Z97-A TTL Forum Freebie build log

[Tolemac]

Hi all forumites as the title says I will be using the Z97-A motherboard that TTL gave away in his forum freebies plus the loaned Pentium K which is great for me as I only use ASUS boards

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Also I will use my Z11 Neo
8gb Kingston Hyper X Predator 2133
Sapphire R9 290 X Vapor X
240GB Kingston SSD
2 TB Seagate HDD
Superflower Leadex 750w white PSU
3x Bitfenix Spectre Pro 120 mm white LED fans
2x EK Vardar F3 1850 PWM fans
Xspc D5 Bay/Res with a Vario pump
Xspc 240 mm Radiator
Xspc Raystorm CPU waterblock
Primochill 7/16 Tubing

So I better get started

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I may change the case to a White one at some point with more Rad space as I want a waterblock on my Vapor X apparently EK will make them to order now.

Thanks for reading updates to follow

A big HUGE MASSIVE THANK YOU to OC3D for giving me the opportunity to change platforms from AMD to Intel

 

[AlienALX]

Looking forward to this!

 

[Terrifictez85]

Looking good so far, love that PSU. Might be an idea to route cables round the back of the motherboard tray. Is amazing how much of a difference it makes with temps. Glad to see TTL has some decent forum members who don't try and profit from his generosity.

 

[Tolemac]

I'll be doing more tomorrow as I have just got home after a really busy week. Today I am just cleaning my Radiator and case I am also going to include building the waterloop and how to swap the window and led holder on the XSPC D5 bay/res as my window has a crack on it as there are no guides of how to do this on the internet.

EDIT: I have just noticed this thread is in the Rig Gallery. my apologies for this.
Mods please move this thread to the appropriate place on the forum.

 

[Davva2004]

Looking forward to the updates!

 

[Tolemac]

It's all in I did do a rather lengthy post but I got logged out so I just thought I would show you guy's what it is looking like and i'll come back to the lengthy post another time

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Once again a big thank you to TTL and WYP for giving me this Motherboard and the loan of the Pentium K. I will be getting a 4960K in 2 weeks. I did lower the core voltage as the motherboard put it at 1.22v stock so I lowered it to 1.v

 

[AlienALX]

Good stuff

 

[Tolemac]

So here are the EK vardar F3 fans on the 240mm radiator sorry about pic quality I only have my phone

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Time to put them in

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Then A cracked window on my bay/res luckily I had a spare window which are available from xspc for £5 which comes with led holder, seal, allen key and screws

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fitted new window and leak tested it

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Just a heads up here guy's these led holders are very poorly made and are likely to break on these XSPC bay/res what I did was just screw the led holder in using a small coin until the rubber seal is in contact and does its job

with all that done time to fit the waterblock to the motherboard

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Time for my cutters worth their weight in gold

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I then cut the tubing to size I used Primochill 7/16 as its better quality than XSPC

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I took the motherboard out,filled and bled the loop. I use Mayhems X1 clear coolant

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I then cleaned the Pentium K although it looked clean to the eye it wasn't then I used EK Ectotherm TIM its just as good as NT-H1 but half the price

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My Sapphire R9 290X Vapor X what a real 290 should look like

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Finally up and running but still have cable management to do
"sigh"

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I will be swapping out the case for a white one with better cooling capability and cable management please feel free to advise and make suggestions on this build
Thanks all

Alan

 

[tinytomlogan]

Noctis 450 maybe?

 

[cooperman]

Sweet 290x you have there mate

 

[Tolemac]

Noctis 450 maybe?

Thats a good option for me Tom my only gripe with my superflower psu is the thickness of the 24 pin cable plus I think the case would set it off nicely and it ticks all the boxes I would have to buy a D5 pump top but I was going to do that at some point anyways.

and thanks Cooperman I got that Vapor X for £275 from Aria a few months ago and tbh I have never looked back its just awesome and I plan to waterblock it in the near future

Edit: my pc is sooo quiet now CPU is 32C and I can just about hear the D5 running

 

[Tolemac]

Just a quick update here guys sorry about the delay but with my father sadly passing that had to come 1st here is what I had the pentium K clocked to in the bios

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with the 4960K I got to 4.5@1.223v so far

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Any advice on overclocking the 4960K would be greatly recieved and what are the max temps I can go to for the i5? please many thanks Tolemac.

I will be changing cases at some point either a white Enthoo pro or the Corsair Air 540 methinks then take the Bay/res out for a mounted res

A HUGE BIG THANK YOU TO TTL AND WYP FOR LETTING HAVE THE CHANCE TO CHANGE PLATFORMS THANKS GUYS IT MEANS A LOT

 

[joca94]

Just a quick question, is it 4GB or 8GB VaporX?
And nice 4690k clocks there!

 

[Tolemac]

Just a quick question, is it 4GB or 8GB VaporX?
And nice 4690k clocks there!

Thanks and its a 4gb Vapor X

 

[Tolemac]

It seems 4.6ghz is the stable limit but im happy with that the cpu temp got to 77C is that too hot guy's?

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[tinytomlogan]

If its stable I wouldnt worry about 77 dude

Water or AIO would be hitting those kind of temps

 

[Tolemac]

Thanks Tom I just do not know enough of intels temp threshold its stable so i'll leave it at that like you i'm an old bios overclocker I really do not like how many volts software OC programs use

 

[AlienALX]

Yeah 77 for a Haswell seems fine dude. Happy you got your CPU too.

 

[Tolemac]

Thanks ALX me too its running really well i'm so happy with it.

 

[Wraith]

Awesome work fella and nice clocks too, its nice to see the freebie getting used and the appreciation is clear. Kudos to you.