Mike's no budget MM Ascension build.. "SLOWPOKE"

[mbreslin]

Disclaimer: this is going to be a long and pic heavy thread, first post will be cleaned up when the time comes.

Hello!
I'm Mike and this is my first liquid cooling adventure and hopefully nothing takes a bath. I had a pretend budget for this project of 10-12k. I never really expected to stay under that and when all is done It will likely be well over 15k. Any comments regarding any parts being overpriced or spending this much or that much on a pc is stupid will be completely ignored, everything is ordered there is no going back! Now on to specs..

To get an idea of the insane upgrade this will be here are my current specs:
p4 2.4ghz
asus p4t
1gig rdram
geforce 6200
17in crt
This has no sata, no usb2.0, it was awesome when i bought it 8+ years ago and it's poop now.

*Drumroll*
New specs:
MM Ascension wrinkle black
i7 920 (for a couple weeks or so until i7 980)
gigabyte x58a-ud7
6g corsair 2000c7
1x5870 on air (for a couple weeks until I see fermi benches then it will either be 2 fermi's or 2x 5970)
enermax evo 1250
hp lp2475w

My favorite part of hardware list, Storage!
boot = Crucial c300 256g 8R0 with lsi 9211 or 9260 (whichever I wind up liking better) and maybe the areca 1880 if it winds up better than the 2 above.
storage = samsung spinpoint f3 2tb

Cooling:
Blocks: apogee xt, ek full ud7, and 2 fc blocks for fermis or 5970s
1xpa120.3 for gpus, 1xpa120.4 for cpu/nb/sb both rads with push/pull noctuas (total noctuas in case 19)
2xmcp355 in dual xspc bay res
primo lrt 7/16 tubing
all bitspower compression/rotaries
may possibly add 1 more 120.3 to cool gpus individually, we will see

+: Lots of other misc fun things like matrix orbital typhoon gx lcd and all mdpc-x black sleeving, every part where possible will be black, only other color in case is blue tubing.

I originally planned to do this build in an 800d but ran out of room and decided why skimp on case size if I'm not skimping on anything else. My inspirations for this project was first:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?h...mpage=3#163677
and then:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=110
these are both awesome and the second one totally sold me on the tubing size/color

I am totally annoyed when people start a build log and there are no pics on the first post/day, I was dying to start this for weeks but held off until things got ordered and started arriving, everything has been ordered except 2 c300s, crucial only lets you get 3 at a time and I've ordered 6 so far 2 more in a couple days.

*whew* long!

Finally, first pic to start us off, pics are with nexus one so my apologies for clarity, much better camera in a few days:

[Mabyboi]

Just a quick question, why not grab an i9 when they come out? and maybe a classified board? would benefit you more than the i7 and gigabyte board...

i will stay tuned to this one though!

[mbreslin]

i7 920 (for a couple weeks or so until i7 980)

980 = 6 core gulftown = I guess this is i9, I don't believe intel has ever said for sure they're calling gulftown i9, (I'm probably wrong), either way, the answer to your question: I am. I will. Don't worry.

Also, gulftown is 1366 and is supported by most (all?) i7 motherboards with a firmware flash.

Edit: I assumed you meant classified because it supports i9? If you just think it's better than ud7. why? I'm all eyes/ears.

[masska]

Impressive list of kit! Been wanting to see some stats on the Crucial SSD's so I'm sub'd and looking forward to your progress.

[mbreslin]

Thanks, I'm definitely excited, it's more than a little frustrating staring at the 3 crucial drives and not being able to do anything with them yet. :/

[armeniandave]

Look forward to seeing another Ascension take form.
Your budget certainly should make one mean machine!!

[mbreslin]

I doubt mine will be nearly as good as yours, are those 2 sunbeam 6 channels you have powering the fans? they work well for you?

[Anemic]

You MIGHT notice a small diffrence in performance when you switch to your new righ. Just might...A bit of diffrence...


Very impressive list so far, Im looking forward to how this build will develop!

[Wezly]

Yeah, I'm subbing this.

Looks epic. No budget FTW.

Good luck!

[mbreslin]

small update today, almost everything comes tomorrow unless it comes while I'm out then I'll have to pick it up thursday.. Here is the MM case partly assembled waiting for parts..


only 2 small hiccups total with this project..
1: mountain mods didn't have my front panel in wrinkle black only glossy but it's not near as bad as I thought (I'll still be ordering the front as soon as it's available)
2: apparently the lp2475w is super backordered/sold out/practically discontinued as hp tries to free up parts/space for a new line of monitors (which I would gladly buy one but their release date has slipped from feb to possibly as late as mid april and I can't wait so I'm grabbing a dell u2410, seems like it's pretty close

[NKrader]

2: apparently the lp2475w is super backordered/sold out/practically discontinued as hp tries to free up parts/space for a new line of monitors (which I would gladly buy one but their release date has slipped from feb to possibly as late as mid april and I can't wait so I'm grabbing a dell u2410, seems like it's pretty close

nice dell monitors rock!

[Rise]

i have had my dell 24" for a year and a half now... very happy with it still

[erikmorgan]

Subscribed.... Can't wait to see more!

[mbreslin]

Bulk of the stuff came today.. some wc stuff tomorrow and the rest of the ssds on friday, then I'll have everything until 980 comes out and I decide on atis or fermis:

[lennox]

eww... those Rheobus Extreme controllers look out of place in that pile

[mbreslin]

what's wrong with them? :/

[Computurd]

thats a nice assortment there~! cant wait to see how this pans out, bookmarked!

[armeniandave]

I doubt mine will be nearly as good as yours, are those 2 sunbeam 6 channels you have powering the fans? they work well for you?

Actually there Lamptron FAN-ATIC 5-Port Military 3-Way Switch baybus

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/laf5mi3swba.html

They worked very well! I actually had most of the fans turned off believe it or not. I had 23 fans and realized that I could turn half of them off and all temps stayed the same.

[Kaldskryke]

Wow, insane!

If it's not too much trouble I think it would be very very interesting to see the RAID0 scaling on the LSI. With "perfect" sequential read scaling you'd be getting 8 x 355MB/s = 2.77GB/s!!! I don't imagine you'll get anywhere close to that, but it will be nice to see where it tops out. Random performance should be pretty stellar, though. How much were the c300s?

[mbreslin]

I got 3x on the first day when only crucial had them, 3 more a few days later when they were still only available on crucial.com so 6x800$ then the other 2 from newegg for $759 each, tax and shipping for all 8 was something like $6900. (hurts just typing that)

[Elusid]

I got 3x on the first day when only crucial had them, 3 more a few days later when they were still only available on crucial.com so 6x800$ then the other 2 from newegg for $759 each, tax and shipping for all 8 was something like $6900. (hurts just typing that)

I wish I had that to spend on a computer... I totally would if I could too haha. So 2TB of SATAIII SSDs... that's freaking intense! I guess that's half the cost of your build right there isn't it? I'm envious, can't wait to see how this turns out!

[DavyBoy]

Wow, dude, I am extremely jealous.

Wish I could blast nearly 7k on SSD's, I will be watching this build closely mate, it sounds really interesting.

[mbreslin]

So 2TB of SATAIII SSDs...

2tb but all are for raid 0 so almost $7k for 256g (that hurts to type even more haha)

some pics before I go to sleep:

[Elusid]

Very nice =) But isn't RAID0 the stripped arrays and RAID1 the mirrored?

[[XC] Oj101]

OMG WTF BBL

I just fainted and woke up. Then fainted again. My pants are dirty back and front. Subscribed!