HM-2

Managed to put a bulge in one of my rear sidewalls so new rear tyres.
 

 
Annoying as I'm planning on replacing the wheels pretty soon, but I should at least be able to run the current rear 255/35 R19s on the front with 275/30 out back. 
 
Likely going for Japan Racing SL01 flow-formed in 8.5x19 ET33 front and 9.5x19 ET42 rear. 9kg and 9.6kg a corner respectively instead of 16 for the OEM wheels. 
 
So far its stock other than:
M Performance slotted and grooved disks M Performance pads M Performance LSD xHP Stage 2 gearbox map "Hot climate" intake mod OEM M3 shift paddles Koni Active Red shocks on OE springs  I've got a painted M Performance style spoiler in the garage to go on but not fitted it yet. Will probably go Stage 2 (map + high flow cat) at some point for ~460bhp. Would also quite like the M Performance splitter, diffuser and side skirts in carbon fibre. 

Managed to put a bulge in one of my rear sidewalls so new rear tyres.
 

 
Annoying as I'm planning on replacing the wheels pretty soon, but I should at least be able to run the current rear 255/35 R19s on the front with 275/30 out back. 
 
Likely going for Japan Racing SL01 flow-formed in 8.5x19 ET33 front and 9.5x19 ET42 rear. 9kg and 9.6kg a corner respectively instead of 16 for the OEM wheels. 
 
So far its stock other than:
M Performance slotted and grooved disks M Performance pads M Performance LSD xHP Stage 2 gearbox map "Hot climate" intake mod OEM M3 shift paddles Koni Active Red shocks on OE springs  I've got a painted M Performance style spoiler in the garage to go on but not fitted it yet. Will probably go Stage 2 (map + high flow cat) at some point for ~460bhp. Would also quite like the M Performance splitter, diffuser and side skirts in carbon fibre. 

Mostly finished my teardown and rebuild. Managed to damage one of my fan control cables so won't be able to finish off until tomorrow.
 
Strip down and light clean. Surprisingly very little muck.
 

 
Rear cover from ColdZero. Pain in the arse to fit.
 

 
Reran some of my cables Inc 12vHPWR
 

 
Nothing like pulling apart a £1200 GPU. And holy shit is is the 4080 Strix a pain in the arse to disassemble. My EVGA 2080 was a piece of piss but this was a nightmare, including three screws driven in so hard they tried to strip on removal. Not happy, ASUS. 
 

 
ASUS also seem to use a really nasty thermal goop in place of pads on the memory modules. Cleaned off okay with a bit of isopropyl to leave a pretty tidy board. 
 

 
The Phanteks G40 block is also a right pain in the arse. The instructions are terrible and quite obviously wrong in some places, the thermal pads are not especially well cut which means they gum together. They also put them in loose with other bits so they get a bit mullered.
 
Maybe I was spoiled by the Watercool block I had on my 2080 but for £250 I really expect better quality. Anyway, looks nice enough. 
 

 
In and wiring tidied
 

 
And tubing done. 
 

 
I don't like the aesthetics as much as I did with the 2080, the 4080 feels a bit unbalanced as the ports are so far back. But equally the other blocks are tiny and this has a decent industrial look to it that compliments the fittings.
 
Will have to see how I get on, if I'm not happy I'll pick up the Watercool block instead. 

Jesus that is so clean. I'd kill to have a build like this, but honestly I'm too scared of doing hard tubing... Great job 10/10

Spent some time properly cable managing the rear:
 

 
Still need to sort the rear covers for above and below the PSU plus something to cover up the space behind the light box. 
 
Other than that and a few other cosmetic tweaks I'm not in a massive rush with, all done. 
 

Mostly finished my teardown and rebuild. Managed to damage one of my fan control cables so won't be able to finish off until tomorrow.
 
Strip down and light clean. Surprisingly very little muck.
 

 
Rear cover from ColdZero. Pain in the arse to fit.
 

 
Reran some of my cables Inc 12vHPWR
 

 
Nothing like pulling apart a £1200 GPU. And holy shit is is the 4080 Strix a pain in the arse to disassemble. My EVGA 2080 was a piece of piss but this was a nightmare, including three screws driven in so hard they tried to strip on removal. Not happy, ASUS. 
 

 
ASUS also seem to use a really nasty thermal goop in place of pads on the memory modules. Cleaned off okay with a bit of isopropyl to leave a pretty tidy board. 
 

 
The Phanteks G40 block is also a right pain in the arse. The instructions are terrible and quite obviously wrong in some places, the thermal pads are not especially well cut which means they gum together. They also put them in loose with other bits so they get a bit mullered.
 
Maybe I was spoiled by the Watercool block I had on my 2080 but for £250 I really expect better quality. Anyway, looks nice enough. 
 

 
In and wiring tidied
 

 
And tubing done. 
 

 
I don't like the aesthetics as much as I did with the 2080, the 4080 feels a bit unbalanced as the ports are so far back. But equally the other blocks are tiny and this has a decent industrial look to it that compliments the fittings.
 
Will have to see how I get on, if I'm not happy I'll pick up the Watercool block instead. 

The name doesn't matter there. The price does.
 
The RTX 2060 launched for an absurd $350, which meant that it launched for basically the same price as the GTX 1070 (MSRP $380).
 
And compared to the GTX 1070, the RTX 2060 is only about a 20% improvement while having 25% less VRAM. So it was basically stagnation, not progress. You get slightly better performance with 2GB less VRAM for the same price.
 
This was the case across the lineup. The RTX 2080 was only about 10% faster than the GTX 1080 Ti while costing the same MSRP and having less VRAM. The RTX 2070 was only about 20% faster than the GTX 1080 while costing the same as you could find the GTX 1080 for already. And the RTX 2080 Ti had an insane $1000 MSRP, that then effectively became $1200 for most of the life of the product.
 
Generational improvement from the 1060 to the 2060, or the 1070 to the 2070, etc was not the problem - the price was.

The RTX 2060 was priced closer to the 1070 at launch, though.
Which it beats, but not by that big of a margin. 

The RTX 2060 was priced closer to the 1070 at launch, though.
Which it beats, but not by that big of a margin. 

Pretty similar to when previously posted.
4080 replacing 2080, still need to water block it though. New Kanto speaker stands for the Q Acoustics make a huge difference. 

Pretty similar to when previously posted.
4080 replacing 2080, still need to water block it though. New Kanto speaker stands for the Q Acoustics make a huge difference. 

Pretty similar to when previously posted.
4080 replacing 2080, still need to water block it though. New Kanto speaker stands for the Q Acoustics make a huge difference. 

Progress(ish)!
 
I've done absolutely nothing on Mellifera for a few months now as real life has been getting in the way. However I managed to grab an hour this afternoon to work on modifying the 5v RGB cable that comes with the G40 waterblocks.
 
They supply an ugly grey and black daisy -chainable micro-3-pin to 3POL cable with their blocks to key into their RGB ecosystem (thankfully using the standard pinout though). If you want a standard 3 pin 5v RGB connector, you have to use supplied adapters. See what I mean?
 

 
Now this just don't do; not only is it ugly it's also clutter I could do without. So I decided to sleeve the cable and replace the connector with a more traditional 5v RGB one.
 
The process is pretty straightforward but very fiddly. First, pop off the nasty 3POL daisy chain.
 

 
I then threw the sleeve on; I used some leftover MDPC-X from doing my PSU and pump cables as it was the longest piece I had. At the micro 3 pin end I've heatshrunk it, it's not the greatest job but it's alright. 
 

 
3/4 pin RGB connector body over the cable, 3-pin ready for soldering.
 

 
Getting stuff lined up for soldering. I don't solder very often (this is the first time in about 2 years) but I really should invest in some helper gear as EVERYTHING I solder is incredibly tiny and finicky. I certainly didn't mis my calling as a career brain surgeon. 
 
Top (Grey) = 5v Middle (Black) = Data Bottom (Black) = Ground  

 
I took one practice run with the spares before soldering and boy am I glad I did. None are going to win any awards and frankly the data cable is a horror show but they're well adhered and nothing has bridged. I threw some tiny strips of electrical tape around the 5v and ground as extra insurance, slapped the connector housing on and we're done (and looking pretty fine too).
 

 
Now we wait until I can tear my system down again to see if it works....

More Parts!
 
Gave up waiting for Overclockers at ~45-odd days of waiting for stock, and ordered the Phanteks G40 block from Newegg in the US instead.
This was INCREDIBLY smooth- so smooth. in fact, that I can see myself buying PC parts direct from them a lot more in the future.
 
Ordered on the 8th. Arrived on the 12th. Basically the same price as from Overclockers (item inc tax and duty slightly more expensive, but free postage) and was faster delivery than OC advertised despite coming all the way from California.
 

 

 
I've not had chance to spin up Fusion 360 yet, let alone get down to actually designing any of the other lightboxes. 

REDUX!
 
Some initial progress on a continuation of this casemod. Going to be slowish going due to part availability and lack of free time.
 
RTX 4080
2080 is out, now replaced with an ASUS 4080 TUF. It's currently on air whilst I try and source a Phanteks G40- overclockers are the sole UK distributors but their order which was due in late August has been delayed with no ETA. 
 

 

 

 
Custom 12vHPWR cable
This was supplied by ModDIY with 2x 12 pin AX750 Gold pinout. Yes it's an old PSU but it's plenty powerful enough to keep things tiding over for now; I will eventually upsize to something 1000w ATX3.0 and retire it.
 
ColdZero rear panel cover
Picked up a rear cover that obscures the horrid der8auer sticker and GPU vertical mount. I'm going to spray some sort of hexagon pattern on it before fitting.
 
 
I'm also planning on a few more laser cut / CNC panels, one top and one bottom, in the same hexagonal style as the lightbox. These will partly obscure the upper and lower radiators and I might also fit them with diffused LED strips
 
At the rear I'll also be doing some shroud and cover panels for the cabling. 

Had the same dilemma a few months ago (but all prices were a bit higher then in Europe, esp. on AMD cards ), opted for the 7900XTX finally out of curiosity (as I didn't own an AMD GPU since ages back when they were ATI 😛 ), and because NGreedia really got on my nerves with theit sh#t-on-customer policies, high prices, low amount of VRAM, 4080 12GB sketch, etc... 
Didn't really consider getting a 4080, was more hesitant about either the "cheap" 7900XTX or the expensive 4090... but it's really too expensive for a gaming GPU imo
 
Ended up with the 7900XTX ASUS model eventually, which is quite good, but think I should have gotten the NItro+ rather , a bit better quality for same price
Also the price difference with a 4080 is now enough to get a full waterblock for the 7900XTX (there aren't much available, I know Alphacool do some Asus compatible ones)
Didn't put my card on a block yet, as it's cool and silent enough if not on a crazy OC, which is unnecessary as even at non boost speeds it maxes out my 120Hz monitor in nearly all games...Plus any GPU watercooling tends to suffocate my case and make the CPU hotter (due to front rad blocking the airflow, that was my experience with my previous watercooled 3080).
Energy efficiency is a bit worse than a 4080 but not that much, 355W to 320W TDP, but it can be OCed +15% power to reach 2.8GHz (on air) and you end up with a full TBP (full board power) close to 450W, which is huge
OCing and undervolting do work well, even if undervolting is rather limited, more than 5mV decrease (1.1V) end up being unstable at least in some games
RT is unspectacular, it's ok in "light RT" titles (Farcry, HL..) , tested it in CP2077 and it's then on par with my previous 3080 (in rasterisation 7900XTX it's 150% of the 3080...), pathtracing is fully unplayable even with muddy "performance FSR" giving 25FPS...  But RT is more of a gimmick than a really important feature, not present or not impactful in most games
 
I was happy to not experience any drivers issues/crash, only big issue I had with early drivers was the super high idle power consumption of the card , at 90-100W, but they fixed it since a couple upgrades (still took them 6 months...), and Adrenalin is miles better than NVidia GeForce Experience that don't even allow OC, requiring Afterburner that's now more abandonware than anything else...
 
So if you can't/won't get a 4090, save some money and get a 7900XTX 🙂
 
 
 

Various mods done on the 340i so far.
M Performance 370mm/345mm front and rear dimpled/grooved disks with ATE Ceramic pads.  Forge Motorsport filter and OEM hot climate intake mod Just done M3 paddle upgrade.
 

 
Having paid a hefty parts deposit (£1600!) it'll be in for the M Performance Drexler LSD, that'll be going on in September.
 
Then new wheels, xHP gearbox map and stage 2. 

You got exceptionally lucky with the tube alignment to not have to use a tonne of adapters 😄
Looks fantastic. 

White non-distilled vinegar is pretty good as a rust removal tool. Small container full of the cleaning grade stuff (£cheap per 5L), throw your parts in and leave it 24 hours. I used it to rust strip a pair of garden shears that I found in the hedge when we bought our house and with regular oiling they look almost as good as new 6 years later. 

New car is here.
 

 
F30 340i. Loving it so far. 

> BMW B58 has entered the chat.

New car is here.
 

 
F30 340i. Loving it so far. 

Car blue.
Interior white.
Lots of shiny things.
Will be getting a BMW warrantied 360bhp remap and cat back exhaust on receipt. 

Deposit left on an F30 340i saloon. Huge spec car- individual Oyster interior over Estoril with pretty much everything ticked except Radar CC, sunroof, HUD and Comfort Access. FBMWSH car that's still under extended warranty.
 
M140i goes on Friday.
F30 already booked in for the MPPSK 🤣

Car blue.
Interior white.
Lots of shiny things.
Will be getting a BMW warrantied 360bhp remap and cat back exhaust on receipt.