Fully Evlov'd Shift

[r3loAded]

Hi people.

 

Recently I've seen some reviews of the "new" Phanteks Evolv Shift and, not necessarily fell in love, but I felt the need to make a new project for me. I had some decent deal lately and decided go for it. Looking at Phanteks website regarding the case, I saw that there is the possibility to install inside a dual 120mm AIO's setup. That made me even more excited as I have a EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid and will install and AIO on the CPU as well (even though not necessary).

 

Considering that I usually build on used components, for price/performance reason, with this one I had to buy new components as I couldn't find any good deals on used ones. To be fair it all started with the power supply. Why? Because I really wanted a power supply with at least 550W or ideally 600W for powering the 980 Ti easily. Browsing eBay and an Corsair SF600 SFX power supply came into my radar. Brand new, the cheapest one is around £104 here in the UK. The seller was asking £90 for it used and it was missing a SATA modular cable. Negotiating skills in action and sent an offer of £50 with the message "this is my top offer for a quick sale and due to missing SATA cable". And guess what? Yeah, you guessed it. 10 minutes later my offer was accepted :). So that's how all started, from a power supply.

 

Next, the components I'll be using:

 

- CPU - i5-7500 (bought in a bundle) - estimated price £100

- CPU AIO - AIGO Universal Intel AMD CPU Liquid Water Cooling 120mm LED Radiator T120 Ring - brand new eBay £44.90

- MOBO - ROG STRIX B250I GAMING Intel LGA-1151 mini-ITX - brand new eBay £109.99 (did a little bit of research and that was the best price/performance/features ratio for me

- RAM - 1x8GB Kingston HyperX 2400MHz (bought in the same bundle as the CPU) - estimated price £60

- GPU - EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid - from my previous build - paid for it £250 around 4 or 5 months ago

- Storage - Samsung 850 EVO 250GB M.2 SSD - bought used off Gumtree for £30 - that will be my only storage as I use my PC for World of Tanks and WEB Browsing (no downloads) - I have a SATA external power with USB 3.0 connection and I'll used my old 320GB HDD to keep my files or copy from it

- PSU -  as mentioned Corsair SF600 - £50 off eBay

- Case - and of course the star of the show - PHANTEKS EVOLV SHIFT - bought brand new of eBay for £108.95

 

Started working on it already but waiting to receive the CPU AIO to go further. As any mini ITX cases, it's quite challenging, and I'm a cable management freak, especially with see through glass.

 

Notes:

- the PCIE connection to the GPU are a tight fit (very tight - hopefully it will work)

- it is quite difficult using the modular cable as they are very stiff and hard to route them the way you want (but I'll use a hair drier to soften them up when I'll do the cable management part)

- if I were to describe the case it would be a full tower mini ITX (kind of full tower ATX, not mid tower). it's not that small but damn it looks really nice

- I really hope that I won't have problems with the AIO's due to bottom installation of the radiators

- not sure if I should already order a new PCIe riser cable as I read a lot of articles with people having issues with the one included by phanteks (in the Kyle's - BitWit - review, he did not complain about it - so I might be lucky?)

[deathlikeeric]

Ma that is a sexy case!! Love the look

[r3loAded]

I couldn't help it. Even though tomorrow I got to be awake at 6am for work, I've started.

[r3loAded]

2 hours later.....and it's finished

 

I'm quite happy how it turned out. As I previously mentioned, I'm a cable management freak and here was no exception. At least as much as possible. Every owner of an SFX PSU knows that those modular cable are so damn stiff. But came up with an idea: hair dryer. I've heated them up in order to put them in position, and it worked.

 

Hope you enjoy the build I managed to do. Enjoy the pictures as well (sorry for ugly background but that the best I can do in my little room)

 

[r3loAded]

and some more pictures goodness

[dizmo]

Looks nice!

This is the larger of the two cases, no?

[r3loAded]

3 hours ago, dizmo said:

Looks nice!

This is the larger of the two cases, no?

Nope. This is the smaller Evolv Shift. The larger one is Evolv Shift X (looks like an alien if you ask me)

[r3loAded]

I would be curious to see if there is another Evolv Shift with dual AIO config  

[r3loAded]

Total cost = @£754 or @$1007 or @1296 CAD or @1332 AUD

 

What do you think about the price?

[Deli]

Nice build for sure. I have a similar yet-to-finish build for my racing rig/HTPC.

 

I really like the case, as it doesn't look like a typical tower office PC. It fits well in the living room, next to the TV.

 

P.S. killer deal for your PSU.

[r3loAded]

1 minute ago, Deli said:

I have a similar yet-to-finish build for my racing rig/HTPC

What specs? Curious

[Deli]

4790K and a Asus Strix GTX1070. Only the CPU is water-cooled. The graphic card is just normal air cooled, as GTX1070 isn't a very hot card.

 

The reason the build is not yet done is because I'm building a simply/cheap custom loop for the CPU. Hope I'll have it done this weekend.

 

Same PSU as yours, but I've to pay the full price.

[r3loAded]

17 hours ago, Deli said:

4790K and a Asus Strix GTX1070. Only the CPU is water-cooled. The graphic card is just normal air cooled, as GTX1070 isn't a very hot card.

 

The reason the build is not yet done is because I'm building a simply/cheap custom loop for the CPU. Hope I'll have it done this weekend.

 

Same PSU as yours, but I've to pay the full price.

That's a strong and well balanced combo. The CPU is still strong.

 

Custom loop for CPU? That should interesting. I would love to see how it looks (post a picture here once you've done it or send me a private message)

[r3loAded]

Updates:

 

Unfortunately, due to graphics card being used, when testing, the AIO pump was making rattling noises (quite disturbing ones). That's because the radiator was installed in a lower position than the pump. The CPU AIO makes some noises as well (just water circulating - not too loud but present). And that's a new AIO, not used.

 

So I decided to change the graphics card to a Zotac 980 Ti Reference Design (NVidia blower style cooler). Well, that didn't worked neither. Fired up WoT and in a minute the graphics card reached 84 degrees and throttled down from the boost clock to base clock and of course it sounded like an jet engine. Disappointment

 

Long story short, I bought an Asus GTX 1080 Strix Gaming for £300 and I'll be using that, hoping that it will not get hot and loud.

 

Happy to report that the PCIe riser cable works perfectly, not performance loss or artefacts or BSODs.

 

Also added some light inside the case, and will add some more to even up the lighting inside. It was too gloomy with only that white LED on the pump.

[shadowbyte]

back when EVGA made good looking cards

it looks fantastic; amazing cable management.

[r3loAded]

5 minutes ago, shadowbyte said:

back when EVGA made good looking cards

it looks fantastic; amazing cable management.

Thank you for appreciation. I couldn't do it without the hair dryer

 

Now the 980 Ti Hybrid is back in the build I took it from

[r3loAded]

Aaaaand it's time for an upgrade. Not wanted to be honest as i wanted to keep my personal build as cheap as possible but considering I paid only £300 for the Asus GTX 1080 Strix Gaming, why not

 

Will install the graphics card tomorrow when hopefully I'll receive the 2x30cm white LED strips and install them together.

[EldarNi]

Where did you get 1080 strix for so cheap???) I can't find even 1070 for that much =/