completed Own personal rig update

[CarelNel]

I recently upgraded my rig with some new components, including building it into a new case. The white coloring of the old case was clashing with the black/red coloring of the hardware. I searched around for a new, suitable case, and added some upgrades while I was at it.

 

Old specs:

• Intel i7 4790
• MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC
• Corsair Carbide 500R (white)
• MSI Geforce GTX 770 TF 2G
• Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400MHz (2x8GB)

 

New specs

• Intek i7 4790
• MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC
• NZXT Noctis 450 (black)
• MSI Geforce 980Ti TF
• Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400MHz (4x8GB)
• Corsair H100i GTX

I did these upgrades in 5 phases with about 2-3 weeks between each phase.

 

Phase 1 - Initial Case and lighting

 

 

Some of the HDD's shown above are installed in a server. Only the Seagate hybrid drive is in the gaming rig

 

 

 

Actually. above is some old hardware (1156 i5) I had lying around which I build into the Carbide as a PC for my mother.

 

 

I'd had this motherboard for a few months and never noticed it had a bunch of LED's UNDERNEATH the board o_0

 

 

 

I put the controller for the NZXT lighting strip I got with the case in the cable management area (for cable management reasons)

 

 

Hack a power source for those LED lights

 

 

Deciding on where to actually put the LED's

 

 

I took the top plastic cover off and drilled a hole in the mesh for the LED strip to pass through

 

 

Secured the LED's just on the inside of the screw holes for the top plastic cover with string.

 

 

With the top cover back on, I think it looks pretty cool.

 

 

That silver wifi module is a bit of an eyesore.

 

Out of the dining room and into my bedroom.

 

 

Phase 2 - CPU water cooling

 

I have never done water cooling and am not very confident in my abilities in this area, so I simply purchased one of those all-in-one water coolers.

 

 

 

 

I found it impossible to mount it like this without the pipes interfering with the back exhaust fan. Turning the radiator around caused some odd kinks in the pipes which I didn't like.

 

 

The solution was simple (or so I thought at the time). I just moved the radiator forward.

 

 

 

Used the trusty twist tie to tidy up those water pipes.

 

 

 

 

I had to move the included Corsair fan back to the front above the radiator because with a fan in this position the top cover of the case does not fit and I didn't want to clip off a corner of one of the Corsair SP120 red LED fans that I purchased separately. See the corner of the fan above.

 

Also, note the fan is upside down (blowing air into the case) which I didn't notice at the time.

 

 

The offending part of the case's top cover.

 

 

Phase 3 - Alternative LED fans

 

In this phase I simply purchased some more Corsair red LED fans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally noticed that top front fan is the wrong way around.

 

 

 

The lighting from the fans are quite subtle with the front and top covers attached.

 

 

Phase 4 - New GPU

 

 

 

Seriously contemplating removing all those offensive stickers

 

 

 

Almost a tight fit.

 

If you noticed that crappy Microsoft curved keyboard back in phase 1, don't worry. I've since replaced it.

 

 

I have also added some Samsung Evo SSD's, though I'm not planning on keeping them. I am planning on getting 2 Kingston Hyper X Savage (you know, black and red)

 

 

All that dust, though...

 

 

Edited February 28, 2016 by CarelNel

[Coaxialgamer]

why get a liquid cooler for a locked cpu ?

[CarelNel]

For hardware enthusiast reason's. I'll note, nothing in the rig is or probably ever will be overclocked. I just wanted to build a PC with some kind of liquid cooling.

 

Also, I am troubled with reasonably high ambient temperatures in the summer (anything from 30 decrees Celsius to 45 degrees Celsius or 95 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit)

[CarelNel]

2 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

FACT: LEDs make a computer 500% faster. That's why you placed LEDs all over your computer, right?

 Actually, I noticed closer to 550% ~ 555% improvement in performance with the LED's.

 

In all seriousness, I am slightly regretting putting the LED controller underneath the PSU shroud, as the PC does stand in my bedroom and it is a reasonable amount of light.

[Tmt97]

18 minutes ago, CarelNel said:

 Actually, I noticed closer to 550% ~ 555% improvement in performance with the LED's.

 

In all seriousness, I am slightly regretting putting the LED controller underneath the PSU shroud, as the PC does stand in my bedroom and it is a reasonable amount of light.

But remember you only get half of the improvement in performance from LEDs unless you also paint a lightning bolt on the case.

[cynexit]

Personally not a huge fan of LEDs or the Red/Black color scheme but that's just personal preference.

 

The build itself looks very solid, excellent job on matching the components color wise!

If you want to tune it a bit more I would suggest sleeved cable extensions (black and red) for the 24 pin and the GPU cables.