My new high spec rig

Joseph

Building a new rig in about a fortnights time. Will post build log and pictures when it's completed.


Spec:
Corsair 1200W Power Supply
Corsair Obsidian 800D
Corsair Dominator GT 12GB DDR3 2000Mhz
Asus Rampage III Extreme
2x EVGA GTX 580 Super Clocked
Intel Core i7 970 Six Core
Sony DVD Writer
Asus Xonar Essence STX Soundcard
Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SSD
2TB Green Drive
12x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850 RPM Fans
3x Noctua NF-P14 FLX
Laing D5 Vario Pump
2x GTX 580 Waterblock
6x Hose Clamp
8x Bitspower 45 Degree Fitting
6x Bitspower Straight Fitting
XSPC 360 Radiator
XSPC 480 Radiator
EK-Supreme HF Full Nickel Universal CPU Block
GTX Cover Single Slot
Silver Anti Algae Kill Coil
XSPC Dual Reservoir for Laing D5
Tygon 19.1/12.7mm Antimicrobial Silver Tubing
3x 24" BenQ XL2410T LED, 3D, 120Hz Monitor
Dell 24" P2411H
2x Arctic Silver 5
Logitech G9X
Logitech Webcam C910
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Keyboard
SteelSeries SteelPad QCK Heavy
NZXT Sentry LXE
Sennheiser PC 360 Gaming Headset
SLx Gold 28035R
SLx Gold 28037R
2x BitFenix fan cable extension 90cm
BitFenix fan cable extension 60cm

Serephucus

Similar to my rig. Might I ask though, why have you gone with the overly-expensive six-core processor instead of a 2600K?

Joseph

Good question and something I've debated a good bit over. I think the six-core has become more viable given the reduction in price. Granted it doesn't overclock as well as the 2600K I think, although the more expensive option, it's worth it

Serephucus

Personally, I'd get the 2600K. Nothing really uses a hexa-core yet, and I doubt it will for a year or two. By the way, you have twelve fittings listed, but only six clamps. Are some of them compression or something?

Joseph

I have added an extra type of each fitting (all compression) just incase (first time watercooling), the clamps are also a precaution incase I have to use a standard fitting for something

Serephucus

Tip:

Install your watercooling loop as you would. Right before you start filling the loop, take everything out, and sit it on a desk or something, with the power connected. Fill, leak test, and bleed it outside of the case. It takes more work there and then, but believe me when I say you'll save yourself a lot of annoyance (and swearing. :P).

Joseph

What I was planning on doing is setting it up as you suggested, cleaning the components through with distilled water until no residue remains, setup loop outside case, leak test for 24 hr, re-setup inside case and leak test for another 24 hour

Serephucus

You can get rid of a 24-hour stint by not removing any of the connections when you take it out of the case. It's tricky to do, but as long as none of the connections come off, you're fine.

As regards rinsing, I'd recommend doing it with all of your components anyway, but the only one you reall have to pay attention to is the radiator. 99% of the time all the other components are perfectly fine.

Joseph

Thanks for the tip.

Yeah gonna give a quick rinse to all and a thorough rinse to rads.

Can you recommend somewhere to pick up large quantities of distilled water?

Serephucus

You'll probably need around 2-2.5L of water. I just wandered into my local chemist and asked if they had any. they sold me a 5L bottle for €5.60.

If you don't want to pay for it, or if you're just topping off your rig, you can make your own.

Get the biggest pot you have, and half fill it with water.
Get a bowl, and stick it in the pot. Make sure it floats.
Get the lid of the pot, and put it upside-down on the top.
Fill the lid with ice, and turn on the cooker to boild the water.

Water boils, evaporates, hits the lid filled with ice, condenses, drips from the lid into the bowl.

The two annoying things about this is that it can take quite a while to get enough, and you have to have a pretty damn big pot if you don't want to keep refilling it. On the plus-side, it's free (minus the ESB bill).

Joseph

Grand will pop to the chemist so, didn't think they'd have large bottles, not really bothered making it myself :P

Looking forward to building it now

Serephucus

Just take your time with it, and don't rush anything trying to get it done.

Oh. However long you think it'll take, odds are you'll be longer at it, so expect that.

Skerries

c'mon nobody's asked the obvious question?

how much?

Serephucus

5.5, ish? Not sure how much those monitors cost, that's about the only major difference between yours and mine, though I've done mine over a couple of years and quite a few upgrades, so I'm not sure.

Joseph

Close, about 6.2. I'm also building a home server and buying some networking equipment. Total is 6.7

Stainless_Steel

What's the fourth monitor for man?

Joseph

I do alot of web/computer work, moar monitors = moar multitasking. The reason the 4th monitor is different is because it will be mounted above my centre monitor and will connect seamlessly unlike the other monitors which have the buttons jutting out on the bottom

Serephucus

You're not going to run the monitors in portait mode?

I have a dual monitor setup myself, so I can't really game with it, but I would have thought three portrait monitors makes more sense. Then again, I suppose from a production stand-point they don't really.

Joseph

Had thought about doing portrait, but I guess theres nothing stopping me from changing my mind later on and trying portrait.

I think for gaming the wide view angle from having the monitors horizontal will be an advantage

Skerries

you should get some great fps on Minecraft with those

game4it70

Thats gonna be a very nice rig when its done.:D
Looking forward to seeing a build log too.

I have to disagree with buliding loop outside the case to leak test because you still will have to test when its all fitted into case.

Just a few reasons that i think it makes it not worth while.
It puts stress on connections while trying to fit it into case in one go.
You might still have to disconnect one or two parts just to get into the case which makes testing beforehand kinda a waste of time imo.
You would have to fit the blocks to both gpus and then try fit them without breaking them.Think of the weight of gpu/block and rads when full of water.
With your case i presume you will be passing the tubing through the gromets which unless your a magician it will mean having to diconnect something to allow you to pass tube through

Although if your a bit weary about it since its your fist time doing a loop i suppose connecting a few things together outside the case could help with confidence.


Have you planned the loop order yet?
I'm curious as to where the 360 and especially where the 480 rad are going to go.

Serephucus

game4it70 wrote: »

Thats gonna be a very nice rig when its done.:D
Looking forward to seeing a build log too.

I have to disagree with buliding loop outside the case to leak test because you still will have to test when its all fitted into case.

Just a few reasons that i think it makes it not worth while.
It puts stress on connections while trying to fit it into case in one go.
You might still have to disconnect one or two parts just to get into the case which makes testing beforehand kinda a waste of time imo.
You would have to fit the blocks to both gpus and then try fit them without breaking them.Think of the weight of gpu/block and rads when full of water.
With your case i presume you will be passing the tubing through the gromets which unless your a magician it will mean having to diconnect something to allow you to pass tube through

Although if your a bit weary about it since its your fist time doing a loop i suppose connecting a few things together outside the case could help with confidence.


Have you planned the loop order yet?
I'm curious as to where the 360 and especially where the 480 rad are going to go.

Have you watercooled before? Because most of what you're saying is wrong.

If he does it right, he won't put any more stress on the connections than the pump would (which is nothing in comparison to what they're designed for)

Opening one of the connections to get everything in the case would render the whole thing pointless, so that's not an option.

He won't have to leak test in the case. Well, not for 24 hours. I'd say watch it for an hour and you're good.

The blocks would be fitted to the GPUs outside the case. Trying to fit them on when the GPUs are already in the case would be... nightmarish. (It is possible, and I've done it, but it's really not something you want to do)

Both of those rads can fit internally (with modding), though that's a point: are either of your rads going to be external? If yes, what game4it said is rendered a bit more applicable. :P

game4it70

Serephucus wrote: »

Have you watercooled before? Because most of what you're saying is wrong.

If he does it right, he won't put any more stress on the connections than the pump would (which is nothing in comparison to what they're designed for)

Opening one of the connections to get everything in the case would render the whole thing pointless, so that's not an option.

He won't have to leak test in the case. Well, not for 24 hours. I'd say watch it for an hour and you're good.

The blocks would be fitted to the GPUs outside the case. Trying to fit them on when the GPUs are already in the case would be... nightmarish. (It is possible, and I've done it, but it's really not something you want to do)

Both of those rads can fit internally (with modding), though that's a point: are either of your rads going to be external? If yes, what game4it said is rendered a bit more applicable. :P

Yes i have done a couple of loops before.
I have built my loop on my desk while modding case and i cant see how its possible to move sli/xfire gpus with blocks,his res and pump combo,cpu block and two rads from ouside the case to inside without disconnecting anything (even without hose not having to be passed through anything)
Even if this is posible to do without messing it up,getting the right lenght of hose without it being to long or short and knowing if the bend radius is ok would be a pain imo.

Each to there own i suppose but for me i would rather build loop in the rig and leak test from there.

Serephucus

That's why I said for him to assemble it in the case first.

He would then take it out, fill it, test it, and bleed it, then put it back.

The in/out is a two person job, I'll give you that.

Joseph

I have one 360 mounted inside, and one 480 mounted onto the back. So I guess for the purpose of first time setup to get lengths right etc before taking it out to do a leak test I could just prop the 480 in some way that I don't have to feed it through the grommets

Tea_Bag

Deaddude wrote: »

I have one 360 mounted inside, and one 480 mounted onto the back. So I guess for the purpose of first time setup to get lengths right etc before taking it out to do a leak test I could just prop the 480 in some way that I don't have to feed it through the grommets

Where are you getting your monitors from OP, and how much are they setting you back?

heid

A fan controller for the 12x GT-AP15, good fans:)

Joseph

Getting 95% of my stuff from scan.co.uk

Monitors are about 300 euro each

Using the NZXT Sentry LXE fan controller for my fans

Tea_Bag

Deaddude wrote: »

Getting 95% of my stuff from scan.co.uk

Monitors are about 300 euro each

Using the NZXT Sentry LXE fan controller for my fans

Why'd you settle on those monitors just out of interets? im in the market for 1 or 2 and im just not settled on what to get yet. i keep leaning back to the LG W2363D because they're so damn cheap to do surround 3D on, and it offers all the features of the slightly more expensive ones. it also has the "THRU" motion tech, which gives it 0ms lag.

If money was no object, id get 3x Acer HN274H in a heartbeat, but at ~€500pp, i could barely afford 1, and i could almost get 3 of the LG's i mentioned earlyier, but they dont support HDMI 1.4a, or have the build in 3D vision kit. aaarg decisions decisions...

Joseph

Well, I did consider the LG (and I am in agreement with you about the Acer) but the BenQ monitor won it for me for the following reasons:

- It's one of only a couple of 3D LED monitors
- 2ms response
- Excellent ergonomic features (height adjust etc)

Also the reason I got the Dell was for above the centre monitor, it doesn't have anything jutting out below it

Joseph

Update
Have my current PC on sale on Adverts incase anyone is interested.

http://www.adverts.ie/633255

Joseph

Update
Ordering next week

Fluffy88

I'm just wondering.

You have a M/b that supports two SATA 6Gb/s drives but I don't see you using those interfaces in your build.
So if I'm right and your not using them, would you not see a nice jump in system performance if you got a SATAIII SSD instead of the SATAII that you have listed? And to even push for more power go for two 60Gb SSD's in RAID-0 to get even better performance?
From my reading, your Motherboard will support it and if you get two,
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/60gb-ocz-agility-3-ssd-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-2281-read-525mb-s-write-475mb-s-50k-iops
SSD's it's only another £40 over what your listed SSD is valued at on scan and would make some big differences.

Monotype

The Corsair force 3 is a 6Gbps drive.

Incidentally, weren't these the ones that were recalled last week? I'd be careful about buying these. I don't know if replacements were available... I think you should email scan or corsair.

Fluffy88

Sorry your right, the review I looked at listed it as SATA 3Gb/s, I think actually it didn't have force 3 so that was an oversight on my behalf, sorry

But the RAID-0 point still stands, on such a high end system it would add a nice bit to have two SSD's in RAID.

Joseph

Yes you're right I read that the corsair 120 gb force drives we're recalled, forgot to update the list but will probably will be going for the vertex 3 or vertex 3 max iops

djrichard

Hope its ok to jump into this thread. I see youve listed the pc 360 headphones and ASUS soundcard. Ive ordered the headset myself, will be here in about 4-5 days time. I am wondering if there will be a big difference if I bought a soundcard. Ive read many forums etc, but often its hard to get honest answers. Lots of people who think they know about things, are really just spouting off opinions that theyve read, and have not actually experienced for themselves. My mobo is the ASUS P8P67 Pro Rev B3, which apparently has good quality onboard sound. Have you tried listening to your headset connected directly to the onboard sound and then compared it to the sound from the soundcard? Could you do it for me if you have not done so already? The card costs about 135GBP and it would be good to know if there was a real genuine noticeable difference before potentially squandering cash.

I use my PC mainly for gaming and watching the odd movie, but I will most likely be using my speakers when movie watching, so its not that relevant.

Burgo

djrichard wrote: »

Hope its ok to jump into this thread. I see youve listed the pc 360 headphones and ASUS soundcard. Ive ordered the headset myself, will be here in about 4-5 days time. I am wondering if there will be a big difference if I bought a soundcard. Ive read many forums etc, but often its hard to get honest answers. Lots of people who think they know about things, are really just spouting off opinions that theyve read, and have not actually experienced for themselves. My mobo is the ASUS P8P67 Pro Rev B3, which apparently has good quality onboard sound. Have you tried listening to your headset connected directly to the onboard sound and then compared it to the sound from the soundcard? Could you do it for me if you have not done so already? The card costs about 135GBP and it would be good to know if there was a real genuine noticeable difference before potentially squandering cash.

I use my PC mainly for gaming and watching the odd movie, but I will most likely be using my speakers when movie watching, so its not that relevant.

Why not wait for your headset to arrive and see what you think? if it doesn't sound to your liking then you can always buy a soundcard.


Anyway,dunno what the onboard sounds like, but people i know a lot of people have been raving about the xonar dg

Ta tu aerach

Pretty average rig to be fair; certainly nothing to write home about.

Tea_Bag

Ta tu aerach wrote: »

Pretty average rig to be fair; certainly nothing to write home about.

Good point. Very informative.

Joseph

Hey

I haven't had a chance to use it yet, it's been taking me quite awhile to get everything setup.

The reason I went for a soundcard for that headset is that a powered amp on a soundcard will give much better sound on the headphones

Going to post new topic with build log, pics etc in the next week or so

djrichard

HI, thanks for the replies.

Knock on the door this morning "cant be Amazon, they are not due for a few days yet?" I jumped up looked out the window and there was the An Post van! Woohoo!!!!

Headset is so comfortable and the build quality is exceptional. The flex in it is great, Ive had a few rigid headsets in the past that cracked despite being treated very carefully.

Changed a few settings in my Realtek HD Audio soundcard, downloaded Queens album in FLAC and watched a few clips of bluray movies. In particular, that operatic singing scene in The Fifht Element. Sound quality is incredible, detailed and completely in control. There is less bass than I expected, though I had read that many times in reviews. Not played any games on it yet.

I have to get an amp, I understood that as its 50ohm instead opf the 150ohm of the 350's. that it might not need an amp. I think it will. Its nowhere near loud enough. I like the sound to be blasting. I have everything set to maximum, but I just have a feeling it should feel more driven than this, I dont get the impression its being pushed.

djrichard

Its almost loud enough when playing FLAC recordings, and fairly loud during gaming. Its too low in movies though, tried playing different movies, all high quality blurays using different media players.

I dont know if my ears have become accustomed to having a lot of bass through using subwoofers, but there is a distinct lack of bass. I can feel it, when its there its very precise and I can still hear all the other noises perfectly, its just not thumping my ears the way I hoped. Hmmm I think I might have to buy myself an expensive soundcard with a headphone amp.