The Aurora

[St. Nick]

This build originally started as a project inspired by the LMG Lan Center PC build, I saw the 280x and wanted something like that for the rig I had been saving up for, Then Zen 2 hit and I wanted to go X570 so after watching revieuw after revieuw I finally went with an ATX X570 board and upgrade to the 680x, since I started it has gone through a new revision just about every month as I bought and upgrade things piece by piece. I started with an R5 3600, the observant amongst you may still see the Ryzen 5 sticker on the Noctua fan on the cooler, since then I sold that CPU and got a 3700x but I'm eyeing the 3950x right now even as my wallet cries. I just  wanted to share the build that has been slowly evolving for the last few months in what is pretty close to it's final form. I'll get some better pictures of it and my desk when it's not so dark here tomorrow XD. But I needed a convenient place to store the build so I can link to it!

Edit: So  I made some changes to my gaming system because I have been working on building a server for various diffrent storage, game hosting and folding use cases. I also replaced my regular NH-D15 with the chromax Black version and I think this system is pretty much finalized at this point. 

 

• Case: Corsair Crystal 680X 
• CPU: R7 3700X - 4.3 GHZ/All Core, 1.285v (core) |
  - Cooler: NH-D15 Chromax Black Edition (Recently Upgraded)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus X570 Elite
• GPU: Gigabyte RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC 8G white 
• RAM: 16GB (8x2GB) G-Skill 3600 Cl16 DDR4 
• Storage: 
  - (Boot) Gigabyte Aorus 256 GB (RGB Gen 3 Boot drive, replaced the gen 4 boot drive for the rgb aorus ssd for looks and because i needed the gen 4 drives for my server.)
  - (Game Drive) Gigabyte Aorus 1TB Gen 4 NVME (Also needed the 2 TB for the server so I swapped to the 1 TB drive) 
  - (Game Drive Suicide Rig) 4x Kingston A400 480 GB SATA (Raid 0) 
  - (Storage) 
• PSU: I also needed the rmx 850 for my server build so i swapped in my 750 watt Sharkoon Silenmt Storm Icewind into my gaming PC)
• Cooling & Lighting:
  - 3 Corsair LL120 Fans, Front Intake - 2 Corsair LL140 Fans, Top Intake 
  - 1 Noctua NF-A15 HS PWM Chromax Black, Rear Exhaust ans 
  - 1 Antec Prism Cooling Matrix, GPU intake 
  - Corsair RGB Strip Pro Kit 
  - Corsair Commander Pro W/ Noctua 2x PWM splitter cables 
• Monitors:
  -  AOC AG271qx - 144hz, 1440p, 1ms (G-sync Enabled on Primary Monitor)
  -  AOC AG271qx - 144hz, 1440p, 1ms (G-sync Enabled on Primary Monitor)
  - LG 4K Tv for content consumption
• Peripherals:
  - Keyboard: Razer Huntsman Elite
  - Mouse: Razer Viper Ultimate
• Controllers: 
  - Razer Orbweaver Chroma
  - Razer Wolverine Ultimate

[DailyProcrastinator]

Looks solid, although I highly recommend swapping the top fans for exhaust vs intake. I love the blue though!

[St. Nick]

I know why you say it, but the 680x has a top and front panel of tempered glass, if I do not install the Light Loops as intakes the exterior Aesthetics will be ruined. I also didn't want turbulent airflow though so the top 140's are set to 600 rpm with the corsair commander and have Noctua low noise adapters between it and the fans to make them spin as slow as possible, the air they do move gets picked up by the CPU and exhaust fan quite nicely and it does provide some airflow over the top VRM.  Thats why I also decided to go with a beefy noctua exhaust fan and cpu fan to make sure I don't keep circulating hot air in the case. Thermals are good right now and the aesthetics are too so I'm pretty pleased with my decision.

[St. Nick]

[St. Nick]

Hey everyone! A quick update on this build, it is my daily driver after all so whenever I find some budget to upgrade it I do! 
 

I upgraded to 4 x 16 GB of G-Skill Trident Z Neo 3600 and added the Cooler Master GPU sag brackets because I honestly really like the way they cover the open PCI-E slots!
 

Next thing will either be a 30xx series GPU or a Zen 3 CPU, it depends on what will be available in my country first XD!

 

 

[thrasher_565]

11 hours ago, St. Nick said:

Hey everyone! A quick update on this build, it is my daily driver after all so whenever I find some budget to upgrade it I do! 
 

I upgraded to 4 x 16 GB of G-Skill Trident Z Neo 3600 and added the Cooler Master GPU sag brackets because I honestly really like the way they cover the open PCI-E slots!
 

Next thing will either be a 30xx series GPU or a Zen 3 CPU, it depends on what will be available in my country first XD!

 

 

hmm nice build but it got me thinking that the 2 top fans probably don't do any thing other then looks and moving the gpu to a bottom slot. be interesting to find out.

[St. Nick]

I gave this a go and you are mostly correct, the CPU temp and case temps are barely affected if I turn of the top fans. Though turning off the top fans causes the VRM temps to raise by almost 17 degrees! (from about 37~40 under load to a minimum of 54, which mind you is still not horrible but that surprised me a little none the less ) and lowering the gpu has a nasty side effect of causing the chipset fan (yay x570) to spin up more (up from almost never) I assume this either has to do with the GPU being directly in front of the Chipset fan/heatsink and thus blocking the path from the bottom intake fans to the GPU going over the heatsink or there is some turbulence going on with the GPU fans being closer to the matrix cooler. Either way lowering the Gpu makes it run quite a bit hotter (from about 60~65 under gaming loads up to 75+) and the aforementioned chipset fan spinning up more with a horribly whiny fan noise.  

[flashiling]

hmm i might copy paste your build for my own (maybe some different parts) 

[flashiling]

also i don't know if i'm blind.

but where the hell is your psu located??

[Minicoop]

On 4/29/2020 at 6:40 PM, St. Nick said:

 

@flashiling That ginormous box on the right side of his case houses his PSU and all of his cable management as well

[thrasher_565]

13 hours ago, St. Nick said:

I gave this a go and you are mostly correct, the CPU temp and case temps are barely affected if I turn of the top fans. Though turning off the top fans causes the VRM temps to raise by almost 17 degrees! (from about 37~40 under load to a minimum of 54, which mind you is still not horrible but that surprised me a little none the less ) and lowering the gpu has a nasty side effect of causing the chipset fan (yay x570) to spin up more (up from almost never) I assume this either has to do with the GPU being directly in front of the Chipset fan/heatsink and thus blocking the path from the bottom intake fans to the GPU going over the heatsink or there is some turbulence going on with the GPU fans being closer to the matrix cooler. Either way lowering the Gpu makes it run quite a bit hotter (from about 60~65 under gaming loads up to 75+) and the aforementioned chipset fan spinning up more with a horribly whiny fan noise.  

hmm never thoght about vrm or the chip set fan thx for taking me to school

[St. Nick]

6 hours ago, flashiling said:

also i don't know if i'm blind.

but where the hell is your psu located??

 

4 hours ago, Minicoop said:

@flashiling That ginormous box on the right side of his case houses his PSU and all of his cable management as well

Minicoop is absolutely correct, however. Even with that ginormous box do NOT be fooled! This much RGB in a system comes at a hefty price even in this case. I made an effeort I genuinely did. But this, is RGB CABLE HELL.

6 hours ago, flashiling said:

hmm i might copy paste your build for my own (maybe some different parts) 

I would Recommend against that unless you are really committed to the looks, between the Extra LL fans, the GPU RGB bars, the Extra RGB set, the LED ram, Commander Pro,  The Case itself, RGB SSD, the Sleeved Powersupply (and then not being happy with the quality of the sleeved cables and buying a set of Cable Mod Modmesh Pro Extension), Switching to a Chromax NH-D15, the extra chromax covers, the matrix cooler and an extra Noctua Chromax exhaust fan, heck even the white GPU was 20 bucks more then the black version at the time, this PC has nearly 800 bucks invested in only cosmetic upgrades, If you simply wanna build something for performance and care about your money this is not a great build to copy XD!

[thrasher_565]

10 hours ago, St. Nick said:

 

Minicoop is absolutely correct, however. Even with that ginormous box do NOT be fooled! This much RGB in a system comes at a hefty price even in this case. I made an effeort I genuinely did. But this, is RGB CABLE HELL.

I would Recommend against that unless you are really committed to the looks, between the Extra LL fans, the GPU RGB bars, the Extra RGB set, the LED ram, Commander Pro,  The Case itself, RGB SSD, the Sleeved Powersupply (and then not being happy with the quality of the sleeved cables and buying a set of Cable Mod Modmesh Pro Extension), Switching to a Chromax NH-D15, the extra chromax covers, the matrix cooler and an extra Noctua Chromax exhaust fan, heck even the white GPU was 20 bucks more then the black version at the time, this PC has nearly 800 bucks invested in only cosmetic upgrades, If you simply wanna build something for performance and care about your money this is not a great build to copy XD!

my pc will probly take the cake for most rgb/wires ever and the cost for just cosmetic. im think on buying a  labeler. thow im going to try an hide most of my cables and i have 2 pedestals to hide it all.... plus 70+ fittings to boot.

 

i spent like $160 just to have rgb power switch.

Edited September 3, 2020 by thrasher_565

[flashiling]

11 hours ago, St. Nick said:

 

Minicoop is absolutely correct, however. Even with that ginormous box do NOT be fooled! This much RGB in a system comes at a hefty price even in this case. I made an effeort I genuinely did. But this, is RGB CABLE HELL.

-snip-

I would Recommend against that unless you are really committed to the looks, between the Extra LL fans, the GPU RGB bars, the Extra RGB set, the LED ram, Commander Pro,  The Case itself, RGB SSD, the Sleeved Powersupply (and then not being happy with the quality of the sleeved cables and buying a set of Cable Mod Modmesh Pro Extension), Switching to a Chromax NH-D15, the extra chromax covers, the matrix cooler and an extra Noctua Chromax exhaust fan, heck even the white GPU was 20 bucks more then the black version at the time, this PC has nearly 800 bucks invested in only cosmetic upgrades, If you simply wanna build something for performance and care about your money this is not a great build to copy XD!

i enjoy the look of the "it's a tiny box with a big punch".

but yea you're right about that

[St. Nick]

3 minutes ago, flashiling said:

i enjoy the look of the "it's a tiny box with a big punch".

but yea you're right about that

Well, if you want a small box, the 680x isn't exactly small by any standard. the 280x might be more your speed if it is, but even the m-atx version of this case is not tiny by any stretch. this is a big system, but I wanted that so XD.