Build Ideas / Critique

Darkmatter35 · October 10, 2016

Currently brainstorming ideas for my first water cooled build for mid 2017. Really want to downsize from my current build (air cooled FT02) which is very big and heavy. Definitely going with a mAtx board/case with a six core CPU and a single GTX 1080ti when it gets released.

With my current setup I have noticed a lot of things. For one I hate dust and this is something I am brainstorming about to see if I can come up with something cool. With the FT02 the entire top is vented while none of the sides have intakes or exhausts. This made me realize how much dust settles in my case as well as on my fan blades, which is extremely annoying to clean on a annual basis.

So my idea to fix this at least would be to reverse it. I would have a case that has no exhaust at all on the top panel and only on the back. I would have a 420mm rad in the front and a 140mm fan in the back. I might add a 240mm rad in the bottom of just single fan for the extra airflow for various non-water cooled parts but even then it could be better for silence to not have more intake.

So that is my main controversial idea I have that I would like to discuss about. Really want the key points of the build to be silence and form factor.

On the subject of cases I am mainly waiting to see if fractal design refreshes their mAtx form factor Define case which currently isn't that good. I think they will because of the direction of PC's these days. If not I was looking at the define R5 as well as the Arc mini R2 maybe. Oh and please know that I am against almost every corsair case because I dislike the build quality.

And if any of you need more info here is my completed build from two years ago as well as a short summary of what I do on my PC.

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/200382-empirical-by-darkmatter/

I run all my games at 1440p (except csgo which I run at 1920:1200). I prefer games that take up a lot of time and that have immense amounts of depth. Games that I currently play regularly are Fallout 4 (50 mods installed), Dark souls 3 and CSGO. Other games that I am not a stranger too are games like Minecraft (First game I fell in love with) and Terraria. Other than games I am a big content consumer and I spend a good 40% of my time on my computer on Youtube and various forums. I would love to smart drawing on my PC in the future because gaming has almost completely replaced my creative hobbies like photography and drawing. Also I am currently in school for a CAD degree so I would need to run apps like solidworks and AutoDesk applications with ease.