Andre's Z77 Personal Rig

hello again everyone,

today i'm excited to say that i have officially moved to Z77 and i will be doing a new project log for this build since it is a whole new platform and and most of the performance related hardware for this build will be all new.

here are the specifications of what i have now. (specs are current as of April 6, 2013)


Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 650D

Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K

Motherboard: MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower

Memory: 16GB Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 2133 MHz

Graphics: MSI Radeon 7950 Twin Frozr

SSD: Samsung 840 Series 250GB

Storage: 3TB Internal

Power Supply: Corsair AX850

Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

Fans: Noctua NF-P12's

Fan Control: Lamptron FC6 (removed)

Lighting: NZXT Sleeved LED Kit (removed)


I am starting to strip down the old build now. I will have updates with more pictures as I go. Here are some pictures to start with.


IMG_1479_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1483_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1482_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1497_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_1374 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1403 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1410 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1396 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Looks very nice, get it running

nice specs mate...
looking forward to this build!
i love the look of the mpower

Update 1

so i have an update on the build progress


IMG_1502_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



some fresh zip ties and cable anchors

IMG_1503_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


i always like to have some video of tom's running when i work on a system


IMG_1504_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


pulling out the old system for disassembly


IMG_1505_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1508_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1510_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


last shot of the old cable management

IMG_1512_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


the old cables from the front panel and some from the fan controller hidden up in the roof. still now 100% sure if i will install the fan controller again but i do sort of like the control and i was able to get it very neat except for the annoying molex which is the only thing i need a molex for. i would like to get rig of the molex all together


IMG_1514_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


some of the bits that will be going into the new build

IMG_1518_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1521_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


sabertooth x58 board , still a favorite looks wise!


IMG_1524_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


i like to keep a rag or something on top of the power supply when i work to make sure nothing falls into the grille of the psu


IMG_1525_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_1526_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


some last shots of the sabertooth


IMG_1528_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1529_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


still a great chip today, overclocked amazingly well.


IMG_1530_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1531_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1532_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


you could move this one back and forth just by barely touching it


IMG_1533_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1534_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1535_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1536_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr





now some shots of the new cpu and board


IMG_1537_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1539_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


temp kingston ram. i love the shade of blue, but it doesnt match anything unfortunately.


IMG_1540_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1541_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1542_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1543_small by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




Will update again with more progress as I go!

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

everything is looking sweet. man its gonna be a bugger replacing the ram with such a huge heatsink. It just towers over everything! O_O lol Keeping an eye on this one!

Looks great so far but I almost had a cow when I saw that huge cooler on there
I've gotten too used to seeing liquid coolers on this forum lol Thanks though, I am better able to envision my upcoming project (minus the gigantic cooler)

nice progress mate... keep up the good work

Epic! But your i7 920 build would've been fine still

Bon appetit xD

Nice log so Far Mate!

epeets said:

everything is looking sweet. man its gonna be a bugger replacing the ram with such a huge heatsink. It just towers over everything! O_O lol Keeping an eye on this one!

Click to expand...

thanks! update coming soon once i upload some more pictures! luckily i prefer low profile memory like the kingston stuff that is in there so there is about 12mm of space between the top of the memory and the cooler so its enough space to slide it out and in. the kingston stuff is running at 2133mhz fine on the new board though so it should be fine for a bit.

Bang said:

Looks great so far but I almost had a cow when I saw that huge cooler on there
I've gotten too used to seeing liquid coolers on this forum lol Thanks though, I am better able to envision my upcoming project (minus the gigantic cooler)

Click to expand...

personally i prefer a good air cooler over a closed liquid system, not really fussed on the h100 type stuff at all really. the ones i've seen have had a noisy pump whereas the nh-d14 is near silent.

CPMFW said:

nice progress mate... keep up the good work

Click to expand...

Thanks!

AverageNinja said:

Epic! But your i7 920 build would've been fine still

Click to expand...

920 is definitely still a capable chip but it was bottlenecking the 7950 and i've been wanting a change for a while now!

my sister will be using the 920 now, we've sold her amd stuff.

rossi94 said:

Bon appetit xD

Click to expand...

The Orange One said:

Nice log so Far Mate!

Click to expand...

thanks man! i got another update coming from last nights progress i just have to upload some pictures after i have lunch.


one thing i found extremely nice about the new board is it does not have any of the traditional bios display stuff that takes up time during boot before you get to the windows loading screen. it just shows the splash screen for a second then goes straight into windows 8 loading so the entire boot process is only a matter of seconds from a powered off state.

here is a small update. i have more pictures but i will do another update in a bit.


IMG_1544 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1545 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1546 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1547 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1547 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1549 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1551 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1555 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


mid cable management

IMG_1556 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1557 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1558 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


trying to work with this mess


IMG_1559 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

i put a couple of those cable mounting points up on the roof near the front of the case so that i could zip up the bundles on unused cables later on, hopefully in a half decent fashion


IMG_1562 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1565 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



the cpu power phase leds along the top are quite bright , but luckily the larger hinge area of the door has some more material there so you cant see the leds directly from the side.

one thing i really do like about it is that it creates a nice glow around the middle around of the case and down around the video card when the door in on at night, as well as a nice glow around the top fans and grille area. i have played around with leds strips and have never really been happy with the results or the extra cables required to fit less, so this is kidn of like a nice little bit of led lighting built right in with no cables or mess. the effect is a lot a bit different than led strips and i like it.

not to worry though, you can also turn them off in the msi control panel software if you want to make things darker for a movie or something.



IMG_1566 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1568 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1569 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1570 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Nice work Mate!

Update 3

Here are some more pictures of the progress and cable management with all of the hardware in.


Originally I was thinking the blue Kingston ram would not match, but I'm starting to like the black, yellow and blue color scheme. at the lest it's a bit different.


IMG_1571 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


I didn't bother putting the 8 pin power through the motherboard tray this time. The cutout at the top is flush with the top of the motherboard so it's a very clean path, especially without that extra usb3 pass through cable I had before. I also like to give cables a bit of a twist before routing them anywhere, so the 8 pin on this board being vertical rather than horizontal allowed me to that that this time.


IMG_1573 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


As before I routed both of the d14 fan cables straight out the top and behind the motherboard, then connected them to the 650d build in fan controller so they have a low, med and high setting i can set manually.


IMG_1574 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




One small bonus thing I was pleased with about this card is that it does have a spare hole in the pcb at the end of the card, which allows you to route the pci-e power cables really tightly and neatly and then zip them in place for a really clean look.


IMG_1575 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



still loving the look of the nh d14


IMG_1576 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



i'm also liking the look of the memory more and more


IMG_1577 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


I was able to make good use of my pack of double sided tape cable mounting points. I used on on the roof of the case inside the optical bay area at the from to gather and zip some of the unused cables from the font panel stuff.


IMG_1579 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



I also used one here to secure a route for the fan cables on the inside of the case, directly to the fan controller. Last time I had the cables around the back, but it was a very short path then they went back into the from anyway, so I figured since they were so close the the fan controller on the front anyway i might as well go straight to it. Also, last time when i passed them out through that cutout you can see, the shorter cable the pwm connection was JUST too short to go through the back so it was sitting there in sight in that cutout, a really small thing, but those are the types of things im fussy about, so this creates a more direct path for the cables and a more clean look overall.


IMG_1580 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_1582 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



here is what the area behind the motherboard tray looked like when i was done with cables. i used another cable mounting point to make a nice little anchor forr the 8pin motherboard power (just another small thing, but i like to have everything secured nicely) I used another one to secure the usb3 adapter, and one along the front panel on the inside to secure the front fan cable half way up so it wasn't flopping around so much since it traels all the way from the bottom of the case to the top. I figured all of these cable mounting points will also be useful later on if i change the layout of the cables at some point i can use them again for other cable configurations.





IMG_1585 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




I know this one isnt even in focused on the interior but there is something interestingabout it to me


IMG_1586 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



here is another one of the graphic card area


IMG_1589 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1594 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



some more details up along the top


IMG_1592 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



details along the bottom area


IMG_1595 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


ram details


IMG_1597 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


view from the front inside and out


IMG_1598 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1599 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



i'm really liking the look of the lamptron fc6


IMG_1600 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1601 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


really nice looking bios on this board.


IMG_1605 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr








and finally here is what the entire inside chamber looks like.








I will have another update shortly with a few more details from the inside of the case, some pictures of the lighting that the motherboard power phase leds creates, some benchmark results and more.

I follow your builds because they're always interesting and neat, Andre...

And your lunch doesn't look bad either..

Really tidy Cabling Andre!

BlacknTan said:

I follow your builds because they're always interesting and neat, Andre...



And your lunch doesn't look bad either..

Click to expand...

thank you so much! keep your eye out, i have more coming up !

The Orange One said:

Really tidy Cabling Andre!

Click to expand...

thank you man! i'm thinking i will move my RAID 1 out of the sans digital thing and into the actual case because the enclosure is too loud and annoying and i have my photographs on there so it needs to be on most of the time if i'm working with them. if i do that i will have a 'cable management update' for you soon!



I have some initial benchmarks and tests and I will be doing some more shortly, so I will be bringing an update in the near future with benchmarks, temperatures, and more.



I was having a look at CPU mag earlier and I couldn't help but admire this great looking Supermicro workstation case/build. Sure, it's not black on the inside or anything and the cables aren't sleeved, but still I have a huge soft spot for workstations and things like that that serve a very high end performance purpose , without all the massive bells and whistles that you see in personal builds these days.

I guess I just like the simplicity of it. I also legitimately like/love the look of this build and everything in it, as well as the cable management for all the graphics cards and just the entire thing as a package.

Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely abhor the tacky cheap plastic designs that many companies are doing with their cases these days, so I also love the clean, functional, no bs look if these cases a lot.


I added a fairly large image of the cover if anyone would like to have a closer look at it

New video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIPGSCqxXls

Lighting: CPU Phase Mode LED

This update will cover the LEDs that are on the Mpower board. They are located along there top and I believe there is around 10 or 12 of them. According the the manual and software there are CPU phase mode indicators (so far they are just always lit up, although they do flash in the bios sometimes)

As some of you may know from my previous logs and attempts at lighting, I have tried a few other convectional LED strips and lighting kits, only to be less than satisfied.

One thing I have always liked a bit though is a single, or small mount of small leds placed somewhere on the motherboard or in the case, that create a bit of light in one area of the case, but do not overpower everything.

The LEDson the Mpower do just what I was looking for in a way, they are located at the top of the board, so they create a small amount of glow around the cpu cooler area, but do not overpower the entire case and wash everything out. It creates a bit of a moody effect that again reminds me of some type of high end equipment.

Not to worry though, if you don't like the LEDs you can turn them off in the MSI software:


So I wanted to take some pictures that showed off the glow that the board puts off a bit. Not all of these are exactly the right brightness to reflect exactly how it looks in real life, but they are close enough.



this is a fairly realistic view of what it looks like in real life


IMG_1732 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



This one is brighter than real life


IMG_1707 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


Same with this one, but you can see the cpu temp readout, on the right is the power indicator, and on the left is the hdd activity indicator.


IMG_1708 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1709 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

you get some glow through the top fans
IMG_1710 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1711 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1712 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


this is again a longer exposure just to light up the rest of the case a bit, but you can see as most other leds they are birght when you look straight into them, but luckily the clip area on the door of the case completely blocks this when the door is one so its not annoying


IMG_1713 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


there is a very subtle glow that makes its way down to the bottom of the case, which i like a lot


IMG_1714 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1716 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


this is way over exposed but its just for fun


IMG_1717 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_1718 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1719 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


glow on the roof fans


IMG_1720 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1721 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1722 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


in real life you see about this much glow on the cooler, if not less


IMG_1723 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1724 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_1725 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1727 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_1733 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1735 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



IMG_1736 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



So you get the idea. I have mixed feelings about this too, but in some ways I like have a bit of glow in one place inside the case, so this is a nice solution with no additional cables or mounts or any extra mess from led strips.

Update: Memory

This is just temporary memory that I'm using from m y old build just until I pick up some 2400MHz patriot stuff.

I broke up a couple of triple channel kits from my old build to get these (one kit had a bad stick in it so only 2 sticks worked in the kit)

So here's what it looked like before, you can see it says kit of 3 on each and there is two different serial numbers




I have always been a fan of the Kingston HyperX stuff. I think the blue is really nice




But one thing I do not like is stickers. You may remember awhile ago I removed all the bar code stickers on the end of all my hard drives for a cleaner look.




Here is what they looked like after I removed the stickers. There still is a small serial number on the actual heatsink, but its much less noticeable then the stickers, and thereis no kit of 3 mentioned on there.






if you turn it on an angle you can't even see the serial number






here is what 2 sticks look like installed







and all 4 sticks installed