Narrowing down the brainstorm.

[Bolas]

After brainstorming some initial ideas for my build:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=241658

I'm reviewing the goals of my build and narrowing down the options to the strongest themes.

Goals:

1. Fast
2. Aesthetically pleasing
3. Quiet (must be at or below the dB level of wife annoyance)
4. Sophisticated (looks adult, not teenager)
5. Coordinated (not a dozen different neon colors, but a consistent theme)
6. Unique (not a copy-cat of someone else's build log)
7. Uncompromising (think Million Dollar PC)
8. Long lasting (future-proof components when possible)
9. Budget of $6700 US, including monitor
10. Completed Q1 2010.

I've eliminated themes from the brainstorm list which would be beyond my abilities or which would take excessive time and resources.

Looking through the brainstorm log, categorizing the ideas, and thinking about what appeals to me, the following options seem to have the most appeal (not in any particular order).

A. Patriotic theme, Eagle Scout BSA -- Red, White, and Blue. White case with red and blue accents.

B. Chess theme. Black case with white accents, checkerboard pattern, knights, rooks and bishops.

C. Bruiser theme. Black and blue. Various shades of blue?

D. Celtic / Irish theme. Green and White, with Celtic knots and shamrocks.

E. Classified theme. Black with red highlights, smoke and mirrors, red laser lines.

I'm leaning towards the color schemes without white in them, which then comes down to either black/blue or black/red, options C or E above.

With Black and Blue, I could go with a black & blue motherboard (Asus P6T7 or Asus P6T6 or Asus P6X58D) and memory (Corsair Dominator or G. Skill).

For Black with Red, I could go with a black & red motherboard (EVGA Classified or Classified 4-way) and black & red memory (Corsair Dominator GT) or red memory (Mushkin Redline).

With the blue option, I could go with one loop of blue UV reactive fluid, one loop of black uv reactive fluid that glows blue under UV. I could use either black fans with blue LEDs, or UV fans that glow blue. I could use UV acrylic and a UV laser to light up the acrylic with a blue glow. Or I could drop the UV and just use a blue or white cold cathode light to illuminate the case. I could do a VFD display with blue lights in one of the drive bays.

With the red option, I could go with red fluid in one loop and solid black tubing for the other loop. I could use black fans with red LEDs and light the case with red Helium Neon laser and mirrors to bounce it around. I could use smoky colored acrylic and use the red laser to light it up with a grid of laser lines. I could do a Killer Xeno Pro card with red LEDs on the card.

With blue option, I could do black, navy, and blue for the sleeving for the wiring and braid the three together into twisted trios of wires. Or just do black with a navy trace on pin 1. Or just all black and leave the focus on the coolant. I could do UV blue heat shrink and connectors or just leave them black.

With the red option, I could do all black sleeving or I could do black with a red tracer on pin 1. I do not think I would go with UV if I do a black and red option, but rather focus on the fluid colors and the laser illumination.

With the blue option, I would probably go for a bright nickel finish to the metal in the case.

With the red option, I could possibly go with a copper color in the case (think Danger Den cooling blocks).

I'm leaning towards the following for the rough specs of the system:

CPU: core i7 920 (upgrade to core i7 980X)
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5870 (possible Nvidia fermi upgrade)
PSU: Corsair 850HX (or Silverstone Strider ST1500?)
Boot Drive: Intel x25-M 160GB G2 SSD (pity OCZ Z-drives aren't faster)
Storage Drive: WD Caviar Green (quiet), pair in RAID-1 most likely
Optical Drive: LG Blu-Ray burner
Sound: HT|Omega Claro Halo XT
Mobo: depends on case size, color scheme, water block options
Memory: 12GB 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 (not sure on this exactly)
Case: leaning towards Lian Li PC-343B, considering other options too.
OS: Win 7 Pro 64-bit (for the XP mode for old games)
Display: Dell 3007WFP-HC 30"
Sleeving: MDPC-X, black for sure, probably a second color for highlights
Fans: not quite sure yet, probably something 800-1000 RPM
Radiators: Black Ice SR-1 (multiple rads, various sizes)
Pumps: MCP-355
Reservoirs: XSPC Laing DDC Reservoir Pump Attachment
CPU block: Swiftech Apogee GT
GPU block: EK FC-5870 (is there a better pick?)
North/South block: depends on mobo
Mosfet block: depends on mobo
fittings: compression fittings, nickel plated. Bitspower or Feser or Koolance.

Most of the games that I play are 2D or 2.5D like Warcraft III, Starcraft, Civilization IV. The few 3D games that I have occasionally played are not too demanding -- Everquest & Team Fortress II -- so really a 5870 should be sufficient to handle everything, even if I go up to three 30" monitors at some point.

I am tempted to try out Batman: Arkham Asylum because I've always loved Batman since I was a kid, but generally I don't care much for first person shooters or flight simulators, so I don't need a ton of graphics and would rather splurge on storage, memory, cpu, cooling, case, etc.

I could go with twin 5970's but everyone's out of stock and the prices have been jacked up to way over MSRP, so I don't see much reason to go that route when a single 5870 would probably do everything I want to do.

I do some word processing and web surfing and so on, but mainly I do games. I would let my wife use this comp as well, she loves to have many windows open at once and multi-task, she likes taking photos and videos of our daughter, so some photo and video editing and the ability to open many programs quickly and run them at the same time would be good.

I have a ton of old games, some of which don't run so good outside of Windows XP, so I'll want to be able to run the XP.

I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions as this is my first complete system build and my first water cooled build. I will be posting several threads asking for specific advice on various build components until I finalize everything and order.

[Bolas]

An idea for lighting the case window.

http://store.phantomdynamics.com/plglplpabl.html

[Bolas]

I'm sure that I want something that currently has full coverage blocks available for the motherboard. Which eliminates the P6X58D and the P6T7 options, leaving the EVGA Classified 3-way, EVGA Classified 4-way, and the P6T6 WS Revolution. I'm not seriously considering the rampage II extreme because I like the layout of the classified better.

I think the classified 4-way limits my choices of case too much -- I like the Lian Li PC-343B and it won't fit there.

I'm leaning towards the Classified 3-way with EK blocks for the motherboard. I like that it gets the north bridge, south bridge, and mosfets in a single block, and I like the built in places to put the LED's. That would tend to narrow down the color scheme to the black with red accents.

[Bolas]

Perhaps something like this, but with red laser and mirrors, to illuminate the inside of the case.

http://www.stmyer.com/familypictures...id0001copy.jpg

[Bolas]

Gave it a lot of thought and decided black and blue is really what I want, the colors just appeal to me more.

Budget check.

CPU: core i7 920, $200 at Microcenter
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 5970, $630 at Provantage
PSU: Silverstone Strider ST1500, $400 at Newegg
Boot Drive: Intel x25-M 160GB G2 SSD, $475 at Provantage
Storage Drive: 2x WD Caviar Green 2TB, $190 ea. at Provantage
Optical Drive: LG Blu-Ray burner, $175 at ZipZoomFly
Sound: HT|Omega Claro Halo XT, $250 at Newegg
Mobo: Asus P6T6 WS Revolution, $335 at ZipZoomFly
Memory: 12GB 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 Corsair Dominator, $409 at ZipZoomFly
Case: Black Powder coated Lian Li PC-343B w 4 fan modules & side window, $800 at Performance PC's.
OS: Win 7 Pro 64-bit, $140 at Newegg
Display: Dell 3007WFP-HC 30", $1000 at Sam's Club
Sleeving: MDPC-X, black, grand bleu, aquamarine blue, misc hardware, $165 at en.mdpc-x.com.
Fans: not quite sure yet. Yate-Loon?
Radiators: not quite sure yet. Black Ice SR-1?
Pumps: Swiftech MCP-355, $66 ea. at Sidewinder
Reservoirs: XSPC Laing DDC Reservoir Pump Attachment, $48 ea. at Sidewinder
CPU block: Swiftech Apogee GT, $80 at Performance PCs
GPU block: EK FC-5970, $150 at Performance PCs
North/South & Mosfets: MIPS Nickel POM, $215 at Mips-Computer.
fittings: Bitspower compression fittings, not quite sure yet.
Tubing: Primoflex 3/8" ID 5/8" OD

Looks like I'm right in the middle of my budget range so far, and that the rest of the budget will get eaten up by miscellaneous stuff.

Any thoughts on how to improve this planned build would be appreciated.

[Bolas]

The idea with going with the huge case and power supply is that I should never have to upgrade those in the future. Yes it's a larger case and power supply than I really need. But I also like the looks as well.

100% modular power supply with good review from jonny guru, large fan, black color. Other power supplies I looked at either were not 100% modular, or did not have a large fan, or were not black in color, or got sub-optimal reviews.