Anti's Silverstone build log.

Anti

The case is now sitting on my living room floor, and waiting for me to molest it

I have to go and overclock a friends pc first, then the building shall commence. I will do it in as much detail as possible, covering all aspects of the build.

Keep them peeled.

uberpixie

Excelent, I want too see how that Thermalright Ultra 120mm Extreme works out for you, may just be buying it in a while.

Then again I spotted this today: Thermalright Ultima90
http://anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3068

Smaller, lighter and close to the same cooling performance.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

Anti

Sorry for the delay in pics lads, as you know boards was down last night, due to the NAS server dying.

Now Where to start.....

The final specs of the build (so far ) are:

Intel C2D E6600 lapped ( by nibble )
Abit In9 Fatal1ty 650i Motherboard ( cheers robertr)
Thermaltake Ultra 120 Extreme with 1600rpm Scythe S-flex
4gb Geil Black Dragon 2x2GB ddr2-800
EVGA 8800GTX
Creative X-fi Platinum Fatal1fy
2 x 500gb 16mb Samsung SpinPoints
2 x x36gb WD Raptors ( Cheers L31mr0d )
Silverstone Tj-07 W/ Window
Corsair 620w hx PSU
Plextor PX800A

Straight out of the box, the case is packaged very well. And the box is absolutly huuuuuge.





As you can see the attention to detail on the window is amazing, no sharp jagged edges, and it has been rounded off for a better look.



Initially i was unhappy about the 2 back 92mm fans. But they are completly silent, and move a decent ammount of air.



Now, there are the tools i find a great help when putting together any pc. The powered screwdriver is great as it is low powered to it will not round off any screws, yet powerfull enough to make a good seal. The second set is a adjustable screwdriver and socket set, mainly used for when there is not enough spare for the electric srewdriver and to put the motherboard stand off's in. The snips come in very handy later on when cable tidying comes into play





As you can see it is a fairly large case it's self, almost identican in size to the Lian-Li v2000 series case.



Down the bottom of the case are 2 hdd bays, each holding 3 hdd's each, both are quick release using a thumb screw. And are cooled using 2 very silent 4pin 120mm silverstone fans. The fans have a long 4pin connector on them, so it makes it each to keep them tidy. The only thing i think should have been included in the package is a few rubber grommets for some anti-vibration reduction.



Inside the case there are two compartments, one for the hdd's and psu + a redundant psu. And the top part being for everything else. There are plents of large holes between the two to run cables, and the edges are covered by hard plastic to stop the cables rubbing off the metal and possibly cutting.



Now, i thought the best thing to do would be to remove the motherboard tray and fit the board and heatsink to make life so much easier.



Oh how wrong was i !! I forgot how large the TT ultra 120 extreme is. Its about 1 - 1 1/2 cm to large to fit in when trying to slide the motherboard tray in.



Never the less the mobo I/0 shield fitted in with no problems at all, and is nice and secure.

Anti

So i had to put the Motherboard in the normal way, Which was a pain in the arse to get a few of the screws into the motherboard as the TT ultra 120 is fo large, and the 4 fans around the cpu means i couldnt get one screw in. Luckily i had a friend in hand who has wrists like a little girl ( thanks Garth_V )



As you can see the motherboard fits in fine, and there is plenty of room all around it.



Next was the Hdd cages, they are really easy to work with and slide in and out with no hassle at all. 4 screws in each of the 4 drives and there were securly held im place.



As you can see the power cable comes right out the other side making it easy to connect up.



Connecting up the hdds is a walk in the park compared to some cases, there is alot of room to tunnel them and make it look neat.



I used cable ties to keep all the cables ontop of each other, to mainly make it look as nice as possible. As there is nothing worse then a case with sata cables all over the place. As you can see it turned out pretty well.



Next it was time to hide the motherboard power cables. The 8 pin which goes right by the psu was easy, as i could route it under the the graphics and sound cards as the cable is nice and long.





Fitting the power supply was incredibly easy, i was expecting to break out the dremel to make room, but it slided in nicely. All the cables are more then long enough. And its completly silent.





The final job was connecting everything up, and it was a easy job in the case. The cables look pretty tidy for now. But i think ill try and route some of them under the motherboard at some point. All in all the build went great, no problems at all, and it is virtually silent.

Anti

Some of you are probably wondering why i have put the dvd drive down so low. The reason for this is because to cable the ide cable tidy, i pushed it through the side of the 5 1/2" bays to keep the cable as hidden as possible. And i plan to put two of these:



In the top 6 bays to blow more air into the case. I will end up dremeling the hdd cage out of them to get better airflow too.

And for those wondering about the ram and what chip's it uses, here is a pic of the ram.



Thanks To Garth_V and Spanky for the cable tidying help, and other ideas.

Cheers lads, i owe ye a pint.

Kinetic^

Tbh I'm wondering why I'm not in the pics!!!

It's a great build though.

uberpixie

Like the case, great layout, seems to be a nice case to build in.

Good job on the cables, very neat.

I see the Ultra 120mm is huge then!

How are you finding it for temps?

Anti

Yeah case is a joy to work with. Really nice.

The temps have actually dropped since i moved it from the cardboard box into the silverstone tj-07 quite dramitically. Im hitting 42c load after about 10 hours of running the smp folding@home client. Which is just a pure cpu stress test, maxing both cores to 100%. And im running 1.5v through it @ 3.6. I managed to 3.8ghz last night, but i want to play around a bit more to make sure she is fully stable before i take enother jump. Especially as the nb on this mobo is hitting 80c Ill see if i can use a 40mm fan from my xbox360 to cool it a little bit.

L31mr0d

looking good. Man that case makes that ATX mobo look like its mATX. There's loads of headroom there. The 8800GTX even looks short lol. The extra space for a second PSU is nice also. It looks more like a flamboyent P190 :P

Pity you didn't get the black PCB GTX. I know its only aesthetics but it would of matched in the red/black colour scheme of the XFI, mobo, fans, PSU and case.

uberpixie

Anti wrote:

Yeah case is a joy to work with. Really nice.

The temps have actually dropped since i moved it from the cardboard box into the silverstone tj-07 quite dramitically. Im hitting 42c load after about 10 hours of running the smp folding@home client. Which is just a pure cpu stress test, maxing both cores to 100%. And im running 1.5v through it @ 3.6. I managed to 3.8ghz last night, but i want to play around a bit more to make sure she is fully stable before i take enother jump. Especially as the nb on this mobo is hitting 80c Ill see if i can use a 40mm fan from my xbox360 to cool it a little bit.

So the ultra 120mm extrem is worth it then :-)

You can pickup 40mm Akasa blue led fans in maplins, they are quite bright, not too loud and it will save you gutting your Xbox!:eek:

Anti

Yeah its a shame it wasnt a black pcb card but oh well And yeah it seems the ultra 120 was worth it. Might try a better fan on it to see if it has any effects.

awhir

nice build gona be selling the case soon :)lol

i still say dremel for the power connection

Anti

Nah, ill re do the cables in a few days, ill put the power under the mobo, and the front panel connectors... Well i dunno what todo with them. Maybe black tape like you said before.

awhir

ya black tape is good but takes awhile to get no bumps in the tape.

get some of this stuf if you dremel and then ur in bussiness : here

nibble

It's a nice case, but you need blue UV sleeving and some UV cathodes:D . And if you really want a black PCB card I'll swap you my 8800GTS:p .

Anti

Im not sure if ill go with any lights, I have 3 blue tri cool fans atm, but i think it wilol wreck the colour scheme. Blue, red and black. I have a few uv cathodes, might throw them in for a small bit. But after my last case that reminds me of miami night life i think ill give it a rest for a while.

CSSource God

Hi Anti, nice case. I have this case and all i can say is that its awesome and nothing touches it for looks. I am waiting on my new G card so i'll post you some pics. I have the silverstone fan on the front and I would defo recommend it as the case has no front intake fan. But in general it has loads of 120mm fans. Got the side panel laser cut by kustompc uk and looks great:) I wud recommend a fan controller also.

g5hn710m4xpdwy

I could see some white cathodes looking very nice in there.
Nice case though. I would buy one if I had the money:rolleyes:

Anti

Thanks for all the comments guys. I really appreciate it

nesf

Very pretty. I think it'd look good with little to no lighting inside. A bit like one of those diagrams you get in kids books showing the insides of a machine or something.