Maki Role

More than happy to take my content elsewhere for you instead. I understand there are no exceptions, but at the end of the day the staff on this site need to decide if LTT wants to be taken seriously or remain a back yard for youtube and that professional modders say "wait you post there?" to. All sponsored mods are advertising. So by allowing them you allow major companies to advertise in this space, but a personal website link in a signature is deemed too far. Don't need to deal with moderators happy to wave a stick so that they can feel more important than they really are.

I am indeed, although unfortunately I won't be returning as I won't support this forum anymore. It's not worth the time to post when the moderation team decides to penalise small businesses and take issue with things that have been in place for months. I will implore fellow modders to do the same.

Well here's another semi-update to the longest running project log where nothing actually happens There has been a PSU swap! As much as I love the 2000W one, and it's no doubt a very high quality unit, it's just not suitable for home use at all. This is an earlier model I believe and as such the fan is unbelievably loud, to the extent that it's louder than the 4 GPUs on air during standard use. So the 2000W beauty will be retired and going to Parvum to use in one of their stunning builds instead where volume doesn't play a factor. I think this is appropriate anyway as they're the ones who provided it to begin with, it should help one of their larger builds draw some nice attention. Instead I'll be using a Thermaltake DPSG RGB 1500W Titanium unit. More than enough juice since I won't be overclocking (rendering stability) and it's nice and quiet. RGB is a 'nice to have' since the PSU will be very visible, but expect it to remain switched to white or off haha. But in keeping with the rest of the build, I went and modelled the beast in full detail, including the Riing 140 RGB fan inside.

Oh yeah plenty of life left in this baby, it's been quite the trooper. Been carted up and down the country by train upwards of 20 times!

I do believe it's about time this rig had a little bit of an update eh? Out with the old and in with the new, fan and SSD upgrade. Stepped up to a 2TB 850 Evo and some shiny Thermaltake Premium Riing 120 RGB fans. I must admit I really do like they lighting they provide, fits the theme just right IMO.

So seemingly a small update but woah it took longer than anticipated. Been so packed over the last few days I haven't been able to put in the time I'd like. Trying to get the front panel all sorted before moving on to the rest of the case. And yes, it is insulated don't worry

First progress for this mod! First step of any build, testing the hardware. This case is really so easy to build in. Only took a few minutes to get it like this. Hardware now extracted, case ready to be worked on Where we're going we don't need PSU shrouds... Nor rear IO panels... Definitely won't be needing these And not this bit either. This will be sanded smooth later.

Quite possibly, I'm toying with the idea of including them in my future logs. Got the kit, just need the time and inclination haha

Hello everybody! So earlier in the year, AMD approached me asking whether I would be interested in taking part in a themed mod "battle" to help promote the new RX 470. Well I've never even done a themed build before, never mind one in a head to head competition! I'll be competing against Jens Schwalbe of BIRD Customs, so it'll be no mean feat. I will be representing the UK and Jens Germany. I'd like to thank everybody at AMD involved in setting up this competition, along with all the companies who were willing to sponsor gear for it. So a big hand to Thermaltake, Asus RoG, Gigabyte and Corsair for each providing hardware that will be going into the build. As you can see, my theme for this build will be Overwatch. Whilst I don't like playing the game itself much, I do like the art style. So without further ado, here are the first photos of the kit going inside!I'm going to be using Thermaltake's new View 27 chassis for this build. IMO it's a beautiful case, plus the internal layout is very tidy. Thermaltake also supplied the cooling gear for this rig along with the PSU. Lots of RGB going into this build, including all the fans and fittings! Every build deserves an RGB power supply of course haha Gigabyte have supplied the build with an FX990-Gaming. No RGB unfortunately yet on AMD's boards from them, but this is very pretty anyhow. Love the PCIe slots and the super matte PCB. An FX 8370e will be going into this board. More RGB goodness in the form of Asus' Strix RX 470. Great cooler on this card, was nice and quiet even under full load. Perhaps not waterblock level, but you can't complain for one at this budget end. Corsair insisted on sending some Dominator Platinum DDR3 for the build. Perhaps doesn't quite fit in with the other specs (bar watercooling) but like I'd refuse an offer like that, many thanks!

Would certainly be very cool to use the new Pascal ones, although thankfully for me they don't offer any real improvements other than speed (yeah that sounds dumb I know haha). The big limit for my usage is VRAM, which Nvidia decided not to increase for the Pascal Titan Xs. So at least I can rock myself to sleep telling my mind I don't need them haha Just wait a it until the big block is done, now that will be interesting for sure. Glad to be back at this, had to put it off all summer thanks to overly busy schedules and whatnot. Cheers, hope it lives up to the hype You our and me both, it's been a long time coming Haha my favourite tactic, make the pictures look like renders and the renders look like pictures That actually sort of happened with my previous project Aetos. AMD thought that I had finished the build months before hand and had shared the renders around. Needless to say they were quite surprised when I said the build was done and presented them with the final pics.

Well this has certainly been a little stagnant hasn't it? So with Aetos finally all done and dusted, the time has come to once again move my focus to completing Argentum. Got an awful lot of CAD work to do, but at least it's now happening. Here are the latest renders for the first parts:

Well aside from the fact this build was started almost a year before that case hit the market, I wanted to do something different. Anybody can build in a case, you know?

Glad that you like the final results! Good spot, thanks for letting me know! Seems they stumbled upon the build via my reddit submissions.

And here we are folks, the end of the journey for Aetos. Hopefully you'll enjoy the final results! A huge thank you to AMD for commissioning the build, it would have been completely impossible without their help and support. Banana for scale:

I certainly am painting it, although I don't have the time nor funds to have a shop do it, that said I've been gearing my workshop to deal with paintjobs so the finish should be good. I did think about doing a strong colour, perhaps a two tone, but tbh it always ended up looking gaudy. The shape is already pretty out there so having something simple like a satin white really works well. Besides, should I get bored of it in the future it can always be resprayed without too much hassle. Sanded smooth and ready for priming Hung up for action It looks rather nice in grey actually The back looks so much cleaner now!

So it's really been quite the last couple months. Computex was an absolute blast, thankfully Exsectus managed to get there all in one piece. Fast forward a few weeks and this turned up at my door Some coolant leaked out of one of the ports (they were only lightly plugged) but that was all So that's the return survived! Thermaltake did a great job of packing this baby up again, now all I need to do it get it all ready and updated for iSeries in August. I was also sent some goodies, going to be modding these to fit the build.

Befitting of the last update, here is another "small" one. Admittedly this took a lot longer than I was expecting as I had to remake the panel after I messed up the first one with some dodgy measuring. Needless to say this was quite a bit of needle file work. GPU bracket included Looks ugly at this point but is functional Ahh see, looks better now

Indeed, hopefully it's mean it wasn't a complete waste for AMD. Haha cheers, I'll remember to stick one in for the final shots else reddit will have no clue how big it is It's 27cm tall at its highest point

Right let's get this show on the road! I have until the 11th of July to get Aetos up and out, so every day counts. It's only a little update today in terms of visuals, but it was an important step. First up, you guys were right, that GPU mounting solution was utter rubbish. I don't know what I was thinking when I came up with it, so that's out of the window now. I haven't got pictures of the new system yet as it's not quite finished, but it's much more in line with what you would expect from this build. The big one for me was working on this annoying gap between the front and rear side panels. There's supposed to be a thin line, but because the front pieces warped after printing, the gap was much larger and wonkier than it was supposed to be. I've basically gone and filled it up and smoothed it back down again, it now looks much closer to how it does in the renders. I've also begun work on the rear panel, which should help to keep everything nice and sleek.

GPU blocks! Nickel so as to fit the theme Now this I'm excited about, it's a THOR monoblock. You may remember that originally we were going to make our own? Well it turns out Bitspower made one already, which is great as it would have been a lengthy process turning that concept block into a viable one. That said, since it's EOL there wasn't a clear one in stock. I'll likely have to design a new top for this out of clear acrylic. All assembled the block is rather smart Love all the nickel

Oh it's more than just alive... UPDATE!!!!!! So this is a big day, nay a VERY big day! A few weeks back I got in touch with Bitspower with the view to hopefully securing a sponsorship for some of the WC parts in the build. Thankfully they said that the project was of interest and that they would be happy to sponsor all the components (bar the D5 pumps as Bitspower doesn't sell them currently)! So a massive thank you to Eric at Bitspower for making this build a possibility! I hope what they sent is of interest. This does now mean that I can get on with the truly juicy part of this build, which has been languishing in the back of my mind for over a year now. So without further ado, the hardware! Box shot, yeah that's quite a bit of stuff actually First up are the fittings, I'll be using 16mm acrylic tube for this build. I figured since the rig itself is big, a chunkier tube would work better. The number of fittings is actually lower than you might expect, this is because so many elements will be incorporated into the chassis (like the pumps etc) The finish you get on Bitspower's fittings is IMO unparalleled. I've used so many from different places, they really are amazing. Since the final build will be hard to move around, proper drainage is very important. These should help a lot Lots of rad space! I've actually reduced the spec from 4x480mm to 2x480 and 2x360, this is so that I can reclaim more space. I reckon I severely underestimated how much room the PSU and cables will take, this should help.

Thank you And so begins the rather worrisome journey to Taiwan. Since Exsectus is going to be exhibited there, I needed to figure out how to get it there safely. Now I've not had the best track record with these things, so I decided that some overkill was needed. The other issue was that I didn't have very long between the announcement and the shipping date (today/tomorrow), so getting something like a Pelicase isn't an option. However, building a shipping crate is certainly doable. (Excuse the rubbish picture, couldn't fit in the hall rofl)

Bet people thought this project was dead huh? I think I'll just leave this here and let the imagination start churning out ideas...

Thank you all for the kind words, I'm glad the mod turned out a success In addition to that, I'd like to announce that Exsectus has placed first in the Thermaltake UK Modding Trophy 2016! This means that the build will be exhibited at Computex in Taiwan, which I will also be attending. If anybody's around, pop me a heads up and I can say hello! The build will also be on show at i58 in Birmingham at the end of August, which again I'll be attending, so do drop on by if attending that. http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2016/05/06/thermaltake-uk-modding-trophy/1