Jump to content

My First Official Worklog (Bahamut's Lagoon)


NikoDG

Recommended Posts

This worklog will outline my build step-by-step from beginning to end. This being my first build I'm not going to do anything too over the top, so some of you may find this somewhat dull. Nevertheless I've decided to post this for everyone to see since as you all probably know by now I am a massive attention whore, lol.

Jokes aside, I thought it would be fun to put this up there where everyone can see it, because this should actually be really fun, and if everything turns out it should look pretty sweet.

 

For anyone curious about the name, "Bahamut's Lagoon" refers to the general theme behind my build. The water cooling loop is going to be red with blue accents, then the cabling will be two tone grey. I decided on this because Bahamut is traditionally portrayed as grey with red accents throughout the Final Fantasy series. I'm also replacing my original HAF X side panel with the side panel from the HAF 932 AMD Edition. The larger window should allow for a very nice view of my cases interior while the dragon design on the acrylic will tie in with the rest of my build.

 

Since I'm going to be doing a lot of the building in between shifts at work I figure the easiest way to do this is going to be a daily log, I'll start with the date then tell you guys what kind of progress I made that day, maybe even throw pictures in if I have time. I do expect this build will take a while though (possibly as much as a month) because I live in Canada. That basically means apart from having to do this around work, I have to wait a ridiculously long time for the parts to arrive here. To keep it easy to read I'll just continously edit my log into the main post so you don't have to sort though the comments to find it.

 

That all being said, I hope you enjoy reading about me losing my do-it-yourself-ginity, as much as I enjoy losing it, roflmao.

 

January 1st, 2012

 

Today I arrived home after a week long visit with my family on my father's side. The plane ride was fairly long, and I'm pretty much asleep already. But when I get home I find one massive box, accompanied by three smaller boxes, and obviously I just have to open them before I hit the hay. Inside the biggest box was my case, the CoolerMaster HAF X. When I ordered this thing I obviously underestimated it's massive porportions because it's up to my thigh, I mean holy ****, lol. In the smaller boxes there is my; Sabertooth X79 motherboard, Silverstone ST1200-G power supply, Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA III hard drive, two OCZ Vertex 3 60GB SSD's, one OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS Edition 120GB SSD, eight sticks of RipjawsZ 4GB 1866 DDR3 9-10-9-28, some software, my wireless adapter, and my anti-static equipment. Now some of you might have noticed already, but something is missing. Something that is vital to the operation of my machine. (Wow, this really isn't a good start is it? Lol) My Intel 3930K CPU isn't anywhere to be found. So I look up the UPS tracking number and oh joy, it's still in Edmonton, AB (that's about 600km away for those of you who don't know) despite me having ordered it a week and a half ago. So I guess this is as far as I'm getting tonight.

 

 

 

- Sabertooth X79

 

 

 

- OCZ 60GB SSD's on top, OCZ 120 GB SSD on bottom

 

January 2nd, 2012

 

My CPU still isn't here, and according to UPS tracking it still hasn't left Edmonton, not sure what the hold up is but I decided I won't let this time go to waste. I did some measuring around my case and ordered in a new side panel to replace the original HAF X side panel. Also, I've finally figured out how I'm going to set up my water cooling loop, so that's a relief.

 

 

 

- The two white boxes are my Alphacool UT45 radiators, a 360mm one across the top and a 120mm one down the back.The four yellow boxes are all Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1,850 RPM fans. Three of them will be mounted under the bezel on top of the case, pulling air through the 360mm UT45 radiator and exhausting it through the top. The last one will be mounted to the back, pulling air through the 120mm UT45 and exhausting it out the back. The gray box is a Phobya G-Changer 140mm which I'm going to mount to the back of the hard drive cages, the teal box next to it is a Noise Blocker Black Silent Pro 1,700 RPM. Here I was only allowed to place a single 140mm radiator because if I had gone with a 240mm radiator it would have gotten in the way of my graphics cards. Finally, that blue box is an XSPC dual bay reservoir housing a topless Alphacool VPP655 capable of 1,500 L/h (the Swiftech MCP655-B does 1,200 L/h for comparison).

 

Apart from the radiator/fan set up, I'm still planning on going with the Koolance CPU-370 BPU block, and the Koolance Sabertooth X79 Full Board block. I'm going to be using 1/2" ID tubing with a 3/4" OD, and I'll be using compresion fittings for the connections. Where the tubing connects to radiators, or the reservoir I'll be using black painted fittings, where it attaches to the water blocks I'll be using nickel finished fittings (black fittings go with black radiators, nickel fittings go with nickel water blocks, I figure it should look pretty nice and clean). Then when Koolance comes out with a water block for the HD 7970 I'll be adding that into the mix.

 

January 3rd, 2012

 

Fun day of work, I got my trailer stuck in the ditch. Herp! Other than that nothing to report.

 

January 4th, 2012

 

Omg, omg, omg. It's here! It's here! Lol

 

 

 

I just came in my pants, haha, jk.

Edited by NikoDG

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

  • Replies 52
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Nice! Congratulations Niko. We finally get to see your build. Keep us posted on the progress of your build. :) How much did you spend on the parts? Three SSDs? Why didn't you get 2x 120GB SSDs? I think you would have experienced better performance with two 120GB SSDs than two 60GB and one 120GB SSD.

I cannot wait till I post my first work log once I buy the remaining parts for my build.

Edited by PremiumAcc

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nice! Congratulations Niko. We finally get to see your build. Keep us posted on the progress of your build. :) How much did you spend on the parts? Three SSDs? Why didn't you get 2x 120GB SSDs? I think you would have experienced better performance with two 120GB SSDs than two 60GB and one 120GB SSD.

I cannot wait till I post my first work log once I buy the remaining parts for my build.

It was fairly expensive, a little over $3000.

The one 120GB SSD will be running in conjunction with the 2TB Caviar Black HDD as an SSD Cache thanks to that Marvell controller Asus included in the motherboard. The two 60GB SSD's on the other hand will be in Raid 0 configuration as my boot drive plugging directly into the X79 chipset, and I'm pretty sure two 60GB SSD's in Raid 0 give more performance than a single 120GB SSD, and at a slightly cheaper price.

Edited by NikoDG

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am not an expert on SSDs but from what I have learned based on reading articles is that: (1) SSDs' performance increases significantly as the size increases, (2) You lose TRIM in raid 0, (3) Access time and random 4k is what makes SSDs so great, (4) Raid 0 will only give you increased performance in sequential read/write.

 

Edit: Maybe someone more knowledgeable on the topic could chime in their 2 cents.

 

WOW! I figured it was an expensive build, considering that you have ~$800 in storage and the case, but I didn't expect it to be THAT expensive.

Edited by PremiumAcc

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

While the 60GB SSD'd do have 535MB/s and 480MB/s speeds compared to the 550MB/s and 500MB/s of the 120GB SSD I'm hoping the Raid 0 configuration will ultimately increase their performance, though I won't know until I benchmark them. Also, the 120GB has more IOPS, but it is the Max IOPS Edition.

 

As for the effect on TRIM, I honestly don't know, lol. But I guess I'll find out sooner or later.

 

Pricewise, keep in mind I live in Canada, so the dollar here is slightly lower than the American dollar. Also, transportation cost significantly more, and then there's taxes.

Edited by NikoDG

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ughhhhh niko......why?

 

Haven't I gone over the SSD thing with you a million and three times :lol:

 

Listen, I don't think there are Marvell controlled sata ports on that board. It looks like there are two sets of sata III ports on there. One set looks like it would be a normal Intel controlled group, and the other looks like something special for SSD caching. I would see what other people have done with the board before you get to far ahead of yourself. You might be able to push even more performance than you think ;) .

 

Can you exchange the 120 GB SSD for a non IOPS enhanced edition? If you are only using it for cache, you WILL NOT see a difference between the two. So if you could, you should save some money there.

 

Also, what happened to your beloved CM Storm trooper case?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ughhhhh niko......why?

 

Haven't I gone over the SSD thing with you a million and three times :lol:

 

Listen, I don't think there are Marvell controlled sata ports on that board. It looks like there are two sets of sata III ports on there. One set looks like it would be a normal Intel controlled group, and the other looks like something special for SSD caching. I would see what other people have done with the board before you get to far ahead of yourself. You might be able to push even more performance than you think ;) .

 

Can you exchange the 120 GB SSD for a non IOPS enhanced edition? If you are only using it for cache, you WILL NOT see a difference between the two. So if you could, you should save some money there.

 

Also, what happened to your beloved CM Storm trooper case?

The Marvell controlled SATA III ports are what allow me to set up the SSD cache, don't worry I double checked that it's there :lol:

I could send the drive back, but between the restocking fee and the shipping I'd probably lose money :ouch:

That case just wasn't big enough, if I wanted to get any decent water cooling it would have meant me sacrificing a lot of functionality :(

Edited by NikoDG

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The Marvell controlled SATA III ports are what allow me to set up the SSD cache, don't worry I double checked that it's there :lol:

I could send the drive back, but between the restocking fee and the shipping I'd probably lose money :ouch:

That case just wasn't big enough, if I wanted to get any decent water cooling it would have meant me sacrificing a lot of functionality :(

 

I am sorry why does marvell exist? :lol:

 

I want to see a board with all Intel controlled sata 3 ports. Sata 2 is dead and Marvell sucks. It is time we move forward. Same goes to the PS2 port. :P

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Same goes to the PS2 port. :P

 

Hey! My 7g runs off ps2, but I do agree about the Marvell Ports. I ama bit disappointed about all the things intel said they would put into x79 bit didn't, like all intel USB 3, sas Ports, etc etc

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, honestly I like the FX990 chipset better than the X79 in most regards. Native USB 3.0, a ton of SATA 3 ports, sure it has I think 8 less lanes, which kinda sucks, and no PCI-e 3.0 (another thing the X79 wins). Probably it's biggest downfall is it's CPU though. Too bad we can't have the best of both works, eh?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...