Black Beast 2

[patrickjp93]

We just retired my Dad's old Q6600 build (tear down log linked here!). It was just too slow and noisy for his needs. He's going into making online lectures and videos for actuaries to learn practical SQL skills in the Microsoft Access environment for The Infinite Actuary. The build needed to be quiet enough where it could be put up next to his desk, have the fans turned all the way down, be partly isolated by a sound-dampening curtain, and do both the recording and rendering through Camtasia Studio. Dad was shocked when, with all 6 Noctuas running full blast, he could sit right next to the machine and not at all be annoyed by noise.

 

The computer is fully built, but we haven't built the sound shroud yet, which is why I consider the whole setup still in progress. This was my first solo build, so I hope I don't get eaten alive by the critics. We did what we could with cable management for such an old case lacking the room behind the back panel or any cable routing holes.

 

Spec Sheet 

Case                                                 Motherboard                     CPU                                                      CPU Block

Lian Li PCG70 (recycled)                  MSI Z97 Gaming 7             Intel Core I7 4790K (Haswell-DC)         EK Supremacy EVO Full Copper

Fan Controller 1                              Fan Controller 2               GPU 1                                                   GPU 2

NZXT Sentry Mix 2 5.25"                  Connectland 4-knob 3.25”  Intel HD 4600 (OC 1800MHz)              MSI 2x Armor GTX 970

Power Supply 1                               Optical Drive                     Monitor                                                Memory

PC P&C Silencer MK 3 1200W         LG WH16NS40 Blu Ray         ASUS PA248Q                                         2x8 Team Xtreme LV 2400MHz         

Storage

1TB Samsung 840 Evo

2x300GB WD Velociraptor RAID 0

 

Radiator                  Radiator Fans                Case Fans               Wireless Anetenna

Swiftech 480mm      4x Noctua NF-F12           2x Noctua NF-F12    Netis WH2190 AC1200

 

Build Date

Q4 2014 - (when sound booth gets done)

 

I have one major criticism for the folks at MSI. Put a boot option set and boot override set in for the GPUs. Defaulting to dGPU and not allowing me to boot and see anything with just the iGPU until I go in and switch the settings is ASININE! -1 star/egg.

 

The Silencer MK 3 (80+ Platinum btw) was purchased when the 8-year-old 1000W PSU began to show degradation on the 12V rail, and we know it's beyond overkill for this setup even with our final overclocks on the 4790K and the iGPU. It's a server-grade PSU, hence the strange-looking connections. I do have a couple criticisms for this PSU and the components it ships with.

1) The pre-attached cables include 4 PCIe 6+2 power cables, something absolutely ridiculous considering most server blades come with only 1 PCIe device in them.

2) The pre-attached cables do not include a SATA power set. Yes, it's a server PSU, but even small-time servers come with drive racks right next to      the computing portion. Even SAS drives come with SATA-style power connectors most of the time, though some use Molex.

3) The shipped SATA power cords are either too long or too short. The shorter one is too long for reaching the optical drive(s) in the top of an ATX case and comes with 4 connectors. Who the Hell has 4 drives this high up? I've seen cases with modular drive bays that could come up this high, but that would still involve a violent twist and pull of these flat-style cables and would leave one connector empty to make the turn. The longer one has 2 connectors so high up it was obviously designed for a vertical modular system or to reach to a farther data blade than the first, whereas we have a horizontal cage at the bottom of the case. Only the last three could connect to our 3 drives. Given the PSU is in ATX form factor, this is some bad thinking on PC P&C's part.

 

On the up side the connections lock into the PSU by metal retaining rings instead of flimsy plastic clips. That said, the connections are too big for what they do, and more could have been fit on here quite easily. All other cables besides the SATA power were modular (20+4, CPU power were all 4+4, PCIe were all 6+2, etc.). Finally, even under full load through the AIDA64 stability test with our final overclocks, the PSU fan never spins up, and it stays cool as a cucumber. Yay silence!

 

Due to the sheer lack of cable routing holes or space behind the motherboard tray, this is the final result of our drive cage. The Samsung 840 Evo is behind our 2 Velociraptors. Please note the hanging SATA power connector. There are 2 more farther up out of sight.

 

Featured here are the NZXT Sentry Mix 2 fan controller, the LG Blu Ray/DVD/CD drive/burner, and the AquaComputer reservoir. Again, sorry for the bad camera shots. I hate my new LG phone. The NZXT Sentry Mix 2 is a bit of an oddball. There are parts of the design I loved for this build and others which made my blood boil and took more than 30 minutes to find a workaround.

 

The fan leads are LONG! They're so long in fact they can come three to four inches out the back of the case above the PSU to reach 3 of the four radiator fans without an extension used. Cable hiding for the intake and exhaust fans was a small chore, but not bad given how flexible and easy to work with the cords are (see full internal below and look at the intake fan lead wrapping around both the 5.25" and 3.25" bay just to keep it out of the way). The power connectors are equally long, which is stupid! They dropped clear to the floor of the case, two molex, joined at the hip in fact by sharing a ground, making it impossible to find a stealthy solution since they can only be pulled apart by two inches. Also, the Molex connectors were very cheaply made. The plastic is flimsy and both connectors had a bent pin inside, making for a tedious half hour or so to get them to link up to the PSU. Still, it worked out, and if NZXT fixes that particular flaw, I'd happily give the product 5 of 5 stars. It was clearly built with enthusiasts in mind and plays to my family's music background with the retro slider look. The LEDs in the numbers are also a nice touch and aren't too bright.

 

The AquaComputer reservoir uses an Allen(sp ?) Key for its stoppers. HALLELUJAH JESUS! I'm so used to seeing flat head inserts which beg for the brass/copper stoppers to be stripped and scratched to Hell. The brilliantly clear acrylic is shockingly resistant to fingerprint smudges, and when I was getting sweaty parts of the aluminum case looked disgustingly greasy. I hate incandescent lights...

 

The final tidy cable management sucked 3 of the fan leads back inside the case since we had an array of hanging wires outside, forcing us to use an extra pair of extenders, but still! Note: shortly thereafter we dismounted the fans and created a lightweight black paint for them using graphite, isopropyl alcohol, water, and starch. We applied it with an airbrush normally used for adding color to cakes and such. They are now a nice semi-gloss black all the way around except where the blade mechanism meets the servo, where no one can see the brown anyway.

 

Here's the refurbished fish tank motor with ceramic bearings so quiet you barely here it rev up with the case open. Note the Teflon tape wrapped around the base of the barb to prevent leaks. We did have a supremely annoying problem with the motor now resonating with the case. The entire front bay would hum since it now ran faster, go figure... We eventually decided to slide some of the EK Waterblock's soft packing foam under it, solving the problem perfectly.

 

And this is the final look of the internals (minus the one fan lead that came loose on the right which was tucked away thereafter). So, how's the cable routing all things considered? Please note the media and front panel connectors used to all be side by side before the days of USB 3, which is why the bottom right is so awful and the ends aren't sleeved.

 

Given this is a production machine, we're not going to risk bios hacking and overclocking the 970. If it turns out quality of the videos degrades significantly under GPU acceleration, then the 970 will come back with me to school where I'll then ship back the 570 I've been stuck with just so Mom or Dad has a backup GPU with more kick than the GT 260 we currently have in reserve.

 

We lapped the 4790K's heatspreader and delidded. But, instead of solely relying on Coolaboratory Liquid Ultra, we got out the heat gun from the old days and went to the local bank, picking up a .999 copper coin. We melted and electroplated it into the heatspreader by shaving the edge of the coin and applying the heat gun. The flakes took a really long time to melt and adhere, and we additionally had to put the IHS on a stove burner when we realized putting this in a cookie sheet was pulling heat away. And when that was still going too slowly, I broke out an old chemistry kit and the Pyrex. Luckily the neighbors had a current generator used for testing resistors and wires. Now the inside of the heatspreader is a bit lower and made fully of copper, using maybe 1/3 of our coin. Then we added the Liquid Pro Ultra underneath. We also used the EK Indigo XS thermal pad, melting it with the AIDA64 Floating Point Stress Test on adaptive voltage, and now even under full AIDA64 load at stock 4.0-4.4GHz, the chip never breaks 40*C in a 70-72*F room, and that's with the 6 Noctua fans turned all the way down.

 

The MSI Z97 Gaming 7 has a LN2 overclocking option, but it doesn't have 12-phase power delivery, only 10, which is still better than the 6 we were limited to on the old Q6600. Still, we pushed the chip around to see where we could go. We'd never lost the silicon lottery in the past between 7 unlocked Intel chips. It turns out that record is now 8. On 1.35 volts (recommended top for permanent overclocks) static voltage mode with Turbo Boost enabled, we were immediately able to boot into Windows 7 Professional stable at 4.7 GHz, boosting to 5.1 all on its own, and the XMP profile for the 2400MHz RAM still worked to top it off. Originally we didn't touch the cache and ring bus, and getting it up to 4700 was a living nightmare. Eventually as the CPU package temps rose to the mid and high 80s we decided to cut turbo boost and push the ratio to 48 instead. That resulted in a fully stable system with equally clocked cores and cache at 4.8 GHz running at 78*C in AIDA64 Stability test. We're happy with that.

 

I still can't believe the old man went behind my back and ordered a dGPU when I told him it would be unnecessary and total overkill for his needs, and he buys a bleeding edge gaming one... ARGH! And he buys the more cheaply made MSI one... DOUBLE ARGH! It's quiet, but I'd have gotten him the Gigabyte Windforce if he was going to buy one. Damn it dad...what a waste of money...

 

We dicked around with the iGPU and pushed it to an unimpressive 1800MHz, where some have shoved HD4600 clear past 3GHz, but it doesn't matter much. That little iGPU will accelerate his spreadsheets just fine, and the 970 big iron will transcode his recordings far faster. What we don't know yet is if Intel's QuickSync libraries put out a better quality product than just raw hardware acceleration using the Nvidia GPU. Sometime in the next week when the sound booth is constructed we'll test full CPU vs. Intel QuickSync vs. GPU acceleration under Nvidia.

 

Beware if you intend to use iGPU to boot. You can't at the start. The default BIOSes both come rigged to boot into a dGPU. MSI needs to invest in a hierarchy where, if a dGPU is not found, boot into the iGPU for display. Also, the BIOS on this mother is a bear to change. If you want changes to stick, you have to clear CMOS every damn time. This made the overclocking process a bear too.

 

The LN2 option on this board depends on a slow boot switch that came pre-flipped, setting us back I believe an hour trying to get the chip to run above 800 MHz... Why on a gaming board MSI? Why?! Then it turned out turbo boost wasn't working despite being activated in the BIOS, enhanced turbo, and speed step as well... Like I said, you have to clear CMOS every time you want a new BIOS setting to stick.

 

So, that's it. Black Beast 2 stands and shall so stand for the next 7+ years, maintaining the legacy of its predecessor in bleeding edge performance and longevity.

[GhostWindGamer]

cool

[patrickjp93]

I should add, this build went together in just 2 and a half hours. Software installs and such took the better part of a day due to the severe struggles we had.