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Big Red

Stephen Thomas
By Stephen Thomas
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This was my second build, the first being a sleek minimal black X79 rig for the office using a Define R4 and BeQuiet fans and cooler for silence. This one is my home PC and I decided to indulge myself and go for a bold red and black look that is more gamer-y, but still smart.

 

The main purpose of my rig is as a 3d rendering and post production workstation. I do freelance work from home and my previous Q6600 quad-core just wasn't cutting it anymore. Upgrading to the 6-core 5820k was an obvious choice, with multi-threading and overclocking capability giving me a huge increase in rendering power.

 

I was initially planning to do a Micro ATX build, but there was more choice of motherboard for ATX size with X99 and that would also give me the opportunity to add more ram in future by filling the other 4 slots.

 

I was really taken with the Aerocool DS 200 case when I saw it, so this is what I went for in the end. I went with MSI for the motherboard (X99S Gaming 7)and graphics card (GTX 970 Gaming 4G) to keep a consistent look. G.Skill was by far the best bang for buck for memory, so I got 4x4GB 2666MHz DDR4. The XFX 650W PSU was a good price and enough to handle some overclocking. I wanted to give watercooling a go this time around, as the DS 200 is built to handle 280mm radiators easily. So I went for the Corsair H110, mounted up top with the rad inside the case and 2 x 140mm fans on the outside in pull configuration. All fans were replaced with Aerocool DS fans which had good specs for both air flow and static pressure as well as low noise. I used the integrated fan controller on the case, another nice feature, with it's temperature readout on top.

 

Full breakdown here: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/stef3d/saved/XrGdnQ

 

There were a couple of niggles, the main one being the location of the 8-pin connector. I would've preferred it on the right hand side of the motherboard for neatness. Also I had to orient the radiator with the tubes on the right hand side, as there wasn't enough clearance on the left with the rear fan in place. A 240mm rad would be no problem. Since building it I have turned the rear fan around to act as an intake, providing the radiator with more fresh air. This has dropped my max CPU temp down to a respectable 71 degrees during rendering, with an overclock of 4.3GHz.

 

So, onto the build photos! Any questions, feel free to ask.

 

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Posted

Really nice pictures, not those wanna be macro shots. Good job!

CPU: Xeon 1230v3 - GPU: GTX 770  - SSD: 120GB 840 Evo - HDD: WD Blue 1TB - RAM: Ballistix 8GB - Case: CM N400 - PSU: CX 600M - Cooling: Cooler Master 212 Evo

Update Plans: Mini ITX this bitch

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I like it.

 

choose a different name for this build because of this:

 

tech source used it for his build

He can call his build whatever he wants...

Main rig on profile

VAULT - File Server

Spoiler

Intel Core i5 11400 w/ Shadow Rock LP, 2x16GB SP GAMING 3200MHz CL16, ASUS PRIME Z590-A, 2x LSI 9211-8i, Fractal Define 7, 256GB Team MP33, 3x 6TB WD Red Pro (general storage), 3x 1TB Seagate Barracuda (dumping ground), 3x 8TB WD White-Label (Plex) (all 3 arrays in their respective Windows Parity storage spaces), Corsair RM750x, Windows 11 Education

Sleeper HP Pavilion A6137C

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Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.4GHz, 4x8GB G.SKILL Ares 1800MHz CL10, ASUS Z170M-E D3, 128GB Team MP33, 1TB Seagate Barracuda, 320GB Samsung Spinpoint (for video capture), MSI GTX 970 100ME, EVGA 650G1, Windows 10 Pro

Mac Mini (Late 2020)

Spoiler

Apple M1, 8GB RAM, 256GB, macOS Sonoma

Consoles: Softmodded 1.4 Xbox w/ 500GB HDD, Xbox 360 Elite 120GB Falcon, XB1X w/2TB MX500, Xbox Series X, PS1 1001, PS2 Slim 70000 w/ FreeMcBoot, PS4 Pro 7015B 1TB (retired), PS5 Digital, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo Wii RVL-001 (black)

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Posted

I like it.

 

He can call his build whatever he wants...

 

Exactly plus Big Red (the gum) been around since mid-70s so it wins on the name game :)

@syrazpc - for all my rambles about PC's -- My Gallifreyan Build In Progress

 

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Posted

Very cool man :D I've never seen a build in the DS 200 now I think I need one 

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Cheers. I hadn't seen much of it either, except a couple of German YouTube vids. That's why I thought I'd put it on here. Not sure it lives up to the 'Dead Silence' tag compared to the Fractal case, but it's decent enough with some good features.

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im not telling you what to do just i wanted to put that video out there to see if you can come up with something original if you want, overall it is your build and it is your choice

No worries :)

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Is that case soft touch?

Yeah, the red parts are soft touch plastic. Comes with some extra parts too, a choice of solid red top or grille, and flip down optical drive cover.

What is that temp monitor thing on top of your case?

It's connected to a sensor inside the case (orange thing in photos). I have it taped to VRM heatsink at the moment, as the motherboard led gives me cpu temperature readout already.

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btw, did you watch that video that i quoted?

I did. Beautiful job and very nice setup!

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It's a good build but the colors of case seem dull.

It's definitely a different look. But I had shiny piano black case before and felt like a change.

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im not telling you what to do just i wanted to put that video out there to see if you can come up with something original if you want, overall it is your build and it is your choice

im sure he had no idea that there was another computer already named big red so in his mind he was being original and quite frankly he should have stuck with the name.

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im sure he had no idea that there was another computer already named big red so in his mind he was being original and quite frankly he should have stuck with the name.

Agreed. I only changed it in the interests of avoiding confusion, but I don't think the other build is even on here is it? Anyway, changed it back. it's only a forum thread title so who cares. It's not like I come home from work and say "hi big red!"  :rolleyes:

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Awesome build man ! ! 

Redstone:
i7-4770 / Z97 / GTX 980 / Corsair 16GB  / H90 / 400C / Antec EDGE / Neutron GTX240 / Intel 240Gb / WD 2TB / BenQ XL24

Obsidian:

MSI GE60 2PE i7-4700HQ / 860M / 12GB / WE 1TB / m.Sata 256gb/Elagto USB HD Capture Card

Razer Deathadder Chroma / Razer Blackwidow TE Chroma / Kingston Cloud2's / Sennheiser 429 / Logitech Z333

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Bought everything from Scan, except the memory and window side panel which were from Amazon.

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