Hey guys,
This is my first post here, so it is going to be little long. (Old habits die hard, used to review lot of computer hardware for various publications and also member reviews on XS, Techenclave, Guru3D etc.)
So go by the username Funky or Shripad or FunkyMonkey over various places. Some might know me as once upon a time game reviewer, GPU overclocker on Guru3D (more than a decade back). And more recently on Indian community forum Techenclave. I got more interested in overclocking and extreme ocing ( Dry Ice + ethenol and LN2 ) than modding over last 10-12 years and have done LN2 and overclocking demos for user meets organised by manufacturers like Gigabye in India.
So I will come to the point first. I have been visiting OC3D to read reviews as well as see Tiny's videos on Youtube for ages. I had registered long back once, but never posted much. No I dont even remember which email I used to register or what my id was back in a day.
Anyway, I got around to this because I am in process of building a new personal workstation rig. A proper grown up rig after a long time.
Now being from India, you hit a wall when it comes to choice of cases. Fractal Design has no presence here, neither are manufacturers like Phanteks, Thermaltake and many more. Limited NZXT and Bitfenix presence. Same with Antec. Almost full range of Cooler Master and Corsair is available, but the layout used by these manufacturers is uninspiring. Mainly because this time I was looking to build powerful system but relatively silent case that will do great job at dust filtration.
My current rig is housed in Corsair 600T which is a mess at the moment.
So far I have bought these components.
1. Intel Core i7 6700K
2. Asrock Z170 Extreme 7+ Motherboard (once again, imported it as not available locally. Asus ROG board that interest me are carrying heavy premium here and I specifically wanted to test out Extreme 7).
3. Team Dark DDR4 3000 2x8GB CL15 RAM. (This, once again sourced from US as we dont get anything over DDR4 2100 here at this moment in 2x8GB configuration)
Was going to use my existing SSDs, HDDs, PSU (Seasonic X series 750W KM3) and the Inno3D iChill Hercules X4 GTX 970 Monstrosity.
Yup this big bad boy with GTX 980 PCB with all voltage limitations removed by bios mod.
The new components are on its way to me right now. The only problem was the case. I do not want to compromise and settle for noisy case from Cooler Master or Corsair. And CM's Silencio series do not inspire me. I dont like its internal layout.
NZXT H440 is no longer in stock which was one of the options.
UPDATE : My stuff is here
Hopefully this is good enough stepping.
The board
The kick@$$ Team Dark DDR4 3000 RAM
Testing the setup in my current age old T600 with age old Water 3.0 cooler. Sorry for blurry pic, this is quick snap from phone.
So I was being forced to import a case. It came down to 2 cases. Define S and Thermaltake F51 (I know how people feel about it
).
The only source to import cases at reasonable cost is to order one via ebay global easy buy and it has been killing me that Define S is not available on Global Easy Buy.
Only R5 is. And that was making me opt for F51 which I really did not want to do. But I also do not want to settle for R5. And this is how I landed here.
The motherboard is Mostly black with copper accents. RAM is all black. GPU is metallic grey with same metallic grey backplate.
Plan
- Install 240mm AIO at front of the case
- Paint the GPU backplate White to complement the white accents of the case
- Paint front of the case white or Let my sister do some design and get it printed on vinyl and transfer it to the front.
- Will be painting moduvent covers white to add more white accent on the outside of the case
- Paint the side panel black. Only the panel. Will leave the side border of the front plate black.
- Install magnetic White LEDs on the inside to highlight hardware
- Top moduvent covers will stay closed. I do not want noise leaking out from there.
- Might paint the motherboard heatsinks and RAM heatspreader white if I can find platipaint(the plastic polymer paint which peals off if you want to RMA the board / RAM) cans locally.
This is roughly what it will look like without the design (which my sis will create )
So as you can see, not a huge mod. I was simplistic.
I do not know if this is enough to win competition, or if it is even open to international members, it probably isnt, but I wanted to share it any way as it might get some ideas from you guys here.
Now little but about what I have done in past, how i started modding and overclocking and what I do.
Professionally I have degrees in Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. I build systems for doctors mostly in my free time. It all started as a favour for one of my dad's friends and that lead to getting recommended to others and building more custom systems over last 2-3 years. I do this in my spare time a hobby and not to earn money. For that I have my own business which I run.
Being a tech enthusiast without s**tloads of money to burn in 90s and early 2000s meant I had to resort to lot of ghetto mods in past. So if you are looking for a nice, clean looking past builds from me, you wont find many. Most are pretty mundane builds with exception of couple.
The overclocker in me has meant I have had to do lot of tinkering over years. The kid in me did something really comical ages back. Have a look and have a nice laugh (this is from 2004 I think)
And yes, that is a tuk tuk radiator which I re-purposed as a fanless rad for cooling my CPU. And this was a server chassis which i brush painted black
Doing GPU clocking meant I had to improvise even for GPU cooling as no 3rd party cooling solutions were available here.
Going ghetto on 9800XT.
And yes, I stock AMD coolers to make heatsink and middle part as GPU cooler. Some nuts and bolts along with Arctic silver adhasive and voila. This card was once upon a time was in top 20 world wide on hwbot 3d mark rankings with volt mods.
It was about this time started reviewing manufacturer sent hardware for various forums. But still had to resort to ghetto test builds due to lack of resources to even test modern hardware. New socket motherboard? No cooler mounting available, no problem. You make do.
MY only personal themed build is this one. Completed in self moded Cooler Master CM690. The first generation. Years back. Custom paint, custom side window, painted fan grills, and xigmatek LED fans.
And I was really proud of this
After that rig, I was constantly testing pre release hardware, reviewing lot of things so went caseless for long long time. This used to be my general setup.
And for short time, I did have a Lian Li build.
These days, this is what I do more often. (At giabyte India HQ doing trial runs of LN2 for the demo.
Easy to know who I am, I am that fatty sitting there.
And then I moved to my current rig which I actually downgraded to Ivy Bridge setup as I sold my Haswell refresh rig (4790k with MSI Z97M) just few months back to prepare for skylake. Nothing special in this.
So there you have it.
I finally want to build a good, modern, classy but simplistic rig for myself. One where I will do lot of my work, some gaming in spare time. This will be my primary rig. I will still be building this even if I dont win or am not eligible for the competition.
lol
