Umbra Aqua - Mac Pro Mod -Leak test, first boot 2.20.14

[mattlef]

Great job Marquee!

Plexi Bendin' Skills

[Marquee]

So its has been a long time since I last did an update. But I have allots of goodies to show you now. First is the custom motherboard tray, custom I/O shield and backplate. 
 
Oh I forgot to mansion Sponsored. :clap:
The Laser Hive
Laser Design, Cutting and Engraving  at an affordable price
 


 
First mod was to cut the original exhaust fan bracket and shape it to fit with the I/O shield. 

 

 

 

 
Two holes where drilled to allow the two bulk head fittings through.

 
Here is what its looks like right now.

 

This is a little video update I put together.

[Chatzev]

Epic!

[BRiteBak]

WOW! this build looks amazing!

[Marquee]

Epic!

Thanks, I am trying real hard to make this the best mod I have ever done.

 

WOW! this build looks amazing!

Thanks mate, I have been dreaming about putting PC's in Mac cases for years.

 

Now its time to start thinking about what hardware I am going to be putting in this build. This will be my main gaming rig and may be a little be of video editing. I am thinking about even putting next gen APU in here with a beastly R9 280X or 290X. As far as RAM goes think something in the 2400mhz at 16gb. 

 

What do you guys think I should fill this build with?

 

CPU: ?

MOBO: ?

RAM: ?

HD: 2-4 SSD/ Harddrive

GPU: R9 2X0X

[Marquee]

Thanks, I am trying real hard to make this the best mod I have ever done.

 

Thanks mate, I have been dreaming about putting PC's in Mac cases for years.

 

Now its time to start thinking about what hardware I am going to be putting in this build. This will be my main gaming rig and may be a little be of video editing. I am thinking about even putting next gen APU in here with a beastly R9 280X or 290X. As far as RAM goes think something in the 2400mhz at 16gb. 

 

What do you guys think I should fill this build with?

 

CPU: ?

MOBO: ?

RAM: ?

HD: 2-4 SSD/ Harddrive

GPU: R9 2X0X

 

So a little update as far as hardware goes. 

 

CPU: i7 4770K

Mobo: Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5

Ram: Kingstone Hyper X Beast 8gb 2400mhz

HD: still have not picked yet

GPU:Still leaning towards the R9 290X ( But seems fishy that new egg is asking for a $200 deposit before any performance numbers are released ) 

 

Any suggestions for storage ideas. I would like to create an expandable storage solution. 

[Alex(PlayMedium)]

How about 2 GTX R9 295 ultra x2 in crosSLI?

[Marquee]

How about 2 GTX R9 295 ultra x2 in crosSLI?

 

Does that come in hall of fame edition all white?  :lol:

[Giddyguy]

wow this is an underrated build, can't wait to see it finished! great work! and subbed

[amintha1992]

the best thing that came out of a MacPro

[Monty007]

AWESOME!  I love Mac Pro mods!  Hats off to you sir.  In for the final product!!

[Marquee]

There is a sniper in the building. To be more clear, its a Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5. In the past few weeks I have been getting ready to purchase the mother board, cpu and ram. Since all of these parts affect each other, I took a long time deciding if I was going Intel or AMD, which in turn set the stage at which combination of parts where going into this build. There are a few big reasons I picked Intel and most of those revolve around the G1 Sniper M5. The mATX board is loaded with features for enthusiasts. The colour scheme of the G1 Sniper M5 closly matches Umbra Aqua also.  The last reason I picked this board is because of the great audio capabilities over other boards in the same price range. Umbra Aqua is very tight on space and I needed hardware that not only would work great but also do many different things without sacrificing space.  

 

 

 

On the other hand once I decided I was going with Intel chipset its was very clear early on in this build I would need a quad core CPU or more. Intel realeased there Z87 platform four months ago and with that came one very special CPU. The i7 4770K not only is it the king of the hill on the Z87 chipset but comes with a range of new technology. First of all its built on a 22nm fabrication, shrinking the die even more then 3770k. The Haswell line-up also comes with a wide array of RAID support and supports up to 6, SATA 3 (6Gbps) drives. What makes the 4770k so special to me is that it still supports Hyper Threading, thus with four cores outs puts eight threads. Todays games might not all take advantage of eight threads but some games currently do and future titles seem to be leaning towards more and more cores. That said choosing the 4770K was a no brainier.  

 

Choosing RAM for this build was much harder. When I started this build many moons ago, RAM prices where at an all time low. Now a days the price for 8GB of performance grade ram is easily over $120. So picking RAM was hard, but in the end one company really stood out. Kingston has been pumping out great hardware for years, and last year they introduced there new Hyper X Beast. With an aggrisive heat spreader and 8 layer PCB, there Hyper X Beast kits where made for pure overclockers in mind. Not only does Kingston have great products but an amazing warranty also. 

 

http://youtu.be/DVUfEbq9JiQ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marquee]

It is time to get back to some good old fashion modding. So now that I have a motherboard and the custom motherboard tray, I lined up where the I/O shield and back-plate where going to go. I also started bending acrylic  for a shroud to cover up the rad on top part of the case. This shroud I had to be very careful, with because I was dealing with two bends plus lining up all the mounting and air flow cut outs. It was not easy, buts its done now. I still have to sand down the edges and cut end caps. The end caps will then be fused to the bent piece. At this current time I am on the fence about painting the shroud to match the case or leaving bare acrylic. I have designed the shroud to hold anther set of fans so the top rad will be able to do a push pull configuration. Enough with the explanations check out the pictures. 

 

There is still a little more to be cut from the back of the case. The project is really coming together now thank god. I am not sure how much more of this my fiancee can take. 

 

 

[BlackMamba]

Very interesting name for a pc....  Subbed! 

[iain]

This is one off the best builid i have seen now you can have the look off a mac but with pc coments ohh wait this looks better than a mac

[Marquee]

Very interesting name for a pc....  Subbed! 

 

Thanks man. I thought the English version "Shadow Waters" was boring.

 

This is one off the best builid i have seen now you can have the look off a mac but with pc coments ohh wait this looks better than a mac

 Thanks. If you ever want to mod Mac's check out www.thelaserhive.com , David has all sorts of conversion kits and you can also work with him to make custom pieces like this one. 

[George8D]

Looks awesome dude! cant wait to see it finished!

[TheSLSAMG]

Over the May two four weekend I took a trip down to frozencpu.com (Rochester, New York) to go pick up my parts in person. 

 

I can go up to Rochester and buy in person?

[Marquee]

0

[Marquee]

Looks awesome dude! cant wait to see it finished!

 

Thanks man

 

I can go up to Rochester and buy in person?

Yup they have a full store front. You can also talk to the guys there about different products and there thoughts on it. I might be going again soon. If I do end up going in the next two weeks I'll do a video. 

[iWearKiltz]

this looks really good, and i havent seen anything like this done. 

 

in terms of case modification, mainly people buy OEM cases or build their own.

 

this is very cool though, subbed!!

[Marquee]

I got some more work done on the case in the last couple of days. Just waiting on finishing the video of the road trip. Here is a question for you guys how long should the video road trip video be. I have so much footage that I can speed up, some part all lot so I was wondering what the target length should it be.

 

Here is a little teaser video.

[Marquee]

Here is a video update till next week. Case has gone out to be powder coated. 

 

[Marquee]

Here is a massive update. There had been some work done last couple of months but I have not had to time to upload the pictures and update the work log till now.

 

Rear I/O Panel

 

I had finish mounting the rear I/O. I marked where I needed to cut then started cutting. I then placed the rear I/O on and had to make a few more cuts to fit the original fan duct. 

 

 

 

 

Mounting Rear Fan

 

To mount the 120 mm fan to the rear I used the original Mac Pro fan duct. I lined up where I wanted the fan to sit then used a wire fan grill to mark the holes. I used 4 rubber grommets and heavy duty fan screws to mount the fan. The end result is a fan mounted from the back side making it look really stealthy. 

 

 

 

 

 

Rad / Fan Shroud 

 

I went back to work on the rad shroud.  I first started by sanding down the edge which was not flat yet. Then I traced the two ends of the shroud on acrylic. I cut the two pieces out and tried to get them as close to perfect as I could for now. I then made a jig to hold all three pieces together while I fused them together. After letting it cure for a few days I then sanded the end piece down til it was seamless to the touch. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have started sleeving the wires. I used neon green sleeving with UV green connectors. 

 

 

What I am hoping to be the last order arrived. Package contained, Gental Typhoon high speed fans, R9 290 water block, 90 degree fittings and some wiring stuff to hide the cables. 

 

[JokuTyyppi]

This is awesome build man! Great job!

 

How about 2 GTX R9 295 ultra x2 in crosSLI?

WHAAAATTTT?? THAT IS A ONE HELL OF A CARD SETUP YO GOT OVER THERE!   <-- Sry for capslock