Project Thief - CaseLabs TX10-D Dual Workstation/Gaming Build - Gulftown and SB-E

[stren]

Alright - another diversion to clean up the odds and ends - well I got some packages to help with that:



Inside a box..... is another box:



And inside - the opposite of a CaseLabs case - cheap design, cheap steel, cheap manufacturing:



Despite knowing how badly the edges were finished I still managed to cut myself!



Mounting the old workstation board:



Now let's see what's come in from the egg:



The PSU for that mATX build I did (those photos were slightly out of order), another ssd (because 7 isn't enough) and a cheapo gpu for the 4u case:



Passive GPU is passive, crappy sas card is crappy:



Got those straight to straight sata cables too:



BTW if you haven't voted on sleeve design - please do!

[stren]

So Primochill came through on delivering me the replacement tube. They also sent some extras in order to sponsor the build and I guess future builds because there are multiple colors:



two dual gigabit cards came in for the network upgrades:



Fitted one to this box:



Then mounted that box in our rack in the office:



Thought you might like to see our main server - it's a supermicro barebones 4u box that's capable of fitting two gulftown xeons, however we only have one hex cpu fitted right now:



You can see they built a plastic shroud around the ram and cpu to force the air through the heatsinks. Anyway back to the real project. Sanded down another radiator:



Masked it up:



Ready to go:



Primed:

[sate200]

top rig!!! beautiful project

[stren]

top rig!!! beautiful project

Thanks

[stren]

While I've been busy working on this, my sponsors have been busy with new products. Detroit Thermo has come out with a new block called the "sniper", it's a tiny bit more restrictive but is supposed to have better temps:



I'm hoping to do an apples to apples comparison with the rasa/raystorm/ek hf supreme/5Noz/Sniper

Also Monsoon Free came out with some sexy new rotary fittings:



Including a special version with optional end plugs:

Yes the other version has Light Ports that let you install several different types of plugs. An LED plug that has super bright 15 degree LED's that make your tube glow sort of like a fiber optic cable or neon tube. A temp probe plug. A shorty version of the silver bullets, and of course our standard Monsoon plug. The plugs are available in all 10 Monsoon colors. The Light Port Rotaries will sell for a buck or two more depending on where resellers price them.

Actually the LED plugs don't come in the two color form shown below, but you get the idea.

Excited to use these, but it gives me more decisions to make as to which color to use lol.


Quick update on my project:

While I was procrastinating sleeving/custom wire harnesses for the power supply I figured I'd work on getting the radiators up and running for the gaming rig - I mounted the AP16s to the 140mm adapters:



Then got ready to resolder and sleve:



First time sleeving so did a pretty uneven job:



Decided to move that to the back side of the radiator and now that I had my system down, did a much better job on the front side:



Both sides done, but still awaitng fan headers:



Mounted back in the case:

[stren]

double post

[stren]

Been slow on the updates because work has been kicking my behind. Anyway the 580 3gb cards came in. I know some of you may say why not get 680's (or even 670's), well these were a lot cheaper (awesome 2nd hand deal) and will perform plenty well enough to max out 2560x1600 @ 60Hz. With my 480's I never had a problem running out of processing power, but I did run out of vram, so I think these will be plenty until I upgrade the monitors Once I upgrade then I'm sure I can justify a few GK110s



As you can see two of the backplates are 480 ones:



So I had to switch the cards around so that the 580 one was at the bottom of the stack. I had to take them apart anyway to check for nickel problems and gunk. I'd be more concerned if I wasn't suspecting that I'll change GPUs again before the build is finished. Here they are rearranged and plugged in:



The 120 radiator is for the motherboard only loop:



I'm still working out how to route the tubing for optimal performance without making it look like a mess - should I come out the side or go out the top?





Although the board has two loops on it, it will really look like it has three as there will be a 560 rad in between the cpu and gpu:



Motherboard loop routed with temporary fittings - I thought this would look better. I don't really like the way it looks - too busy and crowded, I need to work out a way to keep the tube out the way more. Maybe a memory block would help:

[Menthol]

Where did you go, got any update on your progress?

[stren]

Where did you go, got any update on your progress?

Yes sorry, I'd been super busy with work and then went on vacation, but I'll be making an update in one min (quite literally cause I've already written it )

[stren]

Ok so a quick recap -not much had been done the last few weeks as I was busy with work and then went on a brief vacation. Now I'm back the build will continue, however I'll also be doing various things in between including a review of Rich Chomiczewski aka Spotswood's new tech station. I'll also be doing a CPU waterblock round up which will include:

DT Sniper
DT 5Noz
EK Supremacy
EK Supreme HF
XSPC Raystorm
XSPC Rasa
MIPS Iceforce HF

Thanks to DT, EK and Indigo Xtreme for sponsoring the blocks and TIM, thanks to Rich for sponsoring the tech station which will be used as the test bench :thumb::thumb:

So without further ado, let's get back to some pictures

The tech station arrived from Rich in a fairly small box:



However there was still plenty of room for packing:



The case comes "mostly" assembled, here's the motherboard tray:



that mounts above the base which includes mounts for DVD drives, HDs and SSDs:



Here's the rest of the frame:



And all the screws and accessories, interestingly Rich includes an allen driver, as well as an allen key, and a torx key also



The frame makes use of extruded aluminum with a pattern that makes it easy to use screws and bolts/nuts to easily customize the setup. Here's one vertical strut getting slid onto the base:



There is then a hole allowing that screw to be tightened. Before you know it all 4 are up: