In Progress: White Sails

GeekRichieUK · June 30, 2019

History
I've wanted a good looking rig for years. My last build was 8 years ago was intended to be a looker, but the delivery guy had other ideas. My Bitfenix case came with most of its plastic bits smashed, but in my desperation to have a working PC, I built in the chassis anyway. For years I battled with dust ingress and degrading finish on the outside (soft-touch finish turns to sticky mush after a few years). Safe to say, the build wasn't a bad runner, but it looked like shit.

So about 6 months ago, I decided it was time to switch out. There were a handful of games beginning to struggle on my RX480, and the motherboard was officially holding me back. After 8 years, I decided to upgrade. One thing about me, I frugal as fuck. I like to get the most for my money - but for this build I allowed myself some concessions. 1) If I could make a picture-worthy build, i'll allow myself to splurge. If I'm getting another 8 years out of this build, I'm going to enjoy looking at it instead of hiding it away. 2) I'm going to make sure it's upgradable in the future. The reason for this was because when I picked up my last build, it had Socket LGA1155, PCI-Express 2.0 and DDR3 and within a couple of years, all of those were old news.

No thanks, I'm just looking

There's a thread about 6 months ago, where I threw together a very nicely budgeted, well rounded build based on the Ryzen 2700X and compared it to . I was literally moments away from actually buying it when I stumbled across an article mentioning Ryzen 3000, 7nm process and a hint that Ryzen release is usually around March/April. I would've kicked myself, so I hung fire and did some more thinking. Ryzen 3000 came with PCI-Express 4.0, a trick I missed last time. DDR5 isn't coming for another year, and another 2 before it becomes cheap or mainstream enough. And the socket? AM4 - It's on its last legs - yeah, but we've got another couple of years even there hopefully. Well... I can't wait 2 years.

Seven - What a wonderful number.
So while I was waiting for Ryzen 7nm to come out, I was deciding on parts of my build. Do I go Mini-ITX like I've always wanted, or do I remain practical and stick to a bigger form factor? If I'm going to beauty, do I finally go watercooling or stick to air? Well - my decision was made when I saw Corsairs white component line. White cases are nice, but an all white computer? Yeah - thats for me. So I started playing around with those parts and came up with VII - The AMD/Corsair Build.

The problem was that it was just too expensive for me - not long before this I'd proposed to my girlfriend of 6 years, and we need to save for the wedding. She's always blessed the idea of buying a new PC because I practically live on it, and while we have a couple of years til our date - I've decided on a hard cap for now, one that I know I can pay off soon with the hope that I can pick up a second hand Radeon VII in the future. So begins the story of White Sails. The lower spec version of the VII.

The Buying Begins

Stage one is to start picking up the parts. I head over to Scan - the only UK retailer with alot of this gear and get to buying. I'd already begun planning the build so theres a couple of gimmies here. 1) I skipped the white frontpanel extensions and the PCI-E riser. I wasn't 100% on those, so I left them out. The cables from the RM750x are already white - and while not braided, I feel are good enough for now. So sticking with the White gear and the LED setup was good for now. I picked up an extra filter for the back, because we're going with triple input, dual output for positive pressure, and the bottom of the front panel is going to have my slack cables in.

Next step was the graphics card, and since my budget for it was slashed, I began looking at Vega 64 and NVidia 2070. The Vega popped up in a sale for £300 with 3 free games. So it was a no brainer. But the problem... It blows hard.

Fixing the Vega
The blower style Vega was black. And there were some rough reviews about its heat. So undervolting it may be a solution, but that doesn't fix its aesthetics. I love the look of a blower but its just the wrong color.

Yup, I ripped open a brand new Vega and repasted it with Kyronaut, then took out the masking tape and spray paint and absolutely butchered the spray job. The masking tape peeled mid application, the paint went on really blotchy, then before it was completely dry I put it on some kitchen roll. Welp. It was RUINED. 2 days of sanding (which I also screwed up with too heavy grit, gouging the metal, and was unable to properly clean the edges) got me back to somewhere to start again. This time, I was more careful.

It's far from perfect. But unless you look for its defects, the overall look holds up pretty well. And that ladies and gentlemen is the end for now. Next week I'll update it with the final build, when I finally pick up the X570 board and 3700X. I'll also show you the new setup with a white monitor in its new room. We've bought a new table and moved my setup into my fiances old hobby room (and she's moved into the old computer room). This gave me enough space for a new long table so she can have my old PC for some multiplayer/streaming setup, also giving me space to set up my Vive properly. So we'll show how that will work out with the final setup photos.