buildlog Black Mac, a silent workstation/F@H machine

[ProjectBox153]

1 hour ago, lieder1987 said:

I was just about to ask if you had any pictures or information about the parts that you used. I want to through my Hackintosh into a G5 or a Mac Pro case but the upfront costs are making me cry man tears :(.

For me the hardest part is the fact that I'm "damaging" a wonderful piece of design and engineering. I could probably get over that once I realized how awesome the end product would be, though. And how sick it would look when painted like yours.

 

[RollinLower]

progress on the rad mounts is coming along nicely. right now the plan is to go push/pull on a thick 240mm rad in the front, with a slim 240mm rad in the bottom doing just push.

still need to figure out the rest of the loop though, should i go for a pump/res combo? it seems like the easier way to do things, but a seperate pump and res does look a lot cleaner..

outside input needed!  

Edited January 15, 2017 by RollinLower
Added pic

[potoooooooo]

Don't bother with push/pull, it's a waste of 25mm and money

[Zandvliet]

 

On 9-1-2017 at 6:26 PM, RollinLower said:

The netherlands! Are Corsairs' 1000+ watts models any good?

Yeah there're great, I've got the corsair HX1000i, also in the Netherlands btw  

 

Looking forward to the build  

[RollinLower]

Right, so it's been silent in this thread for a while, and that's because a few things happened in the past few days. 

 

First and foremost, the purpose of this machine has shifted. I originally intended for this beast to become a Folding@Home monster. Sadly, those plans are off the charts for now.

My brother is into video editing. He had a workstation PC i build for him a long while back. Sadly, that PC has died in spectacular fashion, taking out several components. Now he's pretty short on cash, he just bought a house and all that. As such, he is in need of a new workstation. More so than i need a folding PC. 

So that's what this is going to be from now on, an X99 workstation build. I have already sold some of the original components, and bought a few new ones. i'll update the OP with the updated plans!

 

Alrighty, i'm back to waiting on components to arrive. As always, expect updates as things happen

[DnFx91]

On 1/9/2017 at 5:59 PM, RollinLower said:

thanks! i've spoilered some pics so you can see to what extend the mods go. it's basically a normal PC case now.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

i agree. for me, simple white accent lights are all i need. my current main rig uses only a single strip of white leds an imo it looks fantastic.

how do you deal with the window being on the wrong side ?  

[RollinLower]

46 minutes ago, DnFx91 said:

how do you deal with the window being on the wrong side ?  

I struggle with it every day to be honest

Sometimes i just stand at the side of my desk to take a look inside. The USB ports and power/reset buttons are on the right side of the case though, so that works pretty well.

[DnFx91]

1 minute ago, RollinLower said:

I struggle with it every day to be honest

Sometimes i just stand at the side of my desk to take a look inside. The USB ports and power/reset buttons are on the right side of the case though, so that works pretty well.

i just noticed your coffee mug coaster, top notch.

 

Here's my station, went a bit ham with the LED's but i'm happy with it

 

[RollinLower]

Updates! Well, not terribly large of an update, but something nonetheless. So yay?

Today the first piece of the X99 build rolled in. The 6 core Xeon!

Still waiting on the new MOBO, which should be delivered tomorrow.(?) Once i get that, i can start testfitting the new stuff.

 

Also, progress on the case is coming along nicely, so watch out for the next few posts to see how that is turning out

Edited January 27, 2017 by RollinLower
Added pic

[ProjectBox153]

33 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

Updates! Well, not terribly large of an update, but something nonetheless. So yay?

Today the first piece of the X99 build rolled in. The 6 core Xeon!

Still waiting on the new MOBO, which should be delivered tomorrow.(?) Once i get that, i can start testfitting the new stuff.

 

Also, progress on the case is coming along nicely, so watch out for the next few posts to see how that is turning out

Can't wait! It's shaping up to be a really nice build!

[RollinLower]

right, so i finally made a choice on what PSU to get. I went with the EVGA 850 GQ. mostly because it has enough watts to keep the system happy, but also because i got it dirt cheap in a sale

 

on (semi?) related news: the motherboard arrived today! prepare yourself for some low-light-phone-quality pictures!

 

Case progress is slowing, but coming along nicely. Still debating on how to open up the bottom for that second radiator tho..

[RollinLower]

Right, so a few updates: 

Firts and sadly foremost; custom watercooling is not going to happen as of right now. My brother needs his workstation, so i will have to settle for a BeQuiet CPU cooler and the stock Titan X coolers.

 

Second and in much nicer news: Pics!

RAM came in, vengeance LPX. should go pretty nicely with the black colour scheme i've been trying to do.

also, i ditched the idea of a single 120GB SATA SSD, and got a 1TB M.2 SSD instead. I like the idea of a large amount of fast storage ona workstation, and i'll also add in a large capacity mechanical drive for file storage. (not too sure what drive to get yet though..)

 

the board with everything plugged in snugly. only thing standing out so far is the SSD, but it'll be covered up by the GPU's anyway, so i'm not going to go through the hassle of modding it.

 

also, PSU!

 

im going to start reassembly tonight, so more pics are incoming!

Edited February 9, 2017 by RollinLower
terrible pics

[Heesleemer]

How do you ( or your brother) like the MATX WS motherboard? thinking about picking one up for my 8 core xeon once i get a 6900k (assuming prices fall due to zen) 

[RollinLower]

So  this is it. The (probably?) Final post in the buildlog for BlackMac 1.0. It's been quite a twist to be honest. It went from watercooled number cruncher to air cooled workstation!

It also sports only 1 Titan X instead of the planned SLI, since i had to sell the other one to finance the switch to an X99 platform.

 

All in all i'm still very happy how she turned out though. And i love the fact that it is being used for production too. This case is just too pretty to keep in a corner running only F@H anyway.

 

Anyway, pictures incoming!

I started with prepping the case. Taking out the mobo tray which left me with just the empty shell of the Mac. 

Since the back side of this case doesn't open, i need to route the cables before putting in the mobo tray. This also meant planning ahead was crucial. Something i'm not very good at

Needless to say, i had to place/remove the mobo tray a few times.

In an attempt to make things look a little cleaner i got one of them EVGA power link thingies. I dunno if i like it all that much though. Seems kind of... exessive?

 

Speaking of exessive, the CPU cooler turned out a little bigger than i anticipated

Like, why did i ever even bother color matching the RAM?

 

The components in their final position

 

When BlackMac 2.0 comes around, i'll be placing the PSU in the top shelve of the case, next to the drive cage. For now though, the bottom is where it'll sit.

 

The final result will be posted below. (Damn you 20MB upload limit!)

 

 

Edited February 17, 2017 by RollinLower
Lots and lots of typos

[RollinLower]

 

so there she is. I'm not happy with how any of the cables sit right now, and i will fix that soon. Though sadly that is all i will be doing with this project for now.  

 

This doesn't mean i don't have great plans though. Hardline watercooling will be a thing for this build in the near future. I'll also be doing SLI or crossfire because i obviously need 2 GPU's in this case. Also, the current Xeon in there will be swapped for something with a little more 'oomph'. All of this though, is something for the future.

 

I'll post some bench numbers here soon, as well as the average PPD this gets when folding. 

 

Let me know what you think! What would you have done different? Should i bother modding this case even further for watercooling compatibility? I'd love your input!

[Heesleemer]

no intake and exhaust? 

[RollinLower]

6 minutes ago, Heesleemer said:

no intake and exhaust? 

Nope. Motherboard temps never went too high, when i went benchmarking this. So i trust the big-ass CPU tower enough to cool that aswell. 

The whole thing stays whisper quiet with this setup too!

 

That being said, i have a spare Corsair AF 140 from my main rig which i might throw in here. Just to keep some flow going..

[Heesleemer]

4 hours ago, RollinLower said:

Nope. Motherboard temps never went too high, when i went benchmarking this. So i trust the big-ass CPU tower enough to cool that aswell. 

The whole thing stays whisper quiet with this setup too!

 

That being said, i have a spare Corsair AF 140 from my main rig which i might throw in here. Just to keep some flow going..

maybe just an exhaust. 

I am going to "enjoy" putting that same dark rock TF on an x99 system...

[ProjectBox153]

Man, this looks nice! Now I'm wanting a PowerMac G5 case! Good job!

[Star red]

On 9.1.2017 at 7:08 PM, RollinLower said:

updated