Spectral Realm (Z170 build)

Malgarroth · January 3, 2017

Hi there! I thought I'd share my experience building a system into the very popular and good looking S340 Elite from NZXT.

First, the parts list:

CPU: Intel i5 6600k
GPU: Asus Dual OC GTX 1070
MB: MSI Z170A Gaming Pro Carbon
RAM: 2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance LED 2666MHz
Storage: 120GB Kingston M.2 SSD (OS) + OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD + 3x 500GB 3.5" HDD (Everything but the M.2 came from my last PC)
Cooler: Corsair H45 AIO
PSU: Akasa Cobra 650w 80+ Bronze Semi Modular (Discontinued, got it from my last PC)
Chassis: NZXT S340 Elite (Black)
Lighting: NZXT Hue+

Overall I absolutely loved building into the S340 Elite. The build quality is top-notch, the cable management is great (though a little more room between the chassis and right-hand side panel would have been welcome)

The components themselves are awesome, I've not had a machine this up-to-date in my life.

The Case

Pros:

Awesome build quality.
Great cable management.
Beautiful tempered glass side panel.
PSU shroud.
Thingie to hang my Oculus Rift on.

Cons:

That cable management bar, while awesome, seriously inhibits how you install AIO coolers. Especially if you want push/pull. You'll notice my rad is horizontal in order to accommodate for the bar.
The matte finish is lovely, but very prone to scratches (you'll notice this around the front I/O where you fumble your USB devices into it)
No tool-less installation for 3.5" HDDs. The one thing that gives away the low price of the case is this.
HDMI pass-through straight up doesn't work when I try to use my Rift in it.

Tip: Get rid of that molex fan-splitter for the included fans. They're super loud when running at full speed. Just plug them into your board.

Lighting:

The NZXT Hue+ system is great. The Cam software was a bit of a pain to set up (it doesn't like other monitoring software very much) but once those issues were sorted the level of functionality in that little box had me amazed. There is no RGB lighting system elsewhere of this quality. At least not to my knowledge.

Overclocking:

I managed to get the i5 6600k from 3.5GHz to 4.6GHz with a maximum temperature of 65°C. Either I won the silicon lottery or these chips are wonderful little overclockers.

The Asus Dual OC GTX 1070 was the cheapest 1070 on the market at the time yet I managed to get a stable 2114MHz out of it at a maximum temperature of 73°C (Stock boost clock is 1772MHz)

Day to Day Use

I regularly play games in VR for several hours at a time with absolutely no issues with performance whatsoever. Graphics are juiced up to "VR Ultra" in Elite dangerous and it's beautiful. Outside of VR I play modern games (Doom, The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Ark: Survival Evolved) again with FPS to spare at 1920x1200.

Left to Do

All that remains now is to wait on my sleeved Gelid 24 pin, PCI and 8 pin power cables to hide that ugly shiny black.