/****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** * * BUILD START: 10-24-2011 * ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************/ Well, I'm excited to get started on my 3rd PC build in preparation for Battlefield 3. In 2002, I built this for BF1942 - ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe 478 Intel 875P ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel P4 - Prescott 3.2E - Transcend 1GB DDR 400 (PC 3200) - ATI 9800PRO 256MB (when ATI was a real contender before they were acquired by AMD) - Creative Labs SoundBlaster - WD Caviar 160GB - Thermalright XP-120 CPU Cooling Heatsink (Remember these bad boys?) Check out the meticulous wire management. It's as if they're not even there: In 2005, I built this for BF2 - DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert - AMD X2 4800+ (This was nearly $1000! AMD had the first dual core to market - they were consistently beating Intel! In a rush to catch up to AMD, Intel just sandwiched two dies together with an internal bridge and called it "dual-core" - it flopped. Boy have the tables turned since.) - Corsair TWINX2048-4400PRO 3-4-4-8 1T - BFG Nvidia 7800 GTX SLI - SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS - WD Raptor 74GB - Corsair liquid cooling kit (their first to market). A friend told me it reminded him of the scene in Platoon where the guy was shoving his guts back into his stomach after being hit by mortar frag. And now, six years later we have this: - ASUS P8P67 Pro Rev 3.1 - i7 2600K - Asus Nvidia 590 GTX Quad SLI - Corsair Dominators 8GB 1600MHz - Xonar Xense - OCZ Revo 3 120GB - Mountain Mods U2UFO - Liquid EK blocks/rad/res and Bitspower fittings After someresearch, the performance gains for the latest 990x did not justify the ridiculous $1K price tag. Every article and thread generally suggested to go with the i7 2600K and clock the hell out of it - and so that's what I plan on doing. I'm going to put focus of this build on two pillars - silence and bare essentials. This rig will be a dedicated gaming rig so I won't need any more storage beyond OCZ's Revo card. This will be nice... no SATA HDDs or SSDs in my case. I might even remove the optical all together after installing windows. It'll just be my essential components with a large capacity, super silent liquid cooling loop. UPDATE: So my first post is supposed to contain photos of my work in progress - it's not much now, but it's something: UPDATE: frozencpu.com shipment just arrived. The ziplock bag of various Bitspower compression fittings weighs like 15 pounds! There are 8 120mm Skythe Gentle Typhoon fans (hopefully I won't need to use all of it - less fans = less noise), 3 EK blocks, 2 EK rads, 1 EK res, 4L EK coolant, 1 D5 pump, and a partridge in a pear tree. My Mac appears to be getting jealous. UPDATE: Arg, sick of waiting. BF3 has already been out for three days. Need to get this build started. My GTX 590s just arrived. Case should be coming later this evening. Mobo on Saturday, sound card and mem on Monday. In the mean time I can start setting up my 30" Dell and putting the EK blocks on the 590s. UPDATE: Holychrist the 30 is huge - this should be fun. Someone posted that the Ergotron New-Flex was supposed to be able to hold the 30 despite the weight limitation, but they were wrong. It doesn't support the weight - but just barely. I put in an order for the Ergotron MX. In the mean time, the stock stand will have to do. UPDATE: Okay, I'm supposed to make this pile resemble a case. Why can't they just put it together for me? There's enough shrink wrap here to kill a small monk. Oooo love the black powder coating. This will be perfect for BF3! Wow, check out the bearing construction on these Gentle Typhoons. I spun it, and it's super smooth. Can't wait to try them. There we go, a proper motherboard that will work (hopefully) with my Revodrive. But I'm really psyched to use the auto-tuning overclocking feature - more time tuning = less BF3 playing time, and we all know we can't have that. Okay so assembling it wasn't that bad. What *was* bad was that I stayed in Friday night instead of hitting Hollywood for Halloween weekend. That's okay, I'll go out tonight. With great power comes great responsibility. Jesus Corsair really went all out on this PSU. I didn't know if I was opening a power supply or a Macy's gift bag. The BF3 rig needs a stand: Can't dry run on low light! Finally, my Corsair Dominators arrived, now I can test my system Dry run - yeh it booted! Time to install W7P on this baby Sorry boy, daddy can't play right now. Loaded RevoDrive drivers, and we are go! Blocks on! Let there be sound. The Xonar Xense package is absolutely sick. It comes packaged with Asus / Sennheiser co-branded PC350 and a chromed out soundcard which takes quarter inch jacks! Ergotron MX Desktop just came in - more room for gaming! Sennheisers and Bose need a home. What's missing here? BF3! Is there a "light-speed" shipping option? How sweet would that be? Mind as well tidy up the wires and tubing while I wait for my Bitspower pump adaptors to ship. Here's a look at the downstairs - plenty of breathing room when you have no need for SATA storage Alright, adaptors arrived. Fittings are now on pump Leak test - In Bitspower I Trust *gulp* Leak test passed! Phew. Peripherals in. Temps are looking good! Here's the upstairs PROJECT IS COMPLETE! BF3 GLORY. It looks and sounds AWESOME. /****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** * * AUDIO UPGRADE: 04-21-2013 * ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************/ St. Patty's Day 2013 Upgraded my audio from the Xonar Xense. I love the Xense, but it's time for me to move on to the Beyerdynamics DT 880 Pros 250 ohm with the Magni / Modi Schiit stack /****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** * * * New GPU's! The EVGA GTX 780 Hydro Copper SLI - It's time for BATTLEFIELD 4 * * ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************/ Well, at 2560x1600, the GTX 780 SLI's absolutely destroy BF3 (64/64 intense firefight choke points) and Bioshock Infinite. I'll be redeeming my free copy of Metro: Last Night and re-install FC3 to test it out there again too. I can tell you that running a 2600k on a P8P67 Pro board, the GTX 780 Hydro Copper SLI's have absolutely no problems with PCIe 2.0 performance at 2560x1600 60Hz. I play all of my games with VSync ON (because I don't like shitty gaming experiences), and it doesn't ever go below 60FPS.. ever. The arrival and unpacking - so much power in such a plain brown box. The angle shots. They are as long as my 590s... just oozing with cuda cores. Disconnecting the backside, and moving The Rig out to the middle of the room for easy swapping. Removed clear acrylic panels and assessing the best way to drain this thing. Awe yeah, using New Castle to cool my digestive system. 590's are out. It turns out that the original SLI compression fittings will not fit the Hydro Copper blocks since they blocks make the gap between the two connections narrower. Luckily I purchased SLI water block connectors during the original build, and one of them works! 780's are in!! I had to select a different SLI tubing path, but it works and it fits. Leak test passed... can't wait to fire these babies up! Firing up! And cleaned up my desk to focus more on gaming since I have very little time to do it - so when I do... I want to make sure it's intense. /****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** * * HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM: 07-03-2013 * ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************/ Been running Danger Den Dreamflex 1/2"ID x 3/4"OD blue uv tubing with EK Coolant Blue UV since Nov 2011 without flush. I upgraded my GPUs last month so I drained my loop, installed and connected the GPUs, and filled it back up. Upon starting the pump, I almost immediately noticed little flakes swirling around my res. I thought nothing of it, and left it alone. Yeah, guess what happened to me this past week? CPU all of sudden spiked to 95C on load for no reason. Causing all sorts of BSODs while gaming. Upon inspection, flow was completely stuck at CPU block. After Googling around for possible causes, plasticizer kept on popping up (it was the first I ever heard of it). This is my second water-cooling rig, and I never had to flush my previous rig that ran for 7 years (clear tubing from hardware store + distilled water & MCT-5 coolant additive). I bit the bullet proceeded to do a complete tear-down. I am shocked that any vendor selling PC water cooling components would allow such products to be released. As a result of plasticizer leeching from tubing and having not flushed my radiators prior to installing them, I am now having to RMA two cards (because I can't clean the GPU blocks without voiding the warranty), clean CPU block, and completely flush rads with soap + hot water w/ distilled water rinse. At the moment, I am completely rebuilding my loop (new Durelene tubing, distilled + silver only, new higher flow CPU block, and scrubbing every fitting). Here are some of my plasticizer buildup + possible radiator flakes, and what it did to my EK Supreme block. I hope everyone can learn from my mistake of using Danger Den Dreamflex blue UV tubing + EK coolant blue UV reactive (or anything of the sort). Don't use that combination unless you want this to happen to you: Severe plasticizer build up from faulty tubing Complete blockage from plasticizer and radiator flux Plasticizer samples from CPU block and tube This one I scraped off a single tube. I used these plasticizer samples to see what would dissolve them. Vinegar doesn't do anything to it. However, a de-greaser does dissolve it. I put a couple d drops of Arctic Thermal Material Remover on a small sample, and it immediately started breaking it down. I'd like to know what effect degreasers have on nickel, copper, rubber orings, and plastics. GPUs are blocked too. But, opening the GPU blocks voids the warranty so I RMA'd them both. EVGA swiftly shipped me a new pair of GTX 780 Hydro Coppers. Too bad I don't have a 4-way SLI board (and too bad 4-way doesn't scale well) Cleaned the EK Supreme HF blocks nickel top with lime juice soak and scrub + distilled water rinse BUT, after more thought I wanted a block with lower resistance, so I upgraded to the EK Supremacy Clean CSQ nickel top, which had a jet top with a much larger gap for high flow Ah, the legendary 2600K, cleaned and ready for the new block Thoroughly flushed both radiators with hot tap water and dish soap w/ distilled water rinse. I used a pond pump and a hollowed out Britta filter Redesigned my loop to reposition radiators between GPU and CPU for optimal cooling. Also added external flush routing for easy maintenance. Durelene clear tubing with Mayhem Pastel Sunset Yellow - black n' yellow. Looks great. Flow is high, temps are back to normal - (CPU: 32/62, GPUs: 28/42) External flush routing - turn the valve, and hook up to external pump for system flushing. Added aquarium pre-filter to reservoir to prevent plasticizer, flux, and oxidation plates from going into the blocks again. I gotta say, the Mayhem pastel yellow sunset just pops out of the black components - looks amazing. I didn't want to, but I had to... for Battlefield. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/24/battlefield_4_windows_7_vs_81_performance_review/ /****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** * * WHY IS MY MOUSE SO LAGGY?: 02-04-2014 * ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************/ So after upgrading to Windows 8.1 from 7, I noticed that my mouse is stuttering and lagging both on the desktop and in-game. It was so noticeable that spent two days researching all sorts of W8.1 mouse lag hot fixes, updated my bios (perhaps the USB chip doesn't have the latest firmware?), installed latest mobo drivers, etc. None of them worked. I was *positive* my Logitech MX Performance that was at the time, the best mouse you could buy, would last forever. It was the only mouse I ever needed... great for gaming, great for everything right? WRONG. The culprit? Mouse polling rate. The MX Performance polling rate was 125Hz. That seemed like plenty for me for a 1500DPI. It turns out that if you have a high resolution display (2K, 4K, etc), that's not even near enough. After a lengthy process of elimination, I decided to purchase a new mouse with a higher polling rate and higher DPI to test my theory. I went with the Logitech G700s (which is basically a badass version of the Performance MX). It has a polling rate of 1000Hz and 8200DPI... it's theoretically a 10x better performing mouse. In practice? It a 10x better performing mouse! EVERYTHING, and I do mean everything was much much smoother. No matter how quickly I try to twitch my mouse, it never missed a position. My in-game experience has improved DRASTICALLY. I even noticed it being much smoother than the Performance MX in Windows 7. Overall, very glad with the upgrade, and very glad my mouse stutter problems are solved. /****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** * * WHY IS MY MOUSE *STILL* LAGGY?: 09-17-2014 * ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************/ So believe it or not, the G700S started becoming unresponsive and stutter-y. At first I thought it was the 2.4Ghz receiver because I noticed that certain places on my desk it would be very responsive, but other places it would not. After several hours of research, it turns out that just because it's a laser mouse, and just because it'll work on "any" surface, doesn't mean it will work well on any surface. Far from it, on some surfaces, the precision is horrible. Sure it'll work, but the precision is so bad. After watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXNDxFbb4ZY Logitech tunes their mouses (mice?) lasers and optics, especially the G700S, on their gaming mouse pads. So I decided to purchase the Logitech G440 gaming mouse pad. That made an insane difference. The precision is SO EXACT it's like night and day. I wish I knew this when I purchased the mouse months ago. Gaming is so much better with the insane precision improvement.
FYI: You are not adhering to the worklog forum rules. Your first post must contain pictures and show work in progress.
Oh I'm so sorry. I should have read them before posting. Pics will come later this week, and I'll edit my first post to add them. Thanks for letting me know OKANG.
Yup, just checked the specs - up to 16GB actually: http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/160-SB-E679-K2.pdf
You're going to want to either drop that to 8GB or bump it up to 16GB. 12GB sets are designed for triple channel memory of the 1366 socket chips. Dual channel memory kits come in 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32GB sets. it will work, but you will be running in single channel if you use all 3 sticks.
Ack. You're so right. I was originally going to buy the X58 Classified, but then switched to the P67. They arrived at my door not even 10 minutes ago. Looks like I'll be sending these back. Thanks for letting me know. UPDATE: just ordered these - Corsair Memory 8 GB (2 x 4GB) Memory Kit for Intel Core i7 8 Dual Channel Kit 2000MHz (PC3 16000)
Good choice. That will do nicely. Good luck with the build. Too bad about the ram. Hopefully it won't take much effort to send it back.
Okay, so I had to return my EVGA P67 FTW because the OCZ RevoDrive 3 isn't compatible with any of its PCIe x4/x8/x16 slots! And since this will be my primary and only drive, I had to return the mobo, and replace it with the ASUS P8P67 Pro. And am I glad I did - the new UEFI for auto-tuning is amazing! I can't wait to try it out.
Sound and blocks are on. Sadly, I thought I could get away with replacing SLI-connectors with regular Bitspower compression fittings. Fail. It doesn't fit for three card slot spacing. Now I'm waiting on my SLI-connectors before I can do a wet run. Help me FrozenCPU-Kenobi, you're my only hope. UPDATE: I summoned my inner McGyver and MADE it fit. And it actually turned out pretty nice.
Mother EFFER! What the hell Bitspower?! This... http://www.frozencpu.com/products/11110/ex-tub-703/Bitspower_Matte_Black_Ultimate_G_14_Thread_12_ID_x_34_OD_Rotary_Compression_Fitting_BP-MBRCPF-CC5.html?tl=g30c409s1033 Does not fit this... http://www.frozencpu.com/products/12199/ex-pmp-122/Bitspower_D5_MCP655_Extreme_Pump_Mod_Top_V2_-_Acetal_BP-D5TOPP2EX-BK.html?tl=g30c107s156 Without this... http://www.frozencpu.com/products/11876/ex-tub-726/Bitspower_G38_to_IG14_Matte_Black_E-Adapter_BP-MBWP-C23.html?id=XoBbkgtn&mv_pc=153 This is what I get for assuming that 1/4" threads are the industry standard, especially amongst Bitspower products! Now I have to wait 3 days until $6 parts come in. *sighs and falls back into the chair*
That sucks that you missed it, but the description for the pump explicitly states that they ports are G3/8. But, I know how it is when you are excited about a build and just see something and grab it. Hope everything turns out well for your build.
I know. Read the description AFTER the fact. Too many assumptions on my end... just need to get'ER done!
OMG, UR RIG IS JUST SOOOOO awesome, congrats broooo don't listen to others haha, u have one of the most awesome bf3 rig on this forum(planet)
Yes! My Bitspower adaptors just arrived. Now I can leak test and overclock tonight, which means BF3 tomorrow. SWEET. Pics to come.
Okay learnings: 1. It is not possible to have the RevoDrive bandwidth at 4x if you are using the other 1xPCIe slot - which is what I'm using for the Xonar Xense card. You can only run it at 1x, and when you do that, there is quite literally a 4x negative difference. BUMMER. I just put in an order for 2 x OCZ vertex 3 120GB cards, and I''ll be returning the RevoDrive 3. The good thing is that they give more capacity for the same price as the 120GB RevoDrive 3. But now I have two SATA SSDs dangling around. Sigh. It's not the end of the world though. 2. Corsair AX1200 fan is the loudest component in the system. I'm going to tear it apart to replace the fan with a more silent one. 3. ASUS auto-tune over clock got me to 5Ghz Prime95 stable in 10 minutes. SWEET. 4. GTX 590 Quad SLI with the latest drivers are practically not overclock-able. I'll post in the graphics section about this. But this was supremely disappointing. I know all about the voltage lock and all that, but I cannot get even get it past 630 core 3420 mem on the 285.62 drivers (it won't even start 3DMark11) PICS have been appended to the first post. UPDATE: Temps are looking good - CPU 78 load / 42 idle, GPU - 28 idle / 41 load
Oh my god. Setting up OCZ Vertex 3's in RAID0 on the P8P67 is an enormous pain in the ass! I'm going to give it one more shot, and if it glitches out on me again, I'm going back to my RevoDrive. What the heck... I thought this was supposed to be pretty straight forward. Case in point - this is the guideline for just a SINGLE SSD: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...BC-for-OCZ-SSD&p=567558&viewfull=1#post567558 UPDATE: So I'm returning the Vertex SSDs. They are just too much of a pain in the ass to setup as a bootable RAID0 on the P2P67 board. They're going back in the box to be returned. The RevoDrive lives on! (It just works, and I like "just works").
Project is complete! Pics updated on first post. BF3 is AMAZING on it. Can't wait to try out other games like Skyrim and some driving game.
As mentioned this is a ballin' rig... In this photo, what's the 5.25" device above the DVD drive? Looks like USB headers on the back, or is that the fan controller/monitor?
Okay, so now that everything has been running. I am experiencing the Corsair AX1200 "buzzing" noise. I determined it was from the fan (because stopping the fan completely makes the noise go away). Is anyone else having this issue with the AX1200? I'm in discussions with Corsair for a replacement agreement.
Great looking machine! Quick question - the acrylic you have on the front of the Mountain Mods case covering the drive bays, is that custom or from Mountain Mods? I don't use any drives in those bays on mine and have been wanting to cover that with acrylic as well. Thanks! Great work!
Nice Rig, I have now built 4 high-end watercooling systems in the Mountain Mods rigs. I actually backed down on my new rigs now and use more conservative rigs. Still, I really like the MM cases. My main problem is that I don't have as much space for them and its a pain to carry to LAN parties. The one I designed for my friend uses the Duality case with quick connect fixtures. I don't know what life was like before the quick connects, so much easier to organize the cooling loops. I tend to get higher powered pumps in serial for them though to make up for the slight added resistance in the water loops.
(when ATI was a real contender before they were acquired by AMD) is that a joke? the AMD Radeon HD 6970 series really rocks.
Very nice system. What is the case you are using? It's the only thing I didn't see in your list of parts. Thanks for the great build pics and progress.
why did you go with the p8p67 pro? it is a great mb (i have one), but you are running two 590. why not something with nf200 chip?
some people are mad at them because they no longer care about having the fastest, single GPU card. strange people.
So much nostalgia. I remember my ATI Radeon 9700PRO. It was from the brand "Hercules", which was considered pretty darn descent at the time. Too bad they aren't that present anymore. Anyway, have fun with BF3. Also, any chance you can reupload those pics. I'm really interested .
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