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Nephelim · ‎08-21-2013

Hello RoG forum, long time lurker first time poster. To make a long story short, lost my old computer in firedamage. Not much salvageble except a PSU and 2 SSDs. So after the insurance company gave me some money I started planning a new build.
So mainly some input on the parts would be appretiated, I'm also planning on doing my first watercooling, going for a dual loop configuration, over ambitous perhaps, but im fairly confident i could pull it off.
It will be used mainly for overclocking and gaming with an eyefinity setup of 3 screens at 5040x1650.

Im going for a obsidian 900d case and each loop will be including 1x240 rad and 1x480 rads, swifthech 655 pump and liquid fusion reservoirs. The CPU will be i7 4930k and if there will will be a new board from RoG else RIVE. Ram undecided but leaning towards corsair dominators.
GPU wise I want 2 matix hd7970 platinums in crossfire and 2 SSDs in raid-0.

I know the matrix cards run hot and causes artifacts, EK also has waterblocks for them wich some people reported fixing the problem. Would they still be good to get? Would it also be worth waiting for the 8xxx series and having the price drop on 7xxx-series?
I dont intend on going trifire or quad, would adding a soundcard steal to many lanes?

The old PSU is a chiftec BPS-1200, i read alot about this beeing a bad PSU in general and thought about switching for an corsair 1200i but read alot about this having coil-whine, beeing sound sensetive should I look for another brand or is it only a bad batch?

I would like to go crystal link fittings but will start with soft tubing, is it posible to use alot of 90degree fittings on both reservoirs and maybe attach 2 90degree fitting on top of eachother to get as many clean lines as possible? (I'm a neat freak). Thinking having a pump shoot right into a rad and the a 90 degree fitting to make the tube line straight for going directly to lets say gpu if that gives you and impression on how I would want it.

Hmm thats all I can recall for now, and thoughts and constructive critisism is appretiated 🙂

HiVizMan · ‎08-21-2013

Pretty good set up from the PC hardware point of view.

My advice to you is this, go reference HD7970 if you are water cooling. You will not see any difference in performance between them and any other after market cards. You will clock them to the same ceiling level. The cooler is going to be discarded for water so why pay for the cooler.

The case is big and you will have to be reasonably creative to fit 4 rads in total even in such a big case.

The rest of the WC debate I will leave to others to engage with.

To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

Smiki007 · ‎08-21-2013

I agree with Viz, save you money and go for reference HD 7970. You can OC them at the same speed as the Matrix with no problem specially with WB. I've done the same thing, bought two GTX 780 reference and paired them with EK WB and OCd to 1020MHz Base Clock (on stock voltages).

Always look beyond the limits...

Zka17 · ‎08-21-2013

Regarding the Matrix HD7970s, I have three of them and all of them are working perfectly with their stock coolers and EK blocks... I saw a lot of complaints about them, but I have to say that some of those were related tot he users, not to the cards itself... - however, I can not exclude some bad cards either...

Those Matrix cards with their stock cooler have a very nice bling factor, not sure if I ever saw an another card like them... but, as the previous posts stated, their performance isn't so much higher than the reference cards... - you pretty much have to decide if you want that bling factor for a higher price or the performance is enough for you...

Also, as far as I know, these cards are not produced anymore and they were not made in very high numbers... that means that whatever you can get now are leftovers from RMAs or used cards... - higher chance to get defective ones without the possibility to change them...

Nephelim · ‎08-21-2013

I did originaly plan for the bling factor, then I got the great idea to WC them so then the bling will go away yes. My OCD has also been tingeling with there only beeing one waterblock available for the matrix wich does not match up with the rest of the blocks. There are alot of shops here in sweden still carying them at only around at a small cost diffrence from reference ones. But if the ones left are RMA ones, then I dont like it as much either, hmmm...

What exactly was the issue with the matrix cards, did it ever get resolved?

Thanks for the fast replies so far everyone.

Do anyone have any info about the coilwhine from the corsair ax1200i aswell that would be apretiated. I dont want to stick with the chieftec if its generally considerd a bad PSU. spending 2k on a build and powering it with a toaster etc.

Zka17 · ‎08-22-2013

Coil whine in a Corsair PSU?! Hm... I never heard about... - I knew that some OCZ PSU's does that, but not others...

Anyhow, I would not keep a PSU which makes coil whine...

HiVizMan · ‎08-22-2013

Zka have heard about that coil whine too. I would just go with the best if you can afford it. Seasonic for the win.

To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

Zka17 · ‎08-22-2013

Well, maybe I just didn't tried enough AX series PSUs then...

+1 for the Seasonic!

Nephelim · ‎09-04-2013

Instead of starting a new thread I thought I'd post another question here.

As stated i'm going for the 900d case, and I want the bottom compartment filled with one 480 rad and one 240 rad both with push / pull and I started worrying about the width. The EK XTX series is 64mm thick, if you add 2 corsair SP120 silent fans thats another 50mm (25mm each fan). Questions as follows:

1, will they fit and tubing possible?
2, Will it be a problem making a sandwich of it? two of the fans on 480 will pass to the 240 and out as exhaust.
3, The EK XT seriers offers a smaller width, but how much of a difference will i be looking at in terms of cooling?

Im not going to chase world records, so a difference on 1-2 degrees isn't a problem for me, but if its 10... thats another deal.

Zka17 · ‎09-04-2013

Have you looked at the Alphacool rads? They do have several thickness size, pretty much all of them with leading performance in their category...

some advice needed