Bad Moon Ryzen - Bart's Ryzen build

[Bartacus]

Hey dudes! I'm starting a build log here for the first time. It will most likely suck, so prepare yourselves. I'm not a perfectionist, I don't mod, I'm a complete nerd slob, I can't take pics worth a damn, etc etc. Cable management will be optional, if I do it at all. Criticism can be left at the door, unless it's constructive. Otherwise, if you're really picky, GTFO. Just sayin'.

Background: old nerd, 46 years ancient, and have been building PCs since the 386 days, albeit not particularly well.

This build will be named Bad Moon Ryzen, because who doesn't enjoy awful puns! It will also be a "fluid" build, meaning I'm going to slap it onto a temporary "test bed" of sorts so I can test the crap out of it. Then once I decide what route to take with the water cooling, I'll do a "proper" build in a proper case. If this system cuts the mustard, it might replace my "main" rig, an X79 rig in my signature. So it *could* be migrated into my Case Labs M8 cube case. Not sure about that yet though.

The parts I have acquired are as follows:

Motherboard: Asus Crosshair VI Hero X370
CPU: Ryzen 1700, with wraith cooler for now
RAM: Gskill TridentZ 3600mhz @ CL15 (2 x 8GB)
SSD: Intel 1TB 600p
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe in anthracite gray
GPU: none, as I'm going to use my old Radeon 7950 for testing purposes. If I decide to make this my daily driver, it will get my pair of GTX 980's.

Everything will be water cooled eventually (waiting on some Watercool AM4 mounts for HeatKiller CPU blocks). Now for some pics!!

Le parts, under le bad LED lighting:


Le board de mother:


Le CPU:


Le petite NVME SSD (it's so tiny!):


Le colors that don't match, but who cares:


Le timings de awesomesauce:


This won't be the fastest build in the world for sure, and most of the water cooling will be stuff I have laying around. I already have some D5 pumps (probably only going to use one in this rig), and some rads. I'll probably pick up a slim 360 rad for the roof of the Luxe, since the only 360 I have laying around is a TFC Admiral that's 75mm thick, and that isn't fitting in this Luxe!

More to come!

EDIT: dramatic shot of my main rig. It's very purple!

 

[BigDaddyKong]

Looking good. You are going to enjoy it.

 

[AlienALX]

Yay !

Looking forward to seeing how much water goodness you can cram into this one.

 

[Warchild]

Wow thats a lot of purple. Doesn't it make your eyes a little sore when gaming late at night or in the dark?

 

[Bartacus]

Thanks dudes!

Warchild: not at all, but I have the light panel turned off at night. It's more subtle than it looks in that pic. Love the color, it puts a smile on my face just being next to it.

 

[AlienALX]

Looks like it could put a tan on your face too

 

[Bartacus]

Looks like it could put a tan on your face too

LOL! It's mostly purple light via RGB. The light options I put in the case are nuts. There are 2 UV LED strips (never on), 2 white LED strips (never on), one RGB strip in the roof, and the RGB light panel, both of which are controlled by an Aquacomputer Farbwerk. That whole box was one trippy light experiment.

 

[AlienALX]

hehe my big purple monster was the same.

Very purple

 

[Bartacus]

I like purple, but I laugh at your air cooled GPUs.

Ryzen lives (in awful test-bench-on-a-table fashion):





Mobo bios was 0902, and successfully updated to a developer version (0083). Prior to updates, 3200 was no bueno, but now 3200 is fine without even setting manual timings. Now to read up on the "nitty gritty" of Ryzen memory overclocking, manual settings, etc! I'm more concerned about RAM at the moment, since I obviously don't have a proper CPU block yet (waiting on AM4 mounts for a HeatKiller). And yes, that is a Radeon 7950 fully HeatKiller-ed. It's the only spare GPU I have, and I don't have the stock HSF for that thing anymore.

 

[Excalabur50]

If this one looks as nice as your main rig then it should be sweet

 

[Warchild]

If this one looks as nice as your main rig then it should be sweet

Until he makes it look like a Christmas tree with his ARRR GEEE BEEE's

 

[AlienALX]

I wish I had the spares to be able to test stuff before putting it into the case on water.

You sticking with Barrow? or going for something else this time?

Until he makes it look like a Christmas tree with his ARRR GEEE BEEE's

lmao there's a joke in that somewhere !

What are the most annoying bees ever? RGBeeees.

 

[Warchild]

I wish I had the spares to be able to test stuff before putting it into the case on water.

You sticking with Barrow? or going for something else this time?



lmao there's a joke in that somewhere !

What are the most annoying bees ever? RGBeeees.

And what are the best ones?

Booooo BEEEEES

 

[AlienALX]

And what are the best ones?

Booooo BEEEEES

Aye, which bees are known for making milk? boobees

 

[Excalabur50]

Didn't take long for this to deteriorate so which Australians sing with the high voices the BeeGee's I bet they use RGBees too

 

[Bartacus]

LOL, you bunch of wankers. I assure you this one won't be RGBed. Besides, even my big RGB rig is just purple. I never change the colors on that one.

I wonder if Tom is going to do a Ryzen overclocking guide? Good detailed AMD-noob-friendly ones are hard to come by.

 

[Bartacus]

So my AM4 mounts landed (yay)! I didn't take many pics this time since I seem to be having weird SD card issues with the new camera. All of a sudden, the card becomes corrupt right in the middle of shooting pics and says it can't be read anymore. Anyways, got the Ryzen under water, FINALLY, and this out of focus crap is the only shot I have:



I also had a Homer Simpson moment on the rad mounting. I didn't think I had enough room to mount the 360 to the front cage in pull. Realized I had loads of room and it made life easier. I would have preferred push, but since the Enthoo Luxe only has a pair of fan mounts in front, pull because a necessity. So the simple soft tube temp loop is now complete:



Lots of clearance with the top fitting, so long as I used a straight 90 degree fitting:



Quick and dirty drainage system:




Here's some shots of it all buttoned up in the case, with the tempered glass on:


And a shot without the glass:


The soft tube is temporary. That GPU is an old Radeon 7950, and I'm waiting for Vega before deciding what GPU(s) are going into this build. I plan to do some temporary hard tube this weekend (16mm), *if* I have enough fittings.

Oh and BTW the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe is a bloody great case! I paid $175CDN for this case (in Anthracite Gray), and it comes with:

- LED bars in the top / front case panels;
- FOUR 140mm PWM fans, quite good ones. Static pressure ones, if I had to guess by looking at the blades (fat ones). I used 3 of them for the Alphacool 420 rad in the roof (intake - push), and left the rear 140 in place as an exhaust.
- A brilliant little fan hub that takes 3 pin fans and runs them as PWM. I'm running 7 fans in the rig, 3 x 140 PWM fans on the roof rad, and 3 x 120 Gentle Typhoon 2150rpm 3-pin fans on the front 360 rad (intake - pull).

So you get all that, along with a case that you can tear apart (no rivets), and fit a decent amount of rads in it. Mine isn't a "supported" config, but I crammed a 420 Alphacool crossflow rad in the roof, and a Darkside LP360 slim rad in the front. I had to lose all the hard drive cages of course, but it was worth it to fit the Singularity Computer reservoir and D5 pump top combo, which is GORGEOUS. Pics don't do it justice.

For the Ryzen system, I'm running a mild OC and plan to work my way up. After much fuss, and some BIOS updates, I got my memory running at 3200mhz @ 14-14-14-14-34 1T, along with a simple multiplier OC of 3.7Ghz @ 1.35v for the CPU. Under load, it's topping out at 47C with that HeatKiller IV on it. VERY happy with that so far!

More to come when I tackle the hard tube!

 

[Bartacus]

Okay, I have been very busy the past few days, and have not kept this thread up. This is where I'm at now:



Say hello to my little (and expensive) friend, courtesy of Singularity Computers:


Messing around with a purple backlight; really makes the red coolant pop:


Tubes runs are rather neat IMO:


Not quite perfect in the alignment, but my OCD is pleased:


Don't hate me for liking flow meters.


Army of Darkside fittings (love the matte finish on these things!!!):


The white light isn't as bright as it looks. I just suck at taking pics! I had to do the rad connections in soft tube due to them being just too "off" while being very close to each other. I managed to flip the Alphacool 420 rad in the roof, and get the fans mounted inside the top cover. It makes the Ocool sticker go upside down, but that's hidden when the door is on.

Still needs some work, but I'm getting there.

 

[AlienALX]

Looks good man. Like those fittings as well, nice to see something different.

 

[Bartacus]

Thanks man! The Darkside fittings are REALLY nice. I'm in love with the matte finish, so much nicer than the old Bitspower gloss finish. Much cheaper than BP too.