-passive 140mm air penetrator, a lot lot more 8-pin connectors on the PSU itself and a power switch! Combine all that new stuff with the amazing finish, unrivaled 1:1 pinout, Enhance OEM for the 1000/1200 Platinum and it's hard to imagine what else could possibly be done. But somehow Silverstone managed to go that tiny bit further and move all the annoying little white stickers which have to be there onto the side rather than the fan face, gg. Surprisingly I had already built and partly sleeved an R1.0 with two Pro Duo's, that time I made each set of cables into a 24-pin it was very impressive but the way they all twisted over to get through the midwall just didn't seem natural. So with mine I decided to treat them as individual 8-pins and keep them stacked horizontally through the midwall rather than end to end, they don't appear quite as disciplined but still a great flow and it did make the back side considerably easier which weirdly I find more important. The 24-pin on the other hand I kept really tight to the board, just like the EPS and it's great too. Well that is every cable finished, only one piece is left, the reservoir! Here it is fitted into the top 'accent' of the case. Wats dis then? JR

They are a bit of a mixture, some are actually bordering on natural black and white, some desaturated and some full colour, but besides the PCB and little black wing chokes there isn't any colour in the build at all. JR

Even before the weekend has started I have lots to update you guys with, each day i've done a little before going to work so not too many pics have been taken but lots of progress. The first orders of business were the 8-pin EPS connectors as they would be right behind the CPU tubes. After making each individual wire just the right length, threading them all through the midwall and assembling them into cables the next day I planned out what to do with all of the pump cables as it made sense to deal with the fiddly things first. CPU tubes were simple 90° bends, measured, cut and fitted straight off. The next cables I wanted to move onto were the PCIe 8 pins, hence I needed to fit the cards and everything that went before them. It was pleasing to see when I looked down between the cards that the M.2 was still visible. Still rocking the nut technique for Parvum alu PCI brackets using screws from the inside to locate the cards and then tightening them from above makes it so much easier to locate two cards and all the tubing simultaneously. Very quickly the build is starting to look complete! The reservoir is the only big piece which is absent for now. What can I say, MDPC-X, such consistency, much parallel. Things are moving along equally as rapidly in the back too with the pumps completed as planned, and the SATA's too, all shade 19. Yes, a PSU has appeared from nowhere, I was so impatient to open it and try it in the case on the day it released that I may have completely forgotten to take pics of it. But it's amazing! Now i'm ready to start GPU cables! That may take some time for there are many. JR

Baby update today but a milestone nonetheless, i've finished the bottom chamber linking the radiators and fans through the midplate. It seemed like a simple job at first but ended up taking quite a while. The loop was easy, just two 30mm pipes to push in at the same time as everything else. The fans were a bit more complicated because neither connector would fit through the hole and they needed to be exactly the right length. But eventually I got there and when all 8 fans spun up simultaneously much success! Hyped to start some big cables and tubes now. JR

am not hooman, plz send cheezburger Yes they are in parallel, I wanted to get a high flow rate with low pump RPM to keep the Aurora nice and active long term without the noise of having pumps full speed. I hope it turns out to be as old school ASUS as it looks, I really loved my Maximus V and Rampage IV. I am easily pleased when it comes to motherboards, so long as it works and looks the business, EVGA seem to get it right more than they get it wrong these days. I hope they remain RGB and Dragon free for a few more generations! JR

On Thursday I got the motherboard so i'm now very very close to having everything, late last night I started piecing it slowly together, taking lots of photographs of course. I'll be using an X99M-WS, it was a difficult decision between this and the Micro2 but as i've already used that in a project for a friend I felt that it was time to give ASUS' WS board a chance. First thing to mount was the HyperX Predator M.2, I could of waited for the faster Polaris drives but at ~£100 less and with a significantly higher TBW rating I thought it was worth sacrificing the speed for what I consider the much prettier Predator. Can't say I find the 480GB version I have running at PCIe2.0 x2 slow! Separated from it's PCI slot adapter the density is astounding, each individual chip is the same capacity as my first 2.5" SSD! The huge socket was readied for a CPU! After a lot of contemplation I decided to go with a Haswell-E chip for this build as the current mATX WS BIOS seems to have stronger memory support for the earlier generation. With 4 dimm's in two banks the memory would be a real center point of this build but nothing was quite right, HyperX Predator too agressive, Klevv i'm just bored of seeing in WS boards already, G.Skill again just too complex to completely harmonize with the theme. So Dominator Platinum was the strongest candidate for it's symmetry and subtlety. I'd fallen out of love with them when they changed to a sandblasted finish after the initial DDR3 production run, but, I still had an original quad channel kit! And as this will become my daily system it meant I could mix them up and continue to stare at the ornately machined heatsinks for another few years. Very quickly I created a graveyard of Dominator Platinum parts, both old and new. I split the heatsinks off two of the DDR4 modules as well so I could swap the white sticker to the inside. After a considerable amount of time gently prying off thermal pads and fiddling with tiny screws I had a very crisp looking DDR4 kit! To match the Nickel/Plexi GPU blocks I also picked up a Supremacy EVO in the same finish. Now the board is filling up the hybrid of original DDR3 and DDR4 Dominator Platinum looks just right with it's beautifully polished faces and machined tops. Just enough time to try the board in the case for some strategically teasery lit shots. Tomorrow I will be making two fan extensions from the Aquaero through the mid-plate to the rads so I can permanently assemble the pedestal. After that i'll be needing the PSU to gradually add cables and tubing until it's complete. JR

Thanks guys! Had some astounding post today, a 960GB HyperX Predator M.2, it smells soooo good! Can't do much with yet as I don't have a motherboard, but soon it will be ready. JR

Got some more shiny things from today's shopping spree and there are some more goodies in the post to enjoy tomorrow! I still don't know why Aquaero's are supplied with some obsolete prehistoric mounting thing, and a... screen. But anyway disregarding that stuff what's left behind is rather awesome. For an unknown reason I also decided to purchase these old fashioned gigantic mechanical things. I will admit however they do have some strangely satisfying qualities to them. At the price however they should, even now i'm confused as to why I needed 12TB or why this system has 26 times more storage than my last one, overkill, maybe? So time to start loading everything onto the backbone of the case, the Aquaero + Heatsink was simply 4 black M3x10mm screws, not the originals but far more in keeping. Then the hard drives, I wasn't about to add some giant rubber monstrosity but just to give them a more secure and tactile home I did use some little vibration dampening washers. Everything fitted neatly just as planned with the 3 devices evenly spaced over the height of the case. This was good, I can't wait for the post... JR

Although i've been really busy with FTW I hadn't forgotten my R1.0, just needed some more parts! One major thing that was holding me up were these two little M-M rotaries, i'm sure I had 2 or 3 spares but when it came to fit the pumps I could only find one. Locating more proved to be a bit of a challenge with none in stock throughout the UK or the international retailers i'd use I had to wait for EK to get more, but they are here now. First step was to fit the pump and fittings to measure the length of pipe needed. Then with the pipes in place simultaneously push them in and screw down the pump. Luckily it all fitted really nice as EK resisted the urge to change any of the 3 components since I measured them With the pumps solidly in place on the midplate the midwall could be added and screwed to the pump mountings. Another easy task completed, hopefully I will be buying the rest of the hardware this week X99M-WS, 2x WD Black 6TB, Aquaero 6 and a 960GB HyperX Predator make up the bulk of the shopping list. It's going to be an expensive week! JR

Back again, farms was good and even with the extra hour I was still playing at 4am but I did manage to wake up early enough to get some progress in today. Just. I decided to do all of the GPU cables first just to get a sizable portion out of the way, 32 straight wires, 8 of each colour, Grand Blue, Platinum Grey, Shade 19 and Black. Now to get them in and start training! Well still lots more cables to go and a bit more training once they are all in place but all going well so far. JR

No writing this time because i'm desperate to go and have my first proper session on Farm Simulator 2017, besides this one is pretty self-explanatory! I've bent, cut and fitted every single tube completing the loop ready for leak testing. Also along the way sleeved the pump and fitted everything which needs to be fitted. 200 or so metres of MDPC-X arrived in the week so perhaps i'll start some cables tomorrow and hit you guys up with another update. JR