Project Tao

[BucketInABucket]

Hi guys, BucketInABucket here! This is the concept of the rig I posted about in the introductions thread, but I'm here to document the process in full. It’s…kind of long, and still ongoing, but I thought I’d start it anyways!

Right, let’s begin.

 

I grew up around computers. Not just shop-bought pre-mades, but actual hand-built towers. My dad was, fortunately or unfortunately depending on who you ask, a very big fan of custom-built PCs. Every few years, he would map out a rig for me and then build it right in front of my eyes. As I grew older, I had more say, but I could never really customize the rig to my liking as my dad had all the say and all the money. This all stopped when I went overseas, but my love for custom-built rigs has never really faded.

 

As for this project? This all started about a year ago, with a wee little Asus UX303LN laptop and piddly little NVidia GT840m graphics. It was, at the time I bought it, the most powerful ultra-book I could find short of the Razer Blade, and that was hideously expensive. As was typical of me, I had gotten rather bored of lugging around a small laptop and wanted something that could play games! Proper games, with max settings! Games like Crysis 3, and Metro: Last Light! The talk of the online benchmarking websites! Typical teenager, right?

 

Needless to say, I gravitated to the 980Ti, which at the time was the most powerful graphics card one can get their hands on, other than the ridiculously priced Titan cards. My brain started thinking. What if I could build a relatively compact system, but one that could hold sli 980Tis AND be water-cooled at the same time? I had very high standards, I must say. However, I had neither the funds nor the support to allow me such a rig, and thus I stayed with my laptop for another year. However, a seed had been planted.

 

A seed which would eventually grow into this.

 

Project Tao.

 

 

What is Project Tao, you may ask? (following paragraph mostly from Wikipedia cause I'm lazy).

 

Well, Taoism is a Chinese philosophy based on the writings of Lao-tzu, advocating humility and religious piety. Yin and Yang are parts of a Oneness that is also equated with the Tao. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. As you guys know, a GTX-1080 by itself is completely useless! More information here.

This is the core of what my build is based around. Or it could just be me wanting a cool name and concept and talking out of my arse to justify it. Who knows?

 

It has a surprisingly simple goal, carried over from my idea a year ago. Cram a ridiculous amount of power into as small a case as I can, while balancing the space with a proper water-cooling loop. Of course, in my mind, it's far more romanticized than that. In my mind, it is the ultimate harmony of form and function. Sleek, subtle, water-cooled and, of course, powerful. Very powerful.

 

Naturally, I will need a case to start, and my weapon of choice is the Jonsbo UMX4. A svelte Micro-ATX- sized case supporting two 240mm radiators, albeit only slim 27mm ones, and full ATX boards. However, I will be going with a MicroATX board to give myself more clearance for radiators at the bottom of the chassis. If I go smaller, I might as well have gone for a Mini ITX build if that was the case, but then I wouldn't have the option to SLI. Plus, as much power as possible, remember?

 

Here are my current components.

 

Intel i7-6700k
The 6700k is an incredibly powerful CPU, and will be useful not only for gaming but also for university work, which is why I chose to run with this. I don’t feel like I need the multiple cores any 2011-V3 socket-based chip offers me.

 

Scythe Kotetsu
Cheap and very effective cooling especially when used with a push pull setup.

 

Asus Maximus VIII Gene mATX
Fairly neutrally-coloured motherboard with SLI capabilities and the legendary Asus featureset which make them famous. Also gives me a little more clearance from the bottom for a thicker radiator if I ever need one.

 

Corsair Vengeance LED White 3000MHz 4x8GB
Looks pretty and I can take off the light spreaders to get really sexy lightbars which fit this rig perfectly.

 

MSI GTX-1080 Gaming X
The cheapest 1080 (which wasn’t Inno3D which I don’t trust that) that was on sale when I went shopping. The GTX1080 is the most powerful GPU not named Titan X Pascal which I simply cannot justify. I plan to get SLI GTX1080Tis eventually when they come out and I can afford them and hopefully 480x27mm worth of radiator will be enough to cool everything. I won’t pretend to say that the temps will be the best as that would simply be delusional, but I hope the radiators can at handle the TDP of the system without too much overclocking. The red doesn’t bother me too much as the entire thing will be replaced eventually.

 

WD Caviar Green 3TB Drive
Hand-me-down from my father. Will be replaced in time.

 

Fujitsu F300 480GB 2.5” SSD
Also a hand-me-down. Will be replaced with Samsung 850 EVO SSDs when I run out of things to upgrade, but before I start water-cooling.

 

Corsair ML120 Pro LED White fans
I love the ML120 sound profile, the very wide PWM range and the excellent performance it offers. White LEDs, cause black and white theme. Somewhat dumb, I know, but I am a very dumb person after all!

 

Corsair Commander Mini
This will tie the entire build together. I like to control my fans from windows, not the bios, and the usage of a Corsair i-enabled PSU was the tipping factor to use this over the NZXT option.

 

Corsair AX860i
The 160mm PSU with the largest power output I can find. An excellent power supply in general as well.

 

Once I have the parts together, I’ll update this build again. For now, I’ll see you guys later!

 

[21rkosta]

sounds realy interesting im so fallowing this

[BucketInABucket]

Well well, look what came in the mail today.

 

 

Took me about half an hour to heave all that up to my room and open everything up! Finally finished though and after a 5 minute break, I started my build.

 

 

First, I took out the case, but I had to admire it for a few seconds before carrying on.

 

 

Look at that beauty!

 

However, it's even smaller than it looks in the pictures! I knew there wasn't gonna be too much room in the back either after having a look, but I had to make it work. Keys there to slice open parcels.

 

 

I forgot to take pics of me inserting the CPU and RAM and testing the mobo outside the case, but after I confirmed it was working, I screwed it into the case.

 

 

 

I stuck the Corsair Commander Mini on the side of the PSU as that was the only place it would go without interfering without cable management or SSD placement. However, this was a nightmare to manage...

 

 

Tried to make the front as clean as possible though!

 

 

Done and booted up.

 

 

My cable management sucks and it took me 5 hour but I'm finally done with this! It was most definitely a challenge but I had a lot of fun building it and the final result is just exquisite.

 

However, like the numpty I am, I forgot I'm using a TV for now and bought a DP cable instead, so, as I can't set any fan curves, the damn thing sounds like a jet engine cause all the ML fans are on full tilt!

[BucketInABucket]

Got my HDMI cable at last! Everything's now set up with the Corsair Link software and there's barely any noise now! I also took the chance to reorganize the cables at the back, using the space between the PSU and the HDD cage to stuff extra cables, and it's a whole lot more manageable now. I will still need custom cables made eventually but for now, it's a damn sight less crazy than before.

 

 

Here's a glamour shot of it in the dark. Damn...

 

[starwarsguy99]

Looks good!

Looking forward to the watercooling!

[randy hutajulu]

On 9/27/2016 at 3:34 AM, BucketInABucket said:

Well well, look what came in the mail today.

 

 

 

 

Look at that beauty!

 

i really like this new jonsbo case but it's not available in my country just yet. 

pleaasseee... come here.. pleassee....

[BucketInABucket]

3 hours ago, starwarsguy99 said:

Looks good!

Looking forward to the watercooling!

Might not come for a while yet, I still need to buy my monitor!

1 hour ago, randy hutajulu said:

i really like this new jonsbo case but it's not available in my country just yet. 

pleaasseee... come here.. pleassee....

Where's your country? It might be possible to get a 3rd party courier to ship it from China.

 

Anyways, here's an update! This one isn't so great. I had to RMA the PSU today because I experienced the problem where when I boot up the computer, the PSU clicks and shuts down the system. Great. Mine was a refurb, so I'll let that one go; I ordered another AX860i, a new one this time, and I hope this one will be fine.

[randy hutajulu]

18 hours ago, BucketInABucket said:

 

Where's your country? It might be possible to get a 3rd party courier to ship it from China.

 

 

Naahh.. the tax system here is a mess. I prefer waiting haha..

Oh, I'm from indonesia sir..

[BucketInABucket]

16 hours ago, randy hutajulu said:

Naahh.. the tax system here is a mess. I prefer waiting haha..

Oh, I'm from indonesia sir..

Oh ouch, fair enough, I see. Good luck with waiting, but be careful when you build as it's a real toughie to bend to your will!