A build that has "hopefully" reached it's final stage of evolution. Pictures posted.

[_Wyatt_Wallen_]

This project has been one that I must say has taken some quite inconsistent turns but its on its way to be completely finished soon.

I have changed my case 3 times, swapped the board, cpu, and ram twice, changed storage mediums, and swapped out fans. I can say that it is much better to initially have a vision for your ideal computer system, with all the parts, look and accessories, and just spend the extra cash all at once so the build you have is the exact look and feel that you intended to have the first time around. I didn't know what look I was going for so I had an experimental phase on the system with some parts that I ended up changing out eventually. Having a Frankenstein build can be somewhat annoying when its half awesome and half lackluster but it is what it is.

So, with that out of the way.

I've wanted to keep a red on black look with the system because of the striking contrast it brings. The red really pops on a black background.

It's a little irking that it has become such a commonplace color scheme for many custom systems but its a nice look and it's nice to see others who can appreciate it.

With that being said, the system's specs are as follows

-Corsiar Obsidian 800D case
-AMD FX-8350 CPU (stock freq.)
-Asus Crosshair V formula-z motherboard
-G.Skill 32gb 2400mhz Trident X Ram
-(x2) AMD Radeon HD 4890 video card (Crossfired) (Soon to change)
-Phanteks PH-TC14-PE cpu heatsink (Soon to change)
-Muskin Chronos 120gb SSD
-Western Digital Velociraptor WD1000DHTZ 1TB HDD
-Western Digital Green 1TB HDD
-Seasonic Platinum 1000W PSU
-Corsair Link system running several Corsair AF120/140 fans
-Lite-On generic CD/DVD player
-Bitfenix Alchemy sleeve cable extentions (red)
-ColdZero custom PSU basement plate
-Windows 7 Professional 64bit

At this point, I want to add the other ColdZero acrylic plates to present a more uniform and clean look.
In addition to such, I am wanting to replace the heatsink with a smaller one that takes up less space but still performs as well if not better than the current unit. I am looking at getting an Prolimatech Armageddon (If it fits) or a cooler master TCP-612 (Since an TPC 812 won't mount vertically on an AM3+ socket).
Last but not least, I would like to replace my aging HD 4890s with either a GTX 780, two GTX 780s or a GTX Titan but I'm not sure which one I am going to settle on yet. Its been a toss-up for some time now.

If you notice, I decided to remove the hot swap door on the front of the case because I found myself always bumping into it with my leg so I ordered addition 5.25in bay covers to fill in the bottom section where the door once was. I never take advantage of hot swap anyways.
The only downside is that a fourth 5.25 bay cover is just a little to big to fit in the area where the bay door once was so I am in the process of sanding in down so it will fit with the other 3 bay covers. Hence the reason why it's not in there at the moment.

In any event, I figured I would present you guys with the somewhat finished result of my system. I really didn't care to do a build log in the process of building the system as I have had made several changes to the system over the past 2 years and this is just an evolution of what the system build originally encompassed.

On the contrary, I have pretty much replaced every original part of my system except the HD 4890s in this build.

Hopefully you guys enjoy the photos and I will upload more as I get the final parts in and install them.

If you have any advice or suggestions to the system then I am open to any and all input.

Thanks and enjoy!

[HiVizMan]

Looking good mate, now time to enjoy your hardware. 😛

[Chino]

Looks awesome, mate. I like the color scheme. i'm a little suprised though that you didn't choose the red version of that Phanteks heatsink. 😛

[rjbarker]

Nice looking build, the only thing I've never liked with the 800D is its not a great design at all for air cooling, they were designed for WC, as in lack of air "intakes" and positive pressure.
Will a Corsair H100i AIO WC fit on your CPU / Board? If so you could mount the H100i up top and arrange the fans to draw air into the case through the Rad and eliminate the massive Air Cooling HSF assembly 🙂

[_Wyatt_Wallen_]

I am currently in process of ordering a new video card, heatsink and fans, and more sleeved cable extensions.

My HD 4890s look nice in the case but just can't handle the 3 new Dell Ultrasharp U2410s I just bought.

To address your question, rjbarker, No. I don't plan on using any watercooling. I work as a Computer technician and have witnessed way too many AIO liquid cooling units fail and leak. Just two days ago, some guy brought in one of those pos cyberpower builds to the shop with the asetek cooling unit and it had exploded; leaking coolant everywhere. It was surprising that the motherboard was not damaged in the process.

So, with that, I am not interested in LC and my case does a fine job of air cooling. I regularly see idle temps around 40c.
And, those temps will only go down with the new hardware I will be installing soon.

[_Wyatt_Wallen_]

Here's a little update. I decided to purchase the new video cards that will run in the system. I originally intended to get 2 evga cards but newegg was out of stock so I shot over to NCIX and on a whim purchased the Zotac Titan. To utter surprise, newegg restocked their Titans later on that day and I decided to snag one on there as soon as I could. Ideally, I wanted to evga signature cards but I don't think it really matters in terms of performance. Titans are titans no matter what company redistributes them.

Enjoy these savory photos of unlimited power!





I'll have photos of the cards installed in my machine posted here when the system is finished with all it's little final touches.

[_Wyatt_Wallen_]

Here's an update to the build. Its not finished but very close.

[Chino]

Twin Titans! Very powerful pair, indeed.

[Masterbobo]

Holy crap, congrats on the 2 titans, omg that's 2k worth of graphics power, but damn don't you worry about bottlenecking them? I mean you gonna need a lot more power than that chip to unleash even 1 cards ballz let alone 2 of them! :confused: Experiment and document and share your results! Im curious...

[_Wyatt_Wallen_]

I am in no way worried about these cards being bottle-necked by my FX-8350. It should be more than sufficient to handle them.

Unfortunately, I will have to order a new UPS to run both cards as the entire system pulls more than 600W of power and my UPS battery backup cannot handle the system, all three monitors, and my speaker system under gaming load. Still trying to determine which UPS I will go with to replace my current one.