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ROGBot
Hi All,
Firstly, I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Will from Sydney, Australia. Been building PCs since my early years and am also into modifying cars, or prety much anything that can be.
Anyway, I've been out of the game for a long time and using laptops (and modding my car), now the car is finished, I decided it was time to stretch my geek legs again and see what I could come up with.
The Hardware:
After much research online, I was shocked to see just how advanced overclocking has gotten these days, with unlocked multipliers and a plethora of overclocking options on top end motherboards, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to control myself once the system was complete. For this reason, I decided to just go all out, rather than make compromises which I knew I would be kicking myself about later on.
I decided on the following hardware for the build:
Case: Corsair 800D
CPU: Intel i7 3960x
RAM: 16GB 4x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz
Graphics: 2 x EVGA GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2 (SLI)
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
PSU: Silverstone Strider 1.5KW
HDD1: 256GB Crucial M4 SSD
HDD2: Seagate 1.5TB SATA-II 7200RPM
Optical Drive: 12X Blu-ray Burner
I also decided on the following accessories:
Fan controller: Aerocool Touch 2000
Card Reader: Rosewill 40-in-one
Case Fans: Noiseblocker
Monitor: Asus VG278 - 27inch - 120Hz 3D.
Headphones: Astro A40 with 4.8 Mixamp Wireless system
Mouse: R.A.T.9
Keyboard: Logitech G27
Then I switched my focus to cooling. I knew I wanted to go with water cooling, but wasn't really sure where to start....
The build:
As I knew this was going to be a very expensive build, warranty was important. As the PC is primarily for business use, I was starting to think that maybe I was better of having the PC built by an expert for me, rather than tackling it myself. Mostly because i wasn't confident with water cooling. A bit of a cop out I know, but I've built close to 50 PCs in the past and to be honest, I was happy to pay someone else to do the bulk of the work for me.
I started to do some research and decided to go with Origin PC, which in retrospect was a good decision.
I discussed with them the options and they were able to order in all the parts i wanted (many of them were already options by default on their 'Genesis' configuration. I discussed the cooling options with their team in the USA and decided to go with a single loop, twin radiator setup, with a 320mm radiator before the CPU, and a 120mm radiator before the graphics cards. I decided to go with Koolance connectors, pump and resevoir and with UV reactive piping and liquid.
As I knew I would be happy overclocking this system myself, I opted for the system to be configured with a low voltage overclock of 4.5GHZ, this would give me a good starting point.
I had them install minimal case lighting as I knew I would be comfortable with modifying the case to suit my need sonce it arrived. And just like that the order was placed.
Let the modding begin:
Once the PC arrived, I went to work adding UV lighting. I wanted to be certain that none of the lights were visible through the case window. Only the 'glow' of the reactive parts inside. I found some great looking 30cm UV LED strips on eBay so I went ahead and ordered 4 of these.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/140628575524
These proved to be perfect as I could manouver them easily and stick them straight on to the areas I desired within the case to get a nice even spread of UV light, without them being visible.
I also wasn't happy with the lower portion of the case being visible as the PSU isn't exactly attractive, so I started to experiment with wasy that I could block off the bottom portion of the case neatly. I decided the best way was going to be to use a sheet of acryllic to blank it out, but that was going to look boring, then I remembered that a mate of mine has access to a laser cutter, so I drew up a design with the PC name "TACHYON" in Illustrator, and had him cut the panel for me.
Once the panel was cut with my design, I needed to find a way to have the design illuminate evenly, while matching the rest of the case. To achieve this, I decided to Mount a second piece of clear acryllic behind the main panel, and paint the rear surface of the acryllic white. I then mounted my two remaining UV LED strips so that they would shine through the clear portion of the acryllic, and reflect off the white backing. it worked perfectly!
It was then time to set to work tidying up the cabling a little bit. Origin had already done a very good job with the cable management, so all I needed to do was conceal the wiring for my lighting, plus shorten a few of the power cables which were coiled up behind the side panel. I made sure I used black cabling for all of my lighting to minimse any ugly reflections inside the case. BOOOORING, but the end result was worth it.
So here's some pictures of the result......
Overclocking and results:
CPU:
I decided to run the PC at it's Origin Shipped spec of 4.5GHz on all 6 cores @ VCORE 1.4V for the first few weeks, just to let everything settle. Origin stress tests their systems for 48 hours non stop before shipping to be absolutely sure the system is stable.
I immediately knew I had made the right choice with my cooling solution when I saw that under idle conditions, the CPU and graphics cards all run at around 35C at an ambient temperature of 25C and the PC itself is very quiet.
Load up the graphics cards at their default voltage and clock speeds, and GPU temps climb to around 46C, and the CPU temp maxes out at around 57C with core temps around 65C under 100% stress test load. All well within their limits.
Once I was satisfied that everything was running smoothly, it was time to begin the overclocking process. I started out by watching some of the Asus videos on Youtube. I'm sure many of you have seen JJ's videos. They are fantastic. It looked to me from what i saw that for an average to good 3960x processor, I should be able to get around 4.8GHz with a VCORE voltage of around 1.42V. So I went ahead and configured my BIOS. I also adjusted the Load Line Calibration to ensure that there wouldn't be any droop under load (remembering my days overclokcing the P4C chips).
She booted and was perfectly stabe after 2 hours of stress testing. Best of all, the temps weren't really any higher than they were at 4.5GHz - 1.4V. So I continued to lower the voltage to find the lowest stable voltage at 4.8GHz. I found this to be 1.39VCORE which I was thrilled about.
So at 4.8GHz, I was well within the safe VCORE limits of the CPU, and my temps were still maxing out under stress test conditions at around 65C. SWEET!
I then decided to push for 5.0GHz, unfortunately, this was less successful. After many days of testing, I found that the lowest stable VCORE for 5GHz was 1.5V. At this voltage my core temps were in the mid 70s, and considering the minimal performance edge between 5GHz and 4.8GHz, I decided 4.8GHz was the sweet spot.
GPUs:
My initial impression was that there was really no point in overclocking the graphics cards, as they were already running all my games maxed out at at least 80FPS. However, given that I have a 120Hz monitor, I decided to give it a go. Nothing to lose considering my temps were so low! This cas confirmed when I tried to play Battlefield 3 in 3D maxed out and was getting around 40FPS. time to overclock!
My Hydro Copper 2 GTX 580s shipped with a default Core clock of 772MHz and RAM clock of 2000MHz. By upping the voltage to 1.15V, I was able to achieve a core clock of 937MHz with a RAM clock of 2500MHz. however, increasing the RAm clock made little to no difference, so I returned it to default.
At this level, my temps were only pushing 60 degrees under gaming conditions ( I dont do Furmark because I don't think it's a true representation of 'stable'). Any more past that and i wasn't really seeing any real world improvements, so I decided to leave it there. At least for now.
with these settings, I was able to achieve the following results:
3D Mark 2011: 14423
3D Mark Vantage: 50663
wPrime 32M: 3.933 sec
wPrime 1042M: 108.217 sec
In the real world, I can play every game I've tried completely maxed out at 100+ FPS (where FPS over 60HZ is supported of course). In 3D mode, my frame rate doesn't go below 80FPS in most games (DIRT3, Mass Effect 3, COD MW3. In BF3 I'm getting about 50FPS in 3D mode with everything maxed out.
The PC boots in around 15 seconds (once past POST) and Photoshop and other programs load so fast you bearly see the splash screen.
I'll continue to update this post as I make changes and upgrades.
Hope you've enjoyed the read and please feel free to hit me up with any questions you might have about the build.
Cheers,
Will
Firstly, I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Will from Sydney, Australia. Been building PCs since my early years and am also into modifying cars, or prety much anything that can be.
Anyway, I've been out of the game for a long time and using laptops (and modding my car), now the car is finished, I decided it was time to stretch my geek legs again and see what I could come up with.
The Hardware:
After much research online, I was shocked to see just how advanced overclocking has gotten these days, with unlocked multipliers and a plethora of overclocking options on top end motherboards, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to control myself once the system was complete. For this reason, I decided to just go all out, rather than make compromises which I knew I would be kicking myself about later on.
I decided on the following hardware for the build:
Case: Corsair 800D
CPU: Intel i7 3960x
RAM: 16GB 4x4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz
Graphics: 2 x EVGA GTX 580 Hydro Copper 2 (SLI)
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
PSU: Silverstone Strider 1.5KW
HDD1: 256GB Crucial M4 SSD
HDD2: Seagate 1.5TB SATA-II 7200RPM
Optical Drive: 12X Blu-ray Burner
I also decided on the following accessories:
Fan controller: Aerocool Touch 2000
Card Reader: Rosewill 40-in-one
Case Fans: Noiseblocker
Monitor: Asus VG278 - 27inch - 120Hz 3D.
Headphones: Astro A40 with 4.8 Mixamp Wireless system
Mouse: R.A.T.9
Keyboard: Logitech G27
Then I switched my focus to cooling. I knew I wanted to go with water cooling, but wasn't really sure where to start....
The build:
As I knew this was going to be a very expensive build, warranty was important. As the PC is primarily for business use, I was starting to think that maybe I was better of having the PC built by an expert for me, rather than tackling it myself. Mostly because i wasn't confident with water cooling. A bit of a cop out I know, but I've built close to 50 PCs in the past and to be honest, I was happy to pay someone else to do the bulk of the work for me.
I started to do some research and decided to go with Origin PC, which in retrospect was a good decision.
I discussed with them the options and they were able to order in all the parts i wanted (many of them were already options by default on their 'Genesis' configuration. I discussed the cooling options with their team in the USA and decided to go with a single loop, twin radiator setup, with a 320mm radiator before the CPU, and a 120mm radiator before the graphics cards. I decided to go with Koolance connectors, pump and resevoir and with UV reactive piping and liquid.
As I knew I would be happy overclocking this system myself, I opted for the system to be configured with a low voltage overclock of 4.5GHZ, this would give me a good starting point.
I had them install minimal case lighting as I knew I would be comfortable with modifying the case to suit my need sonce it arrived. And just like that the order was placed.
Let the modding begin:
Once the PC arrived, I went to work adding UV lighting. I wanted to be certain that none of the lights were visible through the case window. Only the 'glow' of the reactive parts inside. I found some great looking 30cm UV LED strips on eBay so I went ahead and ordered 4 of these.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/140628575524
These proved to be perfect as I could manouver them easily and stick them straight on to the areas I desired within the case to get a nice even spread of UV light, without them being visible.
I also wasn't happy with the lower portion of the case being visible as the PSU isn't exactly attractive, so I started to experiment with wasy that I could block off the bottom portion of the case neatly. I decided the best way was going to be to use a sheet of acryllic to blank it out, but that was going to look boring, then I remembered that a mate of mine has access to a laser cutter, so I drew up a design with the PC name "TACHYON" in Illustrator, and had him cut the panel for me.
Once the panel was cut with my design, I needed to find a way to have the design illuminate evenly, while matching the rest of the case. To achieve this, I decided to Mount a second piece of clear acryllic behind the main panel, and paint the rear surface of the acryllic white. I then mounted my two remaining UV LED strips so that they would shine through the clear portion of the acryllic, and reflect off the white backing. it worked perfectly!
It was then time to set to work tidying up the cabling a little bit. Origin had already done a very good job with the cable management, so all I needed to do was conceal the wiring for my lighting, plus shorten a few of the power cables which were coiled up behind the side panel. I made sure I used black cabling for all of my lighting to minimse any ugly reflections inside the case. BOOOORING, but the end result was worth it.
So here's some pictures of the result......
Overclocking and results:
CPU:
I decided to run the PC at it's Origin Shipped spec of 4.5GHz on all 6 cores @ VCORE 1.4V for the first few weeks, just to let everything settle. Origin stress tests their systems for 48 hours non stop before shipping to be absolutely sure the system is stable.
I immediately knew I had made the right choice with my cooling solution when I saw that under idle conditions, the CPU and graphics cards all run at around 35C at an ambient temperature of 25C and the PC itself is very quiet.
Load up the graphics cards at their default voltage and clock speeds, and GPU temps climb to around 46C, and the CPU temp maxes out at around 57C with core temps around 65C under 100% stress test load. All well within their limits.
Once I was satisfied that everything was running smoothly, it was time to begin the overclocking process. I started out by watching some of the Asus videos on Youtube. I'm sure many of you have seen JJ's videos. They are fantastic. It looked to me from what i saw that for an average to good 3960x processor, I should be able to get around 4.8GHz with a VCORE voltage of around 1.42V. So I went ahead and configured my BIOS. I also adjusted the Load Line Calibration to ensure that there wouldn't be any droop under load (remembering my days overclokcing the P4C chips).
She booted and was perfectly stabe after 2 hours of stress testing. Best of all, the temps weren't really any higher than they were at 4.5GHz - 1.4V. So I continued to lower the voltage to find the lowest stable voltage at 4.8GHz. I found this to be 1.39VCORE which I was thrilled about.
So at 4.8GHz, I was well within the safe VCORE limits of the CPU, and my temps were still maxing out under stress test conditions at around 65C. SWEET!
I then decided to push for 5.0GHz, unfortunately, this was less successful. After many days of testing, I found that the lowest stable VCORE for 5GHz was 1.5V. At this voltage my core temps were in the mid 70s, and considering the minimal performance edge between 5GHz and 4.8GHz, I decided 4.8GHz was the sweet spot.
GPUs:
My initial impression was that there was really no point in overclocking the graphics cards, as they were already running all my games maxed out at at least 80FPS. However, given that I have a 120Hz monitor, I decided to give it a go. Nothing to lose considering my temps were so low! This cas confirmed when I tried to play Battlefield 3 in 3D maxed out and was getting around 40FPS. time to overclock!
My Hydro Copper 2 GTX 580s shipped with a default Core clock of 772MHz and RAM clock of 2000MHz. By upping the voltage to 1.15V, I was able to achieve a core clock of 937MHz with a RAM clock of 2500MHz. however, increasing the RAm clock made little to no difference, so I returned it to default.
At this level, my temps were only pushing 60 degrees under gaming conditions ( I dont do Furmark because I don't think it's a true representation of 'stable'). Any more past that and i wasn't really seeing any real world improvements, so I decided to leave it there. At least for now.
with these settings, I was able to achieve the following results:
3D Mark 2011: 14423
3D Mark Vantage: 50663
wPrime 32M: 3.933 sec
wPrime 1042M: 108.217 sec
In the real world, I can play every game I've tried completely maxed out at 100+ FPS (where FPS over 60HZ is supported of course). In 3D mode, my frame rate doesn't go below 80FPS in most games (DIRT3, Mass Effect 3, COD MW3. In BF3 I'm getting about 50FPS in 3D mode with everything maxed out.
The PC boots in around 15 seconds (once past POST) and Photoshop and other programs load so fast you bearly see the splash screen.
I'll continue to update this post as I make changes and upgrades.
Hope you've enjoyed the read and please feel free to hit me up with any questions you might have about the build.
Cheers,
Will
Heres some results from tonights benching sessions.
12-16th fastest in the world in it's category!!
12-16th fastest in the world in it's category!!
It's just me, or these pictures are too dark? Sentinel, would you mind to blow up the brightness on them? Maybe take some pictures in good light conditions, please? More details on this build would be interesting...
Here's a few more shots, showing more of the cooling system, and the case in a lit room.
