New Build

[Hor]

Some weird happened and I ended up with a Skylare build. I put it together on Halloween, now I'm looking at adding a few things to "finish it off" like a second 980 TI, some more storage for my Steam library and maybe a water loop for the graphics. Super happy with how it turned out though, here she is.

Here's the parts list:

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i GTX 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card
Case: NZXT H440 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case
PSU: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional OEM (64-bit) / Linux Arch Dual Boot
AIO Fans: Corsair Air Series SP140 Quiet Edition 49.5 CFM 140mm Fan (2)
Case Fans: Corsair Air Series AF120 Quiet Edition 39.9 CFM 120mm Fan (4)
Headphones: Superlux HD668B Headphones
Monitor: AMH A409U UHD 40" 3840X2160 16:9 4K LED Monitor 60Hz

It went together really fast, and worked beautifully from the word go. I'll be adding another SSD for my Steam drive, as for the machine I built over the summer? It's going to a good friend of mine. Finally convinced him to give up his Laptop gaming ways and move on to a big boy gaming platform. Below are some pics of the rig itself, along with my OC/Benchmark results from the Tek Syndicate GPU Benchmark thread.

http://i.imgur.com/BjtQOf6.jpg

As you can see the AMH A409U is a MASSIVE monitor, I've pretty much retired my triple monitor setup at this point, though I plan to go with a secondary monitor in portrait mode to the side for keeping up with Twitch chat, things like that.

http://i.imgur.com/iTlWd02.jpg

The observant among you might notice something odd about this, my exhaust fan isn't moving because a hose from the AIO has made contact with the blades. I didn't catch this early, and so this morning my machine overheated. I decided to redo my overclocking and benchmarks since obviously my results previously were likely somewhat skewed, those results are posted below. I would also like to note how annoying the green LEDs are on this board. However, that's basically the only shot I can take at this board, it's otherwise beast mode incarnate.

http://i.imgur.com/sQkqHgg.jpg

I really like the rear IO lighting for my setup.

http://i.imgur.com/OuvloMQ.jpg

And here's the Benchmarks, after I got my cooling situation under control I toyed around with the settings on the MSI OC dial, it appears that it changes base clock settings as well as the CPU clock. So, I wanted to get it sorted out before I started messing with the GPU. All told I got a monster OC on this thing, enough so that I'm seriously considering doing a custom water loop when I add the second TI.

Still sorting out my battlestation and peripherals, I've been running this mouse/keyboard combination for the better part of a decade now and I'm starting to notice. The speakers in the pictures also died very recently, they were cheap but they also lasted me a LONG time and multiple computers.

[MiRai]

Fantastic!

Hoping to finish my new build sooner than later, as well.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Why would a single fan (of the four(six?)) cause an overheat?

[Hor]

@MiRai thanks! I've been keeping an eye on your progress on Youtube, looking forward to how it turns out. I've got a few personal touches to add to this one before I call it done. I'm going to be doing a custom lit panel to replace the NZXT logo at the bottom of the case. And of course the second TI. I definitely want to sleeve all those PSU cables, I just need to get enough time.

@Ughmahedhurtz The fan was the only exhaust fan, so all of the heat was literally just building up and leaking out slowly. I noticed a 20 degree drop with the fan going, it was significant.

I'm keeping an eye on it, I'd also boosted the voltage previously. So probably a combination of the increased voltage and the lack of exhaust.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

@Ughmahedhurtz The fan was the only exhaust fan, so all of the heat was literally just building up and leaking out slowly. I noticed a 20 degree drop with the fan going, it was significant.

I'm keeping an eye on it, I'd also boosted the voltage previously. So probably a combination of the increased voltage and the lack of exhaust.

Ah, I see. If you have a spot for it, I'd definitely recommend adding another; redundancy in something like that is always a good thing. ;) And fans are dirt cheap compared to CPUs/GPUs/HDDs.

[Hor]

Yeah, I'm good now. I've got 6 fans in the case. 1 is the dedicated exhaust. 3 120m fans in the front for intake. And 2 140m fans up top for the radiator. I actually may get a 140 for the back since it's got room for it. The fans I'm using are pricey, but I wanted good/quiet ones. And since the radiator isn't doing much in the exhaust department, I feel like just getting the biggest exhaust fan I can might be worth it.

My advice though, for anyone doing a build in the near future. If you're doing a top mounted radiator like mine, pay close attention to where the hoses are going. I had to orient my hoses toward the front to resolve my fan issue in this case, I doubt the problem would be much different in other cases. However, the 110i GTX is a remarkable cooler and not nearly as loud as I expected, in my experience the pump noise from water cooling is usually a deal breaker but this configuration is quiet enough that it's almost inaudible over normal room noise.