The Stormtooper - From Air to Water | An Upgrading Build Log

[TheToxicgamer97]

looks great  B)

Thanks   I just ordered 4 CM SickleFlow Fans, two of which have blue LEDs to replace the front red ones. And one Silverstone Air Penetrator for my Single Rad in the back. I also ordered the NZXT Sentry 3 Fan controller to undervolt the fans  

I might want to buy two more fans for the side panel, but I'm not sure if I should use them as exhaust or intake. I'm not really sure how the whole Positive and Negative air pressure thing works. Any suggestions? 

[Jumper118]

Thanks   I just ordered 4 CM SickleFlow Fans, two of which have blue LEDs to replace the front red ones. And one Silverstone Air Penetrator for my Single Rad in the back. I also ordered the NZXT Sentry 3 Fan controller to undervolt the fans

I might want to buy two more fans for the side panel, but I'm not sure if I should use them as exhaust or intake. I'm not really sure how the whole Positive and Negative air pressure thing works. Any suggestions? 

positive pressure = more air in less air out (best for dust). negative pressure = less air in, more air out (worse for dust as it gets stucked in through all the non-filtered gaps). i just have neutral pressure, 2 fans in, 2 fans out. 

[TheToxicgamer97]

The Fans

 

Got my new fans and fan controller today They arrived in only two days, go Newegg! I got 4 Cooler Master SickleFlow Fans, two with blue LEDs, two with no LEDs; and a Silverstone Air Penetrator. I heard good things about the AP fans, but it doesn't seem to push any air through my radiator and doesn't come close to the 22 dBA that the specs said. My CPU has yet to get warm at all, although I haven't done anything intensive yet. The NZXT Sentry 3 Fan controller works great. It has 5 channels and a single temperature probe which I placed on my graphics card to be near the center of the case. This wasn't for temps of the GPU, but just to get an idea of the overall temp inside the case.

And now for pictures:

 

Fans in boxes

 

Fans out of boxes

 

A view of the front with the light on

 

A view of the side with the light on

 

A view of the front with the lights off

 

A view of the side with the lights off

 

I'm going to do some 'benchmarks' testing CPU, GPU, and the controller's thermal probe using different settings on the fans. One with all fans off (control), and one with all fans on full blast. I will also test the performance setting, which sets fan speeds depending on the temperature of the thermal probe; as well as the quiet setting, which as far I can tell keeps all fans at 50%. I might also do a few with varying speeds between zones (front, top, and back) If there is a significant change, I will post my results.

[TheToxicgamer97]

So I was playing with my new fan controller and while I wasn't paying attention, the CPU reached over 79 degrees Celsius and my PC shut itself off. Oops  :wacko: 

[Trik'Stari]

Just my personal opinion, I wouldn't have gone with the azza 9000. Nor would I recommend it to anyone unless they wan't to mod the living hell out of it.

 

I have one, it's a nice looking case, but the Ratx form factor is kinda stupid unless you have top intake, and if you do the traditional atx layout, the fins on top completely ruin the airflow.

 

It looks nice though. But like I said, terrible airflow, which is why I moved to an air 540, at least until I can mod the hell out of my black azza 9000.

 

Just and FYI I'm in no way criticizing your build, I'm just sorely dissappointed in my Azza 9000 case (from my experience with it). I still can't believe someone greenlighted those fins on top, they're not only a complete impedement to airflow, but I think they look ugly as well.

 

My idea is basically to replace the retarded fins with a grill that looks something like the average grills on a grill that you cook with, so just long "bars" of either metal or plastic.

 

It would look like this

 

Rear

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Front

 

Ignore the spacing between the lines of text, basically that.

 

The problem with this case is that if you set it up in "Ratx" then the top exhaust fans will basically be fighting the fans on your GPU, and I could be wrong, I never found a difinitive answer as to exactly what direction the fans on GPU's blow. I personally have an EVGA GTX660 FTW edition, which has two fans.

 

Another MAJOR problem that I see is the complete and total lack of front fans. Which leads me to another point.

 

For whatever reason, case designer's seem to think that if you just put "vent holes" anywhere that your case has good airflow, which I can state categorically is completely wrong. Think about it like a watercooling system and you'll see what I mean, it's essentially a "leak" in the system, without a fan to push or pull air, it just creates a "leak" for air to escape, which sounds good, but it's not, it makes the fans work harder and less efficiently. Without a way to funnel and or channel the air, you are basically just making the fans spin for no reason, it's as if you poked a bunch of holes in a water cooling system completely at random (on the positive pressure side) but had an unlimited supply of water intake to the pump. You'd have no direction and thusly no control over where the water went, and water not moving through the waterblock is wasted water

 

So basically, fans on front, remove top fins and replace with mesh and or grill, and then the case would be awesome.

 

Forgive me if I'm rambling/incoherent, I have been drinking, but I've been thinking about modding my azza 9000 for a good long while now, because I do love the way it looks, other than the top fins.

[TheToxicgamer97]

The Triple Setup

Hey everyone, just stopping in to show off my new monitor and the triple setup  

 

This is the monitor alone. It is the Asus VS247

 

This is all three the monitors. The two on the right are the Asus monitors, the one all the way to the left is a Dell monitor that is still pretty decent. I may eventually get a third Asus monitor and have the Dell one as an auxiliary(?) monitor

 

This is wider shot to show my PC next to the monitors. I'm extremely happy with this setup

 

That's all on my setup for now. I may be starting a build for my friend soon and if/when I do I will put link to it on here

[Jumper118]

The Triple Setup

Hey everyone, just stopping in to show off my new monitor and the triple setup  

 

This is the monitor alone. It is the Asus VS247

MonitorAlone.JPG

 

This is all three the monitors. The two on the right are the Asus monitors, the one all the way to the left is a Dell monitor that is still pretty decent. I may eventually get a third Asus monitor and have the Dell one as an auxiliary(?) monitor

TripleMonitorSetupClose.jpg

 

This is wider shot to show my PC next to the monitors. I'm extremely happy with this setup

TripleMonitorSetupWide.jpg

 

That's all on my setup for now. I may be starting a build for my friend soon and if/when I do I will put link to it on here

looks good. nice desks.

[TheToxicgamer97]

looks good. nice desks.

Thanks That's one desk with two pieces for the desktop

[acidydragon]

Thanks That's one desk with two pieces for the desktop

My set up, as far as placement goes, is almost identical

[TheToxicgamer97]

The One On Three

So you know that triple monitor setup I had? Now it's even better

I got a third Asus VS247 which I didn't bother to take a picture of by itself since I did that in the last update.

 

Now here is my new setup...

 

This is my entire setup

 

EDIT: I am also down sampling my resolution from 1440p to the native 1080p. See how to do this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTszNDyuAhg&index=1&list=PL6sP7-7RY5dRcz6V_qoSQYcQKXV8hyno7

[Jumper118]

The One On Three

So you know that triple monitor setup I had? Now it's even better

I got a third Asus VS247 which I didn't bother to take a picture of by itself since I did that in the last update.

 

Now here is my new setup...

OneOnThreeClose.jpg

 

This is my entire setup

OneOnThreeWide.jpg

you run all that on 2gb of vram?  :huh:

[TheToxicgamer97]

you run all that on 2gb of vram?  :huh:

yes I can run BF4 on High settings. There might be a little framerate lag, I haven't done too much testing so I might need to change to medium. And my CPU has the stock heat sink on it since the pump my Corsair H60 failed. This thing so loud I can't wait for Corsair to send me my replacement And if you check out the edit to my earlier post I am down sampling the resolution from 1440p which I have yet to test in any games.

[TheToxicgamer97]

A New SSD & Some Planning

Hey everyone,

  It's been an incredibly long time since my last update. I just bought a Samsung 840 EVO 240GB to replace my ADATA Premier Pro SP900 128GB. I ran out of space on the ADATA with Windows and BF4. I want to add more games and programs so now I have that extra space

Here are some pics (like you've never seen an SSD before)

Woa! A box!

And a drive!

 

   So I've been pretty unhappy with my setup lately. I'm not sure what it is, but I have an idea of how I want to rearrange it along with upgrading my PC a butt ton.    I'm not really going to explain how I'm going to set up my desk, but just know it includes more desk space    Now for the exciting part: I realized that my 2 gigs of VRAM on my GTX760 is really awful for my four monitors. So I have decided that I want 2 Gigabyte GV-N970G1 Gaming-4GD GeForce GTX 970 4GB Graphics Cards in SLI (obviously) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125684  Along with these cards I also want to do a custom water cooling loop again  B)   But my glorious Scout 2 case will NOT support it so I have decided that I will be doing this custom loop in a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 http://www.coolermaster.com/case/full-tower/haf935/   I will use the top 915R as a rad box with probably 2 dual rads. EK Water Blocks just came out with a block for the Gigabyte card so i'm super happy about that. This is a way away, but I'm so excited for it.

    On top of that I want to build a separate recording/streaming pc. This I will build in a standalone 915F case. This will be stacked with another 915F and 915R that will hold a home server and hard drives for the server respectively. So I will have two towers: My main rig in the 935 and a recording/streaming/server in a 915³ as Cooler Master calls it. There is really no point in the 915³ to be honest. But it will be a lot of fun to do 

   I'm working on planning the water cooling loop right now, which I will post later. Let me know what you think so far and if you have any recommendations 

[Jumper118]

A New SSD & Some Planning

Hey everyone,

  It's been an incredibly long time since my last update. I just bought a Samsung 840 EVO 240GB to replace my ADATA Premier Pro SP900 128GB. I ran out of space on the ADATA with Windows and BF4. I want to add more games and programs so now I have that extra space

Here are some pics (like you've never seen an SSD before)

Woa! A box!

SSDbox.jpg

And a drive!

SSD.jpg

 

   So I've been pretty unhappy with my setup lately. I'm not sure what it is, but I have an idea of how I want to rearrange it along with upgrading my PC a butt ton.    I'm not really going to explain how I'm going to set up my desk, but just know it includes more desk space    Now for the exciting part: I realized that my 2 gigs of VRAM on my GTX760 is really awful for my four monitors. So I have decided that I want 2 Gigabyte GV-N970G1 Gaming-4GD GeForce GTX 970 4GB Graphics Cards in SLI (obviously) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125684  Along with these cards I also want to do a custom water cooling loop again  B)   But my glorious Scout 2 case will NOT support it so I have decided that I will be doing this custom loop in a Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 http://www.coolermaster.com/case/full-tower/haf935/   I will use the top 915R as a rad box with probably 2 dual rads. EK Water Blocks just came out with a block for the Gigabyte card so i'm super happy about that. This is a way away, but I'm so excited for it.

    On top of that I want to build a separate recording/streaming pc. This I will build in a standalone 915F case. This will be stacked with another 915F and 915R that will hold a home server and hard drives for the server respectively. So I will have two towers: My main rig in the 935 and a recording/streaming/server in a 915³ as Cooler Master calls it. There is really no point in the 915³ to be honest. But it will be a lot of fun to do 

   I'm working on planning the water cooling loop right now, which I will post later. Let me know what you think so far and if you have any recommendations 

240GB SSD's are a bit faster as well 120gb generally. i would recommend sli 970's as i have them myself and the price/performance is crazy  

[TheToxicgamer97]

240GB SSD's are a bit faster as well 120gb generally. i would recommend sli 970's as i have them myself and the price/performance is crazy

I think I saw your thread. Aren't they the same exact card? or the OC version?

[Jumper118]

I think I saw your thread. Aren't they the same exact card? or the OC version?

G1's

[TheToxicgamer97]

G1's

That's the one! I was so jealous when I saw them     But your build looked great 

[Jumper118]

That's the one! I was so jealous when I saw them     But your build looked great 

thanks they are very long but not very wide. i tend to buy gpu's with wider and longer custom pcb's up until  now, but these G1's are a higher bin than the others so i thought i would see what reference pcb cards could do with a decent cooler.