Built 6 Months too Early! - Aircooled Setup in a case designed for Watercooling

[Roen]

My previous computer was a laptop purchase for my Master's degree in 2009. I think it was a Core 2 Duo w@ 2.4 GHz, which I upgraded with 8 GB of RAM and a SSHD midway through the life and overclocked 5% via a bootleg multicore enhancement feature / bug (Locked dual core multiplier at 9.5x from stock 9x) . But at this point, it can only load up youtube videos at 480p and the "Extended Life" battery lasts 40 mins on Balanced power profile.

 

So Black Friday rolled around, and a purchasing frenzy ensued.

 

2017 System Built Six Months Too Early:

Main System

Case: Lian Li PC-O11 WW

Case Fans: 3x SilenX IXP-76-18 Bottom Intake, 3x Noiseblocker NB-eLoop B12-1 Top Exhaust, 2x Noctua NF-R8 redux-1800 PWM Rear Exhaust

Fan Mounts: Noctua NA-SAV4 Fan Mounts

Processor: Intel i7-8700K Delidded by Silicon Lottery with Conductonaut, binned @ 5.3 GHz

Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 Z370

Power Supply: EVGA 850 GQ

RAM: 64 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 4000 MHz C19 set @ 3466 MHz 16-18-18-36 @ 1.35V, stock other volts (Because Gigabyte mobos don't overclock well with lower volts?)

CPU Cooler: Scythe Fuma Rev. B w/ Noctua NF-12 Fans

OS: UEFI Dual Boot OS X High Sierra 10.13.2 (Primary), Windows 10 Professional

GPU: Integrated Intel UHD 630

Monitor: Samsung CHG90

Boot Drive: Intel Optane 900P 280GB 2.5" to U.2-M.2 Partitioned as APFS for OS X and NTFS for Windows

Programs Drive: Samsung 960 Pro 1 TB Partitioned as exFAT

Mass Storage Drive (Future Backup Drive): Seagate 7E8 8TB Partitioned as NTFS

External SSD: Visiontek 120GB USB 3.0 SSD Partitioned as HFS+J

RAM Disk: 8 GB in both OS as a torrent collection and browser cache drive

 

Peripheral Add-Ons:

Monoprice 2-Port eSATA to SATA Bracket

MMNNE 4 Port Hub USB 2.0 Female to USB 9 Pin Mainboard Panel Bracket Slot Adapter

Sabrent USB 3.0 4-Port Hub

UPS: Cyberpower CP1500PFLCD

Keyboard: Corsair K70 RGB Lux w/ MX Silent

Gaming Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Elite Destiny 2 Edition

Mouse: Logitech MX Master

External Optical Drive: iHAS324 in an Addonics USB 3.0 / eSATA enclosure

Speakers: Klipsch 2.1 Promedia THX

USB Headphone DAC / Amp: Encore mDSD

USB Headphone DAC / Amp: LH Labs GO2Pro

 

As with any dual boot systems, it's finicky, but I've always liked to run OS X as a main OS. That being said, I need Windows for gaming (on Integrated which sucks..........) or WIn specific apps such as Access.

 

It's been a challenge to get it running, but she's running for now, after multiple reformats owing from hardware changes. XMP Profiles also crash the BIOS everytime so that's disabled too, and I'll have to manually overclock RAM.

 

Future Plans:

Case Swap to Lian Li PC-O11 Air when it comes out

Purchase appropriate fans for PC-O11 Air

RMA'ed GPU (MSI Gaming X Trio 1080 ti) for refund, will wait for Nvidia's 2018 model GPU

Purchase 8x Internal Port SAS RAID Controller to make dual OS capable RAID array

Purchase 8x960 GB Corsair Neutron XTi for a RAID 0 Array to serve as Mass Storage (who needs redundancy???)

Switch Seagate 7E8 8 TB HDD to Backup duties and install in Vantek USB 3.0 / eSATA enclosure

Explore RAM Disk Cache options for both OS X and Windows 10

[Roen]

Pics:

[Guest]

nice view!

[Roen]

4 minutes ago, Legendarypoet said:

nice view!

Ha.....unfortuntately, that's the test bench / build/work space / dinner table. The primary view is the wall.

[Khris]

that monitor is stunning

[Roen]

Anyone have any recommendation for 8 internal port SAS RAID Controllers with a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface?