My First Complete Build w\ Liquid

[krellnut]

Hi All,
Thought you might be interested in seeing my new machine I just built. It runs very cool and quiet. Liquid is the way to go. It may not be the flashiest machine around, but its got horsepower behind it. I'm trying to future proof myself a bit with reference to the cards. Here's the specs;

1. MSI X power motherboard.
2. 4770K-i7@4.2
3. 32 gb's 1600Mhz Kingston ram
4. 4-GTX 780 Ti Dual Classified Hydro video cards.
5. Windows 7 64bit on a 120gb Samsung SSD. 6 other hard drives of various sizes.
6. 2-Antec Platinum power supplies; 1300 watt to run video cards, 1000 watt to run rest of system.
7. Koolance dual reservoir with 2-D5 pumps.
8. Koolance CPU block.
9. Koolance fan controller.
10. Bitfenix cables in main case.
11. 120.4 rad for CPU.
12. Two 120.3 rads for cards.
13. Red loop for CPU, blue loop for cards.
14. A total of 14-120mm fans cool the machine.
15. Custom stuff includes; tubing brackets off reservoir, custom SLI bridge and custom power cable for hard drives in main case.
16. Caselabs Magnum STH10 case.

Thanks for taking the time to look. And no, this is not just to run RailWorks.

[krellnut]

Two more.

[PapaXpress]

ok, so what do you really play on that rig?

[GaryG]

No water-cooled 1KW audio amp????

That should be good for at least one more Intel generation...

GaryG

[GSkid]

Wow! I never expected YOU to get a rig like that.

The amount of video cards and RAM is overkill for Railworks. I hope you have some serious gaming and video editing plans. Tell us what your framerates are on the routes with everything on max and the resolution. Micro-stuttering might be an issue in SLI and you may be better off with just using Railworks with one card. Certainly recording video in the sim should give you a virtually stutter free, high framerate result.

"Trainz: A New Era" will certainly take good advantage of that rig.

Congrats!

[imnew]

Congrats ! That is an awesome looking rig !

[buzz456]

He's gathering data for the NSA part time.

[NYWhiskey]

Nice setup! I love EVGA, you can crank up the volts until you set the thing on fire and EVGA will replace the parts.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Impressive! But also expensive and too much for everyday use.

There are two cooling circuits, but all video cards seem to be on one circuit?
Where are the radiators in that large case?

[Ericmopar]

Daaaang.
Let's see... I know blue are veins and red are arteries, but where are the lungs in that A.I. machine?

[SouthernPacific-Mike]

How do you plan to keep the dust out of it? You going to go thru a lot of compressed air. But it is really a nice rig!

[krellnut]

Thanks for all the comments.

But also expensive and too much for everyday use.

Its expensive, but not even maybe to the too much for everyday use. This thing is quiet and docile when not gaming. Even when gaming, the rad fans have never ramped up, same with CPU fans. It simply doesn't have to work hard

Where are the radiators in that large case?

The cards are on one circuit and there are two rads; 120.3. There located in the bottom of the case. The temps between the cards is only 4C. The CPU has a 120.4 rad, and it is located at the front. Playing Crysis3 for over an hour; cards don't even reach 50C. I used to have two fan 780's and they ran at 80C.

How do you plan to keep the dust out of it?

Every fan that is drawing into the case, or pushing through the rads have filters on them. I think I have all the bases covered.

[peterhayes]

Krellnut
Great rig but I have a couple of questions:
I see you went for the non-K version of the i7 Haswell - so those video cards could be held back/throttled by that lowish end cpu speed with no overclocking function - I would have used the K variant and overclocked to around 4.8Ghz to feed those cards (have been up to 5.2GHz on 2 cores with a 780TI and TS2014 rocks)?
What monitor(s) are you using with this rig?
Did you delid the cpu and use some better thermal conductivity medium (than that used by Intel on the stock Haswells)?
Why did you choose quite "slow" RAM - I would have gone for 2400Hz low latency on that fantastic rig!!
The mother board is an interesting choice - I use MSI boards but did you think about something like an ASUS ROG board??

These questions are not criticisms in any shape or form and I realise that there a lot of cost implications in my observations.
It looks to be a great rig!! Lets hope you don't spring a leak!!
Regards
pH

[krellnut]

I see you went for the non-K version of the i7 Haswell

I just checked my receipt; it is a 4770K i7.

Why did you choose quite "slow" RAM - I would have gone for 2400Hz low latency on that fantastic rig

Memory Express, where I buy my stuff says faster speed ram makes very little difference, so they offer very little selection.

The mother board is an interesting choice - I use MSI boards but did you think about something like an ASUS ROG board??

I choose this board mainly because of 4-way SLI capability.

Did you delid the cpu and use some better thermal conductivity medium (than that used by Intel on the stock Haswells)?

So far the processor has not hit 40C, I'm good with that.

What monitor(s) are you using with this rig?

Samsung IPS 27 inch- 2560x1440.

[peterhayes]

K
Thanks for the replies - now to overclock the beast I get 20 deg C over ambient on water cooling @ 4.4 - 4.8GHz (no delidding)
pH