Vector Qlimax

[zhrooms]

A few months ago I set out to upgrade my system, and a friend decided to join in, but after some discussion we ended up with entirely new builds instead.

Vector. For the past two decades I’ve been heavily invested in PC gaming, with it I found my passion for computers, and overclocking, to gain that extra performance no amount of money could give you, having built systems dedicated to close ones for over a decade I’ve learned a great deal and enjoy sharing my knowledge with others to get the most out of their systems. I started to take it more seriously a few years back and began testing games with various hardware, and I realized I could really use an open case, so when I discovered the BenchCase by Vector Custom Design I was ecstatic, it remains unique by the fact that it also serves as a proper gaming case.

Qlimax. Seeing firsthand the evolution of gamer products, it’s never been easier to make your system look good, in recent years RGB has taken us by storm, no longer do you have to decide on a single color, it’s truly an intense and exciting time to build a computer. Being fans of the annual Q-dance festival Qlimax, with it’s sophisticated lighting and laser production, we thought the name seemed fitting with all of the RGB LED’s and the pinnacle of today’s computer hardware.

As for the parts I have chosen, it’s one of the most powerful systems you can build today, but the only way to truly get all the way is by overclocking, the i7-7700K is pre-binned 5.2GHz capable, ROG Maximus IX APEX motherboard to get the Trident Z memory well over 4GHz, two GTX 1080 Ti’s in SLI, and water cooling.

Sharing these unique builds with you means a lot and we hope to inspire! Though a couple of months are expected for it’s completion, right now most of it is up and running but there is still much to do and even more to show.

Thank you and feel free to leave a comment if you have a question or suggestion, we take your feedback to heart.

QTY (Quantity) MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) EAN (European Article Number)

Check Mark ☑ (Have It) Empty ◻ (Do Not Have It)

Star ★ (Sponsored)

Case » Vector Custom Design BenchCase « ☑

QTY  1 • MPN VBCRMVP02 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Motherboard » ASUS ROG Maximus IX Apex Z270

QTY  1 • MPN 90MB0T90-M0EAY0 • EAN 4712900650686 • LINK Geizhals.eu

★ Motherboard » ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex Z370 « ☑

QTY  1 • MPN 90MB0V90-M0EAY0 • EAN 4712900850680 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Processor » Intel Core i7 7700K Kaby Lake

QTY  1 • MPN BX80677I77700K • EAN 5032037092562 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Processor » Intel Core i7 8700K Coffee Lake « ☑

QTY  1 • MPN BX80684I78700K • EAN 5032037108652 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Memory » G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB DDR4-3600 16-16-16-36 Dual Kit « ☑

QTY  1 • MPN F4-3600C16D-16GTZR • EAN 4250812419620 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Graphics Card » EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB « ☑◻

QTY  2 • MPN 11G-P5-6390-KR • EAN 5032037092562 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Solid State Drive » Samsung 960 EVO 500GB M.2 SSD « ☑

QTY  1 • MPN MZ-V6E500BW • EAN 8806088540122 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Power Supply » Corsair RM1000x 1000W 80 Plus Gold « ☑

QTY  1 • MPN CP-9020094-EU • EAN 0843591050876 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Fan » Corsair HD120 RGB LED PWM 3-Pack with Controller « ☑☑☑◻

QTY  4 • MPN CO-9050067-WW • EAN 0843591090896 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Fan » Corsair LL120 RGB LED PWM 3-Pack with Lighting Node PRO « ◻◻◻◻

QTY  4 • MPN CO-9050072-WW • EAN 0843591032438 • LINK Geizhals.eu

Kit » EK Fluid Gaming Liquid Cooling Kit A240G « ☑◻

QTY  2 • MPN 3831109890721 • EAN 3831109890721 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Processor » EK-Supremacy AX CPU Block « ☑

QTY  1 • MPN 3831109890653 • EAN 3831109890653 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Graphics Card » EK-AC GEFORCE GTX (INCL. BACKPLATE) « ☑◻

QTY  2 • MPN 3831109890806 • EAN 3831109890806 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Radiator » EK-ALUSTREAM SE 240 / EK-FG 240 « ☑◻

QTY  2 • MPN 3830046992468 • EAN 3830046992468 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Radiator » EK-ALUSTREAM SE 360 / EK-FG 360 « ◻

QTY  1 • MPN 3830046992475 • EAN 3830046992475 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Pump/Res » EK-XRES 100 SPC-60 MX PWM (INCL. PUMP « ☑◻

QTY  2 • MPN 3831109843246 • EAN 3831109843246 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Tubing » EK-DURACLEAR 9,5/12,7MM 3M « ☑◻

QTY  2 • MPN 3831109850961 • EAN 3831109850961 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Coolant » EK-CRYOFUEL CONCENTRATE 100 ML « ☑◻

QTY  2 • MPN 3831109880135 • EAN 3831109880135 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Fitting » EK-ACF ALU FITTING 10/13MM « 8 ☑◻ 4

QTY  12 • MPN 3831109890158 • EAN 3831109890158 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Fitting » EK-AF ALU ANGLED 90° G1/4 « ◻ 6

QTY  6 • MPN 3831109890127 • EAN 3831109890127 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Fitting » EK-AC MULTI-GPU CONNECTOR KIT « ◻ 2

QTY  2 • MPN 3830046994141 • EAN 3830046994141 • LINK EKFluidGaming

Power Splitter » Phobya 4Pin PWM to 8x 4Pin Fan Splitter PCB « ☑☑☑

QTY  3 • MPN 81136 • EAN 4049469174064 • LINK Geizhals.eu

SLI Bridge » ASUS ROG SLI HB Bridge RGB « ◻

QTY  1 • MPN 90YV0AB0-M0NA00 • EAN 4712900650655 • LINK Geizhals.eu

LED » Corsair Lighting Node PRO « ◻

QTY  1 • MPN CL-9011109-WW • EAN 0843591094337 • LINK Geizhals.eu

» Update 1 «

Case

 

» Update 2 «

Motherboard

 

» Update 3 «

Memory

 

» Update 4 «

Solid State Drive

 

» Update 5 «

Graphics Card

 

» Update 6 «

Graphics Card Continued

 

» Update 7 «

EK Fluid Gaming Kit

 

» Update 8 «

EK Fluid Gaming Kit Continued

 

» Update 9 «

EK Fluid Gaming Kit Continued

 

» Update 10 «

EK Fluid Gaming Kit Continued

 

» Update 11 «

Fans

 

» Update 12 «

Change of Plans

 

» Update 13 «

Steel Sheet

 

» Update 14 «

Motherboard Lighting

 

» Update 15 «

ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex Z370

 

» Update 16 «

Processor

 

[zhrooms]

The Vector BenchCase shipped in a rather small but heavy package devoid of any markings. After opening this mysterious package, it was time to carefully remove the plastic film without leaving any scratching.

Everything was neatly arranged inside with no room to spare, the edges of both side panels suffered from some minor bending and one LED strip was visibly damaged, likely due to the transportation and tight packaging; the former was easily rectified with a pair of pliers.

[Matu20]

High quality post AF.

[IAmOctonaut]

looks nice! 

[Marinatall_Ironside]

Goodness that build ?

[zhrooms]

The ASUS ROG Maximus IX APEX is probably the most incredible motherboard I have ever laid eyes on, its various lighting modes are breathtaking in the the dark. Aesthetics aside, it’s one of the best suited motherboards for DRAM overclocking due to its two specially dedicated DIMMs.

They’ve included an unreasonable amount of stickers, love it! I will make sure to show each one of them at a later date.

Something out of the ordinary is the inclusion of a drink coaster, M.2 Riser Card and acrylic name plate.

[IAmOctonaut]

are you just using a lightbox? pics look awesome

[zhrooms]

3 hours ago, IAmOctonaut said:

are you just using a lightbox? pics look awesome

 

Thanks! It's actually not. But I did build one recently, I knew the pictures could turn out even better, in Update Seven and onwards they will be from inside a DIY lightbox.

 

The best way to give you an idea of what I've been using is this picture from two years ago, where I printed out and framed Witcher 3 Steelbook Artwork.

 

In it you can see the white background, I then used a roll of white paper to cover the black Mod-Mat and from the ceiling three 4000K lights.

 

[zhrooms]

I’ve spent a good amount of time overclocking a 3600C16 non-RGB kit, and at this point know that they overclock to 4133MHz CL17 on APEX, initially we were looking at the 4266MHz CL19 kit to overclock even further, but the 3600MHz CL16 RGB kit had its price lowered just days before ordering so we went with it instead, but there’s still a very likely possibility of getting 4266+ sticks in the future.

As we have two concurrent builds, four sticks are presented.

They already look stunning before lighting up.

[zhrooms]

Samsung are a safe bet in my experience, they also look aesthetically pleasing in all-black with minimal orange accents. Regarding my choice of the EVO: I’ve compared SSD performance in many titles over the years and at a certain point you start getting diminishing returns and hit other limitations; since this is a gaming system first, I felt no need to pay the premium for the PRO variant.

As you can see, the second M.2 SSD covers a decent part of the DRAM, a slight inconvenience, but we’re only using one SSD for each system in the meantime.

Speeds below when pairing both SSDs in RAID-0.

[zhrooms]

 

At first I ordered an MSI branded Founder’s Edition since it was €100 cheaper than EVGA’s, but a few days later the latter price was even lower, so I got it instead. 

Before returning my first purchase I wanted to see how they’d look together in a 3-Way SLI configuration:

[zhrooms]

Founder’s Edition cooler shroud disassembly process.

After replacing the thermal compound with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut the load temperature lowered by 5 degrees Celsius, from 65c (149f) to 60c (140f).

 

The MSI branded Founders Edition had a “Warranty Void if Removed” sticker, although according to all available information, they allow disassembly if all of the components remain undamaged.

See: 

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=184134.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=183996.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=255827.0

[zhrooms]

EK Fluid Gaming Liquid Cooling Kit A240G

• MPN 3831109890721 • EAN 3831109890721 • LINK Geizhals.eu

For several years the AIO cooling market has been stagnating and mostly limited to closed CPU-only solutions. Options for affordable expandable kits have been scarce, which has barred many potential users from going down this path.

To the delight and surprise of many, myself included, EKWB came out in full force with their brand new EK Liquid Gaming lineup, a fully customizable liquid cooling kit at a never before seen pricetag; it almost seemed too good to be true. So, what were the compromises? None which impact EKWB’s well known premium performance, the answer lies in the main manufacturing material: Aluminium, rather than the usual Copper/Brass. 
This comes at a cost of segregating this lineup from EKWB’s other liquid cooling products which are based on the aforementioned metals, since mixing them leads to an undesired chemical reaction by the name of “galvanic corrosion”. It must be noted that EKWB has done their utmost to warn and inform its users of this incompatibility.
All of this seemed great, but I had to try it out for myself and put these claims to the test.

[zhrooms]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[zhrooms]

 

 

 

[zhrooms]

The Call of Duty: WWII PC Open Beta has nearly run its course, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the game ran, so I decided to benchmark it over a few rounds, at different resolutions.

The Core i7-7700K is overclocked to 5200MHz, the GTX 1080 Ti runs 2025MHz and the G.Skill RAM is set to 4133MHz @ 16-17-17-28 (full timings will be shown at a later date as they’re not final).

[zhrooms]

Note: The Corsair AX1200 power supply was replaced by a Corsair RM1000x after these pictures were taken.

The sleeved cables are Corsair’s “Individually Sleeved Modular Cables upgrade kit” for the Professional Series Gold AX1200.

This is leftover tubing, on the right it’s visible that one of the ends was bent out of the box, but due to the excess there were no issues.

The cutting tool is a Hose Cutter from HighFlow.

 

Filling the reservoir with the help of a Fill Syringe from HighFlow.

 

 

Mismatched cable combs because power supply was being replaced, full custom sleeving is coming.

 

[zhrooms]

Another quick benchmark like the one I shared last weekend, but this time from the Star Wars Battlefront II Open Beta.

[zhrooms]

Introducing more color into the build, here is the Corsair HD120 RGB LED 

featuring 7 lighting modes, 7 colors and 3 effect speeds, in detail:

Modes

Static, Breathing, Flicker, Sequential, Marquee, Rainbow and Demo (Cycle through all modes)

Colors

White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet and Demo (Cycle through all colors)

Effect Speeds

High, Medium (50%) and Slow (25%).

PWM control range between 800-1725 RPM.

Note: The Corsair Lighting Node PRO greatly enhances this fan’s colors and modes. 

(Not used here)

The new Corsair LL120 RGB LED comes with Lighting Node PRO included.

The RGB LED Hub (6 Port) and Lighting Controller (3 Button), along with 3 sets of mounting screws (12 total) and an optional cable for extending the lighting control to your own buttons. 

Hub requires SATA power.

Below is a showcase of the pre-configured colors and modes via the included 3 button lighting controller.

(Not shown: Static, Demo Mode and Flicker, as it simply turns the LEDs on and off repeatedly)

Breathing | Slow (4 Seconds)

Breathing | Medium (2 Seconds)

Breathing | High (1 Second)

Marquee | Slow (1.5 Seconds)

Marquee |  Medium (0.75 Seconds)

Marquee | High (0.375 Seconds)

Sequential | Slow (6 Seconds)

Sequential | Medium (3 Seconds)

Sequential | High (1.5 Seconds)

Rainbow | Medium (6 Seconds)

[zhrooms]

I’ve updated and made some changes to the build plan as I was completely blown away by the EK Fluid Gaming kit, in the past month I have benchmarked the system in a dozen games, and came to the realization that there's no good reason to upgrade from the Fluid Gaming kit.

It was supposed to be a transitional solution until I got some more expensive parts, but the 7700K running @ 5GHz never goes above 60°C, and 75°C @ 5.2GHz, this is while running AIDA64 (Stress CPU), CINEBENCH R15 (CPU), Intel XTU (Benchmarking) and Super PI (32M) simultaneously! Never ran into any crashes, in other words, a rock solid overclock, and it's about 10-15°C lower while gaming under normal conditions, with the fans spinning at a mere 1000 RPM, it's very quiet!

As for the GTX 1080 Ti, clocked as high as the power limit allows (close to 2GHz), in 5K (5120x2880, equivalent to x2 4K) resolution, the GPU temperature is around 50°C, I'd say that's at least 5°C lower than any custom air-cooled card with fan speed at 100%, but this is almost dead silent. In conclusion, I really can't justify going for the top end EK water cooling at this point. I also feel I need to mention EK Fluid Gaming released all their parts separately not that long ago, therefore it’s now possible to fully customize it.

But there is a catch, the mentioned temperatures correspond to either exclusive GPU or CPU usage, rather than simultaneous, I can't fully utilise both with just 1000 RPM, over time the temperatures rise exponentially and 5.2GHz becomes unstable, running 5-5.1GHz is not a problem, but the voltage increase for higher frequencies demands for something to change. 

Yet I want the silence of low RPM and the maximum overclock, the simplest solution is to get another EK Fluid Gaming kit, so that each processor has its own loop. Having two separate loops also has the advantage of making it easier and faster to change components, which is perfect for this system. Got my eye on the EK-FG 360 Expansion Pack too, would be useful when going Multi-GPU.

So, I’m excited for another kit and a lot of colored fittings and coolant.

Meanwhile, working on covering the motherboard tray with a steel sheet, this will allow me to make my own cable holes. Also looking into upgrading the IX APEX/7700K to X APEX/8700K as well as replacing the Corsair HD120 RGB fans with Corsair's LL120 RGB fans.

Next up is sleeving the power supply and finishing the steel sheet, after that I think it's time to showcase the motherboard and memory LED's.

But for now, picture of the new power supply and a MDPC-X Atomic Green teaser

[zhrooms]

I began by covering the tray with masking tape, then attached the motherboard to it in order to see where the new holes would be.

After getting all the measurements I marked the cutting areas with color, then proceeded to remove them with a rotary tool.

Keeping track of everything through Google SketchUp.

The steel sheet - after being cut to 495x360mm using an angle grinder.

Here’s the resulting modified tray placed on top of the steel sheet, in order to trace the holes for the final cut.

Checking standoff alignment after drilling.

Here is the near finished steel sheet, everything fits great. Added a hole underneath the motherboard through which I can route cables such as 4-Pin, I/O, SATA and USB.

The cables are sleeved extension cables by NZXT, as custom sleeving is not done yet.

I hadn’t made my final decision regarding color. I began by applying a few base layers of matte black spray paint, the only issue was excessive gloss.

The standoffs were also sprayed black.

I decided to attempt using a carbon fiber wrap, which turned out substantially better than expected.

Carbon fiber wrap wouldn’t be my first choice, and I suspect some of you can relate, that being said, in my opinion what made this really work is the large amount of LEDs underneath the motherboard.

I look forward to show it off in the next update!

[BeardRex]

Damn..

[zhrooms]

"Outshine the competition"

ASUS ROG Maximus IX APEX Z270 lighting showcase

Modes

Static, Breathing, Color cycle, Rainbow, Comet, Flash and Dash, Wave, Glowing Yoyo, Starry-Night, Strobing, Smart, Music

Colors

Brightness (0-255), Hue (0-359), RGB (0-255) and Saturation.

Effect Speeds

Fast to Slow (5 Steps).

Note: AURA Lighting Control used here is v1.05.27

(Not shown: Static, Wave and Smart)

Breathing

Color Cycle

Rainbow

Comet

Flash and Dash (By Areas)

Glowing Yoyo

Starry-Night

Strobing (By Areas)

Music

Music

[zhrooms]

 

I am very pleased to announce that ROG Nordic has sponsored the project 

with an ASUS ROG MAXIMUS X APEX Z370 motherboard, 
I’m truly humbled to be endorsed by such a well reputed brand!

 

“Every aspect of the ROG Maximus X Apex purposefully defies convention to break performance boundaries and set new standards. Its feature set is carefully selected to optimize component layout and trace pathways for maximum signal integrity. That foundation is backed by all the tools and tweaking options you need to push the platform to the limit, and cooling options to keep everything under control. With a distinct X-shaped PCB that's accented by RGB lighting, and performance-first engineering, the Maximus X Apex is suitable for elevating builds to showcase status, or satisfying overclocking addicts that thrive on the edge.” - ASUS

 

As is customary we’re getting a lot of stickers, the rest of the accessories are similar to the Z270 board, apart from the new ROG DIMM.2 mounting bracket that directs cool air over the M.2 drives and memory, supports up to two 50mm fans or a single 80mm fan. And a larger OC fan bracket that can direct airflow away or across the board, which also supports up to two 50mm fans or a single 120mm fan. I’m definitely testing both of them in the future.

The LGA1151-V2 socket ready for 8th Gen Coffee Lake processors, and the two-slot memory design allowing APEX to achieve memory speeds of DDR4-4500MHz and beyond!

 

Overclocker's toolkit, hardware-level controls to aid with overclocking, now also two RGB headers.

 

Water-cooling zone with it's dual water-temperature headers and flow-rate header.

 

Shielded SupremeFX S1220A codec with premium Nichicon™ audio capacitors and an additional two RGB headers which makes it a total of four.

 

Illuminated customisable nameplate, DIY kit included to show off your mark.

(Pre-cut ROG logo is shown here as an example)

One of the larger additions is the onboard 5Gbps ethernet (Aquantia AQC-108 5G LAN) with up to 5X the bandwidth of standard gigabit ethernet.

 

 

The innovative ROG DIMM.2 module is vertically installed via the DDR4 interface, allows for two NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 drives to be connected in RAID configuration for even greater performance.

[zhrooms]

My processor of choice for the Maximus X Apex was the Intel Core i7 8700K Coffee Lake.

This is the 5th processor I’ve delidded using this 3D Printed Delid Tool, it was a very fast and safe procedure.

After cleaning it I applied:

Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut (Liquid Metal) on the processor die.
Black Silicone (Adhesive Sealant) to relid the IHS.
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut (Thermal Grease) on the IHS.

Once running I performed some Firestrike benchmarks, in which I managed to break 25k physics score.

┌ X APEX with 8700K at 5500MHz ┐

Firestrike Ultra: » 8082 «

Graphics Score: 7 983 | Physics Score: 24 938

Firestrike Extreme: » 15461 «

Graphics Score: 16 288 | Physics Score: 25 030

Firestrike: » 27933 «

Graphics Score: 33 464 | Physics Score: 24 975

┌ IX APEX with 7700K at 5300MHz ┐

Firestrike: » 24150 «

Graphics Score: 31 756 | Physics Score: 17 244

 

Below is the voltage that was required to pass 

Intel XTU and Cinebench R15 simultaneously, looped multiple times. 
Note: Gaming is possible with lower voltage.

5000MHz @ 1.280v

5100MHz @ 1.312v
5200MHz @ 1.360v
5300MHz @ 1.424v
5400MHz @ 1.488v

I was intrigued to see how it would run 5GHz with the fans at a mere 850 RPM which makes the system practically inaudible (headphones on). 

The temperature peaked at 82°C whilst looping Cinebench R15 and running Unigine Valley in 4K with the 1080 Ti at 60°C 2000MHz and 1000mV. The voltage required a slight increase to 1.296v in order to remain stable during the peaks.

Overall this processor has exceeded my expectations.