Build COMPLETED - Blueberry Pi

[DailyProcrastinator]

I will try and keep this short, but this is the progression of my main system (dubbed Blueberry Pi) over the last 3 years. Last night marks the last time I will touch this system until AMD release 7nm CPU's, that fingers crossed will be compatible with my X470 motherboard. 

I’m going to start this post with glam shots of my finished build and then for those of you that like reading novels I will go into to progression of this system. 
Yesterday I swapped my EVGA 750w P2 for an 850W P2 and added an extra exhaust fan that I already had. But here is the current parts list:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3GHz 8-Core Processor	$299.99 @ Newegg Canada
CPU Cooler	CRYORIG - R1 Universal 76.0 CFM CPU Cooler	$116.99 @ Amazon Canada
Motherboard	Asus - ROG Crosshair VII Hero (Wi-Fi) ATX AM4 Motherboard	$359.99 @ Mike's Computer Shop
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance LED 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$396.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Western Digital - Blue 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$99.99 @ Amazon Canada
Storage	Western Digital - Blue 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$99.99 @ Amazon Canada
Storage	Western Digital - Black 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$209.75 @ Vuugo
Storage	Seagate - FireCuda 2TB 2.5" 5400RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive	$117.99 @ Amazon Canada
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$73.75 @ Vuugo
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$73.75 @ Vuugo
Video Card	EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB SC Black Edition Video Card	$1024.99 @ Newegg Canada
Case	Fractal Design - Meshify C TG ATX Mid Tower Case	$109.99 @ Newegg Canada
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$199.99 @ Amazon Canada
Operating System	Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit	$167.50 @ Vuugo
Case Fan	Corsair - ML120 Pro LED Blue 75.0 CFM 120mm Fan	$28.78 @ Amazon Canada
Case Fan	Corsair - ML120 Pro LED Blue 75.0 CFM 120mm Fan	$28.78 @ Amazon Canada
Case Fan	Corsair - ML120 Pro LED Blue 75.0 CFM 120mm Fan	$28.78 @ Amazon Canada
Case Fan	Corsair - ML120 Pro LED Blue 75.0 CFM 120mm Fan	$28.78 @ Amazon Canada
Case Fan	Corsair - ML140 Pro LED 97.0 CFM 140mm Fan	$29.99 @ Amazon Canada
Case Fan	Corsair - ML140 Pro LED 97.0 CFM 140mm Fan	$29.99 @ Amazon Canada
Other	BitFenix Magnetic LED-Strip Cable (BFA-MAG-30BK15-RP)	$34.99 @ Memory Express
Other	EVGA 100-CU-1300-B9 Power Supply Cable Set	$118.00 @ Amazon Canada
Other	Cryorig R1 Customod Cover - Blue	$16.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$3695.74
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-18 15:03 EDT-0400

 

And the pics of the finished build:

 

[DailyProcrastinator]

I’ve never really been into RGB, even if had it I would just set it to static blue anyways. But I am really happy with the turnout, it’s taken me 3 years to stop changing my mind on what parts to change next. As is I won’t be changing anything for a while.

[DailyProcrastinator]

[DailyProcrastinator]

Some in the dark shots.

[DVA]

Man you filled those storage bays like a lady of the night. 

 

Great looking build, congrats on the long process being completed!

[DailyProcrastinator]

Now, how Blueberry Pi came to be.

Before this build, I had an i7-3770k system for many years, but the i7-6700k is what got me hooked on building PCs. I definitely won the silicon lottery and have been chasing that high ever since. I got my first CB score of over 1000 by OC'ing to 5.0GHz, done so by cranking my voltage and borrowing my brothers 360mm AIO. It was not usable for everyday computing, so I had to dial it back to 4.9GHz, but for a 6700k this was rare. Since then I've been building one computer after another. I will make posts for those builds soon as well.

 

This build was never for gaming (I do game though) but was primely used for AutoCAD, video editing with Adobe Premiere Pro, and at the time some light coding. As stated above originally this system had an i7-6700k (I still have this CPU in my ITX system), an EVGA GTX 960 FTW ACX 3.0, 32GB of RED (ewww) G.Skill RAM, and an  Asus Z170 Sabertooth Mark 1 TUF motherboard. This is all in a Thermaltake piece of sh!t case.

Side note: I recently sold that MB and it was a sad day. 

In this picture above I had a different motherboard that I borrowed from my bother until my Sabertooth Mark 1 arrived, I probably only had the system in this state for a week.

 

Worth mentioning that I replaced that crapy Thermaltake PSU in like 4 weeks, it was an upgraded PSU from my previous 3770k system, but I wanted non-mustard cables and the blue electric taped cables weren’t cutting it. I future proofed and went for the EVGA 750w P2. I also added the Cooler Master Pro 240 AIO, blue Corsair AF/SP fans, and a blue LED light strip a few weeks later. The painting of my motherboard also happened here. It was then that I HAD CAUGHT THE BLUE FEVER. (If ya’ll want pics of that MB painting process I may have them, I’d have to look)

 

The next big update was the Asus GTX 980Ti Strix OC (hated that it was red), 32GB of Corsair Vengeance LED RAM (this was waaaaaay before RGB RAM lol, and when RAM was significantly cheaper), some STUPID expensive Corsair ML fans, and the Thermaltake F31 Suppressor TG. I also ordered the PSU shroud because that was all the rage in cases 2 years ago, and I got to flex my 2 SSD's hard (they were expensive back then).

Pro tip, intake fans at the bottom are not good in dusty rooms, even with a fine mesh dust filter.

 

Next upgrade was to a black and blue NZXT S340 Elite, sadly I cannot find the photos, but all the hardware remained the same other than the GPU. My big boii Strix OC interfered with the 240mm Cooler Master AIO that had to be mounted at the front of the S340, so I traded my bother for his dual fan EVGA GTX 980Ti SC. That EVGA GPU went on to go in my first ITX build.

 

Sadly, I again did not take pictures of the system when I moved back into the Thermaltake F31 Suppressor and upgraded to the EVGA GTX 1080 SC2 iCX.

 

From there I moved the motherboard and CPU into some rando cheap Cooler Master case and started using it as a server (I have a lot of data). 
 

[DailyProcrastinator]

The big changes came summer 2017 when AMD launched Ryzen, to say I was excited was an understatement. At the time I was working on complex 3D designs and renderings. And after spending half a year in San Francisco at a Dev Bootcamp I was building web applications on the regular. This is something that more cores and threads would help me with greatly.

 

Below is the first look at that system when I purchased the R7 1700 and changed my cooler to the Cryorig R1. I also got my first true M.2 NVME SSD. This was on the Asus Crosshair VI Hero Wi-Fi AC motherboard. And to tie it all together I got blue braided EVGA cables, and blue Customod Cryorig R1 covers, completing dat blue look. 

 

But very soon after I did some light moding to my case, so I was able to fit three ML140 fans upfront. The F31 Suppressor really suppresses airflow (big surprise hey) so me being the airflow freak I am needed more big fans up front. This upgrade required me to once again spend a STUPID amount on two ML140 and one ML120 fans. But the result looked as the kids would say ’fire AF’.

[DailyProcrastinator]

Sadly, my Ryzen days were short-lived, about a month in I was being ‘a good PC enthusiast’ and updated my Bios (mostly due to software causing hardware limitations in the early days of Ryzen Bios updates made a huge difference) to the latest from Asus, do I ever regret that. I immediately experienced stability issues, I had to put all Bios settings at default meaning no OC or running my RAM at 2666MHz. But the worst was yet to come. The Bios turned out to be a bad Beta version and within 2 days of my update Asus notified me to immediately update to the previous version. But try as I could I was STUCK on that Bios version. I tried USB flashback, doing so through the bios prompts, using EZ Flash included with Asus software. Nothing worked and soon my system stability decayed to never being able to post into Windows at all.

 

Long story short I had an 8-month battle with Asus, and I got fed up. I bought a new Crosshair VII Hero Wi-Fi (why I got another Asus board at the time still baffles me, I was PISSED) and was again able to use my R7 1700 once again! This was a happy day and about 2 weeks after using it I decided I needed a new case. 

 

The Thermaltake F31 felt way to big and I did not need as many 3.5” hard drives slots anymore with the addition of my server. If you look at the pics above I had enough room to nearly fit a whole ITX system beside my fan ‘wall’. So, I was on the fence for a while with the fancy all TG cases but ultimately the three things I cared about were 1. Airflow, 2. Dust filtration, and 3. Compactness. Nothing quite satisfied everything I wanted until along came the Meshify C TG, this was the PERFECT Case. Although I had to give up my triple ML140 ‘wall’ of air I am super happy with this case, it’s the best case I have owned. When I walked it to my local Memory Express I noticed a sale on some GTX 1080Ti’s, so naturally, I left with an EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC Black Edition and my case that I spent a month choosing on.

This was earlier this summer before I decided to add another ML120 fan I already had (don’t know who’s idea that was) and the upgrade to the EVGA 850W P2.

 

I don’t know that for the past 3 years if a 4-month period ever went by where I didn’t change/add a part. I’ve only shown about half of what I’ve done as there were MANY small upgrades made between the larger updates. But I can now finally say that I am done swapping parts on this system. Although I do have future plans for it. For now, I will wait, I am happy with the result.

To those of you that read all this, I commend you. If you have any questions or comments fire away!
 

 

[DailyProcrastinator]

12 minutes ago, DVA said:

Man you filled those storage bays like a lady of the night. 

 

Great looking build, congrats on the long process being completed!

Thanks haha, yeah shes fully packed. I have my SSD's in a raid 0 Config as well as the hard drives. There's not a single storage spot left empty in this build.

[Derrk]

this is sweet. Got me itching to do another build

[DailyProcrastinator]

6 minutes ago, Derrk said:

this is sweet. Got me itching to do another build

Hahaha, this is only ONE build I've done, I'll post the others sometime soon. I'm looking at an ITX build in the Silverstone SG13 next. Or a TUF themed build similar to this dope build by @TekRed

 

[Derrk]

Just now, JM21 said:

Hahaha, this is only ONE build I've done, I'll post the others sometime soon. I'm looking at an ITX build in the Silverstone SG13 next. Or a TUF themed build similar to this dope build 

 

Right, but i feel like moving cases sorta makes it a new build. I had an ITX build i took to college because it was portable. After a few years when i got a real place to live, i upgraded to an ATX, and ugraded cpu/mobo/gpu. The rest of the components were pretty much the same at that time, and i upgraded real slowly - piece by piece

 

ITXs are a lot of fun though. I built mine in a silverstone RVZ01. I still have it but its just collecting dust now

[DailyProcrastinator]

1 minute ago, Derrk said:

Right, but i feel like moving cases sorta makes it a new build. I had an ITX build i took to college because it was portable. After a few years when i got a real place to live, i upgraded to an ATX, and ugraded cpu/mobo/gpu. The rest of the components were pretty much the same at that time, and i upgraded real slowly - piece by piece

 

ITXs are a lot of fun though. I built mine in a silverstone RVZ01. I still have it but its just collecting dust now

Yeah man, I changed the case for this system 4 times, it's a cheap way to satisfy the hunger of PC building. Even though nothing about this build ended up being cheap haha, I swapped so many parts. But case swaps are great!

 

Yeah, I also have ITX systems from when I was in university, I still use mine for work, It's in the Thermaltake Core V1 Snow Edition. I love TIX systems, you can fit so much in such a small footprint.

[Derrk]

34 minutes ago, JM21 said:

Yeah man, I changed the case for this system 4 times, it's a cheap way to satisfy the hunger of PC building. Even though nothing about this build ended up being cheap haha, I swapped so many parts. But case swaps are great!

 

Yeah, I also have ITX systems from when I was in university, I still use mine for work, It's in the Thermaltake Core V1 Snow Edition. I love TIX systems, you can fit so much in such a small footprint.

exactly. I could bring it onto a plane as carry-on, and it took up like no space in my car. But as my hunger for pc building grew, so did my obsession with thermals & thermodynamics. My thermals were fine inside the ITX case, but i wanted to cool it further

[DailyProcrastinator]

1 minute ago, Derrk said:

exactly. I could bring it onto a plane as carry-on, and it took up like no space in my car. But as my hunger for pc building grew, so did my obsession with thermals & thermodynamics. My thermals were fine inside the ITX case, but i wanted to cool it further

You sound like me hahahaha, I'm overly obsessed with airflow and thermals. 

[TekRed]

Quote

Hahaha, this is only ONE build I've done, I'll post the others sometime soon. I'm looking at an ITX build in the Silverstone SG13 next. Or a TUF themed build similar to this dope build by @TekRed

 

 Thank you! working on a new project now so keep an eye out

[DailyProcrastinator]

7 hours ago, TekRed said:

 

 Thank you! working on a new project now so keep an eye out

Awesome looking forward to it!