Project Blank

[Jokrik]

Hello again everyone, firstly

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

I know its been a while since I've fully updated the log, but finally most of the wait has finally over

90% of the goods are here, and I can finally play and tune around the build as I wish

 

Lets get to the pictures, pardon me with the bad photos. I'm trying my best to take good pictures but since I have most of the house under renovation I have to move to a smaller working space with bad lighting

It's best to take pictures with daylight but I will be spending most of my time from morning til dawn in the office

 

I've tested the motherboard, CPU and GPU's with an open test bench with raid 0 ssd's

some people might say you can't tell the difference unless you are benchmarking and I might have the false alarm but

moving from 4 cores to 6 cores I can tell the difference especially with raid 0

I might be wrong 

 

 

After some testing I cleaned the CPU TIM and leave it as it is

Was planning to put the CPU block on but I want to wait for the Motherboard block to come which will come either tomorrow or the day after

I will be using CLU on all the blocks , yeah I know it's a lot of risk especially on the gpu since CLU can transfer electric current from the board

but no pain, no gain 

the 290's are running pretty hot even on the open test bench

 

 

I've also replaced my phoebus with an STX, tested it and man I can tell you; an stx can beat phoebus any day 

if you have a 7.1 setup than go for phoebus

but for someone like me who enjoy music more, go for STX

I have an AUNE T1 on hand and once I've assembled everything I'll compare the STX with AUNE (am using Shure SH1440 and BD DT880 250ohm for test)

 

 

I've received my monsoon bending kit before the new year but I was too busy packing for the short holiday and didn't get the chance to post it here

again, nice packaging by PPCS 

 

 

 

 

And guess what I got today!

 

 

This is as much packages I've ever received in a day!

The custom has been slacking during the holiday and told me they didn't want to release all the packages one by one, and I got 120$ of custom duty which is not as bad as I thought

It's a mixture of ummm.... Keyboard stuff...... (again) and some of the stuff for this log

 

Ordered the active cooling backplate from Aquacomputer straight

 

 

The GPU block has also arrived, I was so lucky I get 2 out of 5 stock from frozencpu

I can tell you, you wont go wrong with AC stuff. Quality wise ... 

 

 

 

 

At first I thought there are some flaws in the block as you can see from the last photo, but I've realized its a carving of Hawaii islands inside the block it self :thumb:

 

Last box for this log came from the sleeving guy!

This is the box I've anticipated the most, it has all the goodies for the build

sleeving wise, it's looking really good

I'm too tired from the holiday and will take proper pictures tomorrow and assembled other stuff including the GPU blocks

 

so, until tomorrow fellas!

[Homicidium]

I really hope, that you're going to finish this build in the near future, because every time I click on this thread and look through all the picture, I have to change underwear, if you know what I mean. 

Stoked to see further progress!  

 

This sure is a contender for my personal favorite build log of the year, so hopefully you won't disappoint  

[Jokrik]

I really hope, that you're going to finish this build in the near future, because every time I click on this thread and look through all the picture, I have to change underwear, if you know what I mean. 

Stoked to see further progress!

 

This sure is a contender for my personal favorite build log of the year, so hopefully you won't disappoint

 

Thrust me I wont disappoint you

I'll finish it up by this month hopefully!

[Homicidium]

Thrust me I wont disappoint you

I'll finish it up by this month hopefully!

 

Awesome! But should I really thrust you? D:

I trust you, but thrusting takes it a little far

[Jokrik]

Awesome! But should I really thrust you? D:

I trust you, but thrusting takes it a little far

 

LOL mistyped!

It's been a really long day and typing on my laptop is a pain when you are used to mechanical keyboards

[ANUPLUCIFERGAMER]

Is it over? Or more pics are there?

[ANUPLUCIFERGAMER]

Which Distilled Water did you use?

[Jokrik]

Which Distilled Water did you use?

 

It's only available in my country

get any DI water you can grab from pharmacy and you'll be fine

[Jokrik]

 

So as I've said, there will be consistent update from now on. And today I decided to start on dressing the GPU's and radiators

 

So I tested the fans, it seems that the fan port splitter doesn't work if downvolted to 7v,

I have to get a handmade fan port splitter in this case. What bothers me is that its pretty hard to get a black pcb fan splitter and I wont stop until I get one. An all dark color build have to be all dark

 

 

and test fit the rad

 

 

 

Still cant test fit the 480 rad due to the length of the screws which is a tiny bit too short . The shortage is due to Caselabs drop mount system which resulted in an alu plate run in between fans and radiators

 

moving on...

Let the undressing begun

 

 

I was stuck with the unscrewing part since the guide from AC is so minimal, for those of you who are taking the stock cooler of 290's

Make sure you check the two screws near the ports, it's the two screws on the left (see picture)

 

 

And she's naked!

 

 

It's time to clean her

 

 

The indigo cleaner really does make a difference for easy TIM cleaning, you can see my hand reflection. And no, I did not edit the photo

It's pure sensor camera play with good lighting and Indigo cleaner

 

 

I was planning to use CLU on the GPU, but seeing how compliated the PCB on AMD GPUs compare to NVIDIA

I decided to only use my trusty ICdiamond, and MX-4 on the RAM module

 

 

This is the Active XCS Backplate I was talking about, the backplate is aluminium . Love how solid it feels

 

 

Had to take off the stock terminal and replace it with the one included in the backplate. It has heat sink build into it

 

 

And applied some TIM on it

 

 

DONE!

 

 

[Fhqwhgads]

Those blocks look fantastic. Awesome log!

[flibberdipper]

Seems weird that they didn't opt to cover the entire PCB with the block, but I still like it. And the islands carved in is so cool!

[Jokrik]

Those blocks look fantastic. Awesome log!

 

Thx

 

Seems weird that they didn't opt to cover the entire PCB with the block, but I still like it. And the islands carved in is so cool!

 

Yeah I love the carving as well...

[hAxx]

+follow! Those backplates with that Black Edition                 'O.O'

[Hazorazor]

Awesome stuff man, im not going quite so all out with custom watercooling with mine but I think I'm gonna pick up a XFX 290 cheap as I can get it (reference) and then chuck a Kraken G10 on it with a Corsair H90. Should make my pc whisper quiet as the loudest component will be my CPU fans at 25DB.

[shirokado]

Awesome stuff man, im not going quite so all out with custom watercooling with mine but I think I'm gonna pick up a XFX 290 cheap as I can get it (reference) and then chuck a Kraken G10 on it with a Corsair H90. Should make my pc whisper quiet as the loudest component will be my CPU fans at 25DB.

The pump noise is fairly noticeable. The pump is louder than the fan in AIO units.

[CommonCurt]

 

 

So as I've said, there will be consistent update from now on. And today I decided to start on dressing the GPU's and radiators

 

So I tested the fans, it seems that the fan port splitter doesn't work if downvolted to 7v,

I have to get a handmade fan port splitter in this case. What bothers me is that its pretty hard to get a black pcb fan splitter and I wont stop until I get one. An all dark color build have to be all dark

 

 

 

It's lookin Good Jokrik

[bmxtricky5]

This made my bank account cry....

[Purple]

This build is going too look so good when it's finished.

[TheProfosist]

Just a heads up putting the EVO in raid 0 will likely negate some of the artificial benefits and will be closer to putting 2 standard 840's in raid 0

[Jokrik]

+follow! Those backplates with that Black Edition                 'O.O'

 

 

Awesome stuff man, im not going quite so all out with custom watercooling with mine but I think I'm gonna pick up a XFX 290 cheap as I can get it (reference) and then chuck a Kraken G10 on it with a Corsair H90. Should make my pc whisper quiet as the loudest component will be my CPU fans at 25DB.

 

well, AIO watercooling is a start

brace yourself for water cooling addiction, the G10 looks good though

and its such a revolution in water cooling

 

 

It's lookin Good Jokrik

 

Thx man! good to see fellow keyboard maniac!

 

This made my bank account cry....

 

made mine too unfortunately

 

This build is going too look so good when it's finished.

 

Thx and stay tuned!

 

Just a heads up putting the EVO in raid 0 will likely negate some of the artificial benefits and will be closer to putting 2 standard 840's in raid 0

 

Yeah I realised that when reading around

but again the price of evo is at 70% of 840 when I bought it (in my country)

raid 0 is for prestige anyway but I can feel the difference with the new rig, might have because of the 6 cores (or raid 0)

[Jokrik]

Its weekend with plenty of spare time in the morning

so, I reckon the reservoir was ready to receive some love

 

First and most important is the mounting, I ordered some alu plate from caselabs which goes with the mounting bar

Tape it to measure

 

 

Plus the rotary tool

 

 

and tapping

 

 

and TADA!

 

 

 

 

And a little sneak peak when I tested the res mount

 

 

 

The EK motherboard block is currently still a country away

should be here on Monday and I can start tinkering on the loop

 

[TheProfosist]

*snip*

Yeah I realised that when reading around

but again the price of evo is at 70% of 840 when I bought it (in my country)

raid 0 is for prestige anyway but I can feel the difference with the new rig, might have because of the 6 cores (or raid 0)

Do you mean 840 Pro when you say that because the 840 should be the same price or cheaper if you can find it, though im not saying that you should.

[Jokrik]

Do you mean 840 Pro when you say that because the 840 should be the same price or cheaper if you can find it, though im not saying that you should.

 

840 in my country is like 10-20$ more expensive

tbh the pricing here is a bit messed up, this is due to each product brand has different supplier/importer

and they can adjust the price nearly as much as they want to take bigger market share

I was bargaining for 780 before I purchased my 290's

the price went down by 40$ in a single phone call (since I know the guy I gave him a call) because the MSI importer is in pursue to take bigger market share than ASUS

[TheProfosist]

840 in my country is like 10-20$ more expensive

tbh the pricing here is a bit messed up, this is due to each product brand has different supplier/importer

and they can adjust the price nearly as much as they want to take bigger market share

I was bargaining for 780 before I purchased my 290's

the price went down by 40$ in a single phone call (since I know the guy I gave him a call) because the MSI importer is in pursue to take bigger market share than ASUS

Odd well heads up for the future when doing raid yo udont want any drives that employ tricks as most likely they wont work, so something like the 840 Pro or Marvell based drive like a Plextor would be the best option for something like that. The 840 EVO works best as a single drive OS drive since its super speedy at reads, all of it "tricks" rely on smaller file reads/writes, and the RAPID feature would be a waste to use if it was being used on a highly utilized drive.

[Jokrik]

Odd well heads up for the future when doing raid yo udont want any drives that employ tricks as most likely they wont work, so something like the 840 Pro or Marvell based drive like a Plextor would be the best option for something like that. The 840 EVO works best as a single drive OS drive since its super speedy at reads, all of it "tricks" rely on smaller file reads/writes, and the RAPID feature would be a waste to use if it was being used on a highly utilized drive.

 

Noted!

Thx for the heads up!