FINALLY rebuilt my MM UFO Horizon - NOW WITH PICS!

[RX7boricua]

Hey guys,

I lost my Southbridge on my EVGA 680i AR back in mid-late July. I RMA'd the board for an A1, and decided what the hell, may as well redo the loops and toss in a Q6600 while it's all down. Well, after over 2 months of downtime due to EVGA dragging their feet on my 680i RMA as well as time/work constraints, I have finally completed the complete rebuild of my main rig. One or two of you may remember my build from: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=148403. While I was happy with the previous setup, I'm practically ecstatic with the quad core and the performance I've been able to squeeze out of it.

The changes I made were:

1. Replaced lapped E6600 with stock Q6600 (thinking of lapping it)
2. Bowed FuZion by installing o-ring between top and mid sections
3. Moved the CPU loop from the PA120.2 at bottom/rear of case being fed case air to PA120.3 getting fresh air at top/front
4. Added a second DDC2 to each loop for safety/redundancy/extra flow
5. Replaced both T-lines with Swiftech MicroRes's
6. Replaced 2x320gb RAID0 with 2x500gb RAID1
7. Replaced 700W Seasonic M-12 with Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W
8. Sleeved all fan/lighting wires with black sleeving and heatshrink

I finally reached the sweet spot between speed/heat/voltage last night, and the CPU has been priming now for almost 13 hours now. (Assuming it hasn't failed; I'm at work.)

Right now it is running at 3.7ghz @1.425Vcore (in BIOS), which I was only able to do after pencil-modding my 680i. Before performing the Vdroop mod, I could not get above 3.3ghz @1.475V, as Vcore would drop from 1.46V to 1.40V under load as reported by Speedfan. After Vdroop mod, with Vcore set to 1.425 in BIOS, Speedfan shows 1.41 idle and 1.42 load.

My temperatures at this speed/voltage are 32-33degC idle and 48-49degC load. These are the same temps I was at with my lapped E6600 at the same speed! I've seen others getting about 10deg difference just from lapping their Q6600, and I'm debating on whether I want to lap mine or not. Also, Speedfan shows my 8800's running at 44-45degC idle.

EDIT: PICS! Also, my idle temps seem to have gone down a bit, probably due to cooler ambient temps... Now this thing idles at 29-30C!

[Jedda]

Tried P31? The changelog promises great things for O'Cing quads.
I'm trying it tonight.

[RX7boricua]

P31 chipset? I had the Q6600 in my P35 cruncher temporarily while sorting out the Horizon business, and I was able to hit 3.4ghz on air without issue, limited only by temps. I almost cried when I put the quad under water on the 680i and couldn't get it stable past 3.3ghz. If you guys haven't done the 680i A1 Vdroop mod, DO IT NOW!

[Jedda]

Sorry, no P31 bios. The new evga bios was released for our 680i boards yesterday.
First reports on it are very positive.

[septim]

bring out the lapping kit...

and bring on the pictures...

[RX7boricua]

OMG i had no idea there was a new BIOS out. My RMA came with P30 and I looked the other day after building and saw that P30 was still the latest. I will flash as soon as I get home tonight!

septim, I'll probably lap this weekend. If I can run somewhere between 3.8-4.0ghz with the P31 BIOS and keep the vcore under 1.5V, I will definitely lap to drop the temps back down to an acceptable range.

[Jedda]

OMG i had no idea there was a new BIOS out. My RMA came with P30 and I looked the other day after building and saw that P30 was still the latest. I will flash as soon as I get home tonight!

septim, I'll probably lap this weekend. If I can run somewhere between 3.8-4.0ghz with the P31 BIOS and keep the vcore under 1.5V, I will definitely lap to drop the temps back down to an acceptable range.

Yeah, I guessed that from your post and thought you'd want to know.
Especially with the change log being all about O'Cing.

[Sparky]

Not to burst your bubble, but I've heard that the temp readings on the Q6600 G0 is off by 15 C...

[RX7boricua]

Sparky, Coretemp reads the temp correctly, and I have set the offset to +15 in Speedfan. :P

[RX7boricua]

Flashed to P31 BIOS last night Jedda, but didn't have any time to do any tweaking, I was busy getting my yearly DSL contract renewed and taking pics which can now be seen in the original post. :P 446 Kuwaiti Dinar a year for 1MB DSL sucks butt. 446KD = $1600 US!

[Jedda]

Wow, I thought we were over charged for bandwidth here in Oz, but that's ridiculous!
Great pix. It's a really nice layout.

[PhilippF]

The RAM cooler is nice! Where did you get it from?

[RX7boricua]

Thanks! It's a regular ol' Corsair Dominator fan that I got from Newegg, 20 bucks. I didn't really like the Corsair stickers on the fan hubs and the blue one on top of the main body, so I peeled the big blue sticker off, and pulled the Corsair stickers off the hubs. I didn't like how the fan hubs had little marks on them, so I carefully peeled the round black stickers off the underside of the fans, and centered 'em on the fan hubs, replacing them with the Corsair stickers.

I kinda like the little exposed screws on it, it's like a mini version of the top/front of my case!

[Xilikon]

Thanks! It's a regular ol' Corsair Dominator fan that I got from Newegg, 20 bucks. I didn't really like the Corsair stickers on the fan hubs and the blue one on top of the main body, so I peeled the big blue sticker off, and pulled the Corsair stickers off the hubs. I didn't like how the fan hubs had little marks on them, so I carefully peeled the round black stickers off the underside of the fans, and centered 'em on the fan hubs, replacing them with the Corsair stickers.

I kinda like the little exposed screws on it, it's like a mini version of the top/front of my case!

Great Dominator fan mod there. I might do the same myself as well to remove the blue and keep the sexy black stuff How hard it is to peel the stickers off the casing ?

[adam9977]

Very nice system! I almost wish I got a MM case after seeing some of the other setups around here!

[RX7boricua]

Aww shucks fellas! Thanks Andy! That means a hell of a lot coming from a fellow Horizon owner. I wanted to go all business on the outside, with a party going on inside. I also forgot to mention that I modded my UV CCFL power wires so I could plug them into my Sunbeam fan controller. That way I can easily dim the lights or turn them off completely by simply using the fanbus knobs. Man I love this case!

[Zeus]

Stunning!

Great colour combo, well done.
The black fangrills give a very smooth stealth finish, i love it!

[disruptfam]

OMG THAT'S SEXY wow i love your colour's u used...

How did ya get that purple? that's sik

1 word gorgeous!!!

[RX7boricua]

Thanks guys, that purple is actually supposed to be red. I bought it from Petra's Tech, and added it to distilled water along with a few drops of PTNuke. I would've preferred red instead of the purple/pink look, but I still think it looks pretty good. Next time I make a jab-tech order, I may try some of the Dtek red UV dye.

[disruptfam]

nah man the purple is awesome it's different everyone use's red and that...If i were you i would keep the purple!!!!

i'ma buy some petra's red dye and pt nuke now i want the purple for my rig... lol

[Jedda]

So the pix show your real life colours closely?

[disruptfam]

how do u take such good pic's?

When i take pic's mine are always blurry or grainy....

It suck's cuz my build doesn't look halk as good as it does in real life...

[step]

When i take pic's mine are always blurry or grainy....

It depends on the camera but some have an option of taking pictures close up. I know I have to switch to that on mine in order to remove the blur.

Loving the case. Is that a custom one? Might have to take another look at MM...

[disruptfam]

man i can't stop looking at this build...Imho 1 of the best rigs on here...

I love how u keeped everything black...And just used the tubing to light the case up..

I have like 8 leds fans in my case...maybe i should switch over to yate loon's go for sleek black look aswell...

I Really like your new rig compared to your old one..Not saying your old rig wasn't nice but this one is alot better...

[annaconda]

Excellent all i can say.