Say hello to Mikkel!

N

NastyFighter

New member
Hi there! My name is Mikkel, 20 years old and I live in the Netherlands and I'm a mechanical engineering student. I love playing games, both new and older games. Things like AoE2, Knights and Merchants, Settlers 4 but also BF3, Crysis2, Daiblo 3, Supreme Commander FA, Skyrim of course and DayZ. I used to play on consoles, NES and Super NES. I've also played a lot on PS2 and 3. But since I got a laptop for school I started playing more and more on the computer and liked it ever since. No more stupid controller :notworthy: (praise the lord!). I liked playing on my laptop (HP Elitebook 8540P) until recently. Got annoyed by the slow GPU it's just not great for gaming.

So in april this year i bought and built my first gaming rig.

  • I5 2500k
  • MSI Z77A-GD65
  • Crusial M4 128GB SSD
  • Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB (vibrates too much, WD from now on only)
  • 16GB Corsair Vengeance LP RAM
  • Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750 PSU
  • Gainward GTX680 with Gelid Icy Vision Rev2 moded with noctua fans
  • Scythe Mugen Rev2 CPU cooler
  • Fractal Desgin Define XL (almost too heavy to carry to a lan-party)

Maybe too much ram for gaming but I like to have it for Solidworks and other stuff :)

Since then I really got into the PC stuff. Started watching TTL on youtube, really great reviews! Thats also what brought me here, I figured ah well why not register. Keep up with new hardware and read benchmarks/reviews and learn new stuff.

Thats my story! I'll put some pics below of my system.

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Thats really good thinking for the graphics card cooling, how does it perform?

Shouldnt have gone with the 680 - but we can overlook that ;)

Welcome anyway!
 
Well as far as I can remember there was only the 680 when I bought my parts. I even had to order it 3 days earlier and from another store because it was almost not available and sold out 3 days later everywhere.

As far as the cooling goes, I havnt seen it over 55C while playing BF3 on ultra with everything maxed also 55C in Unigen Heaven benchmark. Yesterday I did a 1min benchmark in Furmark and it got up to 62C or something. I might do a longer test to see what max temps are. It atleast is silent as hell on max fan speed. Not that the reference cooler was loud but it could get hot very fast and the card would downclock.
 
Those are amazing temps! But, stay away from Furmark with the newer cards - it does them nothing but harm :(
Both MSI's Kombustor and OCCT's GPU test do the same kind of tests, but won't damage the GPU :)
Oh yeah, and welcome to the forum! It's a lovely build you've got going there, and I hope you enjoy this site as much as we all do. Be sure to stick around!
 
Josh Weston said:
Those are amazing temps! But, stay away from Furmark with the newer cards - it does them nothing but harm :(
Both MSI's Kombustor and OCCT's GPU test do the same kind of tests, but won't damage the GPU :)
Oh yeah, and welcome to the forum! It's a lovely build you've got going there, and I hope you enjoy this site as much as we all do. Be sure to stick around!
Click to expand...

You sure about Kombustor? That's exactly the same program as Furmark - made by the same people, just renamed and put MSI badges on it. afaik, it's exactly the same inside.

I'm pretty impressed with that makeshift cooler if you dont mind. Whats noise like? and how do you have the fans connected?
 
Ok, just read a few thousand words on the subject; stay away from Furmark, Kombustor and OCCT! They have all killed cards in the past, it seems :P
Keep to Unigine :(
 
Haha hmm benchmarking seems to be bad lol. But got 50C in Kombuster with 1920x1080 test.

Noise is ehm, how do you describe noise? There's atleast almost no difference between full and low speed. Just almost no noise i guess.

The original guy who did this mod (back at hardforum.com) connected the fans directly on the GPU fan header. But since I didnt really wanted to cut and solder the fan cables to the cable of the original cooler I connected them with the fan controller that came with my case. I could always try that and if it didnt work buy a seperate cable later to still mod and solder the cables. But this seems to work good and the noise difference between full and low is so little that I always have it on full (so no PWM needed). So I might have been cheaper of by buying some non PWM fans, but oh well, these are a "good" investment! :P Just be sure they are 92mm fans, they fit perfectly.

As far as mounting the fans to the radiator, I used small zipties, stuck them through the radiator and fan with the small block-end on the top of the fan. Then put another ziptie on the other end and cut the end of. I'll make a pic if you dont get it :P

Edit: Card runs stock by the way.
 
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Welcome to the forums and a very nice system you have there. I also like the modded 680, would love to see more pics of the 680 tho :)
 
You request, we serve! Here are some more pictures. I didnt expect them to look this nice since I made them with my Galaxy S2.

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How I mounted the fans on the cooler.

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EVGA backplate on Gainward GPU to strengthen the pcb. It probably doesnt need one but it looks good too :)
 
I kind of wish more Graphics Cards manufacturers would make such heatsink designs...damn. Impressive work, and the EVGA backplate looks great :)
 
Yeah they really should, something like MSI featuring Noctua. That would really be cool, although they have to change the somewhat ugly colours. Then it will probably be a 3 maybe 2 slot cooler instead of 4.

Price wise it might get a bit expencive, the fans set me back 40 euro's and the cooler another 30. Although when they mass produce this for a few different cards (like 670) and substract the cost of the reference cooler it might not be that expencive after all.
 
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