My First Rig - 350D, VI Gene, 4770K, 780
- Thread starter Chopper3
- Start date
Chopper3
New member
The green was SO offensive I had to so something, and this little 'hack' was quick, cheap, easy and at night looks great - you can't really see it in the day much but then you couldn't see the green either. I can imagine at some point maybe water-cooling the GPU so I'd be losing the cooler at that point anyway - we'll see how much I get into overclocking, right now I'm not really pushing things.
Thanks for your comments.
Mgutierrez33
New member
I like what you have here a LOT. I like the IDEA of changing the color of the LED backlit gefore gtx lighting. Is there no way to remove the lettering from the heat sink cover, place the tape over that, THEN place it back in the heat sink cover? I only ask this because I have yet to examine or use one in person but that seems like it would be a cleaner looking solution than having it over top of the lettering and shroud.
That's just me though. If it works for you then that's what matters. Also I have to second the motion to hide the SATA cable along the back... THAT'S my OCD kicking in though so feel free to ignore that one x-P.
:beerchug:
That's just me though. If it works for you then that's what matters. Also I have to second the motion to hide the SATA cable along the back... THAT'S my OCD kicking in though so feel free to ignore that one x-P.
:beerchug:
Chopper3
New member
I probably will move the SATA power cable, when I find time.
As for the lettering, well I put way too much time into this so I'll explain what the lighting actually is. Believe it or not it's actually a shaped piece of rubber/silicone in the shape of the letters! This rubber just sticks through the metal piece and is very flexible, but it happens to be painted green and I tried a number of things to get rid of the paint but nothing would shift it. I tried scratching it away, using thinners to lift it - nothing worked. I suppose I could remove the rubber part altogether, cut out the rubber bits and replace them with something else - but this would be a very great deal of work, it'd mean the card would be out of warranty too surely - and when I'm already considering replacing the cooler by water-cooling it it just seemed silly to go to that length.
Thanks for your comments though.
Mgutierrez33
New member
Fair enough, just figured I'd ask
. Just my two bits asking on the thought process here, and since the intent is to watercool the card then I can definitely see why you went a simpler route. Looking forward to system updates in good time and good system health!:beerchug:
Chopper3
New member
Awesome build, if this is your first, can't wait to see what you get next
Thanks for the comment, not sure I'll be doing another any time soon though - this is my 'Battlefield 4' rig really (obsessed with BF3 and this machine stay utterly pegged at 60fps at 1920x1080 with everything turned on L
).That said I think next time I'll be going the whole water-cooled route - just for the looks! May even add it to this build in fact, if I have the space.
Looks so good!
Hey there,
Just wanted to say how good a job it looks like you've done. You've clearly spent some serious time on that cabling - it looks immaculate.
I was so happy to see your post, as I am just about to start a new gaming build and decided upon almost exactly the same parts list!
The case looks, to me, like the best looking mATX case on the market at the moment. Plus space for that radiator in the top (and potentially in the front) was a big bonus.
I really liked the Fractal Design cases, but couldn't get one in this style with enough space for a large rad too, so this fits the bill perfectly.
I hope to go for the Corsair H110 cooling unit I think, what made you go for the H100i?
Is that a reference GTX780 or not? I want to go for the (green) Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5 mATX board, to match a green theme internally matching NVidia's branding.
Are you planning on OC'ing the Haswell chip at all? I'd be interested to here what you can get it up to without melting it :lol:
Anyways, thanks for the post and inspiration to get on with it!
Hey there,
Just wanted to say how good a job it looks like you've done. You've clearly spent some serious time on that cabling - it looks immaculate.
I was so happy to see your post, as I am just about to start a new gaming build and decided upon almost exactly the same parts list!
The case looks, to me, like the best looking mATX case on the market at the moment. Plus space for that radiator in the top (and potentially in the front) was a big bonus.
I really liked the Fractal Design cases, but couldn't get one in this style with enough space for a large rad too, so this fits the bill perfectly.
I hope to go for the Corsair H110 cooling unit I think, what made you go for the H100i?
Is that a reference GTX780 or not? I want to go for the (green) Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5 mATX board, to match a green theme internally matching NVidia's branding.
Are you planning on OC'ing the Haswell chip at all? I'd be interested to here what you can get it up to without melting it :lol:
Anyways, thanks for the post and inspiration to get on with it!
Chopper3
New member
Hiya, thanks for the kind comments. I'm obviously a novice when it comes to home PC building but the 350D fit the bill very well in that I was replacing an Alienware X51 so the 350D didn't take up much extra space but is obviously much more capable/expandable. It's astonishingly light before you put anything in it, really just amazingly light in fact. I went for the H100i over the H110i simply because I'd seen very good reviews for the 100 and knew it fit whereas when I ordered the case I wasn't 100% certain that the 110 would - that said if I was building it again now I WOULD go for the 110, but that said the 100 is never remotely warm so I'm not sure I would NEED the 110 - but I'd still go for it anyway.
It is a stock 780 yes, and the green will look great with the sniper - I'd just set my heart on the red and black of the Asus. Their firmware does make it very easy to overclock but I think that's just an ease-of-use thing and I'm sure the sniper could do exactly the same thing. You get a lot of extra software bits with the Asus but I'm not really using anything except the easy-overclocking thing.
I'm very happy with the AX860i too as you get to monitor and control it via Corsair Link (along with the H1x0i too) - that said it's a 'nice to have', I could live without it, I'm just a geek/control-freak
The 780 is an amazing card by the way, I'm only running on a 1920x1080 display but Battlefield 3, with EVERYTHING turned up to max/ultimate runs at a fixed 60fps, i.e. it would go over if my monitor would keep up - literally never lower than 60! All my other games are just super-fluid too, not measured them but Crysis 3 with full settings is SO smooth - money really well spent.
As for overclocking I've had the 4770K up to 4.6Ghz but no more, not due to problems I just didn't dare! Using the auto-OC software it was very stable at 4.6 but it was at 1.3v, it was still manageably cool (one core peaked at 88C when running OCCT for an hour) but I chose to step it down to 4.4 at 1.25v (which max's at around 78C in the same circumstances) just because I didn't actually need the extra performance and didn't want to push my luck.
I've done a bit of OC'ing on the 780, up to 106% but it didn't make any difference as far as I could see so I left it back at stock, it's more than enough at my resolution for any current game - I might change my opinion if I move to a 2560x1440 monitor but that won't be soon.
Feel free to come back if you have any queries, happy to help in any way I can.
Chopper3
New member
Don't say I didn't bow to peer pressure - I tidied up my SATA power cable - initially I thought it was a 'feature' due to the dullness of the bottom right corner but I came 'round to everyone's suggestion to sort it out - and it does look better.
Just wondering about lighting now... I bought some white CCFLs, but I'm just not sure at all.
Just wondering about lighting now... I bought some white CCFLs, but I'm just not sure at all.
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Mgutierrez33
New member
Now knowing the fate of that video card, gotta say that looks pretty darn good! I wouldn't worry too much about that corner, once you get the rest of your water cooling bits sorted out, ordered and installed that bottom right corner will be the last thing people focus on with your PC
:beerchug:
:beerchug:
The Orange One
New member
WOW! Epic rig dude!!!!
Chopper3
New member
There are some at one the front page if you've not seen them, if there are any specific ones you're interested in (I keep meaning to get one in the dark) then just let me know.
