PhillBert's 4790K Maximus VII Gene Build

[Real_PhillBert]

I didnt really have a very good name for this build so its just my much needed update. I have been using a 5 year old AMD Phenom II x4 820 @2.8GHz which I added a Zotac GTX-570 to about 3 years ago. Well a week ago the PSU blew up (in a rather spectacular fashion) and I am taking that as a hint to pull the trigger on a new machine.

 

I plan to use this machine for a fair amount of engineering modeling and analysis, plus 1080 gaming when I get free time.

 

THE PLAN:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (Purchased For $0.00) 

CPU Cooler: Corsair H110 94.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII GENE Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($259.19 @ Amazon)                                                      SDD's in RAID 0 for programs

Storage: Western Digital WD Green 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Storage: Western Digital WD Green 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  (Purchased For $0.00)                     HDD's in RAID 1 for document, and media files

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card  ($475.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Case: Corsair 350D Window MicroATX Mid Tower Case  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Power Supply: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro (OEM) (64-bit)  ($27.05) 

Case Fan: BitFenix BFF-SPRO-P12025KK-RP 70.5 CFM 120mm  Fan  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Case Fan: BitFenix BFF-SPRO-P14025KK-RP 122.2 CFM 140mm  Fan  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Case Fan: BitFenix BFF-SPRO-P14025KK-RP 122.2 CFM 140mm  Fan  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Case Fan: BitFenix BFF-SPRO-P14025KK-RP 122.2 CFM 140mm  Fan  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Case Fan: BitFenix BFF-SPRO-P14025KK-RP 122.2 CFM 140mm  Fan  (Purchased For $0.00) 

Other: Demcifilter 350D top filter ($11.66)

Other: Demcifilter 350D Large Rear Filter ($5.25)

Total: $779.14

 

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

 

Good news is I found myself near a Micro Center this weekend and got a little shopping done. I picked up a 4790k, Maximus VII Gene, and two 2TB HDD's.

 

The rest I ordered from Newegg yesterday.

 

I will be waiting a couple of weeks to order the second SSD and the 780. Gotta let the fire on my credit card boil down a bit. In the mean time I will borrow the 570 from my old machine.

 

Please do not hate on the SSD raid 0 array. I am not interested in having the worlds fastest boot time, or quickest launch in BF4. I already had one 500GB 840 evo and would like a bit more space. I know an SSD raid 0 array is not particularly safe but I have weighed my options and this is the direction I have decided to go. 

 

Now for a bit of nerd porn!!

 

NERD PORN:

 

The parts pile as it sits now:

 

 

Maximus VII Gene

Ignore the price, I paid $179.99

 

 

 

Cool multicolor PCB, not a selling point for me but neat non the less:

 

 

4790K:

Not much to look at now but thought I'd throw it in.

Microcenter for the win: $279.99

 

 

AX-760i

 

 

As it sits now powering the old machine until relieved of duty:

It didnt fit in the case of the old machine so I ended up leaving it outside with the case open for now. new parts will be here later this week so I am not real worried about leaving it like this for now.

 

 

Data Drives:

Ignore the prices, I paid $69.99 each.

 

 

I swear to god this photo is upside right in my photobucket... My bad.

 

I am pretty excited to get the first round of parts in on Thursday. Thanks to everyone on the forum who helped me dial in my parts choices for the build.

[puthearith]

awesome build, I love the motherboard, where's the graphic card? lol

[Real_PhillBert]

awesome build, I love the motherboard, where's the graphic card? lol

 

In a week I will have it on order. MSI TwinFrozer GTX 780

[ChillKyle]

Subbed. Are you planing on any custom sleeving for the build?

[Real_PhillBert]

Subbed. Are you planing on any custom sleeving for the build?

Not to start out. I may decide to got that way if I dont like the ends on the 760i. They are not heat shrunk as close to the connectors as I would like, but I want to get a better idea of how it looks together before I order sleeving.

[Real_PhillBert]

Subbed. Are you planing on any custom sleeving for the build?

 

Now that I have had a bit of time to look closer at the cabling that comes with the 760i, I will be buying the Corsair individually sleeved cables for it. In red. 

 

Thanks for pointing out the poor looking cables. I really want it to look nice when I have it finished.

[Real_PhillBert]

Teasers:

 

 

 

 

The UPS guy didnt turn up until almost 8:00 last night so it isn't 100% done yet but its probably 90%. I don't have a ton of time this morning but I have a bunch of photos from the build that I will be throwing up here this afternoon.

 

I have to pick up more zip ties this afternoon, I ran out after re-doing the cable management a couple of times. 

[purplepenguin202]

What the hell is that Zotac card... Lol

[Real_PhillBert]

What the hell is that Zotac card... Lol

 

Shits a classic Lol. Its a very old and tired 570. Next week I will order the 780 to replace it.

[purplepenguin202]

Pretty damn sexy

[Real_PhillBert]

I have magnetic top and back filter's on order to clean up the look of the top a bit. 

 

I have both front fans and the rear fan pushing in and the top fans pulling through the H110 and exhausting out the top.

 

I cannot wait to get home this afternoon and get tinkering with it

[flibberdipper]

I shall be watching this now.

[papeles]

sexeh

[Real_PhillBert]

Update time!!

 

I havent had quite as much time to update this thread as I like as I have spend a pretty good amount of time getting this baby up, overclocked and all of my programs on. So here goes.

 

The pile of parts that went into this baby. 

 

 

Lets get started with the build!!

 

RAM glamor shot. These were the first parts I threw at the mother board so I decided that was worthy of a photo...

 

 

And I managed to get the RAM in the Mobo without hurting myself or others.  

 

 

Now that the hard part is done, a wild 4790k appeared, so I decided I should lock that puppy down...

 

 

Then I got carried away and put on the Intel stock cooler, old school cool 570 and all of my drives to make sure that everything was recognized and working.

 

The only think that was out of spec was the ram, and that only needed to be set from 1333 to 1866. All is good. Booted to UEFI no problems. I was pretty happy about that too.

 

Proof:

 

A

 

After it booted I went ahead and did a bit of case prep. I removed both fans that come with the 350D and replaced them with Bitfenix Spectre Pro's. I even added a second 140mm Spectre Pro to the front intake for good measure. This was not as easy as I thought either, they both fit great when they are in, but getting them both to actually get in is a feat. It took a little tug to spread the sides of the case to squeeze them into place. But they look pretty awesome once they made it in! I used the regular screws on the fronts but the rubber fastening rods (no idea what they are really called) on the rear fan. I couldnt use them on the front fans because of how the holes are in the case, it would have been next to impossible. So normal screws it was.

 

 

Here is a (potato) pic of the motherboard in place. I guess after a hand full of Mt. Dew's my camera hands werent all that steady lol.

 

I am particularly proud of the cable management on the rear fan. It was about the perfect length to wrap all the way around the fan, then secure via zip tie to the fastener hole. Its not pulling at all on the fan header but there is about no extra slack in it. Perfect.

 

 

Remember when I said I had the hard part done? I lied. Getting the H110 into position in a 350D is a really tough task. I ended up pulling out the ram, and rear fan in order to angle the radiator into place. I bet I spent an hour just fitting the radiator in place. Then again I am very slow, so a normal person could likely do the task in 10 min.

 

 

This is the best shot I could get of the upper fan headers (CPU OPT) and CPU 8pin connector. They both just barely clear the radiator. This would probably be easier if I went push instead of pull on the rad, but I wanted to be able to clean the dust out easily.

 

There is about half an inch (~12.5mm for the metric users) of upper cabling grommet that protrudes past the back of the radiator, that is where the CPU 8 pin is run through. Although just barely. Note the fancy bowtie cable management on the H110 pump cable

 

 

More to come. I am going to break this up to a couple of posts so if I need to edit anything it will be easier. 

[flibberdipper]

Sexy. :wub:

[Real_PhillBert]

Here is a little better shot at the space left for the 8 pin CPU power cable, after you install an H110.

 

 

PSU time!!!!

 

 

Dont judge my poor old 570!

 

Lol, actually this is a shot of one of the things I am not happy with. The Maximus VII gene has the daughter sound card, which is all fine and dandy but then you have to run the HD Audio connector right to the center of the mobo! Grr. I will be putting some heatshrink on the end of that connector to try to clean it up a bit, but there isnt a whole lot I can think of to solve the problem other than to simply not use the front audio, which I am not crazy about. Some times its nice to just plug in a set of earbuds if someone around is being loud. I may not want to climb around behind the case to hook up headphones or a headset. I know first world problems...

 

 

Cable management time. I redid this half a dozen times and eventually decided this was good enough.

 

 

The Corsair Link dongle is held onto the Mobo tray by 3M Command adhesive strips. So if I ever want to take it off it should be pretty easy and not leave goop everywhere.

 

I also tried to tuck as much of the extra cableing down in the bottom groove there. You can see some of it in this pic.

 

 

This area I am really not happy about, but there ends up being kind of a lot of wiring here and hot a ton I can do about it Grr.

 

 

SSD in its home, again I tried to run the sata, power, and fan cables in the groove on the front edge of the case to keep them out of sight. I wish Corsair would offer a couple of cable tie down spots along this edge *Cough* @corsairgeorge *Cough*  :angry:

 

 

Same area, backed up a bit. I would like it to be better but... yeah...

 

 

This actually worked really nicely, the Silverstone PWM fan splitter just barely peaks out of the grommet whithout any tension, and there is a great located tie down point for the two Spectre Pro's on the H110.

 

 

Back panel. I did notice that the IO shield has a spot for WiFi antenna's but no support on this board... yet... There does happen to be a combo slot right behind the opening in the IO shield, I am guessing Asus will eventually sell a WiFi adapter to go here if people want it. 

 

 

I took the rear labels off of the radiator Spectre Pro's to clean it up a bit. In natural light they look much darker than in the photo. Not black, but dark grey. A bit of alcohol cleaned the goop from the stickers off in no time.

 

I also have a magnetic dust filter on order for the top, to clean up the look a bit. Should do a pretty good impression of the 750D when that is on.

 

 

Ok, so some of you may have noticed that in my teaser pics, the front fan cover wasnt really on right. Well one of the tabs on the cover was broken off when it arrived. I really didnt want to wait to RMA the case because of a busted tab, so I broke out the Plastic JB Weld and stuck it right back.

 

Here is after the repair.

 

 

All done! I opted not to use the Q-connector for the lights and switches, I thought it made the cables stick out to far, so I did it the old fashion way

 

[Real_PhillBert]

Here she is in her new home. That Iomega drive is just what I used to bring my media collection to the new machine. Dont hate me for it being on carpet, I am moving at the end of the month so it wont be here long.

 

 

And in case anyone was worried that I was going to use that DVI-VGA adapter and crappy LG monitor full time, have no fear!

 

 

I am still playing with overclocking on it. I have made several successful Intel Extreme Tuning CPU stress test runs at 4.8GHz at 1.30v. I get CPU temps on HWMonitor of 82c after about 20 min and the temps pretty much stay there up to an hour. I haven't done any stress tests over an hour long. I am still getting things dialed in. But so far I am very happy with the results and performance of the H110.

 

Right now I have it running nicely at 4.6GHz at 1.27v @ 40c and the machine is almost inaudible. 

 

The AI suite fan control works really well. It is easy to adjust and play with on the fly if you desire.

 

Whats next? I will be ordering an MSI GTX-780 next week to replace that 570. Along with a set of the corsair individually sleeved cables for the PSU. I am not all that thrilled with the cables that came with the 760i. There is nothing wrong with them, but nothing great about them either.After that, I will be adding another 500GB evo to put in raid 0 for a bit more space for programs. 

 

What would I do differently? I honestly cant think of much that I would change. Maybe drink a little less Mt. Dew during the build

 

I will update this thread again when I change the GPU and add more SSD goodness. I am very interested in what the community thinks and any comments or criticizm you guys have on it. I really do want to know what your thoughts are

 

Thanks for checking it out!

[flibberdipper]

Nice. But if you think that your cables are bad, I'll have to use a Source 210 to start out with. No EPS hole for the cable to go through the back, apparently.

[Real_PhillBert]

Nice. But if you think that your cables are bad, I'll have to use a Source 210 to start out with. No EPS hole for the cable to go through the back, apparently.

 

Really? Thats a real drag!

 

I dont hate how mine are, just not wildly thrilled. Once I get the new cables I will redo it again. It gets a bit better every time I go through it. 

[flibberdipper]

Really? Thats a real drag!

 

I dont hate how mine are, just not wildly thrilled. Once I get the new cables I will redo it again. It gets a bit better every time I go through it. 

I'm torn between saving to get something like an H100i later or a Vengeance C70.

[Real_PhillBert]

I'm torn between saving to get something like an H100i later or a Vengeance C70.

 

Tough call, but its easier to swap a cooler than a case. I would vote for the C70 first, then add an H100i when you can. But thats just my opinion. Im sure you will have a ton of fun with it either way.

[flibberdipper]

Tough call, but its easier to swap a cooler than a case. I would vote for the C70 first, then add an H100i when you can. But thats just my opinion. Im sure you will have a ton of fun with it either way.

That's what I'm thinking. I should have enough for the C70 after my grandma's deck is done and I get paid.

[Real_PhillBert]

That's what I'm thinking. I should have enough for the C70 after my grandma's deck is done and I get paid.

 

Sweet! What color are you thinking?

[flibberdipper]

Sweet! What color are you thinking?

Black, since the motherboard is black/red (MSI Z97 Gaming 3? I think), video card is silver (one of the older DDs). And everything (except for my printer) is mostly black.