My Build + Wish List

Hello everyone!

Today I thought it would be a good idea to post my build so far. I will also be listing stuff that I am looking out for to install in the near future.

CASE:

COOLERMASTER HAF 912 (www.coolermaster.com)

The case is serving me well so far. I want to put in more fans in it. In the near future there will be one 200mm intake fan in the front, one 140mm intake fan on the side (with a filter to block the dust) and one 200mm fan on the top for exhaust. The rear fan will be used for the Liquid Cooling I will installing for the CPU. Not a custom cooling setup mind you.

A good case but as time progresses, it might be small for my purposes but until that time comes, it rocks!




CPU:

AMD FX-8120 (www.amd.com)

The FX-8120 has been good enough for everything I have thrown at it so far. It hasn't been pushed yet with any of the tasks I've had it perform.

Though I would like to update it with the new FX-8320 that was recently released. It has better power draw and more performance.

Gaming wise, the CPU has been just fine.






MOTHERBOARD:

ASUS Crosshair V Formula (www.asus.com)

The board has been amazing! It has so much to offer and I haven't even scratched the surface. It has a lot setting to go through so it will take time to learn the board.

Though if I want PCI-E 3.0 video cards, I will have to swap this for an Intel build as AMD currently doesn't have any PCI-E 3.0 motherboards. Of course that is quite a ways away.

The on board audio is great!




VIDEO CARD:

XFX DOUBLE D HD-695X-CDFC (www.xfxforce.com)

This card has also been stellar. I am able to everything I have tried so far on very high settings. Most of the games I play in 1920 x 1080 and it hasn't disappointed so far!

I wish I could buy 2 more and put it in 3-Way CrossfireX but these cards are slowly disappearing from the market. Might have to rush.







RAM:

CORSAIR Vengeance (www.corsair.com)

2 x 4GB DDR3 1600. They have been great and I have zero complaints from them. I want to buy two more in red and push my system RAM to 16GB.

They are a good buy and are pretty cheap at the moment so go for it!









POWER SUPPLY:

CORSAIR TX750W PSU (www.corsair.com)

A very reliable PSU that I would reccoment to anyone. It will handle any near future upgrades as well and I think it will be okay in the 3-way Crossfire X as well. Of course I will only know that when I get the two other cards! ^_^










AIR COOLING:

COOLER MASTER HYPER N520 (www.coolermaster.com)

Less than happy with this purchase though. There is nothing wrong with it, it's just that I want my CPU cooled even more and that is out of this cooler's league.

Replacing soon!









HARD DRIVES:

HDD:

1 320 GB SATA II Western Digital 3.5" (OS, Games, Softwares)
1 320 GB SATA Hitachi 2.5" (Data: Pictures, Videos and Music)

SSD:

1 180 GB SATA III Intel Series 330 (Games) (www.intel.com)

This was on sale for an awesome price and I had to have it. I have been pleased with it thus far.

One weird thing I ran in to. I wanted to do a fresh install of my windows on it but my product key was no longer recognized by windows 7. I have no idea why so for now I have to settle for using it is a gaming disc.

Ridiculously fast!





OPTICAL DRIVE:

Samsung 22x DVD Burner SATA Model (www.samsung.com)

This drive was on sale and I bought it. It has been a rock solid drive and I would recommend it to anyone!












FUTURE LIST:

CPU COOLER

CORSAIR Hydro Series H80i (www.corsair.com)

CORSAIR Hydro Series H70 CORE (www.corsair.com)

COOLERMASTER Seidon 120M (www.coolermaster.com)

I am trying to decide between these three cpu cooler's for now. In the absence of a decent budget for custom cooling, these are the next best thing. I would probably replace the stock fans they come with for more powerful fans but let's see.

FANS:

This is a list of the fans I am currently interested in. What I may end up buying may change but for now

COUGAR Vortex (www.cougar-world.com)

This is the 120mm fans that I am looking to get for my CPU Cooler. They will be set up in a push-pull setup. They have a Hydro-Dynamic Bearing which will give long life and good performance.

Plus the color looks awesome!









NZXT FS200RB (www.nzxt.com)

I would buy two of these for my case. One in the front for intake, one on top for exhaust. Or I could also go with two 120mm in the front and two 120mm on top. I have quite a few choices so let's see what I end up doing.

For now though this is what I am thinking of.








NZXT FX140LB (www.nzxt.com)

A great 140mm fan to consider for the side of my case as an intake fan. It can be set at three different speeds for an optimal airflow.

Plus I am liking the fact that I will have white fans showing through the front, side and top.

Hmm... now that I think about, I should put white fans on the CPU Cooler as well.






VIDEO CARD:

For now, the idea is to buy two more of the same card I have though that might not be possible since they are fast disappearing from the market. I might buy something else if it comes to that.

AUDIO CARD:

ASUS Xonar DX (www.asus.com)

A neat little card that can handle 7.1 surround sound. For now this is what I am thinking.

















SSD:

SAMSUNG 840 Series (www.samsung.com)

The 840 Series is Samsung's newest offering. It is the top of the line and arguably one of the fastest drives out there. All that and Samsung's phenomenal reliability makes this SSD hard to beat. I would get the 128GB and use it as a OS Disk.








HDD:

1 1.0TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA III.

A great drive for a great price these days.

OPTICAL DRIVE:

ASUS BW-12B1ST Blu-Ray Burner (www.asus.com)

A great blu-ray burner with awesome speed!


















MOUSE & KEYBOARD:

ROCCAT (www.roccat.org)

The ROCCAT Kone+ is  great mouse to consider with good button placement and awesome reliability.

The ROCCAT Isku is a great compliment for the Kone+ and it looks awesome!










CORSAIR (www.corsair.com)

The Vengeance M60 looks sweet and is great for FPS gaming.

The Vengeance K90 is perfect for MMO gaming.

I feel the combination will be best for me as I play FPS, RTS and MMOs almost equally.








HEADSET:

ROCCAT (www.roccat.org)

I think I am falling in love with anything ROCCAT and this great headset is no different. The ROCCAT Kave is a 5.1 surround sound gaming headset which is lightweight and great to use. The sound is crisp and it will give you endless joy!

















CORSAIR (www.corsair.com)

A great headset for gaming, the Vengeance 1500 boasts 7.1 surround sound and good weight to give you long hours of gaming.

Looks sweet!















FINAL THOUGHTS:

That is pretty much everything I have planned for my build in the near future. After this my next project will be a Intel-Nvidia build. Though when that happens remains to be seen.

Kiyoshi Out!

A map

Hi everyone!

I was going through the stats of my blog and I wanted to share with you a picture.

This is a map of the visits I have had from around the world. I am both happy and humbled by the number of people who have showed up to read my blog. I am very thankful for your continued support and will diligently keep on writing. In the meantime, if you you want to read about something specific you can always leave a comment (Comments are now open to everyone to write, not just google users) and I will try my best to write about it.

Kiyoshi Out! 

Custom Liquid Cooling: An Overview

Hi everyone!

Today I wanted to talk about custom liquid cooling. Liquid cooling is a fascinating are of PC Building and it is becoming more and more common. There are various reasons why people liquid cool their PCs. Some do it for the great cooling benefits it offers and as a result, easiness of overclocking. Some do it because it is a very cool thing to do. Some also do it for the noise reduction it offers. Whatever the case, today I will be listing the parts that you will be generally using in building a custom liquid cooling system. This is not a how to, rather a summation of the parts needed. There are some excellent guides on the net that you can use to help you in building the cooling system of your dreams.

Pros:
+ Lower operating and idle temperatures
+ Decreased noise
+ Increased overclocking ability
+ Coolness factor

Cons:
- Price Factor (Depending on the parts used, you cooling solution may cost as much or even more than your PC
- Difficulty

Onwards!

1. CPU Water Block:

The CPU block is what will cool your CPU instead of the usual air cooler. The price range is rather big and depending on your budget you may find several different kinds. Usually Copper plated though as of late, everyone is coming out with Nickel plates. They are better looking (Copper tarnishes over time) with almost as good heat conductivity as copper offers.

EK-Supreme LTX - Acetal + Nickel
http://www.ekwb.com

2. GPU Water Block:

GPU blocks come in two different types. Universal which can be swapped from a variety of cards and Full Blocks which provide better heat dissipation but are often restricted to specific card types. With universals, you will have to use RAM sinks or some other after market cooler to cool the VRAM of the card.

EK-VGA Supremacy - Acetal

EK-FC6970 V2 - Acetal + Nickel
Fits non-reference Radeon HD 6970

Plus you can also get a custom backplate to go with the Full Block resulting in your GPU looking very cool from all sides.

EK-FC6970 V2 Backplate - Black

3. Optional Blocks:

You can also get water blocks for the Motherboard, Chipset, Northbridge and Southbridge. Need dependent usage is recommended (Needing to look cool definitely falls under Need Dependant Usage :-p)

EK-FB ASUS Crosshair V - Acetal
Custom created for my motherboard

EK-ASUS NB/SB 1 - Acetal

4. Reservoirs:

The reservoir is what you will need to fill your cooling loop with water and trap air bubbles as they travel across the loop. Some come with an attached pump for an easier solution. Depending on the area available inside you case, there are a lot of different reservoirs you can consider.

EK-Multioption RES X2 - 250 Basic

EK-D5 X-RES 140 CSQ - Acetal
Pump-Reservoir Combo

5. Pumps:

Depending on your requirements, you can choose from a lot of different pumps. Some are small, some pretty big and you will have to work out how to fit them in to your case.

EK-DCP 2.2 (12V DC Pump)

Laing D5 Vario 12V DC Pump

On a side note, pumps tend to vibrate quite a bit so it might be a good idea to have some kind of insulation to dampen the vibration and the accompanying noise it will make.


6. Radiator:

Arguably the bulkiest item on your list, The Radiartor is what will give you the most headache when it comes down to fitting things nicely. Most of the times you will end up placing it on top of your case. You also have to figure out which one to get as depending on that, your cooling potential can vary greatly. Research, research, research.

EK-CoolStream RAD XT (480)
Contains four 120mm fans

7. Tubing:

Tubing (tubes) is what you will use to connect all the various coolers you have been busy installing throughout the computer. They will carry the water all over the place so it pays to buy a good one. Tubing comes in several different sizes (most often measured by the internal diameter of the pipe.) 1/2" ID (Internal Diameter) is often favored because it is thick enough to resist kinks. Of course depending on your needs, you can opt for a smaller one (e.g 7/16") Tubings also come in a variety of color if you want to spruce up things a bit.

TUBE ClearFlex 12/16
1/2" ID

TUBE Masterkleer UV - Green
7/16" ID

8. Coolant & Other Additives:

What will you use to carry all that heat around the loop? Well you have a variety of options.

You can use good old distilled water which you should be able to find easily (Walmart carries it.) You can further add a Biocide to inhibit algae growth as well as other microbes. You can alternatively use a kill coil which is a 99.9% pure silver coil which should also do the job. You can also use De-Ionized water if you cannot find distilled water though it won't last as long as distilled water.

Alternatively you can use a premix fluid which contains everything listed above and some other things as well. The downside to them is that they often contain dyes which may end up staining a lot of things and make things look unattractive in the long run.

IandH Silver KillCoil

EK-Ekoolant CLEAR (premix 1000mL)

9. Barbs / Other Fittings:

There are a lot of barbs out there in the market. Fortunately most of the liquid cooling hardware uses the same G1/4 thread barbs so you won't have to struggle to find the correct barb. Just make sure the barb that you buy goes with the tubing you have. The Barb Tail should be equal to the ID of your tubing.

EK- 1/2" G1/4 High-Flow Fitting 

Elbows:

You can use these to navigate tight spaces and to make things appear neater overall. Use in place of large arced or extreme bent tubes.

EK-PSC Adapter 90 deg. G1/4 Nickel

SLI/ Crossfire Fittings:

Best used when you have multiple cards setup in SLI or Crossfire. They are adjustable metal tubes which you can place between the cards to make sure they stay leveled.

DUAL VID Connector, Adjustable 2-3 Slot Spacing
http://koolance.com

10. Other Blocks:

If you so choose, you can also liquid cool your RAM and HDDs.

EK-RAM Dominator X4 - Acetal+Nickel CSQ
Can cool up to 4 Corsair Dominator RAMs

Koolance HD-57 Water Block
Cools up to two hard drives at once

Final Thoughts:

One thing you should remember. Always avoid mixing metals. If your various blocks have cooper and aluminium as their main metal, they might end up causing Galvanic Corrosion (to prevent you might have to add a corrosion inhibitor in your liquid.) It is the best practice to use the same metal throughout the loop. Research, research, research.

Personally I prefer having everything Nickel. It just looks cool.

That is it for this rather lengthy post.

Kiyoshi Out!