Corsair 250D build

So my current setup is using a Tecnofront Hardwaredock, which is awesome, but goddamned massive. Decided to try out an ITX system and in the process decided to forgo water cooling to get an upgrade from my GTX 780 to a 980ti. So I did


Intel 4790K @ 4.4GHz
[Strike=a]Gigabyte GA-Z97N-Wifi[/s] Asus Z97I-Plus
G.skill Sniper 2x8GB DDR3 [strike=a]1600[/s] 2400 CAS11
MSI GTX 980 Ti Armor 2x @ 1405/4000
Samsung 850 [strike=a]Pro 128GB[/s] Evo 1TB
[Strike=a]Intel SSD 730 480GB
Samsung 640GB 2.5"[/s]
Samsung DVD-RW/Blu ray
Intel 7260 AC Wifi
Seasonic X-650 Gold
Noctua NH-L12
Corsair 250DD
Dell U3415W
Dell P1912H x2
Razer Deathadder Chroma
WASD Code 104 with Cherry MX Clear
Corsair Audio SP2500
Corsair HS1 headset

Welcome to the mini world
Down sizing seems to be your trend now

I like challenges, definitely more difficult to go small than big

The case should arrive today! Cooler arriving Monday, GPU and RAM should arrive Tuesday, and the motherboard should arrive Thursday. Wish it would get here sooner but oh well

A great case. I had the same cpu and board in mine with a evga 980ti. Got some pretty killer framer ates with it.

Yeah, I'm hoping the GPU is a good clocker. But even if it isn't, its a really good bump from a 780, though the 780 is one of the best clockers at 1335mhz.

Case arrived today. Not quite as small as I'd expected, but still pretty damned small!

I love my 250D build. Don't think I'll ever go back to a tower. My specs are similar, except I opted for a 4690k/H100i, AX760i and no DVD. This thing runs beautifully. Hope you enjoy yours!

I hear good things about this case, but it's 28 liters or thereabouts. Just 2 liters smaller than the micro-ATX Temjin TJ08-e!

Not as blasphemous to call this "small" as it is to call, say, the Prodigy ITX case "small..." but close.

But hey downsizing is downsizing, welcome to the new obsession.

I think that Corsair purposely made it larger so that you can fit basically any GPU and a single AND double radiator, so it really needs that extra space

I was originally planning on using the Corsair as well, but I would have trouble finding somewhere to put it. It still a possiblilty, but I'm currently leaning towards the Phanteks Enthoo iTX, mainly due to the width.
Look forward to your usual level of photography when you get around to posting pics of the finished system. Should be easier than an aquarium, unless you are making your own lights for this as well

Yeah, I've got plenty of room for the footprint of the 250D, my current bench station is MUCH larger.It also houses a crap load of components and two 360mm radiators, but who is counting

The case will be in the same room as the tank, so I will have to get pics while its daylight so the lights don't interfere too much lol

I've done two 250D builds. It is larger than you would think but like others said it's great since it fits full size components. Last one I did was a 4690k/H55/Fury X/AX1200. Fit perfect. I also love how it's filtered everywhere since I have the Fury X and H55 pulling air in.

Gahh. Got my Z97N-Wifi motherboard in yesterday. The CPU socket cover came off in shipping and bounced around and damaged some pins. Got a refund for it and ordered an Asus Z97I-Plus.

Also, after playing with the MSI 980 ti a bit, I'm now wanting to go water on it, too. Gahhhh! I've also been looking at hard tubing all morning. Very dangerous stuff lol.

That is the only thing I have disliked about the Intel boards since they started the Core i-series... the fiddly CPU sockets. Trying to fix bend pins in the cpu's (when the pins were a bigger to begin with) was bad enough. I have managed to straighten a few pins here and there to get boards working again, but not something I'd advise.

The sockets really aren't too horrible, this is the first... well, second time I've had an issue with one. The first was when I used an evaporative cooler that caused the temperature to drop too far below ambient and condensated under the CPU. Water dripped and it went POP and the pins looked like a little explosion had went off lol

Cheeptech said:

That is the only thing I have disliked about the Intel boards since they started the Core i-series... the fiddly CPU sockets. Trying to fix bend pins in the cpu's (when the pins were a bigger to begin with) was bad enough. I have managed to straighten a few pins here and there to get boards working again, but not something I'd advise.

Click to expand...

Well the CPU sockets are recessed a bit, though, so normally the pins are protected a bit better during transportation. CPUs are more often ordered in tray or bulk packaging, and in quite a few cases they are the more expensive components as compared to the board, so removing the pins from them makes sense, they are just way less susceptible to damage there.
Also, with the elongated contact pads on LGA, you get a larger contact area, which results in slightly higher current ratings and higher signal integrity, so better performance and potentially higher overvolting potential.

There's a good reason why even AMD switched to LGA in the server market a long time ago. PGA is exclusively used on AMD consumer sockets by now. Maybe we'll see them switch at some point, too.

I know why it was done, was just commenting that the fiddly nature of the socket is the only thing that I dislike about the current setup. The improvements it bring more than make up for that tiny little issue I have

Well, dicks. The motherboard I got in today was sold with 'no accessories', but it was missing the VRM heatsink and the Wifi chip!! I was like WTF, those aren't accessories! So I emailed the seller on Amazon and they said to send pics, so I did. I then finished the install of the board, because seriously was fucking done with it, and booted it up and in the UEFI it says 'PCH version: H97'. Then I realized that they had sent me the completely wrong motherboard. Just when I was about to email that to them, they emailed me saying that they sent the wrong board altogether and that I could keep this one for the inconvenience. So now I have a spare Asus H97I-Plus lol.

I took some pics, but I'll post them later. Fallout 4'ing now

GPU is pretty, but the cooler is insufficient. Stock clocks, no extra voltage, it hits thermal wall of 83C at 80% fan, clock speed only hits 1291MHz, and is loud as shit. Going to attempt to afro-engineer the DirectCU II cooler from my 780 onto it, it looks like the mount holes are the same between the two, so as long as I can get the shim height correct, it should work well and cool it down MUCH more. The fans are different, though, so it will require splitting and cutting the cables to do it right.









GT AP-14. Unfortunately they rub on the mesh guard on that side of the case, so I had to remove the mesh.










Currently only running the CPU at stock (so 4.1GHz on all cores) with 1.16v at load and the GPU at stock with 110% power and when gaming I am having to use headphones and put the cooler at 100% to keep the GPU below 80C. But Fallout 4 is amazing


Since I am running the CPU at stock (and thinking I don't really need much more than that) I don't know if I'll swap out the motherboard for the Z97I-Plus or just leave the H97I-Plus in place. There is really no difference between the two that applies to an ITX build except the VRM heatsink, but I have a bunch of little copper sinks I can put on them to cool them a bit.

Here is my 250 Delta:








Enjoy it, these things are awesome

So my GPU doesn't have the best cooling. In the 250D with the fans pushing in, at all stock settings it would reach 83C and would keep clock speed at like 1291MHz. Still a good clock speed, but the GPU begs for more! So I edited the BIOS to change the TDP and power limit to 300w (was 235w for TDP and 250w for power limit at 100%, 275w at 110%) and thermal throttle point to 88C instead of 83C. I was able to get the following clock speed without adding voltage:




Not great. Don't want it running that hot, either, and it was loud as fuck. Then I figured I'd try turning the three case fans to pushing out instead of pushing in. Holy hell, that made a world of difference. Changed nothing in Afterburner.




Score! Now let's see where I can get it to

GPU topped out stable at 1405MHz core and 8GHz RAM at 1.180v. Modified the BIOS with these clocks and I'm enjoying a stable experience now.

This morning I opened a little envelope I got yesterday and it was my new RAM, G.Skill Sniper 2400MHz DDR3, so I decided to go ahead and swap out the motherboard and get the system back up and running how it should. I also changed the TIM on the CPU die to Gelid Extreme, I think it had MX4 on it before.

Got everything all put back together, and maybe later today I will get my OC put back on the CPU. Had a screaming baby as soon as I was almost done putting the system back together, so didn't really have time to mess with it.

I bought a 1TB Samsung 850 Evo yesterday, so once that arrives, it will be replacing my 128GB 850 pro boot drive, Intel 480GB 730 for games and Lightroom, and a Samsung 640GB HDD for misc storage. should drop my idle wattage to ~60 now

looks good!

Fiasco with the 850 Evo from eBay. Seller has like 7 or 8 positive feedback, relatively new account, but was willing to take a chance, everybody has to start somewhere. Only later did I realize that it was 7 positive, with several negatives in the past six months.

I get a message a few minutes after I paid from the seller saying this:
"Hi, thank you for purchasing the item. In order to ship the item, please leave a positive feedback as its required for me to gain feedback therefore I can have access to the money. Your order will be delivered on or before Wed Nov 25 2015. Thanks again."

I told them to pound sand, that's not how ebay works. You get feedback once I receive the item and it is in the condition described.

They reply with "Oh okay, we will still process the order, as I stated as the estimate delivery time is on or before Wed Nov 25, hope to receive feedback by then. Thanks."

That was early Saturday. As of yesterday morning, still no shipment notification or tracking info. I message them and ask if it's been shipped. They reply with: "Hi, sorry for late response. First of all, I deeply apologize that we cannot make it to ship out to you. On Monday the supplier messed up their own warehouse therefore they cannot send any item out. May I refund you plus with another $10 as my apologies? I accept the loss but to build up my reputation and to keep the customer happy, so I hope you will accept the offer. I'm looking forward to hear back from you."

FUCK THAT. Bitch thinks they can pay me $10 to leave them positive feedback for an item they may or may not have ever had. NOPE.

Got a refund from them and bought another for $303, new, and the guy had me the tracking number within an hour.