2dfx's Project "Orange Crush" 5960X Build

[2dfx]

Hey all!  Starting my new build going with a black & orange theme throughout.  Let me start you with the components I am putting in this system:

 

• Motherboard:  Gigabyte X99-SOC Champion
• CPU:  Intel Core i7 5960X
• Case:  Phanteks Enthoo Primo

 

Disclaimer - I am neither a professional photographer nor system builder...bear with the growing pains!

 

Motherboard of choice:

 

 

 

5960X and Dual Fury-X's:

 

 

 

 

All to be hardlined with orange acrylic:

 

 

 

 

More build photos to come...

[Stardar1]

Needs orange LED Fans. 

 

And someone makes a 980ti with orange LEDs on it...

[2dfx]

1 minute ago, Stardar1 said:

Needs orange LED Fans. 

 

Those white fans will be remedied....

[Stardar1]

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-matrixgtx980tip6gd5gaming

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/zotac-video-card-zt9020410p

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-100379sr

 

GPUs I would recommend

 

I recall finding a 3-fan desing with orange LED rings, but I cannot find it now

[Notree]

Nice looking forward to this build.

[2dfx]

35 minutes ago, ninninon said:

Looking Forward to this, I love colour schemed water cooled builds- and you're sticking to the colour scheme. I hate it when someone does a nice build, and then they ruin it by introducing a third colour or using a component with silver screws- it just ruins it. Did you get any inspiration from JayzTwoCents by any chance?  

I've seen some of his vids.  I like what he builds.  I'm trying to stick to the orange/black theme here where possible for consistency!

[arnavvr]

@DildorTheDecent

[DildorTheDecent]

Black and Orange is the best scheme imo. 

 

followed.

[2dfx]

UPDATE!

 

More assembly today...remedied the fans with these bad boys:

 

 

Obviously they're not LED fans, but they're of decent quality.  Lighting the case will be addressed later.  I noticed a neat quirk about these German-designed fans:

 

 

They actually designed the wires after the German flag!  Attention to detail those Germans...

 

Anyway, here I have them attached to my radiators of choice - Aquacomputer Airplex Modularity series.  These are the solid copper versions...the copper itself looks very orange and could have just left it bare...you know, if I didn't need to dissipate heat from them.  Starting with the top 360mm rad:

 

 

And the 2x 240mm rads for the GPU's:

 

 

Still on the fence about the rads being aluminium shrouded as to whether it clashes with the colour scheme...when looking at the motherboard here the blocks and the CPU block are all nickel plated so it DOES somewhat match with that series of blocks:

 

 

Now you see to the right, my res/pump combo was an XSPC Photon 270 with an integrated D5 vario which would have been perfect for this loop.  However, after installing the rads I ran into some fitment issues.  Here are the rads installed with some tubing runs done:

 

 

The reality here is that there just isn't enough room in this "water cooling case" by Phanteks to fit everything.  If I had gone with thinner rads I would have been OK I think, but the price I paid for these rads was too good to pass up, and they're of decent quality.

 

There had been mention of video cards with orange fans to add to the build.  But let's be honest here, we are going water cooled all the way:

 

 

Think I'll have to go with a bay res/pump combo due to space constraints.  More to come...

[2dfx]

1 minute ago, ninninon said:

This is looking to be one of best looking PC's, next to J2C yellow skunkworks- the orange one doesn't look as good as this one is looking to be. Are you using opaque or clear fluid?

Going with clear, distilled water.  Adding a biocide obviously to keep the loop clear, but no additives here.  I don't want to alter the natural colour and look of the tubing.

[2dfx]

Received the EK Bay res today:

 

 

It's made of cast acetal with an aluminium front panel face.  Transferred the D5 from the Photon to this with the fittings:

 

 

Tubing runs to this point:

 

 

Unfortunately I ran out of tubing!  Oh well, ordered up some more, should be here in 2 weeks...next update will come then.

 

Maybe I should start sleeving?

[2dfx]

More updates!  Finally received the rest of my tubing and finished off the remaining runs:

 

 

Cables sleeved and installed...used orange connectors with B-O sleeve:

 

 

24hr leak test OK!  Minus some spills.  Had leaks at the rads when I realized that the hardline fittings weren't sealing against the inlet bores.  Had to use thicker o-rings to compensate because the damn Primochill fittings have a shallow thread.  To hell with you, Primochill!

 

Now that most of the labour is done...time to add some key pieces.  SSD of choice:

 

 

Deeeeeeeeeeeelicious.

 

Now I need to finalize this thing and add some smaller accents...and find a fan hub that will control 14 fans...hot damn!

 

More to come!

[Tearass]

Why not connect the two GPUs in the loop?

[2dfx]

On 2/28/2016 at 2:52 PM, Rumikarimu said:

Why not connect the two GPUs in the loop?

EK doesn't make a parallel block compatible with the Fury X.  So my solution is to have a 240mm rad dedicated to each card.

[IAcKI]

Looking super nice man, any more updates coming?

[z3kron]

16 hours ago, 2dfx said:

EK doesn't make a parallel block compatible with the Fury X.  So my solution is to have a 240mm rad dedicated to each card.

Can't you just tube them in parallel like some people do, or you don't like how it looks that way?

 

[2dfx]

On 3/2/2016 at 10:22 AM, z3kron said:

Can't you just tube them in parallel like some people do, or you don't like how it looks that way?

 

Not that I don't like the look, this way I squeeze a little extra performance out of the loop.

 

On 3/2/2016 at 8:56 AM, IAcKI said:

Looking super nice man, any more updates coming?

 

Absolutely, I'm at the mercy of parts and shipping.  More updates DEFINITELY coming, going to try to get some for next week.

[2dfx]

Small update, big job...

 

Now that the core of the computer is basically squared away, it's time to focus on the front panel...namely the LED's and the light bar.  Looking at the stock Phanteks photo we see that the bar is blue at stock...

 

...we know of course, that for the Orange Crush, this simply will not do.  Let's take a dive into some dissassembly, shall we?

 

 

 

 

.

Here is the front panel itself.  Removing the smoke lens is *relatively* easy as it's just held in by tabs.  Those tabs are fragile as I broke 1, but no big deal!

 

 

Here are the innards.  Phanteks inserts a blue light bar into the front panel to give you that Jedi blue that everyone loves.  Let's see this sucker:

 

 

With the light bar out we see it's roughly 21.25 inches.  Nobody sells a light bar that long of course, but we can come CLOSE with some combos of existing off-the-shelf strips:

 

Enter the Darkside connect light strips!  If we use 2x 7.75" strips and a single 5.5" strip gives us a total of 21"...short by a quarter inch, but no big deal as it still fits!  They have these pigtails on the strips that need to be removed before we can link em' together:

 

 

With a little bit of desoldering and cleaning, I'm ready to link them.  I'm using little bits of 18 gauge wire to link them together like so:

 

 

 

Crude, but effective means of linking them together.

 

Finally, with the new strip re-installed, we are ready to see how we did:

 

 

Turned out well I think.  More to come!  Next post...power button LED and HDD LEDs.