Project Raven

[ohms]

Just made a purchase on a used Radeon 6990 since I cannot find a brand new one for a reasonable price anywhere! I hope to have it installed within 2 weeks time since I need to wait for my next paycheck to order the Swiftech Epsilon block for it.

[ohms]

Here is a picture of the Corsair AX1200 like I promised. Unfortunately for you guys, it's already installed



Excuse the mess but I'm not gonna organize anything or zip-tie anything down until I sleeve this power supply, install my new Radeon 6990 with the water block and move everything into the Case Labs M8 case I will be purchasing.

[ohms]

I finally got my Powercolor Radeon 6990 in the mail. No water block yet but here she is! (forgive the blurring effect I did but I did not want to chance anyone getting my serial number)

Does anyone see a distinct pattern going on here? How the cases kept getting more and more expensive?

CM HAF-X
Silverstone FT-02
XSPC H1 Cube
Case Labs M8





I also have some huge purchases coming in the next 4 weeks which will be in the form of my Case Labs M8, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7, Swiftech Epsilon Full cover GPU block with single slot PCI bracket, and an OCZ RevoDrive PCI-E 120GB SSD.

As you can see I have yet to purchase a water block for my 6990. If any card on the market needs a water block it is without a doubt the 6990. It idles at 60° Celsius with the fan running at 50% speed and it sounds like a jet engine. I will most likely go with the Swiftech Epsilon full cover GPU block as I currently have the Swiftech Komodo block for my 6970* and ports nearly match up which will make the pass through easier.

[ohms]

Placed the order for my Case Labs M8 yesterday, I hope to get it within 2 weeks.

[ohms]

Well earlier this morning I got my packages from UPS. I got my replacement for my 6950 (that caught on fire) and my shiny new Case Labs M8 with the Extended top.

Here is the replacement card from the RMA. I hate that it's not a reference block like my old card, which means I need to buy a new water block. It is also a dual bios card, so you bet that I'll be bios hacking it to unlock the shaders/speed just like my other 6950.






And here she is, the Case Labs M8 w/ Extended top. I have been anticipating for the last 2 weeks waiting for her to arrive and all the user reviews I have read are definitely spot on. The fabrication process on this case is amazing and so is the quality control. The best part is that it comes pre-assembled and the packaging was nothing short of excellent.





Little baggy with my case accessories inside of it, all written to show what is what, and even my name on the baggy



Here are front and back shots of the case.

The front has your typical I/O panel (if you want audio/USB/Firewire you will have to pay more) The left side of the case can support 10 5.25" devices and the right side compartment can accommodate 9 3.5" hard drives/devices. You can gain access to the mounting system by removing the face plate as seen below.

As you can see on the back side there is a removable motherboard tray (which rocks) and support for dual PSUs (if you so choose) in the other compartment. There are also grommet covers (and grommets provided) just in case you want to put your radiators outside of your case.







Here is a shot of the extended top (upgrade which I paid for) which can accommodate placement of 120mm fans so you can mount radiators up top.

As you can see from the pictures with the top off there are plates that you can keep in place if you decide to use a 2x120mm radiator rather then a 3x120mm radiator.





Here is the right side of the case. This compartment houses the PSUs and radiators as well as hard drives and 3.5" devices. The side panel is well cut and provides for excellent ventilation. I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the left side which has a grey acrylic window panel.

The panels on both sides of the case also have nice inset handles and the panels themselves are on hinges.



The motherboard compartment side of the case has support for the XL-ATX motherboards like the SR-2 and the Gigabyte. It has a huge CPU mount hole (unlike many other cases that I've seen with this feature). There are also plenty of large pass thru holes with grommets to prevent the cables from sheering.



The PSU/radiator compartment has plenty of room to play with various configurations.



On the bottom of both sides of the case there are fan hole covers like you saw in a previous picture on the top side of the case. I think this was an ingenious idea on Case Labs part which does give you plenty of cooling options.



Well thats it for now, I'll start building it once I get my new video card blocks, more tubing, some miscellaneous fitting and more sleeving from Nils!

[ohms]

Here is the Sapphire Radeon 6950 2GB Dirt 3 Edition all stripped down and ready for a block, but which one... I'm waiting to hear back from Niko over at EK to see if their v2 non reference block will fit it. If not, then it gets sold!

[eth0s]

Great Project! I'm liking everything so far, especially the case upgrades, 'cuz this is exactly the kind of thing I have done, and seeing you do it too makes me feel less like a freak! So keep it up! Only thing I don't like is the Corsair AX1200. I had that PSU for about 2 days, and the noise drove me insane. It has a high speed Yate Loon fan that gets incredibly loud. If you feel like ditching it, I recommend the Silverstone Strider series, and make sure you get the fully modular one, and also get the optional short cable set. The short cable set is really only useful for the proprietary molex connectors, which you can use to make your own custom wires using some 18 AWG wire (and you can get a color to match your sleeving.) Well I guess then you're paying $25 for some molex connectors really, but w/e, nobody said this was a cheap avocation.

[ohms]

I am going to be brave and give the new EK Electroless Plated blocks a chance. After all my messaging back and forth with Tiborr aka Niko over at EK he assures me that there is no longer a Nickel plating problem so I decided to buy them on good faith. I also found out that the old Dual Bridge connectors and the adapters they made are indeed compatible with the Radeon 6XXX series cards so I picked them up as well.



I picked up some Lamptron 1/2" OD reusable aluminum clamps. They are actually pretty nice in quality but I think they are a tad bit expensive for what they are at $3.99 USD a piece.



I tried to do some color level adjusting in the next set of images using Photoshop to remove some of the amber hue I get from my walls. I still have yet to buy decent photography lamps and I keep forgetting to take a white bed sheet from my hospital so I can use as a back drop

My bad attempt at trying to be artistic with the packaging and items. Here is the EK Dual Xfire/SLI link and the block adapters.



Now... Here are the front and backs of the 6970 and 6990 blocks and the back plates. I love the bling





The picture of the 6990 block does not do it's justice in showing how large the block is.

[ohms]

Update to previous post - I ended up selling the 6950 Dirt 3 Edition as there is no full cover block for it and even though it sports a dual bios, I have found out that Sapphire laser cut channels so unlocking the shader cores will no longer work.

On to the new stuff!

Newegg dropped off my new toys I ordered last week =) The only thing I did not take pictures of that I had ordered as the 4 APC Surge arrest power strips. I don't think anyone wants to see pictures of that stuff anyway.

Heres a quick picture of the motherboard box and the motherboard itself. I love the color scheme with the black PCB with the grey peripheral connectors and the orange (copper) accents on the heatsink.





And here are the tons (16 to be exact) of Xigamtek 120mm fans with the orange fan blades and white LEDs.

[fr0wn3r]

One more med guy at XS! Just saw your profile, I'm just a med. student. Rare to see on tech forums.

Nice work! Love that final case choice. Keep up with the good work!

[ohms]

It's update time! YAY!!

I went a little overboard and went over my spending allowance I give myself every pay check :facepalm:

I'm still waiting on my package from PPCs in which I ordered.

• (2) EK Multioption 150 Advanced reservoir
• (2) Koolance Heat sinks for DDCs
• (2) Koolance pump tops for DDCs
• (3) sets of Koolance 3/8" ID QDC VL3 (older model since I read the newer VL3N have been having leaking issues)
• (4) Bitspower 3/8" ID Black matte barbs
• (20) Black 3-pin fan molex connectors
• (5) ModMyToys 3-pin power distribution PCB - 5-way block
• (5) Hammond ABS Project Boxes

I suspect that US Customs still has my package of sleeving/heat shrink which is hampering my sleeving efforts!

But some of the stuff I ordered arrived

Here is my shiny new sound card, the SB X-Fi Titanium HD PCI-Express




Another 3TB hard drive, more specifically a Seagate 7200 RPM.




Here is a little freebie from Newegg for purchasing the hard drive. It's an HD cooler, I don't think I'll be using that

[ohms]

Uchhhhh I'm awake! I came home, put out the white sheet (that I "borrowed" from my hospital) on top of my computer desk and took pictures of all my new stuff that I got from PPCs the other day. I tried to get the update done in the morning when I got home but I was too tired to deal with Photoshop

Anyway, onto show and tell.

Here is the EK Multioption Reservoir 150 Advanced. It came with the Anti-Cyclone insert that has the EK logo cut out but I prefer the tubes.



Koolance PMP-400 / DDC Laing pump tops with the mounting bracket. My photography work does not do these things justice, they are damned sexy. It also came with a reservoir adapter to connect it right on top using a Koolance reservoir tube.



Now these things are just plain awesome. You get the shiny factor from the replacement body for the pump and functionality between that and the heatsink for the PMP-400 / DDC Laing pump lines.



Here are the Koolance QDC VL3 series male 3/8" ID compression fittings. Unfortunately no females to join the party because PPCs screwed up my order.



So just like everyone out there I got sucked into the vortex that is the impulse buys, while browsing around to make sure I got everything I needed and stumbled upon these little suckers.



ModMyToys 3-pin 5 header PCB boards. I figured that I may have some use for them so I picked up a few.

Of course then I saw some Project Hammond boxes and figured that I could probably use them for something and going with the old saying of "It's better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it" I purchased a few as well.



So while I was waiting those few days for my package and hiding in the comfort of my apartment from Hurricane Irene I started to think, what could I possibility do with the ModMyToys PCBs and the Hammond boxes...



Then something magical happened...



And then... LIGHT BLUB! ModMyToys + Hammond box = Fan power box.

1 + 1 = 2 ?



I could put 1 or 2 of the PCBs into the Hammond boxes and with a little dremel work I could make Fan power boxes so I wouldn't have to go through the fiasco of all the wire snipping and soldering to daisy chain the radiator fans together. I can instead use one of these, zip ties and wire management clamps without all the headache of wire snipping and soldering.

Warning! Picture does not depict final product



Anyway, that is all for now. I think I have everything I need to start my build minus the sleeving.

*SHAKES FIST AT US CUSTOMS*

[schoolslave]

Make sure you test those fan splitter PCBs first. I had 5 of them and none of them worked correctly. Just as a heads up

[ohms]

Make sure you test those fan splitter PCBs first. I had 5 of them and none of them worked correctly. Just as a heads up

Uch, not something I wanna hear. But thank you for the heads up.

[Church]

ohms: lol at lightbulb comics . But yes, i've heard some bad comments about those PCBs (though wasn't it about longest ones with 9-10 connectors?). You can always solder one yourself (#1, #2).

[ohms]

ohms: lol at lightbulb comics . But yes, i've heard some bad comments about those PCBs (though wasn't it about longest ones with 9-10 connectors?). You can always solder one yourself (#1, #2).

I am LAZY! No more soldering for me!

[ohms]

Look who finally decided to join the party! The mail man just dropped off the package moments ago, I guess US Customs finally got off their behinds and did something useful.



Sleeving and building SHALL COMMENCE!

[dreamaxx]

How exciting, looking forward to seeing where you build goes

[ohms]

Here is a quicky...

Before and After on my Xigmatek fans



I switched the 3-pin molex for a black one which looks tons better. I will also use orange sleeving on my other set of fans for my other 360 radiator.

[theseeker]

Now you understand my passion for CaseLabs! Nice work.

[ohms]

Now you understand my passion for CaseLabs! Nice work.

Definitely and thank you.


Anyway, late night post before I goto bed.

I got some sleeving done before I went out to dinner, (1) PCI-E cable and (1) SATA cable with the other molex connectors removed.



The one thing that boggled me was when I was stripping down the PCI-E power cable and removing the pre-fabbed sleeving and heatshrink I found this. What the heck is it for?



It's not magnetic and the only thing I can think it serves is for shielding. Does anyone know? Do I have to have it on or can it do without it?

Welp, I must goto bed now, I have work in 4 hours I'm contemplating bringing some cables and my sleeving stuff with me to work and do some sleeving in the ambulance.

Until tomorrow!

[jumper2high]

It's probably a ferrite core, usually used for protecting cables against interference.

[ohms]

Well here is the rest of the sleeving I finished up while at work in between calls. I put it in my system just to get my PC up and running again.

Here is a shot of the brand new sleeved cables in the old case. It won't be long until I rip apart this build to move over everything and the new water cooling stuff into the Case Labs M8



I think tomorrow at work I'll be able to get the 24-pin ATX cable and the 4-pin molex cables completed and maybe some fans.

Night!

[ohms]

I got some fans done this morning I decided to use SATA heat shrink on the 3-pin molex connector to get a clean sleeving look as suggested by someone. As you can see there is a set of titanium grey sleeved fans and a set of orange sleeved fans. This will be my scheme as I place my 3 set of fans through out the M8 case. I think oranges for the sets that will be on the 3 x 120mm radiators and titanium grey for just ventilation.

6 fans done, 10 more to go.

I've been contemplating if I want to purchase any radiator shrouds to improve the air flow or not, it's not of a huge importance but there is a decent gain in air flow. I also ran into a little snafu and realized that I cannot use my EK FC-Links as there will be a 1.25mm disparity in using the 6970 v1 reference block and the 6990 block. So I am currently trying to sell my reference 6970 and v1 block to buy a v2 reference 6970 and matching block.



And...

The females have finally joined the party! (PPCs sent me the correct Koolance QDCs)

[ohms]

I just purchased a used Dell 3007WFP 30" LCD to replace my Eyefinity 24" setup. I paid a very good price for it and got it for $500.00. I'm gonna be enjoying the 2650 x 1600 resolution and no more freaking bezels and widescreen fixer to play certain games.



Excuse the bad picture, the person I bought it from sent me the picture.