First rig on WC - advice needed

[kcdaemon]

Hi,

due to lack of replies in another section, I'm posting the same thread here. I hope to get some more advice here. Sorry for double posting... (Mods, feel free to delete the other thread.)

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Hi all,

besides the introductory post this is my first post on these wonderful forums.

Very, very soon I'm going to order a new rig but since this is the first system I'm going to be cooling on H2O, I'm in dire need of some expert advice, which is where you guys come in ;-)

Here's some requirements for the setup:

- Needs to cost less than 2500 euro's

- Core i7 920 at or above 4.2Ghz

- Enclosure needs to be able to house 8 HDD's

- Needs to be very, very quiet (near-silent when idle)

- Liquid Cooling, I was thinking CPU + GFX

- Extremely little or (preferably) NO casemodding required.

First of all, of course, I need to know if these are realistic expectations:

- Can we fit everything into the case as I don't want an external rad

- Are the 8HDD's going to give me heat issues (Was planning on using drive bays that fit 3*3,5" HDD into 2* 5.25" bays).

- I'm fairly certain I can do this within the limits of the provided budget, but I can stretch it a bit if needed.

I've compiled a preliminary list of components, but I don't even know if everything will work good together (as far as the WC is concerned, I mean). Here's what I was thinking:

Case + Fans:

========

Silverstone Temjin Series TJ07B-W Black

Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Intern 3-Bay * 3

Noctua NF-P12 fans for the rad and case possibly also case fans

Liquid stuff:

========

TFC Xchanger 360 Triple Rad

Laing DDC-1 MCP350 12V Pump

Watercool HeatKiller Rev. 3.0 S1366 CPU Block (Apogee XT nowhere to be found in Europe)

GPU block for ATI 5870 (EK?)

Danger Den RAD-Reservoir RES-005 (Can be something else too, really have no idea what to choose...)

Tubing (what size?)

'The connection stuff' (fittings, clamps,... )

Some liquid, I'd like it to be white, but I suppose milk won't cut it...

Everything else:

==========

Asus P6T WS Professional (need the PCI-X slot for my Areca controller)

Intel Core i7 920 - D0 stepping

Corsair Dominator DDR3 3x 2GB 1600Mhz

6* Samsung HD103SJ - 1TB

2* WD Velociraptor 300GB (I own these already, not to be included in budget)

Enermax REVOLUTION85+ 1050W

Asus BC-08B1ST 8x Blu-Ray drive

Some ATI 5870 card. (recommendations?)

I'm totally open to suggestion for everything here, so please, let me know what you think. Thanks!

Cheers,

K!

 

[kcdaemon]

Anybody?

 

[PCTwin]

Just some initial thoughts.

The Temjin TJ07 case is nice but its only 565mm deep, the Enermax psu is an excellent choice , but take its size into consideration when choosing a case to match. At 190mm deep it takes up a lot of room in the bottom of the case. Consider a deeper case such as the Silverstone TJ09B at 605mm deep or the Coolermaster Cosmos S at 628 mm deep. There are others so look around. I have an Enermax Galaxy 850 psu which is the same size and it still looks big in my Cosmos S.

Also consider the length of a HD5870. From what I've seen it's about 280mm long, so you'll need some room for it between the drive bays if you go with a shorter case.

I have a Swiftech MCP355 Laing ddc1+ ultra with a XSPC DDCRES 200ml Laing DDC Top Reservoir which works well.

 

[GavX]

I think the ASUS board just has PCI-e x16 no PCI-x

You can't always be certain on overclocking, 4.2 might seem the norm, but you might have a chip with less headroom. My Q9450 can do 3.8 but alot of people cant even get 3.2, your milage may vary as they say.

Gonna be hard pressed to get all that storage in, and I would recommend solid states over the velos, I have a velo and its great, but its old hat now. Yes you will get less storage per £ with solid state, but you have 6tb, storage isnt an issue

 

[Bigsharn]

The TJ07 is a good case for water cooling, but have a look at the Lian Li A71. A77 and (more then the others) V2010, they’re a bit cheaper and have more space than the TJ07 (as well as more HDD bays)

For fans I wouldn't go Noctua, they're unecessarily expensive for not a lot of performance, the Feser Triebwerk TK-122 is one of the best for moving air, or the Scythe Gentle Typhoon D1225 if noise is an issue

I can't see anything wrong with the RAM, CPU, or motherboard

I don't quite understand why you'd need 6.5Tb of storage altogether, but each to their own...

2* WD Velociraptor 300GB (I own these already, not to be included in budget)

As for the power supply, I can guarantee that you won't need 1000W with this setup, even if you did I'd go with a Corsair HX PSU and save yourself a few euros, I'd go with a HX850

If you're sure you want a blu-ray drive then fair enough, but blu-ray still hasn't caught on properly yet, so you might want to hold off on that one and get a DVD drive

I'd make sure that you know for a fact that a 5850 won't cut it before you go hellbent on going 5870, and even then I'd wait to see what the 59xx series can do before buying anything

 

[kcdaemon]

@PCTwin:

I've had a good look at those 2 cases (and about 20 others), but I really like the fact the the TJ07 has that roomy compartment in the bottom, which is an advantage because the rad doesn't take the warm air from the rest of the case. On the other hand I cannot ignore the fact that when putting the rad in the top of the case, I can still use the supplied hard drive bays, which would give me more expansion space for the future. Still in doubt. Talking design, the Cosmos S wins...

Also, it's my understanding that the power supply needs to be mounted on the side and the rad+fans go next to the psu, which still gives me a total of 41cm of room to put other stuff like the pump and maybe the res. Or do I have this wrong?

@GavX

The P6T WS Pro has both PCI-X and PCI-E. This is one of the very little motherboards that I know with PCI-X. Can't post links yet, you can check on the Asus website.

Any recommendations on the SSD's? I've owned an OCZ Vertex 60GB but I had real 'stuttering' issues (hangs of the whole system lasting about 30 seconds). Maybe it was faulty, I don't know. Apparently this is always an issue - the random write access time that is. Also, buying 2 SLC SSD's makes my budget quite a bit smaller

Cheers and thanks for the comments!

/K

 

[kcdaemon]

@Bigsharn:

As for the Lian-Li PC-A71, That would mean I have to cut into the case to put a decent-sized rad in and I have no intention of doing so. Otherwise, it would have been my first choice, I've used it before to build other systems on air.

As for the storage:

6*1TB in RAID 10 = 3TB (I -really- like speed)

2*300GB in RAID 0 (ditto, but for boot drives and VMware images)

I need the BD-ROM, I rip my BD's to disk to play them on my HTPC.

You've got a point on the GFX cards, still in doubt...

Thx!

/K

 

[syscooling]

water cooling kit

Learn for everyone:anisx::anisx: