[Build Log] Project Quicksilver - New Parts, More Case-Mods to come!

[banana_havoc]

Most recent post - 

 

 

 

Hey Guys n' Gals. 

 

I'm in the midst of acquiring parts for a rig update, and seeing as I love watching these builds (and the ones on the YouTubes) take shape I figured it was time to throw my hat in the ring. This is only my third go at this whole PC Master Race thing, so please be gentle.

 

My original build specs can be found here - https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/banana_havoc/saved/X6HXsY

 

Originally this computer found a home in an NZXT Phantom 240 Case, which I had to modify because my beast of an air cooler scratched the acrylic panel going on and off. Swapping to 1/8 Plexi and installing it via allen screws to the exterior of the case classed it up a bit IMO and added a bit of room. But I still wasn't happy with the aesthetic, so it was soon binned for an equally expensive InWin 303 I picked up this Black Friday. The interior of which immediately got a nice coat of gloss white paint to give a little more pop. 

 

 

 

 

So eventually here we stand now, a decently quick (for me) AMD FX 8370 based system in a nice case on a nice desk in the space that is soon destined to be an office (aka we had kids and I lost my den...) And well. I had some cash kicking around and I'm already tired of a system I built a year ago.

 

Needless to say, I went Boxing Day shopping. And some new toys entered the stable.

 

 

 

 

For some reason though the 3000 mHz Team Dark ram was cheaper than the 2400 speeds and the Red varient was also cheaper than the grey, seeing as its going to find itself under a spray can, I wasn't overly concerned with the initial colour. There is also an NZXT Hue + and another Enermax TB Vegas fan (for the bottom slot under the fan controller)on the way as well. I held off on the CPU until we hear more on Kaby Lake. Seeing as the motherboard will support it with a BIOS update. if not I'll likely snag a 6700K if its still on sale. A good friend of mine is going to be the proud new owner of my previously mentioned FX-8370, 8 gb of HyperX Fury and MSI 970 Gaming AM3+ mb, and I need that cash to throw at the CPU. And the final build is going to stick to a Silver, White and Black colour scheme. Any suggestions are welcome, though I've been planning much of this pretty much since I finished my first foray into computer building. 

 

So far, here is the list as it stands - https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/banana_havoc/saved/JVGJxr

 

Thanks for the interest and I'll toss more up as I get it!

 

-bH

[Guest]

Sell 970 msi and buy an evga card for more silver 

[The Sloth]

does it die for bs reasons end of the day ?

[banana_havoc]

1 minute ago, deXxterlab97 said:

Sell 970 msi and buy an evga card for more silver 

I was thinking about it, but right now I'm not prepared to drop that bomb yet. And I don't really want to swipe the same build from BitWit. I'll probably tear down the card I have and respray it for now.

[banana_havoc]

1 minute ago, nerdslayer1 said:

does it die for bs reasons end of the day ?

The AMD build? No it's actually pretty stable. Though I have noticed it is not a big fan of my settlements in FO4. 

[The Sloth]

Just now, banana_havoc said:

The AMD build? No it's actually pretty stable. Though I have noticed it is not a big fan of my settlements in FO4. 

i was referencing the movie where they kill quicksilver off for no reason, i am assuming the name quicksilver is a reference to marvel character. 

[banana_havoc]

1 minute ago, nerdslayer1 said:

i was referencing the movie where they kill quicksilver off for no reason, i am assuming the name quicksilver is a reference to marvel character. 

lol, yes and no. I was also going for the silvery/mercury aspect too. Speaking of which, that motherboard is a freaking tank. MSI put a full steel backplate on the entire back side of the board. Even knowing that going in I'm still shocked at just how much it weighs. If ever there is a home invasion, I'll drop the Louisville and pick up the computer!

[Megah3rtz]

Why not a GTX 1070 MSI quicksilver card? 

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Megah3rtz said:

Why not a GTX 1070 MSI quicksilver card? 

HE mentioned above why

[Megah3rtz]

10 minutes ago, deXxterlab97 said:

HE mentioned above why

didn't read any of that. oops. 

[banana_havoc]

17 hours ago, Megah3rtz said:

didn't read any of that. oops. 

Who knows I may add a 1070 in a couple months. Just not right now.

 

This would be a nice alternative as well, just for that backplate alone.

 

I was also thinking about a painted Asus Strix a la Salazar Studio, but silver and white.

[banana_havoc]

[1/7/17]  Not much to update. Probably buying the CPU this weekend, and me like a dolt missed any sort of sale waiting on more Kaby Lake info. As well, the MB requires a Skylake CPU to update the BIOS for 7th gen. So I think I'll suck it up and just grab a 6700k (oh no, I'm short a few hundred mHz on my OC... oh darn). As well I've been putting some thought into my cooling setup and I'm considering an EK watercooling starter kit to get me going (https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-kit-s360) and upgrading the size of the res and eventually switching to hardline. Right now I'm not worried about including the gpu in the loop so the slim 360 kit is more than enough. If there is anyone experienced with this kit out there though, are there any issues with mounting that pump/res horizontally? Thats the part I'm hung up on now as with the idea I have to mount my fan controller (which I love and will never part with) the single res would look awkward mounted vertically. 

 

Also... MORE PARTS ARRIVED!

 

 

Nothing super exciting, just another Enermax TB Vegas fan to fill the empty bottom slot in my case and an NZXT Hue+, which I'm very stoked about. I know my board has an integrated RGB header, but from everything I've read it doesn't seem to be nearly as customizable as the Hue. As well I think I may try and detach the LED circuit on the TB Vegas fans from the Fan circuit so I can wire them to the PSU separately so the glow isn't dependent on fan speed. as they look nicer than the Cluster fans I currently have mounted on the Rad mount now. 

 

Also I think I'm going to pick up some of this (https://www.amazon.ca/Silver-Carbon-Fiber-Professional-Sheet-hq/dp/B017IASACY/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1483832946&sr=8-11&keywords=silver+carbon+fiber+decal) Silver Carbon Fiber look Vinyl wrap, I have some in white already I was planning to put on my SSD. but with the two I could do a two tone look on both that and the HUE+ controller (in the same manner as the gloss/matte plastic on the HUE) to add some cohesion between the two. Plus I'd leave the edges of both black to make them stand out from the interior panel I need to build likely with the res mounted horizontal beneath them.

[Prysin]

looks neat. some things need polish but you prob aint done yet.. so 7/10 so far

[banana_havoc]

[UPDATE 1/22/17]  So, for about two weeks I've been pretty well bed-ridden. But I did manage to get everything fit into the case and working! I have yet to touch the painting aspect (and it seems I need to touch up some of my original painting in the case itself. But it is coming along nicely. I also still need to build the cable shroud and think about cable extensions and a new CPU cooler. I'm still debating whether to go custom loop or just hide and AIO behind the upper fan shroud.

 

[banana_havoc]

[UPDATE 3/11/17] So, it's been a while since I got a chance to play around with this but I finally got a chance to disassemble and paint the heat spreaders on my ram, Should be able to reassemble and reinstall tomorrow. As well, I plan on getting the new mounting plate for my fan controller built this weekend and hopefully painted. 

 

 

All I needed was a heat gun and plastic spudger (a plastic pry-bar for disassembling automobile interiors) and they just popped off the ram sticks, then I just unscrewed them and they came right apart.

 

 

Then it was time for sanding, primer and paint until I eventually wound up with this.... 

 

[banana_havoc]

[Update 3/11/17-2] ... I figured I'd waited long enough.

 

 

 

 

I'm also trying to source a Fractal Design Kelvin S36 for this too. I'm thinking that may be my next big purchase for it, but who knows. I'd also like to vertically mount the GPU as well, but I'm likely going to need to ditch the tower cpu cooler first. If I keep the GPU I'm going to paint the shroud the same as the ram, replacing the black with silver and the red with white.

[banana_havoc]

[3/19/17] More is on the way. Decisions were made. Parts were ordered!

 

 

 

 

Everything is pretty much going to be a combination of Barrow fittings and EK parts. I have another order I need to make next month when I have some more cash. Some of you might wonder why I didn't go with a bigger brand name for the fittings, plain and simple that would have just killed my budget. I've looked into it and have heard some good things about Barrow and am willing to give them a shot. I'll likely be working on painting the GPU soon, I only do 1080p gaming at the moment so it just doesn't make sense to upgrade at this time. Going to try and head to a local sign shop as well to pick up some acrylic so I can try my hand at making a backplate as well. I know its at least a couple months off, but this boy is already getting excited!

[banana_havoc]

[Update 3/25/17] Sooooooo.... I'm going to preface this with... Mistakes were made.

 

For much of the painting in this build I have been using a combination of both Krylon and Tremclad products, when I painted the case and the ram I erred on the side of caution and purchased Tremclad Gloss White High Heat paint, IMO that was my screw up. It takes a LONG time to dry and I probably didn't need the added heat protection, that said if (lets face it.. its not an "if" its a "when") I do this again I'm going to stick to Krylon (the Dual series of paint is what I used) it's easy to apply and has a great nozzle unlike the Tremclad. Not to mention it drys much faster. Live and learn. Anyhow... you might be asking why I'm talking about paint again.... well...

 

I got bored after an post-work bender an all nighter and decided it was time to tear apart my GPU...

 

 

 

Goodbye Shroud!

 

Primed for shenanigans!

 

 

 

And done, as you might tell the white got a little messed up on reassembly. I might sand it down later and try over, but most likely this card will find a home in my HTPC when I finally decide to upgrade. And I'll end todays installment with a few shots of it installed. Next I might track down some 3mm acrylic and make myself a backplate. I still need to work out a design for it though, as it too will be painted to match.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[banana_havoc]

[UPDATE - 05/25/17] Awesomeness incoming!

 

 

 

[banana_havoc]

[Update 6/16/17] So I started having some pretty bad stability issues a while back in certain titles, needless to say my ram kept giving me issues so I decided to swap it out for a more reliable set. (Future bH - this was probably due to me removing the heat spreaders, probably why they don't warranty this kind of thing) Enter: 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LED! Also while I was at it I placed a test order with Dazmode for some of his Darkside cable extensions. Very quick shipping, good quality and the price is great. Mine are the Metallic Graphite, and I'm pretty stoked for them. Needless to say though, this has me putting off the watercooling gear a bit longer, though as I have a trip coming up and need to save some cash for that, afterwards I'm going to go for it. 

 

 

I also noticed with summer my temps have crept up pretty bad (in certain games, I'm looking at you 7 Days To Die). At least 10 degrees on the CPU and almost 20 on the GPU @ 100% load, so I installed another fan I had kicking around. I'm also thinking I might source a second 360 rad and a GPU block as well, and yes, I'm going to order some cable combs when I place the order for the rest of the WC stuff.

 

 

[banana_havoc]

[Update 1/5/2020]

 

Been a while LTT - So long in fact that I needed to download my Photobucket to fix this thread! That said, I promise the wait was worth it. And yes - I realize that freshly watercooling older hardware isn't the most cost oriented decision. HOWEVER, I've been sitting on most of these parts for sometime now and finally got the motivation to do something about it. Not to mention when I do finally upgrade the only watercooling parts I NEED to replace are the blocks and tubes. Also, rather than making you wait, I waited until the system was completed before making this update.

 

Time for carnage... and yes, my battlestation is filthy at the moment.

 

 

 

I decided I wanted to try something different for a GPU mount and this seemed to fit the bill. I only had to drill one hole in the case for added rigidity. Everything else screws into the existing PCIE mounts, so its also completely removable. 

 

[banana_havoc]

[Update 1/5/2020] - continued

 

After finishing the GPU Bracket, I promptly did what I thought would be a bit more involved last time. And disassembled the case completely.

 

 

 

Before starting to paint I designed a back plate to cover most of the holes in the motherboard tray.

 

 

I don't have any pics of doing any of the acrylic bending or cutting, but honestly it wasn't too bad. I honestly thought it would be much harder. I had way more issues gluing the two pieces together. This pic was from my first attempt at epoxying it together, this attempt would've been fine but I had the bright idea of sanding the glue down at the back and it split on the top edge. The second attempt I didn't use enough epoxy. So there was swearing, sanding and eventually a usable product.

[banana_havoc]

[Update 1/5/2020] - continued

 

Sand, prime, paint, clear... here we go!

 

 

I ran out of the Krylon paint I used for the graphics card, and while I SHOULD have taken a sample with me when I went paint shopping, I didn't, I wasn't overly impressed with the Aluminum shade of the Premier Paint + Primer I picked up, I got some Rustoleum "Frosted Pearl" clear to give it a little more flake, which did help it out a lot.

 

 

From there I moved onto the motherboard tray - For this I wanted something close to Gunmetal Grey, as I wanted the motherboard to stand out from the back wall. I after my previous disappointments with paint, I figured I'd try automotive paint - so I grabbed some Duplicolor Honda matched paint - the colour is called Polished Metal Metallic, and I believe its a factory colour for the newest Type R Civic, which was completely unplanned. Cool colour though. I love how it colour-shifts at certain angles.

 

 

 

[banana_havoc]

 

Making sure everything fits alright.

 

 

Paint! Aka more swearing, I got a little overzealous with the clear and made a MASSIVE run. The nice thing is a found a neat try for getting them out, unfortunately I didn't have any fine bondo on hand so I had to very casefully take it down and clear it over. But it turned out alright. Funny part is, after I did all that - the GPU COMPLETELY covered the run. But at least my OCD was satisfied.

 

[banana_havoc]

[Update 1/5/2020] - continued

 

Finally! Time to watercool and heeere we go!

 

 

 

I flipped the radiator as I had a different idea on how I was going to run my tubes. 

 

Some of the parts are white as I ordered them way back when, I'll get around to replacing them eventually...