Project ERA

Intro

I've build a couple of PC's before this, but never something quite like this. Usually it were just medium gaming pc's or low spec builds to just type a word document and such.

The Idea behind this build started a year or two ago. I've always had a notebook for working with 3D-CAD and rendering. In the last three years changed the RAM for 8GB HyperX and Put in two SSD's for more speed. But it's CPU and GPU simply don't come close to a good desktop.

So I decided that I would build a desktop for 3D-CAD and rendering of both still images as well as animated scenes.

About a year ago I first heard of DDR4 being released somewhere in 2014, so i decided that would be a good moment to build it.

The name also originated there since DDR4 is kind of a new era. Also era could stand for:
Extreme Rendering Apparatus

Parts List
Case: Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-03 ORANGE LED
Power Supply: Cooler Master V-Series 700W
Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus
CPU: Intel Core i7 5930K
CPU cooler: Scythe Grand Kama Cross 2
GPU: Gigabyte GTX Titan Black
Soundcard: Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional
System drive: Samgung 840 EVO
Storage drive: 2TB Seagate SSHD
RAM: DDR4 Kingston Hyper X Predator 3000 MHz
Main color scheme: Black and Orange

First of all, the case.

I got rid of the HDD cage since I mounted the SSD and HDD in the bottom 3.5" bay.

Then I got the first few parts and since I had to wait until some other parts I decided now would be a good time to get going on the colors.

Painted the gentle typhoon



And some detailing on the aerocool fans



Offcourse the red logo and white LED of the soundblaster couldn't stay


SSD + SSHD = SSDSSHD??

Made a bracket on the SSHD for the 840 EVO SSD, so together they would fit in one 3.5" bay.

The problem that I had then, was that the standard SATA-power cables wouldn't fit since the connectors were so close. So then I thought if I'm going to make a new one, why not make it orange?


As you can see above, what I had in mind was the Titan Black with windforce cooler and a touch of orange paint, but sadly there are problems with it's availability in the netherlands. So I got my hands on a Titan black with stock cooler that's coming from germany.
This is what I'm planning to do to it

(got this idea from here )

Last week I finally got my RAM (holy moly the heatspreaders are so big)


I will first test it with the titan untouched (in case it's DOA) and later on I will paint it and put a nice backplate on it.

Also I want to do something with orange LED's somewhere on the CPU cooler, maybe underneath it, or in the fan. Any ideas are welcome


I will be posting updates and let me know what you think

Looks good actually. Got some proper modding going on

So, time for an update. Quite a large update.

It's basicly all together right now and I have to say it runs even better then I expected.
Took about 10 mins to get the bios setup to basic (safe) settings. So the first few days I ran the RAM at 2133MHz and everything on basic settings, not a single error or anything.

Oh yeah, exept one of the fan-splitter cables was broken and my top two fans wouldn't run the first time, but replaced the splitter cable and everything was fine.

This it what it looks like now:


With the side on it:


And i just love the front look of this case:


But the X-Fi LED needs another coat of orange, because it's still a bit to bright at the moment:

And while I'm at it (since the soundcard needs to come apart for the painting of the LED) I think I will make a black backplate for the soundcard, just for the looks. Since the GPU is going to get a backplate as well.

About the GPU, it runs great, but can make quite some noize when rendering.
So I thought about water cooling the GPU & CPU. But the problem with that is, I don't know if it will fit in my case.
For the radiator in the top I would only have 15mm before hitting my RAM and in the front ther's no space for the end of the rad where the fittings are.
Another option would be to swap the case out for a larger one, but changing it after only a few months is kind of quick.

So I think I will just for the time being do the work on the soundcard, make the Geforce GTX logo orange, put a backplate on the GPU and get up with an idea for some LED's around or behind the CPU cooler.

Also I want to change the GPU and motherboard powercables for nice black sleeved ones.

Looking good mate. As far as water cooling the top fan holes are of set for a H100i, and a set of fans to fit up top so a 240 rad would fit, and as far as a front rad goes just remove the drive cage, it's only a few rivets holding it in, all it takes is a drill, and a drill bit. You would just have to sacrifice an internal optical drive, and use, an external usb one. The drives could then be mounted in place of the fan on the floor. It's all pretty simple stuff mate, and I think it would look pretty cool.

Interested to see how this one turns out. I would definitely look into water cooling, even if it's just the gpu. Like paulstung said you could easily remove the optical bay and install a 360 or 420 in the front. You'd be able to get more out of your graphics card and I think a bright orange coolant would look really cool.

Enjoying the modding so far though

I can't see a 360 in the front mate, a 280 would be the maximum I'd say.

paulstung said:

I can't see a 360 in the front mate, a 280 would be the maximum I'd say.

Click to expand...

Yeah fair point mate, I didn't realise how small that case was. It's 426mm high so it might squeeze in depending on the individual rad and the case fan mountings.

So basicly what you mean is this?

So with the rad on top, having the fans on the outside.

But I thought maybe this is an option?:

Having the rad on the outside (have to make a couple of holes in my case ofcourse)
But this way I can also fit a thicker rad on top.

And a variant on this/ third option would be to move the pump in the upper right corner:


The only thing I'm wondering is the flow direction. Get the coolant to the GPU first or the CPU first?
Some programs I use render on the GPU (like blender) and some on the CPU (like photoview 360)

EDIT: that last one is obviously wrong, sorry about that

the flow direction doesn't matter, the coolant will have the same temp after some minutes everywhere in your loop

Technologyfreak said:

And a variant on this/ third option would be to move the pump in the upper right corner:

The only thing I'm wondering is the flow direction. Get the coolant to the GPU first or the CPU first?
Some programs I use render on the GPU (like blender) and some on the CPU (like photoview 360)

Click to expand...

DO NOT DO THIS!

Pump must ALWAYS be BELOW the res. Gravity will not bring the coolant UP to the pump. Gravity will only make it come down. Nothing else matters about the order nor does flow direction. The water is moving so fast its pointless to decide which it should go to first. Also once its all filled up it will matter even less.

NeverBackDown said:

DO NOT DO THIS!

Pump must ALWAYS be BELOW the res.

Click to expand...

My watercooling sense is telling me that he should simply turn the case upside down. h34r:

Yeah I just realised I didn't think about that, offcourse that's not going to work :blush:
I just looked at it and went:
I only thought about where there was room for the parts there. So that third option should be res + pump in the top there, but that would be to tight.

I wouldn't normally recommend the rad outside the case as it looks a bit weird but it might actually work in this case (if you pardon the pun ). The bars on the front of the case look a bit like a rad so it might match ok. You could also mod the rad and put some orange accents on it to make it blend in better.