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Kin Hell
1st July 2023, 14:58
I've been meaning to upload this for a while now.......

I upgraded from an Asus P8 Z77 V-Premium that was almost 8 years 0ld. - She'd seen many Graphics card Combos over those years such as three Way SLI GTX 670 Ti's, Dual SLI GTX 780 Ti's & finally dual SLI 1080 Ti's. Those 1080 Ti cards in SLI were absolute Monsters on Z77

System is as follows....

Tower Case: Modified Temjin TJ11 (https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/legacy/info/computer-chassis/TJ11/)
Motherboard: - Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme (https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-z690-extreme-model/)
Intel i9 12900K 16Core/24 thread running @ 5.4Ghz PCore & 4.1Ghz ECore
Ram: Corsair DDR5 5600Hz Running @ 6000Hz
Graphics: Asus ROG Strix RTX3080 Ti (https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/asus-rog-strix-rtx-3080-ti-gaming-oc.b8951)
Keyboard: Corsair K100 Mechanical (https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/p/keyboards/ch-912a01a-uk/k100-rgb-optical-mechanical-gaming-keyboard-corsair-opx-switch-black-uk-ch-912a01a-uk)
Storage: 2 x 2TB WD Black PCIe4 NVMe's; 2 x 1TB WD Black PCIe4 NVMe's; 2 x 1TB Samsung EVO's; 2 x 500GB Samsung EVO's in RAID0.

So it all started Back in December 2021 & I allowed myself to be fleeced by Overc0ckers.co.uk over 600 bucks for 32GB Dual Channel DDR5 ram. :eyebrow:

DDR5 was like hens teeth at the time so ended up paying three times what it costs now. The Motherboard blew me for £940 & the CPU was a stiff £650 event. - So many sexual sounding events.... But was there any pleasure? :hmmm:

Delivery #1 late December 2021 after Xmas :

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Board Assembly:

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Et voila.... One 0ld Z77 set up running two Zotac 1080 Ti's in SLI....

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to this....

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It had to be that particular motherboard for my dual Zotac GTX 1080 TI's in SLI. It was the only Z690 Board to give me the three Slot Spacing for a £60 HB SLI bridge I already owned. This also offered better & bigger spacing for the two cards vertically over the dual internal case fans & as the 1080 Ti's were air cooled, they stayed really cool for this set up.
The performance from those 1080 Ti's in SLI was absolutely phenomenal. The problem was, they were absolutely flat out on Z690 chipset. They completely flat lined on FPS in things like 3DMark.
The caveat with this Z690 board was if I put a PCIe 5 capable NVMe into said slot, (Under the OLED Heatsink above PCIe 1) the 2nd 16x PCIe slot would be disabled on the motherboard!
Another BF meaning upgrade the Gfx card. - SLI was dying.....

Only supported fully on RTX 20 series & then on on RTX 3090 Series. RTX 4090 does have SLI implemented on the PCB design, but no manufacturer actually produced one. - I'm sure Mr. nVidia has a few prototypes kicking around. :shades:

Anyway, back in September 2022, I bought a bargain RTX 3080 Ti brand new for £850 (retailed for £1299.99 @ Overc0ckers)

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& then decided to Water Cool everything because I had to remove one of the TJ11's internal Fans for the 3080 Ti to fit on Air.

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Looking for a Water Block for the Strix 3080 Ti was an event beyond itself & led to a couple of catastrophic f'k up's along the way....
F'k One was having to remodel the first concept into concept #2 becuase if I wanted the latest water block from EK to cool both sides of the 3080 Ti, I would have to loose the OLED Heatsink that covers the only PCIe 5 slot on the Mobo.
So, hearing about the Heat on the backside of the RTX 3080/90 cards, |I was a tad miffed getting fux0rd for a £940 mobo event,

ROG Strix 3080 Ti comes with a switch on the side of it's PCB for an 1845Mhz Over Clock.... Pfffft my Ass it will do it on Air.... :mad:

So after trawling the Web for a suitable Water block for this card, I found an EK Vector Strix block in a British Heart Foundation Shop on eBay for £70 delivered & unused. Overc0ckers were not having £160 for one with the Vector Strix2 @ nearly £200. - With the cash saved, I spent another £30 (was £70) with EK water blocks for a Flow indicator. This was fantastic in two ways. It gives the user a visual water flow indication & aligned the Distro Plates for the water circuit into the Graphics card in the best possible way

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Water Cooled with only the GPU cooled om the Vector Strix water block & an Aluminium Heat Sink on the Ram side of the card. - 3090 & Ti's have 24GB Ram on both sides of the card. The Strix 3080 Ti has heat around the GPU Side... not the back side. :shades:

Bar the shouting, nearly 2.3Ghz on the GPU! - Thats a 500Mhz Overclock on the GPU for water cooling.... :shades:

These modern cards will throttle themselves for the heat they're suffering. Cool with water & the numbers climb drastically. This Valley Benchmark is after the completed build.

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Distro plates...... (https://www.phanteks.com/PH-D120.html)

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If I used Phantek's 240 Plate.... Linky Poo (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phanteks-glacier-d140-distribution-plate-with-drgb-lighting-wc-02y-pt.html?_gl=1*ypwecb*_up*MQ..&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlPzVprXw_wIVgpSDBx3o5wvvEAQYAiABEgIyO_D_BwE) ....

.... it would have halved the water-flow rate by splitting it in two. - Single Loop block Systems have a higher flow rate than split ones because of "Back Pressure".
Split flow rates will give less kick back pressure on the pump, but the depletion in pressure via two circuits doesn't get rid of the heat per "Water Cooled Component* as a continuous push on a single loop.

The caveat to this principle is to make sure each component cooled gets a Radiator after it in the Water Loop. - Hence two single D120 Distro Plates. - Please remember..... this is making/shoe horning/bastardising/fitting/engineering components you don't have before you buy it....

So I Printed two life size ones to work it all out....

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There are some Fundamental Graphical Curves here that I'd really not want to go into as an HND Mech/Elec Engineer. It's bloody Daunting....

More to follow guys.... BarbeQue was done Sat night.... School tomorrow. :cool:

Here was the first run for the build.....

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See Post #8 for more....

Demon Cleaner
1st July 2023, 16:33
I thought you owned already a Z690?

Harrison
2nd July 2023, 21:06
Very nice. I still need to build a new PC, but don't have the funds at the moment (keep spending it on the garden). I was planning a new build just as covid hit and the prices shot up, so I didn't even try.

There are some new GPUs appearing now in a good mid proce range. I can't justify the cost of top end GPUs, regardless of how much I would like one. So the new 4060 and RX7600 is now where I would be looking. And probably a Ryzen 7 or i7. But by the time I am ready things will have moved on again a bit. By the autumn hopefully.

J T
3rd July 2023, 00:55
That looks like an impressive and high spec setup. How much have you spent all-up on that thing?

One thing that stood out to me - the rectangular CPU packaged in a circular packet, packaged diagonally into a cube-ish box.... seems really wasteful and space-inefficient even if it looks cool.

Kin Hell
3rd July 2023, 14:04
I thought you owned already a Z690?

Yeah.... this one! :sly:

@ H

Cannon Fodder quote....

"It's a Jungle out there"....

Let it grow free. Burn it back when you need to & blow the cash your spending in the Jungle on some F A B things.... :lol:


That looks like an impressive and high spec setup. How much have you spent all-up on that thing?

One thing that stood out to me - the rectangular CPU packaged in a circular packet, packaged diagonally into a cube-ish box.... seems really wasteful and space-inefficient even if it looks cool.

Yeah. The Intel CPU packaging gave me a bit of a spank on the OCD Monkeh wagon! :D

More pics to follow yet......

Harrison
4th July 2023, 13:45
Have you seen some of the new prebuilt ganing rigs appearing in thy last month? There was one at £4800 and that wasn't even the cheapest. And even rise had riom to expand. 64GB DDR5 on 2 slots, so room to expand to 128GB f.ex. The money you need now to built a real top end rig is getting serious. But in testing those rigs running games in 4k on ultra high settings were maintaining framerates over 100 which is mad when you think back just a few years.

But for everyday gaming at lower resolutions are still within reach of most. You can still build a decent 1080p rig for under £1000. But when I get round to it I will want to be able to run at 4K, even if not on ultra high settings on every game. So it will be a balancing act for me. But I am considering cashing in some of my unused retro collection as I hardly use a lot of it and it's been increasing in value a lot lately.

Harrison
4th July 2023, 13:45
BTW, look forward to seeing the finished setup and some benchmarks! ;)

Kin Hell
15th July 2023, 09:16
Water Loop Filler Tube & Reservoir Flow & Return pipes....

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Getting really excited now....

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Water loop Drain Cap....

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"Oh ffs"..... After applying the Water block to the GPU, the damned assembly wouldn't clear the Radiator below it. - Re-work required..... :eyebrow:

....Excitement quelled, more foreplay required....

Out with the 160mm fan mounts & cut to maintain the rear portion. This fixes & locates the motherboard Tray runners to the Chassis. The motherboard Tray slides into the TJ11 from the Top side.

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RGB Fans from Akasa....

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Original case disassembly for transformation....

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Not part of the 2nd run, but this was a Workmate/Patio Jig Saw chop to put the PSU Flat & give clearance for the lower chamber's pipework....

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Rear Foot mount moved forward to clear PSU new Air intake....

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Adjustment now completed, here's the rebuild....

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Still unsure which way to mount these Distro Plates from Phanteks.... :hmmm:

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Kin Hell
15th July 2023, 10:32
Finally figured out the best orientation for the Phanteks Distro Plates....

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....Excitement almost at an unprecedented & explosive level....

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This was the third attempt.... The Lower tube to the Gfx card is the feed tube to the Water block. Really not happy with the Aesthetics of that damned pipe at all & it will be re-worked the first time the System has to be drained. - Such a hard tube to bend as it changes directions so many times.

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This box from Germany via UPS took three months to get here. :blink: - Not impressed UPS!!

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Just for you J T :D

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More.....

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So it all started Back in December 2021 & I allowed myself to be fleeced by Overc0ckers.co.uk over 600 bucks for 32GB Dual Channel DDR5 ram.

DDR5 was like hens teeth at the time so ended up paying three times what it costs now. The Motherboard blew me for £940 & the CPU was a stiff £650 event. - So many sexual sounding events.... But was there any pleasure? :hmmm:

Well, it's all gravy now, but....


Hell.... Yeah!! :D

Harrison
16th July 2023, 07:23
Very impressive and beautiful looking build. Would be ashame to hide it on the ground.

Quite a big case though.

So have you managed to benchmark it yet?

Kin Hell
16th July 2023, 09:17
About 64cm tall H. - Way too big to sit on a desk.

The next Rig I build will be a smaller form factor possibly based on this case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCuAAFUis7s&t=11s

Decisions, decisions?? .... White (https://hyte.com/store/y60?v=113).... Black (https://hyte.com/store/y60?v=114).... Red.... (https://hyte.com/store/y60?v=115) ....but do I bother? - It isn't an Aluminium chassis.... :hmmm:

Tempting..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4xq_LImrPA

Really really tempting.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cUlK-rP7s0 :shades:

OCUK's bastardisation....

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@ over £5000 for a 4070Ti.... :blink:



Benchmark's with comparisons:

Superstition Single 1080Ti

Medium or High on Textures/Shaders makes no difference. - This is what's known as a "CPU Bottleneck".

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Superstition Dual 1080Ti's

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Single 3080 Ti

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Over Clock the GPU....

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Superstition Figures without GPU Overclock....

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3DMark Vantage

Z77 Chipset - Dual 1080Ti's

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Z690 Chipset - Dual 1080Ti's

Look how much Z77 Chipset was holding back the Dual 1080Ti's :blink:

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Z690 Chipset - Single 3080Ti

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:lolup: I expected much more from the RTX3080Ti tbh. :huh:

3DMark....

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Over Clock the GPU....

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Does anyone realise how much more power/computational stats are required for this kind of increase??

Kin Hell
4th November 2023, 08:13
Picked up some new Storage off eBay last week & paid £200 for this bad ass fella.
OCUK & elsewhere are charging £350....

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Using a USB 3.1 - 128GB SanDisk Extreme Pro stick, from hitting Enter after entering the Windows Key for a fresh installation of Windows 10 Pro, desktop in under 3 minutes! :blink:

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The top bench result is a 2TB Gen4 WD Black SN850 for comparison.

Saved £150 on the current retail & Mental speed. WOW! :shades:

J T
5th November 2023, 23:26
As impressive as all of this undoubtedly is.... does it make the games any more fun to play?

- - - Updated - - -

I also misread that logotype and thought the brand was called OCOOL instead of alpha-cool

Harrison
6th November 2023, 11:58
Those are impressive speed gains between Gen4 and Gen5. 7000MB/s was already insainly fast for Gen 4, which my Samsung 980 Pro achieved when I tested it last year. There were questions when Gen 5 was first announced if we really would see much gain in performance, but that really shows what's possible.

If a PS5 Pro does come out I wonder if they will add support for Gen 5 SSDs. The load speeds on the console are already impressive with Gen 4, being almost instantaneous but that would all but eliminate losing times at all.

And M2 storage is finally really dropping in price, which is great. A 2TB M2 Gen4 was anywhere from £160-220 last year. Now they are under £100. Finally some parts of computer components are becoming more affordable again.

Kin Hell
11th November 2023, 10:35
As impressive as all of this undoubtedly is.... does it make the games any more fun to play?

<snip>

They all load way faster & any Racing Sim/Game is simply so immersive across three IPS panels.

Some FPS shooters are way too "Whippy" on the outer two monitors. - Almost makes you feel sick! :blink:

The right most monitor is an RGB capable 1920 x 1080 LCD Smart TV & is 15Khz capable for the Amiga.

More fun to play? - Oh yeah Baby! :yesyes:

@ Harrison

Yes & about time tbh.

When I bought my WD 2TB 850's two years ago, they cost £352 each. - OCUK & others are fleecing/scalping us some more again.

You can pick up brand new WD SN850X Gen4 NVMe's on eBay for around £125 (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364439023596?epid=20056817075&hash=item54da422fec:g:MhIAAOSwMhBkWRco&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwO1Zwy%2FONcRyMj%2BtftjFbmaO1KpfQj3HkgRF9RGyXLJqt8rReBxxSt0HmOun9dBHIq8L5v4il7YGWbeICRI%2BwJql3%2B2y6E7kIWs%2FwHvisBpnPA%2FtO406h WoIK0S6fnYjxdbtjowDwBJpGdsgIlOd1TwmYvz0ZrJvOOjDyrsifp68hG2iq19vrrTQfPPZaBhI55QvO6yjhI7d73s%2BgZkH1pL2SvNzHPr7t2TpwjWmWautsil1xJo7m7E0vjmTV8gOpA%3D%3D% 7Ctkp%3ABk9SR6CRuPT3Yg) these days.

....messing around on my Secret Lab (https://secretlab.co.uk/collections) Workstation/Desk array....

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....setting up my Re-Amiga A1200 Pi Storm CM4 2600+ MIP Rig. :D