CyBaNeTiiKz New Build

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Hey Guys!
 

I've had one of the most active imaginations when it comes to building my PC and I've had so many thought of what i could do and what i want like the 900D and a 780 and so much more, but when it comes down to it, I just really don't have the budget to do so, or I've just spent the money that I could have used. I cant save for anything But I'm now thinking of a build that is going to be quite budget but will live up to the expectations that I have for it. 

The main thing that I wanted for my build was to set it apart from everything else that I have seen, and before i thought that to do that i would have to splash out on an uber case like a 900D, TJ-11 or TJ-07. I was also thinking of making a super ITX build In the FT03 mini. But as I haven't got the budget for such amazing cases or the components to fill them, I didn't bother. But i have found a case that is quite unique and very cheap, and that case is the Bitfenix Outlaw!

 

 

This case Is really nice, it has an inverted motherboard tray, clean aesthetics and is cheap, which is amazing. I have ordered it and it is on its way to me to be delivered tomorrow. Funny story actually ( well not funny tbh ) I ordered a few days ago and was expecting it on the 7th, but it got damaged in transit and never made it to me. I never knew till midnight 8th basically when they emailed me telling me they were going to refund me. I spoke to amazon and they reshipped another one with free express delivery, due tomorrow. Currently my PC stands like this: (the HDD is so loud when out of the case )

 

 

I used to have it in a Xigmatek Asguard. Its an ok case. Before that I had it in a HAF X but I sold it to a housemate cause I wanted something smaller. I realise that me saying that I wanted a new build in a 900D/TJ-07 kind of contradicts that lol.

 

So, once I've migrated my current build into the new case, I was thinking of modding it. This case can only support a 120mm rad on back and maybe a 280 on side panel but that's silly imho. What I have planned is to cut a 360 rad sized hole in the top and put a grill on it. I want to put a big rad, like a 45 or 60 mm thick in it. This should accommodate a CPU and a GPU pretty good I should think.

 

Currently I have 2 6870's but ill eventually be swapping them out for a new single GPU soon. (Crossfire looks cool but sucks) Maybe a R9 290X when I find out the price and performance, if not then a 780 if my budget can allow it (dat ref cooler), local store sells for £500. If not, then I'm not sure as of now.

 

I also want to paint the case a little bit, like the meshes on the front panel. Most likely I want a white and black theme so I'll be painting them white. My current motherboard is not suited to it but I'm not so bothered. (well I am, but my wallet won't front me the cash so I'm making do).

 

I have other modding plans like making a cover for the PSU, cutting out the HDD bays for more space, but i don't have access to tools, and I've never modded before so don't want to mess it up, but I'll give it a go. I also wanted to sleeve some cables to make the build look clean, but I want a modular PSU for that so I can sleeve right down to the connectors on the PSU. I was thinking heatshrinkless paracord, looks amazing.

 

Christmas will be most likely when most of my modding will commence so that I can fund it. Being broke sucks lol!

 

I'll be posting pictures tomorrow of my PC's new house, if my case arrives that is

 

Let me know what you think of my Ideas

 

I'll leave you with pics of my current setup. Till tomorrow! 

 

 

[KieranThePCGuy]

Looking forward to it all! Will keep an eye out, subbed!

[hiyayhi]

looks awesome!

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Hey guys,

 

So my case arrived and intact! Woo! I've attempted to take pictures of my build progress but its actually difficult to take pictures. I don't have a proper camera, just the one on my phone, so I'm sorry about the quality. I now have a new found admiration for all the photographers! Anyways here is the case.

 

 

It has a really nice front bezel which has Bitfenix's soft touch on it. It feels really nice, doesn't look like its going to attract that much fingerprints. One thing I was kind of worried about was how much of a difference in colour the material would be to the rest of the case. It is very noticeable but I can accept it. My case didn't come with the case badge sticker, (EDIT: Found the bugger hiding in the box, but still not using it, stuck on my guitar instead ) but that's OK, I wasn't going to use that one anyway. Bitfenix sells the aluminum ones they use on their more recent cases like the prodigy, and I'll be picking up one of those. 

 

 

The inside layout is quite good. The cable routing options allow for a very clean build without cables in sight, even with a non modular power supply like mine.

 

 

 

The cables just go straight out behind the HDD cage and can be bundled up out of sight. For the CPU power, I tucked it behind the PSU and then fed it to the connector. Nice and out of sight! I also did the same with the rear fan connector. Also the PSU sticker is now upside down because of the inverted design lol. But ill be swapping the PSU for a modular one at some point so its ok.

 

 

Front panel connectors all cable tied to nice mounting points. I also love that the front panel connectors are all black and group to one flat cable!

 

 

Even though this is a budget case, there is still an SSD mounting option. Love it!

 

 

Not really liking how much the HDD sticks out of the cage here. I think when I come to mod this case, I'll find a different place to put the HDD. 

 

 

Next in are the GPU's and the power cables are just about long enough to reach, but they are cleanly routed along the back and have their own holes to come out for each GPU. The holes almost line up perfectly for the GPU's, SATA and 24 pin power connections. Really makes this build effortlessly tidy.

 

 

Rear cable management, tied everything down nicely, and the side panel fits! Woo!

 

 

So now that I have the case, and can visualise space and things that I want to fit into it. I can see that fitting a thick radiator in the top of the case is very much possible and I'll be doing that. I just have to be precise about the positioning because of the front panel connectors on the motherboard, and the expansion slots on the back. I'll be using a grill similar in design to this but white. I cant seem to find any in white so ill probably just paint it.

 

In talk of pumps and reservoirs, I'm not sure what to go with. I have a D5 that i can use but I don't know where to put it without it looking out of place. The original top on the D5 looks so ugly. I do have an XSPC 2 bay pump res combo that I could also use which would be much easier. I would stealth it behind the panels on the front because I don't want to ruin the clean look. I'm not going to be watercooling anything till Christmas, so I have a lot of time to think about it.

 

I also have an XSPC CPU waterblock that I will be using. I can get good temps if I'm just watercooling the CPU. Before in my HAF X, I was getting anywhere between 0 and 4 degrees on idle and around 20 - 30 on load ( I didn't measure ambient temps so I cant give it to you ), but for some reason, I don't think they are accurate. I was using CoreTemp to measure temperatures but I cant now because of an issue that I haven't been able to diagnose ( see this thread )

 

Even though cable management with this power supply is good, I do want to get a modular power supply so that I can get rid of cable clutter and also because I want to do custom sleeving. The looks you can get are just amazing. As mentioned before I'll most likely be going with heatshrinkless paracord in white.

 

I'm thinking about which fans to possibly use. I want to have good temps but still have good aesthetics. I would go with Noise Blocker fans because they have really nice and clean aesthetics, and also detachable extensions, which I could make my own at custom lengths, or with Noctua fans, just because they are simply the best, but I don't think they would go with my build.

 

 

In other modding related news, I'm wondering whether to cut out a window. I'd first have to see what my future modding endeavors look like, and what parts I'll want to show through it. I wont really be modding until later, after Christmas, which is a while away.

 

Let me know about what you think about my build in its current status, and about the plans that I have. Thanks for your time

[Homicidium]

Looking nice and clean so far! Never knew BitFenix produces a case with a rotated MoBo tray. 

Can't wait for the finished build!

[KieranThePCGuy]

Looks good so far! Great to see a build that's different! Looking forward to more pictures!

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Yeah, I'm loving how effortlessly clean this build is. I cant wait til I'm able to start modding. Shall be fun

[Analog]

Very nice and tidy build!

[Ham1234]

That looks really cool

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Hey guys,

 

I've come up with an idea for pump and reservoir placement. XSPC are soon to be selling a Tube Pump/Res combo which I really like the look of. They also sell an aluminium screw ring which I think just looks amazing and gets rid off the ugly one that the pump comes with. 

 

Placement of this will be slightly difficult as there is not a proper place with the space possible to mount it. So what I'm thinking is to make my own bracket to attach it to. Where I'm thinking of placing it is more than likely going to infringe on the positioning of my HDD so I will have to think of another place to put the HDD. 

 

The bracket that I plan to make will be a simple L shape which will hold the full length of the Pump/Res and then bolt into the HDD bays at the bottom of the case. This should be strong enough to hold the Res even though its made of glass and is heavy.

 

 

Here is a picture of where I plan to place the reservoir and the shape of the bracket that will hold it. The red rectangle shows the reservoir position, and the green is the bracket. It will bolt toward the back of the case to the HDD mounts. This is just a general guide, I haven't looked at measurements, but I'm pretty sure that the HDD will have to be placed elsewhere to make room.

 

Since my last update I've removed one of my GPU's to make room for the radiator. I'm selling this GPU, so if any UK buyers are interested let me know.

 

I've ordered the 360 radiator grill and will be picking up the rest of the temporary loop materials to put together a simple CPU loop. I already have an older radiator and pump/res which I will be using. This was part of the XSPC RS 750 kit I got a couple years ago. 

 

 

I haven't yet got any tools to mod the case but I will be looking into this very shortly. Most likely will be using a drill and a jigsaw. Fun! 

 

Let me know what you guys think of my Pump/Res idea. Thanks for your time.

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Hey guys,

 

Got an update for you. There were a couple things that I bought and some have arrived and some haven't. The main thing that I needed was the 360 radiator grill and that did arrive. I also got the case badge, some white blade fans, some fan filters, and some sexy screws for the radiator. the screws are yet to arrive and the filters were suppose to be delivered today but i was out and 3 of my housemate were too lazy or incompetent to answer the door :angry:  

 

Now its modding time! (not much in progress shots, sorry)

 

So first thing was to mark up the case for where I'm cutting and drilling. I don't yet have access to a drill but I bought a cheap jigsaw. 

 

 

Don't worry, I removed all my hardware before I started cutting I didn't have a start point for my jigsaw and no drill to make one, so I cracked open some of the fan mesh with a guitar string cutter and started from there. After that was more difficult. I'm pretty sure that the purpose of a jigsaw is that it goes in a straight line easily, mine didn't so I ended up with some weird edges but not bad considering.

 

 

Then it was time to test fit the radiator. As I predicted, there is no space left between the front panel connections and the radiator. They literally touch, but its not putting any pressure on it so is spot on. I'm glad that I didn't have to move the radiator position from the center otherwise it would look weird. The 360 grill looks great on the top and doesn't protrude from the case much. Hopefully I can still fit it in the original box too! When the grill came it had Phobya stickers on it, which I took off. I want a clean look for my build. The one I got has squares in the center of each fan mount, which does help hide the stickers on the back of the fans. I quite like that. 

 

 

The fans aren't anything specific at this time, i just bought some really cheap white fans. They are loud on full 12v but one of the 4 pin headers on my mobo doesn't seem to run the fans at full speed so they are quiet now.

 

Haven't yet got the drill, so will be drilling the holes to mount the grill to the case later. I bought some sexy button head allen bolts and nuts to mount the grill to the case. I also bought some longer ones for the radiator and fans. I wanted them all to look the same.

 

 

Now its time to get the watercooling in. I'm using a 2 bay res and pump combo from XSPC and It fits nice behind the front bezel so I can keep the clean look. Also, on note of the bezel I got the BitFenix aluminium case badge and put it on the front too! Looks really nice there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to get rid of the noisy stock heatsink. So for my loop I'm just using 1/2" barbs and 7/16 tubing. Nice tight fit with no need for cable ties and the like. With my tube routing, there was no way to get from the radiator back to the reservoir without taking the routing i did or kinking the tubing, but this isn't going to be the final loop, so I'm not really bothered much. I'm thinking for the final loop I'm going to use white rigid acrylic tube. That will be when I get my reservoir, I'll do some and then the rest I'll do when I get the GPU. Still not sure which card to get. Might go more value orientated and get like a 7870, or a 7970 or the R9 equivalents. But here is my loop.

 

 

 

Filling was a breeze. Filled only one and a half times for full circulation and then topped off. Takes nearly a full litre. I think this res is quite big compared to the EK spin bay res I had which only needed half a litre to fill the loop.

 

So the loop Isn't as fancy and as I would like it to be but with what i want to do i think it will be good! I'm thinking of using Primochill tubing and their compression fittings that they have.

 

Here is a couple pictures of how my rig currently stands.

 

 

 

This picture also helped me find my glasses lol! 

 

Thanks for your time guys, let me know what you think of my temporary setup.

[CJPowell27]

Glad you found your glasses, mine have been missing for a week and it sucks at school .  I like the progress this is making.  Where did you get those Bitfenix badges?

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Haha, yeah not having glasses at school is such a pain! And I got mine from Specialtech. They have the silver and black ones.

[KieranThePCGuy]

Great progress, thanks for the update!

[J4M35]

nice looking build so far mate, i see pedals under your desk, what steering wheel are you using? I've been looking onto getting one.

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Thanks guys  

 

I have a Logitech G27, Its really good but quite expensive

[TheRoss0411]

Your PSU is upside down .....

[Bramm17]

Strange config with the CPU below the GPU's and the GPU's fan side up! Nice updates tho ! Any more planed?

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Your PSU is upside down .....

Ha, I prefer fan up, looks better to me this way.

Strange config with the CPU below the GPU's and the GPU's fan side up! Nice updates tho ! Any more planed?

Yeah it's different and unique, that's why I went for it! Thanks, and yeah a couple things, adding a proper pump and reservoir to the build, new gpu and add to water loop, painting a couple parts, and adding a side panel window. Cable sleeving. That should be around Christmas time. After that I'll be changing the actual components in the computer for better parts and for less noise. PSU is actually the loudest component on idle.

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

Small update with what I've got planned for my build. This might just be a lot of blah blah but I've put fair amount of thought and no one to tell ( That's interested ) so I'll just put it here. I've had such a hard time choosing what I should do with my computer. I had a couple choices on whether to upgrade my graphics card, most likely to a 780 now the prices have come down, get a new monitor, was thinking of a 2560x1440 IPS or continue with my water cooling upgrades.

 

Getting a 780 will be a stretch to fund but it will boost my games performance, the monitor I'm not sure if my current GPU will still be able to play games at a playable frame rate, or my water cooling upgrades.

 

I'm thinking of just continuing with the water cooling upgrades because its a lot more fun. I also have a little bit of other ideas that i will do if I go the water cooling upgrade route. I have found a place to mount the 3.5" HDD where it wont be visible, on the side of one of the HDD bay. There are a couple rails in the way but I will mount it on stand offs. Can't be bothered to cut them off. I don't think it will block the flow of air from the front intake that much.

 

I'm going to switch out the radiator for the white Nexxxos Monsta 360 rad. Probably overkill but I have the space inside my case for it I Think! I've looked up measurements and it just about fits.Only thing that's slightly worrying me is the distance between the front panel connectors, and the back of the case, the PCI brackets protrude inwards.

 

Going to be getting the XSPC Photon D5 170 res, as mentioned before, and mounting it using a bracket that I will make. I've found measurements of the res and I'm really worried about the space that I will have to mount fittings and tubing and not have it touch the side panel. By my measurements I have JUST about enough room within millimeters but I'll only know for sure when I get the parts.

 

I also wanted to make a cover for my motherboard. I hate the colour of my motherboard, why did I buy it instead of the FX UD3... I'll just be making it so that it will cover everything below the GPU. Reason being is that the Radiator will come all the way down to where the GPU is, so that part of the motherboard will be mostly covered. Plus I'm not sure it will fit behind the radiator. I'll be cutting holes for things like heat sinks, CPU, RAM and power connections. I'll be mounting it using 10mm standoffs that screw into the same motherboard mountings. I'm not too worried about things like airflow, because there is a LOT of air moving through the case. Unless someone tells me this is a bad idea, then this is one of the things that I'm looking forward to seeing most, otherwise I'll buy a new motherboard.

 

There's not much else that I will be doing when I've done these things. I'm thinking of swapping out all the fans in this case for SP120's QE so that this build can be quiet. Its mostly the fans, and the PSU that makes the most noise.

 

After this has been done, I'm thinking of doing other things, but I haven't finalised my choices yet. I want a new GPU and to add it to the loop. That might be what I will do. Other things I'm thinking of doing is getting an XSPC Raystorm so I can put LED's in it. And I'll probably get an XSPC WB for the GPU too for the same reason. Also Dominator Platinums with the light bar (not in any way set in stone, they're expensive) I don't want to overdo it with LED's but I'm thinking that by having only these key places lit up, then it will look really nice! I will not put any LED strips. I don't want the LED's to be too bright that it will flood the system, but just enough. If the LED's in the blocks are too bright then I will find a way to reduce the brightness ( Soldering a resistor on? Is that a thing? I'm not an electrician  )

 

I've just noticed it may look like I'm an XSPC fanboy, I'm not really, I'm more an EK fanboy, but XSPC is just more convenient for me for now.

 

Overall, the plans that I have I think are possible but I'm just slightly worried about some measurements. That's my biggest concern, but I'll just have to wait and see!

 

Anyways, I've rambled enough. Let me know what you think

 

Thanks for your time!