Andre's X58 Personal Build

[andrevautour]

Fan Controller

I have always liked the look of a good looking fan controller panel on the front of systems. Something about a nice set of knobs and a digital display on the front of a case just looks good to me and I like the idea of being able to control the fans from the front of the case.

Currently I do not need a fan controller because I have the Noctua fan at the back and the NH-D14 fans running on auto speed on the motherboard, and this works well, and I have the 2 200mm fans in the front and roof connected the the integrated fan controller switch on the top of my 650D.

I still like the idea of having a stand alone, high quality, good looking fan controller in the front of the case in the optical bay, so I may gut one in the future and add it in as a sort of novelty thing.

I have had a look at various different fan controllers, and there are some that at fine looking, like the ones with just 4 or 5 knobs and no display, but the only one I really love the look and quality of is the Lamptron FC6. The anodized aluminum body if it will go perfectly with the front of the 650D in my opinion and it just looks amazing.

http://lamptron.com/products/view/Fan_Controller_FC6

 

[andrevautour]

Case Windows

I like almost everything about the 650D, except for the very small case window. Personally I think that windows that are almost the entire size of the door are extremely good looking because you can see almost everything inside the case.

Better still, there is a window available from MNPCTECH custom made for the 600T that is entirely acrylic. This is definitely the best looking window on a case I've ever seen. The model shown has 2 fan cutouts, I would get one with no fan cutouts because I think that a totally clean window is much better looking, but you can order them however you like so thats no problem. Unfortunately I believe this is only possible to do with the 600T because of the design of the door panels.

http://www.mnpctech.com/casemodblog...600t-clear-window-panel-information-ordering/

Here is the photo of that site, the one with the fan cutouts:

But here is a few from google images with no fan cutouts

http://www.mnpctech.com/casemodblog/2011/04/27/how-to-install-window-in-corsair-600t-graphite-case/

The next best thing would be something like the 300R door, but without the fan mesh parts. the 300R door looks really nice because its very large with minimal amount of bezel unlike the 650D and 600T stock doors.

So this, minus the fan mesh parts

A nice example of how this can look good is this NCIX system with Orange led fans, blue lighting, and green tracer memory in a 300R case: http://youtu.be/TTgzg67T794?hd=1&t=1m7s

 

[andrevautour]

The Lamptron FC6 was on sale today $15 off, so I ordered one. I will do an update of the installation process when it comes.

 

[andrevautour]

Overclocking & Benchmarking

Back when I first got the system running with the i7-920 and the hd 6950, naturally I wanted to have a play around with some overclocking.

The graphics card already had a healthy overclock on it, 870MHz on the core up from the stock 800MHz. I pushed it to 900MHz, and at that point it can run benchmarks fine, but it does crash during video games. It seems to be stable at 890MHz

I knew the CPU had quite a bit of headroom for overclocks because I've seen Tom's various videos from the LGA1366 era and the overclocks he was doing on various CPUs like the 950 and also he has mentioned the 920 going to 4GHz with the NH-D14.

I was able to get my 920 to 4.2GHz on fairly decent volts, about 1.3V. It was able to do all benchmarks fine at this speed, but it would freeze sometimes. I feel this may have been due to lack of voltage, it may have been stable at a slightly higher voltage, but the temperatures were already getting to a point were it wans't great.

For my daily overclock on this 920 I use 4.0GHz at 1.29V with the NH-D14 on auto fan speed. The temperatures are good during gameplay, and alright during encoding etc.

Intel Core i7-920 @4.2GHz by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


Intel Core i7-920 @4.0GHz by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

The Windows Index is 7.7 with the memory at 7.8 and graphics and disk speed at 7.9

Windows Experience Index by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


System Information by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


The Cinebench score is 7.19, with the stock score of a 920 being 4.78 and the stock score of a 960 being 5.48

Cinebench 11.5 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


3DMark 11 score is P 5848

3DMark 11 Performance (4.2GHz) (Sep 4, 2012) by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

3DMark Vantage score is P 22,829 with a graphics score of 22,058 and CPU 25,456

3DMark Vantage Performance (4.2GHz) (Sep 4, 2012) by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Unigine Heaven V2.5 score is 1088

Unigine Heaven v2.5 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

The disk performance is 385 MB/s read and 182 MB/s write with the OS installed and running for a few months. I know this is limited by the X58 playform, because my dad has a Crcial M4 256GB disk on X79 and the speeds are around 530MB/s write and 400 something write.

CrystalDiskMark by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Memory

MaxxMEM2 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Temperatures during encoding video with handbrake

Encoding Temps by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


Idle Temperatures

Idle Temps by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


100% Load temperatures

Load Temps by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


Temperatures after 2 hours of Battlefield 3

Gameplay Temps 2 4.0GHz 1.29V by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

wPrime

wPrime by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[andrevautour]

Completed Build Pictures

Here are a few pictures I took yesterday of the "completed build" of course no build is ever really completed, but it is almost finished, except for the fan controller which has already shipped so it should be here shortly. Here is what it looks like right now anyway.


IMG_3405 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_3402 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_3411 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_3408 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_3407 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_3413 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


And here is a picture of what the LEDs look like


IMG_2582 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[andrevautour]

Here are temperatures with the CPU at 3.6GHz 1.23V after running prime for an hour. I'm trying to get the lowest voltage possible. Not sure if this voltage is 100% stable yet or not but prime95 is running fine.


Load Temps 3.6GHz 1.23V by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[SnW]

Awesome rigs there mate,
Its really great to see i won't have to go to xtreme to look at great rigs ,, they are all here now

EDIT hu?! i din't do that thumbs down smillie ?!
that should be this one

 

[andrevautour]

Awesome rigs there mate,
Its really great to see i won't have to go to xtreme to look at great rigs ,, they are all here now

EDIT hu?! i din't do that thumbs down smillie ?!
that should be this one

thank you very much! i really enjoying looking at all the different systems here too.

 

[andrevautour]

Update

I made a few adjustments to voltages in the bios and now here are my 3.6GHz prime95 temperatures.

 

[andrevautour]

Small update

I ordered a second kit of 12gb of HyperX Genesis and the Lamptron FC6 on the same day. I was hoping the FC6 would come quickly so I could have a play around with it, but for some reason it hasn't shipped yet.

I did get my second kit of memory yesterday.


IMG_0002 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0005 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

I also learned that you can run 4 sticks of memory in triple channel mode on X58, or at least on the Sabertoooth X58 board I have. I assumed you could probably run 2 sticks in dual channel mode, but I didn't know you could do 4 sticks in triple channel.


DSCN1152 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


I even gave it a try to make sure it work, and sure enough it did.

DSCN1153 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



DSCN1167 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[andrevautour]

Here is a picture I took a few days ago

IMG_3030 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Video: http://vimeo.com/49661165 video of the memory: http://vimeo.com/49657099

 

[andrevautour]

Desk area

Here is a new picture of my desk and "work" area.


IMG_0001 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[seumasbeathan]

Looks great

 

[ruairi.C]

setup looks great not sure about the carpet though haha

 

[yassarikhan786]

Yeh, killer setup right there

 

[andrevautour]

thank you guys!

 

[andrevautour]

Lamptron FC6 Fan Controller

I got a nice surprise today because I didn't even get a shipping notice email but my Lamptron FC6 came today, so that was nice.

I took a few pictures of the box and contents to start off, and I made a small video showing the contents of the box. I will upload and link the video later.


The box has a picture of the black version on one side and the silver version on the other side.


IMG_0015 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0014 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


The overall quality of the unit is very good, it has a heavy feel to it, all the knobs have a very smooth "well oiled" heavy feel to them which I am very happy about, and as an added bonus those allen screws holding the faceplace on in each corner are actually real and they screw into a motherboard stand-off type thing behind the faceplate.


IMG_0017 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0018 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


Inside the box there is a small calendar that stands up with a cardboard base, one molex extension that is sleeved with black sleeving, 4 fan extension cables that are also sleeved with black sleeving and black shrink tubing, and the 4 temperature probs which are not black, but I probably wont bother using them at least not all of them anyway since I have various temperature readouts from the motherboard that I can see in HW Monitor. I may just hook on 1 for a case temperature and keep it zip tied up and hidden.


IMG_0019 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




IMG_0020 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0021 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr




The finish is just beautiful I think it is the nicest looking fan controller in my opinion or at least the more minimal and elegant. I really love the look of the NZXT Sentry LX, but that is a totally different aesthetic that is a more futuristic Sci-Fi looking piece. I also don't really like touch controls as much as a analogue dial so that's another reason I prefer this unit to the Sentry LX. I also choose this because the black aluminium finish will match with the aluminium finish on the 650D I have.


IMG_0022 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0023 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0024 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[andrevautour]

One nice thing I noticed about my unit vs the unit shown on the Lamptron website is that on the website picture the fan headers are quite close together, which means it may be cramped if you were connecting multiple PWM fans to them

On the one I got the headers are black, and they are much father apart, which means it would be no problem to connect all PWM fans to it.

Also, with the fan extension cables they provide, the male ends are the open design with just the pins and no plastic casing around it, which also prevents you from connecting PWM fans, so you can connect all PWM fans to the extension cables too if you want.

 

[andrevautour]

Fan Controller Update

So the Lamptron is great quality, and I like it, but it ended up not fitting into my system quite right.

First of all the lamptron unit has one of those short sides on it with only 1 set of screw holes unlik an optical drive which has the two sets. i was able to screw one side in but i didn't want to remove the quick release on the other side so it didn't really grab there very well. In addition to that the case has Id say at least 4 or 5mm thick bezel at the front panel, which works out because thats roughly how large the plastic bezelz on optical drives are, so optical drives come out perfectly flush with the front panel of the case, but the lamptron bzel is only 1 or 2mm so it was recessed at least 3mm, which looked tacky and cheap to me. I ended up just storing the unit back in the box and putting it into my drawer, perhaps I will use it in the future sometime.

I ended up attaching my noctua nhd14 fans and the corasir case fans to the built in 3 setting fan controller switch on the top of the case. this works out well because I can control all the fans with the one switch, and it is very quite with all the fans on low, so i can choose between silence and better cooling with the little switch. Im not running a massive overclock on the CPU right now so the noctuas on low still produce very low temps.

While I was at it I took the opportunity to do some more cable tiding on a few things that I was meaning to do. I never really liked how the fan controller cables were tidied back whenI diid the original cable tidy job, so I did a neater job with that. I fan the nhd14 fan cables directly up and behind the motherboard, for a shorter and neater path than going over the motherboard tray cutout, and I bundled the case fan cables and zip tied them horizontally along the top of the optical bays instead of vertically with the cable running across at at 45 degree angle like before. Just some really small things but I am really picky and small things like that bug me unless I sort them out. Plus I don't like going too lon gwithout tinkering with someones computer so this type of thing gives me the chance to do some more tinkering.

I also ran the cable for the roof exhaust fan along the ceiling instead of straight down where you could see it more.

Here's a new picture of the interior

DSCN1304 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

back panel

IMG_0042 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

and a couple of the top of the motherboard where the nhd14 cables are routed

IMG_0046 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


IMG_0047 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

 

[andrevautour]

BitFenix Alchemy LED Strips

Since the NZXT white led kit was acting up and flickering, I wasn't using that anymore. I didn't really want to order another one of those in case the same issue happened with the next one. I already had the 2 10cm blue led strips from bitfenix in my drawer, so I decided to test fit them and see how it looked. I really liked the look of them when I was able to tuck the stricks into the top and bottom corners of the case so that the LEDs themselves were not visible. The glow you get from it is really nice it is a very deep, dark cobalt blue with almost a hint of dark royal purple, which I like quiet a bit. It is also not extremely bright or overpowering when you have the LEDs hidden away properly so you can't see them at all. There is a nice rich glow inside my case right now which I can see myself enjoying for a while.

Here is a photo I took, I set the camera to vivid to better capture what I can see is real life. This is a fairly good representation except it doesn't really show the purple tint as much as you can see in real life. It also gives off a nice glow on the noctua fans and makes them very vivid and glowing, and it lights up the yellow zip ties and makes them look fluorescent which is nice too.