Raven - My First-Ever AMD Build

mb67

New member
I really wanted a black, silver, and purple color scheme build so I set out to do just that. It's been a really slow process getting this build put together, considering that I was one of the 'pre-order' Ryzen 7 people.

I got the processor (Ryzen 7 1800X) quickly, however the ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero board took over a month, even with my pre-order on the initial day of pre-ordering. The rest of the parts I got in a timely manner, including the dual 1080Ti FE's.

Here are the specs:

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero board
NZXT Kraken X52 AIO
Samsung 950 Pro 256GB m.2 nvme drive (reused from previous build)
G. Skill Trident Z 3200 (14-14-14-34) 16GB kit (Black and Silver)
Dual GTX 1080Ti's (Founder's Edition)
Corsair AF 120mm PWM fans
EVGA G3 850W PSU
Cable Mod custom cables in Black, Silver, and Purple
Jonsbo UMX 4 compact ATX aluminium & tempered glass case

To start off I knew that I wanted a tempered glass case but I wasn't sure what to get. So many people are using Phanteks, NZXT (My last case was NZXT btw), etc, and I wanted to be a little different. When I saw the Jonsbo UMX4 I knew that I wanted that case.

(just look at that tempered glass goodness)

y6fWMLeh.jpg


A pretty decent/smart layout for a rather small ATX chassis, so I thought this is going to be my first foray into custom water cooling. Boy, was I wrong about that:
When using a full ATX motherboard there is very little room left over for even an AIO. 'Regular/Standard' sized fans won't fit on the NZXT radiator, as they press up against the motherboard making it virtually impossible to connect the 8-pin EPS/power cable. As it is, the rear fan sits directly on the I/O shroud , so there's no 'wiggle room' so to speak. I wound up having to order a pair of 120mm slim fans (15mm thick) to make the AIO work.

dYNsOv4h.jpg


I also don't like the cutouts for the bottom 120mm fans, as they're offset from the board. Making it worse the USB 3.0 cable is so thick that it gets squeezed by the fans, so I had to buy a low profile USB 3.0 extender cable to prevent any damage to the header/cable.

Anyway, I really did not like the way the AIO tubing was routed so I took out the power supply (which sits up top in the front of the chassis) and re-routed the tubing in between the PSU and the bracer lattice work. I then wanted to see what the GPU's would look like in the case as I was concerned about the AIO tubing resting on the top GPU: It's not going to be a problem after all.

raxZPs0h.jpg


The cabling arrived, only to discover that I got the wrong cables for the GPU's - I got the 8+6 pin PCI-E cables, when I really wanted the 8-pin and a 6-pin (Kind of worried about the power draw on the 8+6 pin cables, as well as it won't look as clean inside the build). Anyway, with the rest of the cabling here I could then move forward and start color matching certain things to the cables. I decided to try my hand at painting the AIO:

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Overall, I think it looks great! BTW for some reason (angle lighting perhaps?) the bottom fan rings look more blue than purple in the photo, but they are indeed purple.

Fci2vbph.jpg


That's it for now, but I've got some things still on order and I plan on taking apart the GPU's and painting the GEFORCE GTX logos to match the purple in the build.
 
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Nice build :) A cool addition could be to paint the MB "armor", the heat spreaders, RAM
And the "harddisk cover"(The vertical black thing in the front of the case) :D

EDIT: Ohh and the GFX'es can be dissembled and panted as well ;) (And the sli bridge)
In other words, go on at painting spree :D
 
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Nice build :) A cool addition could be to paint the MB "armor", the heat spreaders, RAM
And the "harddisk cover"(The vertical black thing in the front of the case) :D

EDIT: Ohh and the GFX'es can be dissembled and panted as well ;)

Thanks!

I plan on adding some black plasticard to cover the SSD rail, as I made a mistake - I wanted an acrylic plate to replace the unsightly Jonsbo plate but the one I ordered is 7mm too small: There's an ugly white backing in the cutout behind the mirrored Jonsbo plate and my ROG logo is unfortunately too small, leaving some of that white backing visible.

Thanks to Tiny Tom Logan, I saw how he used some Plasticard to make things look better so I'm going to cover that area up with plasticard and use my logo. Here's the logo:

9KF8WpDh.jpg


It's actually purple, but the photo lighting makes it look more pinkish than purple.

EDIT

I also ordered some round stickers to be made with this emblem to put on the case fans:

9AP6Ckrh.png
 
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Personally i'm not for the shiny plastic :D

There's not much that will be shiny plastic, outside of the NZXT Kraken X52 mirror, and the purple part of the ROG logo on the acrylic plate. What you're seeing in the photos is the light coming in from the large bay window, which is admittedly overpowering and makes "everything shiny, Captain." Sorry, I just had to cheaply quote from Firefly. :D

EDIT

Yes, that Jonsbo logo is annoyingly shiny, and it has to go.
 
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Looking good. :D Some nice white lights in there to put accent on color, and it will be stunning.
 
Looking good. :D Some nice white lights in there to put accent on color, and it will be stunning.

Thank you! :)

I've got a 60cm CableMod LED strip tucked away inside the case but I forgot to order an extension cable so that I can reach the connector on the motherboard. I've got one on order now. :p
 
Thank you! :)

I've got a 60cm CableMod LED strip tucked away inside the case but I forgot to order an extension cable so that I can reach the connector on the motherboard. I've got one on order now. :p

That is gonna be bang on the spot. :D
 
Okay, so I got around to painting the GTX emblems, and let me say that from a distance they look great. Up close, not so much. They will look much better when I get the smoked tempered glass panels back on.

It wasn't as easy to sand & paint the emblems as I thought it was going to be, after watching several videos on how to do this. A delicate approach is a must if you want to take on this kind of task.

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I just had to see what they look like inside the case:

meSLTt5h.jpg
 
LOVE the purple on the Geforce logo. Never seen someone do that before.. or at least I don't remember it. Is it too bright when it lights up and no longer matches the other purple in the build? Or you just that good and it looks the same?;)
 
LOVE the purple on the Geforce logo. Never seen someone do that before.. or at least I don't remember it. Is it too bright when it lights up and no longer matches the other purple in the build? Or you just that good and it looks the same?;)

Thank you! :)

I actually haven't tried to see what they look like when powered on yet: I'm waiting for a few parts to arrive before I can finish it. I've tested the cards in my previous build so I know that they work, however I haven't tried to see what they look like after the paint job. :p
 
Seems you can get random results on these logos.

Some state you need to use thick paint or the white bleeds through. Others claim to sand it down lightly and then glaze it using a spray gun. Some can a perfect cover by using the old primary school painting technique of pressing the logo onto a thin layer of paint multiple times. Almost tempted to test this with some spare logos I have in my drawer :D

Either way, the purple should look pretty sweet once you juice it with light.
 
I decided to redo the cards, because I wasn't pleased with the first crack at it. In my opinion, it looks much better.

b9Cpjl4h.jpg
 
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