My Overkill Build

A Random Dude · 2013-12-28, 01:09 AM

So, I finally got tired of barely being able to play the game on my ancient core 2 duo, and decided to grab myself a new rig. Also, my HDD died (25,000 hours FTW) and I didn't really have a replacement or an OS anywhere around, so that definitely played a part in it.

I'm making this thread mainly to ask for advice on overclocking and case airflow setup, also to show off.

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CPU: Intel Haswell i7 4770K [chip will do 4.4GHz at 1.248 [1.25] core voltage, pretty much fully stable stresstesting with Cinebench and x264; 4.5 is unstable, 4.6 won't boot]

Motherboard: Gigabyte LGA1150 Z87X-UD5H

RAM: G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (4x4) 2400MHz Cas 10 (Latency Timings: 10-12-12-31) @ 1.65V [haven't overclocked this yet, want to get a nice, 100% stable CPU overclock that I'm happy with first]

GPU: Gigabyte Windforce OC GeForce GTX 780 (3GB GDDR5) [so far I've only done basic things such as increasing power and temperature limits to max, haven't really gotten into it yet]

PSU: Corsair RM Series V2 Fully Modular 80 PLUS Gold 750W [a bit of a weird choice, I know]

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i [stock at 3.9GHz Turbo on the CPU barely makes the temps go up to 58-59C at 100%, a 4.4GHz Overclock gives average temps of about 70C or lower, with Core 1 going up to 74C absolute max; all that with stock fans, at 100% CPU usage, [not at max RPM, either] which are getting replaced]

Case: Corsair 500R Carbide Black

Primary Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB SSD

Secondary Storage: Western Digital Black 2TB HDD

OS: Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit

Optical Drive: some decent LG 24x DVD Reader/Burner

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Custom Case Cooling: BitFenix Spectre PRO 230mm, 2x BitFenix Spectre PRO 120mm, 2x BitFenix Spectre PRO 140mm

Custom Radiator Fans: 2x Corsair Air Series SP 120mm Performance Edition

[I have ordered and received both of the above but will not be installing them before I order my fan controller, I'm thinking about "NZXT Sentry Mesh with 5 Channel 30W Fan Controller" -link-, don't really need temperature probes since I'll only be using it for case fans, advice very much appreciated here since I don't really know much about it]

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Planned Case Airflow Setup: 2x Front 120mm Intake, 1x Bottom 140mm Intake, 1x Side 230mm Intake, 1x Rear 140mm Exhaust, 2x Top 120mm Exhaust (Radiator) [yes, I know having radiator exhaust isn't the optimal thing to do, but no other airflow setup makes aerodynamic sense]

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So, I've had this rig for about a week and a half now, and so far it's been a blast, it will run PS2 at 140 FPS in Warpgates and such, around 120 FPS in aircraft flight, around 85 FPS in small and medium fights, and around 60 FPS in larger fights; the lowest it has ever dipped was about 45 FPS in some of the super-massive clusterfuc*s I've been involved in [all stock] [everything completely maxed].

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As mentioned before, I'm looking for advice primarily on overclocking (GPU specifically, since I don't have any experience or actual practical knowledge to speak of here, but also CPU and RAM)

Thank you all in advance!

P.S. I've been looking into Indigo Extreme TIM, do any of you have any experience with it, is it worth the effort?

Minigun · 2013-12-28, 04:05 PM

I want to say with that h100 you should be getting relatively cooler temperatures than that maxed from what I've read, but I could be mistaken.

Great setup.

How's the noise? That's a ton of fans I know my rosewill case is fairly noisy with 3 fans but the one I just peiced together for my brother has 3 also but is not nearly as loud even when they're wide open.

A Random Dude · 2013-12-28, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by Minigun

I want to say with that h100 you should be getting relatively cooler temperatures than that maxed from what I've read, but I could be mistaken.

Great setup.

How's the noise? That's a ton of fans I know my rosewill case is fairly noisy with 3 fans but the one I just peiced together for my brother has 3 also but is not nearly as loud even when they're wide open.

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Well, yes, with most benchmarks out there you see the h100i giving noticeably better temperatures - my current sub-par temps are partially because I'm not running the fans at anywhere near max RPM (Corsair Link ramps them up to around 1.8k (auto) at around 100% load, whereas the theoretical maximum is 2.7k - I could change this manually but with the stock fans being quite loud and temps being reasonable as it is, I didn't want to do that), and partially because I haven't replaced them yet (the Corsair SP Performance fans are a bit better, but significantly quieter, so I can easily run them at higher RPM)

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The noise is currently not too bad (currently running stock case fans + radiator, so in total 6 fans, 1 less than what I will be running when I replace them all), unless I'm running something like PS2, I leave the case fans running at low (just over 5V), and the CPU Radiator and GPU fans run pretty quiet too. *

This is the main reason I want to grab a fan controller before I start replacing any fans - there is absolutely no need to run the case fans permanently at 12V, in fact you could get away with running them at 5V under load, and still have decent temps on your components. That said, by replacing fans in the first place I am both gaining airflow and static pressure, and, more importantly, losing a lot of sound. **

The fans I'm putting in are significantly quieter than stock fans, and I won't be surprised if they run at around the same noise levels at 12V as these fans do at half that (they use fluid dynamic bearings, and come with a bunch of sound-dampening features out of the box).
This is especially true with custom radiator fans. The ones included with the h100i are based off of the SP design, but with no rubber mounts for sound dampening, and usually running at higher RPM to compensate for worse quality overall.
When everything gets replaced, the loudest component by far should be the GPU, which already runs at around 26.5DB lower than the Nvidia reference cooler, clock for clock.

In the end, It's definitely not going to be really quiet (aside from when not under load, in which case even the stock fans run extremely quiet), but it shouldn't be nearly as loud as you might think, taking into account the sheer amount of fans that are being used.

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* NOTE: I haven't set up a custom fan curve for my GPU yet, so far the default auto-detect has been working just fine for me, but I might do that in the future.

** NOTE2: The stock fan controller that comes with the 500R is not bad at all, some people might be uncomfortable with the idea of only 3 speed presets, but I honestly couldn't care less since I only use min and max; however it is not compatible with any other fans aside from those that come with the case, because it uses the 3rd pin for LED control, which is the only real reason as to why I'm having to buy another fan controller.