Project Thief - CaseLabs TX10-D Dual Workstation/Gaming Build - Gulftown and SB-E

[The Jesus]

I want that case so much!

[stren]

CaseLabs.net if you want to buy - it's not on the webstore yet but call Jim and he'll hook you up


In the mean time I've been suffering wrist pain after pulling 20 hour days working on CAD stuff. This isn't unusual when I'm forced to use a bad mouse or a bad setup, but my trusty G5 on a bare desk wasn't cutting it. I decided to try a "gaming" mousepad and thought I'd check out a razer deathadder while I was doing it. After a few weeks of it I actually prefer the feel of it despite the construction feeling less sturdy and having less features than my trusty G5. The G5 now gets relegated to the gaming rig as I game less than I work





Also parts for my lightsabre came in

[schizo]

biggest case ive ever seen !

will be keeping a eye on this build.

[stren]

Seeing as we're all a bit bored waiting for the case to come home, here's some more hardware:

[Endgame]

I'm loving this case and whole project! I was thinking about how I could possibly build something that would fit 3 machines (File Server, Work VM server, Gaming Rig) all into a single WC loop and I think this might be the ticket. I see you even have sketched in the file server board into your drawing -- are you still considering this? If so, how are you planning on managing video, etc for that box - I know you mentioned a KVM - is that still the plan?

[stren]

I'm loving this case and whole project! I was thinking about how I could possibly build something that would fit 3 machines (File Server, Work VM server, Gaming Rig) all into a single WC loop and I think this might be the ticket. I see you even have sketched in the file server board into your drawing -- are you still considering this? If so, how are you planning on managing video, etc for that box - I know you mentioned a KVM - is that still the plan?

Thanks Endgame, yes that's the end goal, however it's going to take a while to get the fileserver up and running. Everything is exceeding the budget so far, so that's pushing out the full completion date, that and unexpected dental bills For now I'll complete with the two systems and add the file server next spring I think. The case has plenty of room for it!

For video yes I'm hoping to get a KVM like this, for now I'm running two keyboards and two mice though for the two rigs that I have running. For a file server though you could just run headless and save a bit on the KVM. We'll see

[stren]

Tease mode activated

A box arrived



You said flap



The largest usb flash drives known to man and some awesome sauce:



Sometimes the front view is better than the back:



Opening a door:



Socket 2011 is bigger than I thought:



Inside the box is two more boxes:



- Curiously only a 2x CFX cable, but yet 2/3/4x SLI cables
- The sata 6gbps cables are black with partly white connectors as opposed to full black for the rest of the cables.
- The OC key that plugs inline with your monitor doesn't support high res monitors - bit of a fail there Asus. Shouldn't affect me as I can use the USB cable from my other rig anyway
- It would be nice if the back of the backplate was also black rather than the shiny tin foil like other boards






And the last tease for the night:

[stren]

Had some time for another photo session seeing as the cpu doesn't get here for a few days:

Took the board out:





Took the ram out, seems to be the fastest I've seen at 1.5V with 4GB sticks.



Installed the ram, note that the polarity is reversed on each side, which makes sense if they flipped the pinout on the chip.



The paint job on the fins wasn't that even - some sticks definitely got more coverage:



Time to take off the heatsink in preperation for the EK full cover block:



Only the VRM area had thermal pads on the back and front of the heatsink:



Looks like Asus have moved away from that horrible yellow TIM they had on the R3E:



The VRM area with heatsink removed:



Yes one of those sticks isn't properly in, it's fixed now

[stren]

Chip arrived, motherboard and ram blocks don't come until tomorrow though.

SSD is actually for my wife's rig. I don't have an ssd on my gaming rig. I only use it for games so I wouldn't see that much benefit from a boot drive. I use my workstation for web browsing etc as it's on all the time. I'd need a 512gb drive or so to cover my games, so I'm waiting for prices to come down more



Batch on the 3930K is 3152B448, we'll see how it clocks soon

[stren]

Suddenly a wild EK party!



Nickel plexi because I want to run some red dye (on special occasions only for all you dye haters out there)



Finished cleaning the TIM off the south bridge only to find a piece of tin foil with more TIM underneath. Weird.



Pretty easy to install when the block is in two parts, the single piece blocks are much harder:



VRM area:



Full board:



and one more:



That's all for now

[stren]

No comments? Come on peeps!


With ram blocks, the fittings aren't the final ones, just more for planning. I'm working with Monsoon free to see if something special will make the tube routing super clean





the ram blocks remind me of battersea power station:



Now adding in the gpu makes it look ugly and busy The copper and green pcb really don't match. I called a nickel plating company to get a quote on plating both copper GPU blocks and it was $175 for both! So that's not going to happen. I may switch to the other acetal/copper block and paint the edge of the copper silver. I have another idea for the PCB



Much better with the gpu off again

[arkadur]

looks great! i like this color combo.
what are you planing to do with the GPU?

[stren]

looks great! i like this color combo.
what are you planing to do with the GPU?

I'm part way through coating the board with black liquid electrical tape. That will hide the green, then I'll make a custom back plate and paint to match that will hide any ugliness from the liquid tape

[stren]

Soo like I mentioned before I really didn't like the green/copper look clashing with the black/red R4E theme:



So I started to paint the GPU with liquid tape - first coat:



So here's how it looks now after two coats on both sides:



You can see some of the texture here, liquid tape is hard to work with - either annoyingly thick, or very thin and see through:



From this angle the texture isn't as bad:



However it would look a lot better with a backplate, I'm thinking something like this, smoked acrylic with an etch and a couple of LEDs to light it from the side:



What do you guys think? Feel free to photoshop up your own suggestions

[ScottALot]

Wow! Never seen that liquid tape idea... that's really slick! (can mask up those gruesome Galaxy cards)

[Utnorris]

So are you putting 8800GT's on the RE4 instead of the GTX480's you listed? Why wouldn't you put the best board and GPU's for your gaming? Also, did you just use the black liquid tape to cover the green or are you doing something exotic?

[stren]

Wow! Never seen that liquid tape idea... that's really slick! (can mask up those gruesome Galaxy cards)

Yeah some people use it for subzero prep, on those cards it's more for the color.

So are you putting 8800GT's on the RE4 instead of the GTX480's you listed? Why wouldn't you put the best board and GPU's for your gaming? Also, did you just use the black liquid tape to cover the green or are you doing something exotic?

The 3930K is for my workstation which doesn't game (linux cad box basically) so the 8800gt's are fine for that. 6 cores + max clock is the most beneficial for my work. The workstation gets the good cpus and then they get handed down to the gaming rig. Until I get 2 more U3011's I don't really need more than the 990x/tri gtx480's, possibly some more vram though. Now if I was benching I might swap them over, but for everyday that's how it'll be.

[Utnorris]

Gotcha. By the way, looking good.

[stren]

Gotcha. By the way, looking good.

Thanks



The temporary parts came in to see if I could get some clean routing for the motherboard/ram/gpu loop:



However it didn't quite work as expected- I couldn't get the 40mm extensions to work with the 5 way rotary snake, however a SLI connector did fit.



Now I'm not sure whether to:
- get two more sli connectors (I need this one)
- use two compression fittings instead
- get two of the bitspower crystal sli links to match better

What do you guys think?

I should probably go with the cheapest as I'm hoping monsoon free's new design will solve the problem for me.

[kgk]

Out of curiosity, did you try to remove the foil found on the Southbridge? I've never encountered something like that and can't seem to find any information on whether you should just clear the thermal paste off it and leave it, or remove it entirely.

Instructions for the EK waterblock make no mention of it at all, which I find rather odd.

[arkadur]

because of you choose the plexi top - i was connecting the blocks with BP crystal links, straight lines in different high \ levels
1: RAM block1 > RAM block 2
2: VRM> chipset
3: chipset> GPU

that could be very nice. just think about it.
i know that hell to disassemble it, but that turn to be very nice setup in the end.

[stren]

Out of curiosity, did you try to remove the foil found on the Southbridge? I've never encountered something like that and can't seem to find any information on whether you should just clear the thermal paste off it and leave it, or remove it entirely.

Instructions for the EK waterblock make no mention of it at all, which I find rather odd.

Personally I removed it, I know others have too. I haven't turned on the board yet since though. Still getting the plumbing right.

because of you choose the plexi top - i was connecting the blocks with BP crystal links, straight lines in different high \ levels
1: RAM block1 > RAM block 2
2: VRM> chipset
3: chipset> GPU

that could be very nice. just think about it.
i know that hell to disassemble it, but that turn to be very nice setup in the end.

Yes I think the crystal links would look awesome, particularly on show pics with some temporary red dye

Here's another option but with the cpu loop coming out to the north, it looks busy:

[kgk]

edit: nvm

[stren]

Got some more parts today:



3 ssds and a bunch of fittings:



This meant I could do some leak testing with the gpu/motherboard/ram loop. Still missing the other gpu for now though, but the important thing was to see if the ram block connections were good:



You can see water on the bottom right of the board. The GPU didnt' have it's spare ports sealed tightened down properly. Didnt' see that leak for a few minutes as it was dripping down the back of the block and was mainly hidden by the card and the block. You can see it coming out and filling up the pci-e socket:



The bitspower crystal linke sli fittings were part of the order too. The closest one in this photo leaked initially as it had fallen out of the o-ring. They're not that sturdy so it's a bit concerning that they might fall out. We'll have to see how it goes.



The top view is much nicer now though:



With red dye the crystal links won't look so out of place.

That's all for now. Case should be back from powder coating with another 14 gentle typhoons on tuesday, so expect a big update then Until then the board can dry out a bit I need more time for working on the backplates and the reservoirs.

[MisterMagoo]

I personally don't care for the LT on the card PCB, but I love everything else