Description

This is my gaming rig: "Big-Red." It has gone through a, say unique, water cooling upgrade project after its initial assembly and a storage upgrade for the SATA SSD. The AIO cooled 3090 is really the star of the show, its cooled by the 360mm rad up front and the 5600X is cooled by the 240mm rad up top.

I would highly discourage anyone from doing what I did for the GPU, it likely cost more than a typical EK water cooled loop for it, but I wanted the look, challenge, and experience of pathfinding a way todo it for the 3090FE. I got the 5600X to a stable 4.75GHz on all core with reasonable temps (<85C) at idle and under heavy load. The GPU stays pretty cool with the new cooling solution and the system volume is quite low, even under intense load. There is a minor issue with VRAM temperatures, but its mostly mitigated with the one piece copper shim I installed, which makes contact with the cold plate of the AIO cooler. Lastly, all the threads holding the PCB, back and front plate, and PCI-e IO shield all thread into the front plate/[main cooler assembly] so in order to secure the backplate and IO shield to the PCB I ended up modifying an existing nut design and 3d printing a few to fasten the GPU back together.

For clarification: Everything but the GPU liquid cooling mod was completed 4/13/21. The last revision to the PC was completed 1/12/23. The temperatures are an estimate from what I remember, but it runs within spec temperatures and runs quiet under load without throttling. The CPU clock speed is dead on though: 4.75GHz all core.

Minor typo: used MX-4, not MX-6 (yet) for both the GPU and CPU, so the temps are based of of MX-4 conduction. Also, wrote out the clock speed for the CPU w/out double checking the PC and I was 1GHz off :| correct now!

Part Reviews

CPU

Solid gaming processor! Mine overclocked quite well, and I have heard many other accounts of high headroom in these processors. Its worked w/out issue and has a pretty low power draw so it turned out great. The six cores also stand up pretty well for some productivity tasks as well. This one even came with a stock cooler, so all in all, I am quite impressed.

CPU Cooler

Just a nice looking and working 240mm liquid cooler. I would say to check your case's fan slots, as I could've gone with a 280mm instead of the 240mm in my case. This could have yielded better cooling, but I was quite satisfied with this one's ability anyway. Honestly a little overkill for a 5600X. Infinity mirror looks dope.

CPU Cooler

A solid 360mm cooler, no regrets here. It comes with fan connectors at the top of the rad for 3 of your rad fans. The fan connector cable comes out from the CPU block side, with the cable traveling inside the coolant tubes. The block itself is quite compact, great if you want a slim mount, with some RGB. I will say the pump speed itself isn't actually controllable, I believe it scales off of the fan speeds for the rad, or its just goes full blast all the time. I would have liked to see a control for it, or at least a sensor readout for just the pump speed. Other than that, it cools a 3090 die and some of its VRAM quite well in a push pull config so I am quite satisfied.

Thermal Compound

Allegedly this stuff slaps for cooling efficiency. I replaced the paste on the steam deck's chip and was unable to see much of a difference, but I think it helped. Probably really good thermal paste, use in high performance situations, or put it on your Linux powered switch just because.

Motherboard

Great budget MOBO, a little disappointed in the lack of a USB C MOBO header, but it does have USB C in the rear IO. FYI, if you plan to use m.2 WIFI, you are going to have to route the wires for the antennas yourself, which is covered by the rear IO heatsink/RGB, so it might be a little tricky.

Memory

Great looking and working 32gb sticks. One of the DIMMs in my initial set didn't reach 3600MHz, and G.Skill took both back and sent me 2 new ones. Both work fine now, and I have had no issues utilizing them fully. Decent software RGB control, with subpar RAZER Chroma integration.

Storage

Works great for a boot and favorite game drive. It uses PCI-e Gen 4 so its got the bandwidth to run wild. Not a ton of capacity, but enough to store your OS and maybe a couple of big titles you want fast load times on. No complaints, has worked great for nearly 3 years now

Storage

I wanted more storage and didn't want a HDD, I bought this. It stores. It reads. It does it decently fast. Works great as a secondary drive to an NVMe, but you could probably boot off it pretty quick too. No complaints.

Storage

Great mass storage option, especially if you plan to write to it several times over its initial capacity. Its WD Red, it can probably take it. Its not gonna be wicked fast, but it'll be fast enough, its not gonna be cheap, but if you plan on using it for a while, it'll hold up. Great choice for a long term secondary game drive, that loads quick and lasts several builds.

Video Card

Its a massive card guys. Honestly: this card isn't that worth it, its nearly the same performance as a 3080, but slightly better, but its costs twice as much. You are really just paying for an exorbitant amount of VRAM, which mind you, on stock cooling overheats pretty quickly. Now, in terms of cool factor, this thing is dope. Its literally like 5 pounds of cooler on a little PCB. Don't love the 12 pin, but it hasn't caught on fire, so I can't really complain. BFGPU is cool, but doesn't make a lot of fiscal sense.

Case

Big ol' Mid tower. Coming from a H510i, this thing can pack a way bigger punch, without actually increasing size too much. Its got great fan and rad compatibility for top, front, and rear. Although, I don't really see how they expect you to install 2 360mm rads at the same time, due to a clearance issue at the back of the case where the in/out tubes would likely be. The vanity panel has some adjustment left and right to better fit your front radiator or rear to front cable situation, I did really appreciate that. Lots of cable routing options in the back and its fairly easy to install case fans and other parts inside. I'm a little ticked because originally I was going to get the H710i, which has RGB and a vertical GPU mount, the latter of which I didn't realize was exclusive to the H_10i series but they were out of stock and I opted for the non-i. Giving 4 stars because of those nitpicks, but other than those, its a great case to work in and even better to look at.

Power Supply

It hasn't exploded, and delivers at least ~600 watts without fail. I typically advise builders to go with an 80+ gold power supply, but do as I say not as I do I guess. No issues with this guy so far, and it has RGB, so that's a plus.

Case Fan

Its a Noctua fan, but cheaper and pale grey. It performs well, quiet, and when it does ramp up, isn't obnoxious. great for a rad or case fan swap for noise reduction. I highly recommend these fans for those who want quieter builds.

Case Fan

Noctua fan, but little and colorful. I used this on a Kraken G12 in place of the stock fan it comes with. The color pads were fun and easy to use and I can't even tell when its spinning or not without looking. I think its helping cool my VRAM, but honestly got no clue. A powerful, quiet, 92mm fan for the user with a glass side panel.

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