Oh I had one more question: Why the name 'Thief'? I had looked at the thread originally because I thought it might tie into the game series by the same name.
Still exciting to see all this hardware coming to life
Question when you wire up the fans all together on the radiators. Do you just take balck to black on each fan and put them on a central line and same for red. Then what would you hook that up to for power and control on the fans. Sorry very noob but just wondering. Awesome build makes me want to get one of the smaller cases.
Question when you wire up the fans all together on the radiators. Do you just take balck to black on each fan and put them on a central line and same for red. Then what would you hook that up to for power and control on the fans. Sorry very noob but just wondering. Awesome build makes me want to get one of the smaller cases.
Oh I had one more question: Why the name 'Thief'? I had looked at the thread originally because I thought it might tie into the game series by the same name.
Still exciting to see all this hardware coming to life
Haha well because I thought it was cool and because the build was stealing all my money. Also because I'm trying to link in the thief's guild symbols from skyrim and also because I'm using each motherboard chamber to represent the duality (light/dark) of the thief's life lol.
Sadly I've never played the game series of the same name, though I'm tempted to pick up the latest when it comes out.
This is correct, if you want a rpm reading you can also bring one yellow wire out as well. I didn't bother, but I might correct that if I bring the aquaero in
We'll see - I like to stick with the enthusiast chipsets so I have enough pci-e lanes for 3x/4x sli without PLX lane splitters. Having said that two titans might be enough and the extra clock speed might benefit me. So right now I'm waiting to see what happens at launch
Been a while, so here's kind of a dump of what I'vee been up to.
LIES:
Also
Also
...
So the 9500GT in mini thief died last night, thinking about swapping out my 8800GT from the project thief workstation into that rig and getting a low end kepler for the workstation can drive three screens. The workstation uses linux and I'm thinking to switch my U3011 for 3 1080p lightboost monitors in portrait. When I've run multiple screens across multiple GPUs in linux before with Xinerama then X gets a bit laggy, so this would help with that as twinview on a single card works great, and I've read that twinview can have three screens with Kepler. The cheapest kepler with a block would be a 650 ti boost, but the block is a CSQ while the rest of the workstation uses non-csq blocks. Any thoughts? I'm reluctant to try AMD for a workstation GPU because even with nouveau drivers my tools become way more laggy than the official nvidia drivers.
I'm also debating paint and fittings for the 990x/R3E motherboard/RAM loop on the gaming rig. The idea is that the workstation half would be "white" (e.g. white blocks, dt sniper white, EK white D5 top, EK white reservoir, nickel/plexi memory block and copper/plexi gpu painted white and maybe even the motherboard nickel plexi block painted white too). The gaming rig would be the "dark side" acetal cpu and gpu blocks (although I just sold the GPUs). However the motherboard is nickel/plexi and the ram block is copper/plexi (not shown here):
Originally I thought to paint these black, but then you won't even see the dye in that loop. So I was thinking maybe a black chrome finish instead just for the memory block? I could paint the motherboard block stainless steel cover plate in the middle of that block black to fit the theme. Should I then use black chrome fittings or just straight black? Also that 120 radiator is getting swapped for a black one and that fan is getting swapped for a black/red fan. Also those QDCs will be hidden away.
So to summarize I want your thoughts on these questions:
Stick with light/dark theme?
Workstation
Paint the metal parts of the workstation plexi blocks white?
Use 2x8800GTs and suck up any lag if present or switch to a 650 Ti Boost with a CSQ block?
Stick with the plan for white fittings?
Use a silver painted radiator with a silver/red fan?
Gaming Rig
Paint the RAM block black or black chrome to hide dat copper?
Paint the Motherboard block fully or only the cover plate and if so black or black chrome?
Use black fittings or black chrome?
End of questions - did this any of this make sense?
Current hardware plan (very subject to change) is to eventually add two titans or titan LEs and if I upgrade the workstation to the 4930K then the gaming rig will get the 3930K from the workstation and an X79 Dark board :thumb:
Also random shot from the mini-thief build - one thing i love about the M5Gene board is that glowing LED strip they put into the board - super cool:
I'd love to see them do something similar on a real R4E BE board not that promotional 3 board run crap they did
...
I upgraded the bios to avoid throttling and increased the power limit of the card so that I could try and seperate the results from the error as much as possible. I'm running Naennon's 145% Max Power bios. My max clocks were around 1150-1175 @1.212V (not the best card), so I downclocked to 1123MHz and tried a few benchmarks/stress tests to see what power levels I could get. Furmark was giving me a nice solid 120% level so I decided to go with that. I'm logging card temps with precision-x and the water/ambient temps with WinTest. I took some baseline measurements on air, with the fan at max (85%) the card was running about 50C over ambient which is not bad at all even if the fan is super noisy. First block on the testing rig is EK:
I also had time to unbox the hydrocopper card. The packaging is much less fancy than the Titan:
The only block to include the metal bracket to go around the gpu processor.
Accessories:
2 Pairs of compressions and 2 stop fittings:
The matt block contrasts with the shine of the EVGA sticker:
I feel like the sticker takes away from the classyness. I would have preferred it to be cut out of the plastic just like the swiftech logo is:
Maybe even make it consistent with the style of the top and maybe even light up some text there too:
The base is nickel plated:
And it's kind of nice that they preattach the thermal pads for you:
....
Had the hydrocopper on the testing bench. Results can be found on the interwebz.
Also spent the whole of saturday running flow/restriction curves on 17 waterblocks
I'd planned to disassemble the TX10 today because I'd found that if you rely on your rig that you're currently building for your day job and need a high percentage of uptime on that same rig, then it becomes very hard to get anything done. So I'd planning to run a bench setup for a while until I finish Thief. However on saturday just before I was about to process the restriction curves, my D5 on the motherboard loop started making horrible noises. I shut down the rig, but my gaming rig still wasn't functioning as the PSU died last week and the warranty replacement wasn't here yet. So it was time to strip them both out and make a frankenstein rig out of working parts. Hopefully parts that I wouldn't use in the final thief build. So here's the dissasembling which was very quick due to the TX10 design (quick release side mounts and motherboard trays FTW) as well as many QDCs. Photos aren't that great because I wasn't spending time to setup the tripod. I needed my workstation running for monday morning. I used the "bench mount" kit for the CL tray and used an old fan cut into a shroud to mount the radiator to the back of the tray. To support the weight of the rad on the far end I also have a piece of wood lulz
Yuck dust!
Parts:
Draining the windows rig - this will become the linux workstation temporarily, I was rolling with the old 460 after selling my 580s and before the titan/780 transition:
Stripping
Nearly naked:
I painted this RX360 for the build before I decided to change to a light/dark theme and before I got sponsored by alphacool:
Still rocking the sniper:
And of course EK still sponsor many other parts:
Now if only ROG would sponsor me too
I love nickel plexi
Luckily Corsair does sponsor me too, I love GTs, who wants anything else:
And I still choose GTs over platinums because I love those red tops. And they're waterblock compatible. You know if I ever get around to that....
Decided to run the monsoon lightports. I might switch to the carbon fiber ones though in the final build:
And it's about time to use some of that dye:
Ready to fill up:
XSPC don't sponsor so this one's a freebie
Get that dye in there!
Masterkleer tubing hooked up, I was out of primochill clear so I was going to use this up, already turning a bit yellow after 6months of sitting in a dark box :/ :
Forgot to tighten that middle compression, luckily it didn't leak:
sexy:
fill her up:
Leak testing:
No leaks:
Yummy:
I WANT TO EAT IT
NICKEL PLEXI AND DYE IS SO SCHMEXY
Done with the overnight leak testing and setting up:
Added an LED to the pump top:
Light ports are weak during the day, hopefully I'll get some dark shots later on:
I rotated the tray onto a spare desk and sat the PSU and HDD cage on the desk too. I put the PSU on some bubble wrap because it was having some weird resonance with the desk:
I kinda wish I had a 2nd spotswood tech bench to be honest, but this'll have to do, the "tech bench" feet that CL have for it work well and I can afford the desk space for the rest of it.
So the extension wasn't supposed to have this much bend so the inner wires are pushing through the outer
Stripping down the old R4E, the nickel is stained because I ran pure distilled without a corrosion inhibitant...
I do prefer this to csq though
beautiful condition one mount only
One mint always under water combo
Say farewell to these:
Got the hydrocopper block tested (results on the website)
Got a new lens
Dust:
Mo' Dust:
Replacement NEX1500 PSU came in to replace the dead one:
I wish I had two of these beauties:
Oh wait I do, well temporarily:
Also got a GPU in for the workstation, now I can do three monitors with one card. Can you guess:
This one gives it away a bit:
The nice thing is that the 650 ti boost with the blower cooler like this still is compatible with a 600 block.
So as part of the "getting stuff done" theme, I'd moved thief downstairs to the garage and setup the temporary test bench. The garage was still a mess as I was waiting for new benches and shelving units to come in so I could actually do something.
I also forgot to bring home my liquid tape from work to add in the bazillion new thermal probes I got so titan testing was on hold:
However I could continue some of the sleeving work:
I'd previously done one 24 pin, an 8 pin and a 6 pin. Since then Lutro0 had sent me some shiny tools and I'd started working on another 24 pin extension. I wasn't happy with the length of the inner run though as it wasn't giving me enough curvature, so I removed those wires leaving me only the outer layer:
I used lutro0's 16 AWG wire, which is pretty easy for a relative nub like me. By the end I was wishing for something stiffer though, but combined with the MDPC-X sleeve the resultant extension is pretty stiff. It still needs a good amount of training, so I seperated the two layers with some thin plywood:
and clamped it in position:
The look is just about perfect, and hopefully it'll hold after a bit of time sitting like that:
I'd also seen some staining on my nickel blocks which looked similar to EK's testing of distilled only with no anti-corrosion additive:
The acrylic isn't stained of course, but it's good to check:
Giving the block a good scrub with detergent did nothing.
EK used a metal polish to clean their blocks up and couldn't get it out of every recess, but I'm lazier than that and wanted better results so I did some research. Most people say don't use ketchup because you'll eat through the plating. So I thought I would try it on the underside to see how long it takes:
After one hour:
The dark marks were not there before, the underside was actually clean. Not sure if the dark marks are staining or where the acid etched through the nickel faster. I'm going to continue the experiment to see how long it takes...
So that's it for now, hopefully future updates will be more frequent!
I did buy some more fans and did some other background work This is now my total stash of gentle typhoons (excluding a couple in my benching setup):
9 for the Mora 140x9 (Push only)
16 for the 2 560s
24 for the 4 360s
The two 120 rads will get non GTs because I want something cooler looking for the chamber.
So thief will get 49 of these, I have 60 because I wanted 8 for the 2x240s for the S3 and then a few spare in case of deaths. Of course maybe I'll change my mind and run P/P on the mora or add in another 360 just because a total of 60 fans in the build is pretty lulztastic.
Bought some wood for it, got a 1" piece and had the guys resaw it in two and finish it down to about the right size. With finish and a bit of UV aging it will get a good bit darker too. The colors should be beautiful...
--
Well only one terabyte of ssd would have been too little:
So for a while there I was going to run the impact and a 290 on one side as a gaming rig. Just for trollsies. Would have been pretty funny to have 4x360s for one 290 and and 2x560s for one 4770K. Also that huge motherboard chamber with mitx would have been a bit of a giggle. But I got a bit more real and bought some other stuff. The Impact is currently running on the testbench testing blocks. 4770K block testing is done and it's now onto the 290 block round up version 2. In the mean while I did stuff on thief - some of you might remember me posting something about wood and then buying a panel that was then cut down the middle:
So it was time to mock up some designs on card:
This one I liked, but I wasn't sure which parts to do in wood and which parts to do cut out and then how to join the floating bits. So I tried something more minimalist:
Then mocked them up with PS:
minimal:
nightingale + dragon:
I was worried that this was too detailed and that the dragons were cheesey. I also considered adding the skyrim dragon logo on to the minimalist version:
I also considered writing project thief in dragon letters:
In the end I settled on the original minimal design:
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First job was sanding the surface smooth as it had already been planed flat:
And then cutting to size:
The idea was to recess behind the front panel, as I dont' have a router I needed to make sure I could do it with my table saw by making multiple cuts. Here's one:
Did some more cuts and decided to bevel the edges:
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After two had gone well I was ready to start the rest, I thickened up the marking to the edge of the cut - originally the line to cut was done in pencil with an additional sharpie line close by to let me know approx where I should be, but it was hard to see the pencil with the dust:
Progress:
More progress:
Test fit:
After some finishing sanding and clean up:
I also started to recess the sections that connected the "floating" parts of the symbols:
Time for dat second panel:
Oh that was fast:
Normally I like to use natural shellac finishes for this kind of wood, but given the heat variation I wanted something that might seal the wood a little better so I decided to try a clear polyurethane:
- - - Updated - - -
Sadly the wood is so oily that the poly doesn't really dry, and I had to scrub the wood down with rags and mineral spirits to clean the oil off and let the finish dry. It was a real PITA and I wouldn't do it again lol. They came out well though:
So now that that was done it was time to get the hardware sorted. Monsoon sent a care package of stop plugs to replace the ugly alphacool copper ones:
Not sure if I showed this before or not, but if so then tough cookies:
I'd also been busy prepping and sleeving fans for the rads:
Product placement:
The problem with the alphacool rads (or the rad mounts) is that the stop fittings stick up and hit the rad mount. You need to use some kind of spacer. This is the phobya 7mm version:
Progress:
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It was also time to upgrade/replace hardware - that 3930K died so I RMA'd and while I waited bought a 4930K:
I then sold the RMA part and shortly after decided to buy a 4820K:
Of course I needed a board to run the 4820K in, having bad experiences with Asus's RMA program and tech support snarky snarks I decided to give the new evga board a try as it was alleged to be a bazillion times better than their older x79 boards:
Dat sexy:
Now I know some of you are like me and were like "but you can't get blocks" well natemandoo solved that as we'll see later. My original plan was to use a 120 rad mounted to the tray to do a motherboard/ram only loop:
I knew this was silly, but it was only when I was looking at my pumps and knew that although I had 5 D5's for this build that I'd still need 2 more that I realized, maybe I should just not do that lol. There was a time where I wanted to have everything at max performance, but at some point if you really want the best temps you may as well just go sub ambient. So let's pretend that 120 will go away. Meanwhile I added RAM:
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Added the CPU:
Closed the top:
Later found out these were the RAM slots, but in the meantime auditioned some CPU blocks to see what looked best. The Sniper was a bit too small to cover the metal of the socket:
The MIPS is a great block but didn't really suit the theme:
The 5Noz covered more than the sniper, but not enough:
The DD M6 provided a nice contrast with it's nickel, but this helped cement that I actually wanted something large and black:
Which led to the surprise winner:
I setup a temporary loop in order to have something while I debugged the GPUs on air:
- - - Updated - - -
So speaking of GPUs - oh yes I bought some of those:
A couple of 290s, then a couple of 7970s:
Then a couple more 290s:
Then a pair of 7990s:
Yes things were getting out of control:
It was clearly time to make sure they worked - starting with a 290:
So now that stuff was verified, it was time to order the remaining parts and start prepping things for the final build. The Mora was moving to AP15s:
Which needed some sleeving:
Before mounting:
Dat TX10 could eat the world:
I also ordered and received the missing parts I needed for the TX10 - replacement wheels, new clear windows and the 4x360 rad mounts to go behind the grills:
CL also sent the S8 and SMA8 for review:
So that's the end of the update for today - where are we at now and what's the plan?
So there's a bunch of parts coming in:
- Care package from Monsoon
- Package from PPCS
- A bunch of EK parts
The final build will be
- R4E + 4930K + 2x7990 + AX1200 + 1TB 840 EVO + 8*4GB 2133 Dominator CL9
- X79 Dark + 4820K + 4xR9-290 + NEX1500 + 1TB 840 EVO + 4*4GB 2133 Dominator CL9
All GPUs, CPUs and Motherboards will be watercooled, the 8 way dominators will be water cooled also.
The 4x290s will be cooled by 4x UT60 360 rads
The 2x7990s will be cooled by Mora 9x140
The 4930K will be cooled by a Monsta 560
The 4820K will be cooled by a XT45 560
All radiator fans will be AP15s/AP16s. There was a plan for a while to mount 3 Aquaeros in the pedestal to control the fans, but as this will be mining there's not much point right now. We'll see if I ever want to rebuild down the road and add them lol.
The only remaining thing I need now is the mandrel kit from Monsoon which is OOS everywhere. So I'm finally ready to build. There's a ton of extensions to be made and a ton of building and bending to be done, but the good news is that after 2 years things are finally moving and the end is in sight :thumb:
--
Another care package from the lovely Monsoon team via PPCs
Oh yeah you know what we're up to:
Dat chrome:
The monsoon hardline fittings actually have you glue a sleeve to the tube. The lock ring then presses this collar up to an o-ring for an ultra secure seal :thumb:
More boxes:
All the new toys:
It's not all hardline:
Hardlining only the main chamber, the rest gets tube because the case is just too big.
I'd already taken the shroud off this one to cool it with some AP15s instead (quieter and cooler than the stock fans). So this will look a little different when getting naked. First the backplate:
Then the gpu coolers:
No wonder the cores get so hot when this is all they have:
And suddenly done:
Took em to work and set them up in a temp loop:
Massive air bubbles because the temp pump is a xspc 750 that's super weak. Bleeding was easy because I prefilled the rad so there was already a ton of coolant in the system.
I won't actually use BP sli fittings in the final build because I get nervous about them coming loose. Instead the cards will be spaced in slots 1 and 3 and then hardlined. Oh yes and dat temp x58 clown board.
Dat monsta 560 - the nice thing about QDCs and the CL side mounts is that I can just take it from here and place it right into the case and be done in about 30 seconds.
The mess of air mining - 3x290s on the board and an undervotled 7970 on a riser cable. The GPU bracket has a hook cutout for the screw that rests nicely on the top of the motherboard tray:
Dat precarious balancing and dat dark:
Let's start with the 4th 290 that isn't even running:
Take dat air cooler off:
Clean it up and nearly forget thermal pads on the other vrm area:
Test fit:
Looking good:
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One thing I love about the EK backplates are that the screws are countersunk and that only a few are used so that it looks minimal and clean:
Ok time to unplug the other 290s and block them up:
But first let's put the first 290 in:
Normally I'd start with slot one but I have one 290x that will go in slot one. Speaking of which there it is:
Add another 290:
And done:
Hmmm but maybe not quite done:
Something is missing and it's not just the power:
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Nope got the backplates on:
Ah yes that's what we need:
Take off dem bridges, I like to mount the bridge with the cards in the slots as it gives the cards something to stabilize them while you mount the new bridge. The downside is that the o-rings can fall out when you turn the bridge over to put it on top of the cards:
Moving over the o-rings:
Mounted:
Looks sexy but only really two of the ports are usable with standard fittings, the alternative ports are recessed so that stop fittings are hidden, but the stop fittings are narrow so that means a normal fittings can't fit in the hole. Which means you pretty much have to use the bottom side port and the top port. This is fine for most builds, but I wanted to come out to the bottom of the chamber and pass through the floor.
I ended up with a very temporary hilarious setup:
SO that's how the GPUs will stay for a bit while I finish up some reviews and make extensions. Then the next part after that will be hardlining the R4E and the res's, and then it'll be time to slot it all back together!
As some may know I have a temp workstation while some of the hardware mines and some of the hardware gets built in the case. It was time to pull the R4E board from the temp workstation so I swapped it out with a Gene board instead.
Now for RMAs - Corsair's RMA on the AX1200 went swimmingly and I have a shiny new one already. Asus on the other hand took a long time and then decided that the board was unrepairable and was phsyically damaged so I have to pay $175 + ship for a "new" one that is probably refurbed. I'm pretty annoyed with Asus, I've never had a succesful RMA with them. I love their boards and I really do think they are the best motherboards out there but their CS is horrible and always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. They seem to be incompetent and go out of their way to find ways to blame you and then try and charge unreasonable amounts for what they do. After owning two asus boards and 6 ROG boards, I'll be trying to avoid them in future. Luckily EK support many motherboard manufacturers with blocks now so I have more choice than ever before. I had bought a new impact from MC for $180 so that I could continue testing while the other board was RMAing. I guess I knew deep down that Asus' motherboard warranty is basically non existent:
So I swapped over the parts for the review/benching rig:
Quickly done:
Then quickly back to testing:
So now I could move on to "actual" thief work. I had bought a cheap 4820K from MC which gave me $50 off the impact, but was also useful so that I could test stuff and keep my 4930K on the temp workstation for now:
It was time to open that sucker up:
and start assembling the r4e based hardware:
No idea on clocks yet, I haven't even got around to ocing my other 4820k on the x79 dark board.
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Now it was time to polish the csq to better match the 7990 blocks. Time to dig out my old supremacy:
The supremacy takes forever to polish well because of the deep machined channels:
Because of that I focussed on the vertical rather than the horizontal:
The nickel also needed a clean:
a minute with some brasso and it was shiny again:
Then reassembled and installed:
Remember to always thoroughly check for leaks after diassembling blocks! I'm going to use the monsoon fittings which use glued end caps to acrylic hardline in order use the o-ring shown here. The end caps are then compressed using the lockring against the o-ring to provide a very secure seal! As long as the glue joint is good and lasts then this is the most secure way to hardline possible!
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I'd rather spend money on something else than that
