My current Lian-Li has served me well for the best part of 10 years. Ditto the FX8350 which has been in there working tirelessly for about 4 or 5 years at 4.8Ghz. Time to move on.
Budget will be around the €2000 mark spread over 5 months. My want is a TR4 platform setup but my need is probably AM4 so we will find out over the next few months whether or not head rules heart or not.
Power - The heart and soul of the system: I will start as always with what is going to power the system and I decided on a be quiet Dark Power P11 850W. But Seasonic is better or SuperFlower is better still and you can control a Corsair RXi - yeah probably but I have used be quiet Dark Power for the last 7 / 8 years in my own builds and the few that I have been persuaded to do for family and friends and they are all still running... and they are quiet, as in mouse fart in a church quiet and by in large I like to support UK / EU design where possible.
Case is next up. I have had a Lian-Li A70B for about 10 years now and it was a great case for its day but that day has moved on. I want something easy to use, big and heavy enough so that my 2 year old daughter can't knock it over and fit all the stuff I want into it - like rads, fans, fan controllers, pumps, drives and a graphic card or two. Case Labs I hear you say.. See my budget I answer, yep Caselabs are probably the Rolls Royce of cases but once they leave America their prices go nuts. Lian-Li don't have anything in their range that I like and I won't touch the Thermaltake rip offs. I ended up picking the Phanteks Enthoo Primo as successor to the Lian-Li. All black, not as well built as a Lian-Li it has to be said (in fact I get a USSR vibe to some of the fit and finish in some parts) but for a watercooler or someone who has stuff to pack into a case then the Primo has some very nice intelligent solutions.
Cooling - EK is my go to man for waterblocks since I swapped out my original Asetek many moons ago. I still have an original supreme up in the attic somewhere
I generally plumb for the Acetal finish, I like dark and foreboding.. I have a EK Supremacy (non EVO) and I have ordered the AM4 upgrade set to cover all bases. Pumps will be DDCs but modded with the DIYHKINK Toshiba chipset which gives more power but also PWM control, these will be mounted on an EK Dual DDC V2 top which in turn has the discontinued adaptor to allow an EK Res to be fitted. My EK RES is 250mm.
I will run an EK EX240 rad at the bottom, picked because it has ports either side of the chambers, this will allow be to plumb in a drain setup easily and I have an XSPC RX360 V2 which will take over the top duties. Fans will be Noiseblocker PL2 (1400rpm) which have served me well for the last few years.
Pics or it never happened:
Old build - Lian-Li A70B
Some of the new arrivals:
Bit of be quiet unboxing:
Swanky accessory and cable box
Looks a bit lost in there
One of the reasons I like be quiet - the mad stuff you get for free. These thumbscrews are the business and they throw in an extra one just in case
Opening up the Primo:
My first thought was WTF. What on earth are all these for? admittedly there are 5 fans already installed and a hub and some LED cables but I do need to strip this down completely and find out what is going on here. The hub will be useful in that I think I can power or control it from my Aquaero or perhaps even both, the Aquaero has 4 x 2.5A (30W) fan headers and I can use one of these to power the Phanteks hub which in turn can drive 6 /12 fans and use the Aquaero for PWM control also I think (I need to experiment and find out how to hook them up)
Other bits and pieces:
DDC pump controller upgrade:
Aquacomputer Aquaero 6LT
Sundry fittings for loop
So that is where I am at the moment, I have just unboxed the Primo and PSU, cooling is sorted in my head and I have 32GB of Samsung B-die memory, a Sumsung 950Pro 500GB M.2 card and 2 x Toshiba 4TB drives. I don't know if I am doing it backwards or not in that I am sorting the power, casing, cooling first before getting that bits that will need powering and cooling but it allows me to have a good hard think about fitting and routing etc, etc.
Budget will be around the €2000 mark spread over 5 months. My want is a TR4 platform setup but my need is probably AM4 so we will find out over the next few months whether or not head rules heart or not.
Power - The heart and soul of the system: I will start as always with what is going to power the system and I decided on a be quiet Dark Power P11 850W. But Seasonic is better or SuperFlower is better still and you can control a Corsair RXi - yeah probably but I have used be quiet Dark Power for the last 7 / 8 years in my own builds and the few that I have been persuaded to do for family and friends and they are all still running... and they are quiet, as in mouse fart in a church quiet and by in large I like to support UK / EU design where possible.
Case is next up. I have had a Lian-Li A70B for about 10 years now and it was a great case for its day but that day has moved on. I want something easy to use, big and heavy enough so that my 2 year old daughter can't knock it over and fit all the stuff I want into it - like rads, fans, fan controllers, pumps, drives and a graphic card or two. Case Labs I hear you say.. See my budget I answer, yep Caselabs are probably the Rolls Royce of cases but once they leave America their prices go nuts. Lian-Li don't have anything in their range that I like and I won't touch the Thermaltake rip offs. I ended up picking the Phanteks Enthoo Primo as successor to the Lian-Li. All black, not as well built as a Lian-Li it has to be said (in fact I get a USSR vibe to some of the fit and finish in some parts) but for a watercooler or someone who has stuff to pack into a case then the Primo has some very nice intelligent solutions.
Cooling - EK is my go to man for waterblocks since I swapped out my original Asetek many moons ago. I still have an original supreme up in the attic somewhere
I generally plumb for the Acetal finish, I like dark and foreboding.. I have a EK Supremacy (non EVO) and I have ordered the AM4 upgrade set to cover all bases. Pumps will be DDCs but modded with the DIYHKINK Toshiba chipset which gives more power but also PWM control, these will be mounted on an EK Dual DDC V2 top which in turn has the discontinued adaptor to allow an EK Res to be fitted. My EK RES is 250mm.I will run an EK EX240 rad at the bottom, picked because it has ports either side of the chambers, this will allow be to plumb in a drain setup easily and I have an XSPC RX360 V2 which will take over the top duties. Fans will be Noiseblocker PL2 (1400rpm) which have served me well for the last few years.
Pics or it never happened:
Old build - Lian-Li A70B
Some of the new arrivals:
Bit of be quiet unboxing:
Swanky accessory and cable box
Looks a bit lost in there
One of the reasons I like be quiet - the mad stuff you get for free. These thumbscrews are the business and they throw in an extra one just in case
Opening up the Primo:
My first thought was WTF. What on earth are all these for? admittedly there are 5 fans already installed and a hub and some LED cables but I do need to strip this down completely and find out what is going on here. The hub will be useful in that I think I can power or control it from my Aquaero or perhaps even both, the Aquaero has 4 x 2.5A (30W) fan headers and I can use one of these to power the Phanteks hub which in turn can drive 6 /12 fans and use the Aquaero for PWM control also I think (I need to experiment and find out how to hook them up)
Other bits and pieces:
DDC pump controller upgrade:
Aquacomputer Aquaero 6LT
Sundry fittings for loop
So that is where I am at the moment, I have just unboxed the Primo and PSU, cooling is sorted in my head and I have 32GB of Samsung B-die memory, a Sumsung 950Pro 500GB M.2 card and 2 x Toshiba 4TB drives. I don't know if I am doing it backwards or not in that I am sorting the power, casing, cooling first before getting that bits that will need powering and cooling but it allows me to have a good hard think about fitting and routing etc, etc.
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