Project Zen

[Moratek]

Welcome all,

This is going to be a fairly long build. Completion will hopefully be around June/July this year, depending on release dates & availability of components.

This will be a full AMD build, Ryzen CPU & dual Vega GPUs.

It will be a primarily black & white theme. With some orange/red highlights.

I also just ordered a 3D printer, which is a few weeks away (has now arrived & is awesome), so I should be able to make some pretty cool mods I hope

Case is the Thermaltake Tower 900. This was chosen for motherboard layout & the shear amount of space it has to let my creativity flow.


More updates to follow as parts arrive.

My first build can be seen here. I have no real timeline on this one, so plan to take my time & perfect it.

**Updated Parts List**
Case: Thermaltake Tower 900
Motherboard: ASRock X370 TaiChi
CPU: Ryzen R7 1700
GPUs:TBA I should chase a sponsor for them
PSU: EVGA P2 1200W
Memory: 16GB GSkill FlareX 3200MHz, 2 x 8GB
Storage: Samsung 960EVO NVMe 256GB
Storage: Samsung 850EVO SSD 500GB
WaterPump: EK D5 Revo Dual
WaterBlock: EK Supremacy EVO (Copper/Plexi)
Reservoir: EK Xres250
Radiators: EK Coolstream CE 560mm x 2
Fans: Noctua NF-A14 Industrial PPC 3000RPM PWM x8
Fans: BeQuiet! Silent Wings 140mm x3
Fan controller: Thermaltake F6 Commander
Fan Hub: Silverstone 1-to-8 PWM
Lighting:Silverstone LS02 RGB strips 300mm x2
Lighting: Deepcool RGB Kit
Cables: CableMod E-Series kit, Black/White.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

Holy rad-space Batman!

 

[Moratek]

I believe the rads are what they tried to deliver today- 2 x EK 560s with 8 Noctua NF-A14 140mm 3000RPM PWMs. So much cooling power

 

[Bluefalcon13]

I believe the rads are what they tried to deliver today- 2 x EK 560s with 8 Noctua NF-A14 140mm 3000RPM PWMs. So much cooling power

I'm in love with this case now......Thanks [emoji14]

Just watch those ippc-3000s. They are LOUD at full tilt. I use 2 to cool my 280 30fpi rad

Look forward to seeing what you do with this beast of a case!

 

[||Console||]

That should be some serious cooling . I like the looks of the case .
IDK how you could wait MONTHS to put a system together I am way to impatient , but good on you .

 

[Blaylock]

Gotta love ThermalTake. Bringing back the meaning of Tower in full tower cases.

 

[t1nm4n]

I've seen that case before, but never saw profile shots of it, that is some insane rad space you have there, I like it, I think I found my next case.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

I've seen that case before, but never saw profile shots of it, that is some insane rad space you have there, I like it, I think I found my next case.

If it's gonna be a few months till his build is done, I'm gonna setup a cot in there! It's my new home! [emoji14]

 

[Moratek]

Some parts arrived today. It was interesting to see how different the shipping times were.

I placed 3 orders last week:
Noctua shipping- 3 days, Europe to Australia.
PCCase gear- Melbourne to Perth shipping- 6 days.
Local PLE shop- No idea, most of the parts only had to come from 40kms away, haven't heard a thing from them yet.

Toy list for today-

The Noctua fans for the radiators.
A couple of BeQuiet 140s for airflow in other areas- I love these fans, silent & sexy.
CPU waterblock- EK Supremacy
Silverstone PWM 1-8 fan hub
Some heat shrink & cable sleeves.
EK Duraclear tubing- I'm not going hard line on this, I have some ideas that will make the flex tube the better option.
A few water fittings that I didn't already have.

Anyhow, pics!

 

[Moratek]

That should be some serious cooling . I like the looks of the case .
IDK how you could wait MONTHS to put a system together I am way to impatient , but good on you .

I already have a great system, so there isn't a rush to finish this one. As keen as I am to get to overclocking & benchmarking, I think the end result will be better if I just take my time.

Plus, if I wait long enough, there may be a better motherboard released. The ASRock Taichi is cool, but the single BIOS bugs me due to past issues with my Extreme 7+. I thought they may have added it on the Fatality Pro, but nope

- - - Updated - - -

I've seen that case before, but never saw profile shots of it, that is some insane rad space you have there, I like it, I think I found my next case.

It's designed for cooling & really making your system a feature. I looked at a lot of options for this build, but kept coming back to the Tower 900. It's just a lot of space in a unique format.

 

[Moratek]

More things arrived today!

The case is huuuuge, and heavy, weighing in at 27kgs of builders paradise. I was expecting it to come flat packed being so large, but it was ready to go out of the box.

You could comfortably fit 2 full ATX systems on water in there with minimal mods. Almost makes me want to just mount that EVGA board

In other news, I got notification today that my 3D printer has been shipped, so should arrive at the end of next week. I also picked up 3 rolls of ABS & 5 rolls of PLA for $10 each at an auction, which was a bit of a bargain.













That's a full ATX motherboard for scale

 

[Blaylock]

I love cases that come with pump mounts. Looks like that one has two.

 

[Alaric]

I thought I was married to the Phanteks Enthoo cases for life. Now you have to go and show me this! My GPU would look sooo good in there, actually being able to see most of it. All kinds of subbed to this one.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

More things arrived today!

The case is huuuuge, and heavy, weighing in at 27kgs of builders paradise. I was expecting it to come flat packed being so large, but it was ready to go out of the box.

You could comfortably fit 2 full ATX systems on water in there with minimal mods. Almost makes me want to just mount that EVGA board

In other news, I got notification today that my 3D printer has been shipped, so should arrive at the end of next week. I also picked up 3 rolls of ABS & 5 rolls of PLA for $10 each at an auction, which was a bit of a bargain.

Be careful with my new home! [emoji14]

Good God that thing is MASSIVE and amazing.

 

[Moratek]

I love cases that come with pump mounts. Looks like that one has two.

Yep, the thermaltake pumps fit straight on, then the bracket is held in place by just that one thumb screw at the back. So you can fit your plumbing, then just slot them into place.

 

[Moratek]

More parts arrived today.

Thermaltake Commander RGB fan controller.
Deepcool RGB lights.
EK Revo Dual D5 PWM Pump.
EK Xres X3 250.
A heap more fittings.
Some Black EK tube.

Just waiting on the Radiators now.

I'm hoping that the Ryzen5 release will bring some new motherboards, I would love an ASRock Extreme series, or a Gigabyte SOC/G1. There are some very nice options out already, but nothing that ticks all the boxes.

It may be wishful thinking this early on, but a guy can dream

 

[Moratek]

The power went out here 5 separate occasions this afternoon, after the 2nd time I gave up trying to get anything done on the computer & started playing with the case. I switched out the Thermaltake fans for some BeQuiet ones & installed the Noctuas for the radiators.

These things move a crazy amount of air. I'm pretty sure I could replace my ceiling fan with a few of them mounted to the roof.

The 8 fans are moving 1270cfm at full speed.

I am going to try out pushing through one side & pulling out the other, as I think having them either both push, or both pull will cause each side to fight the other.

After seeing the wiring just from these & the fan controller, I think it is going to take all my skill & ocd to cable manage this thing. It looks like a Hentai in there already!

I sat the pump & res in the front section just to get an idea of where they will fit. As much room as the case has, that dual D5 is massive. I'll probably hide it I think, as it's not the most attractive component out there.















These are the current concepts for covering the base. The pump will fit underneath. I still have to add some vents, maybe mount a fan underneath pushing air up into the front section of the case.

I also want to put a Ryzen logo on there somewhere with some red/orange LEDs.





And the current version. It's getting there. I'd like to include something Vega related as well, but will have to wait for AMD to give me some inspiration.

 

[Moratek]

Did some printing today.

The plan is to put a sanded piece of acrylic behind the cover & shine red & orange LEDs in from the side to give it a glow that gradually changes from red to orange, as opposed to the harsh look below. I included an example of what I'm going for, but it won't look like that when it's done correctly.

I need to get some paint tomorrow to finish it off, planning to paint the base white & the lettering black.

 

[Moratek]

Some progress has been made. I've ordered a R7 1700, ASRock TaiChi motherboard, EVGA P2 1200W PSU, cablemods White/Black kit, Deepcool RGB kit, some Silverstone RGB strips, Samsung 500GB SSD, & 16MB of 3200MHz GSkill FlareX.

The radiators finally arrived, took 4 weeks to get them, not impressed by the service from shop I used, so won't be going back, despite them only being a 2 minute drive away.



Sleeved the wires on the pumps tonight, made it slightly more attractive.


I drew up a new fan controller cover & printed it, as well as some cable combs. The black one is the original.




I've been busy playing with the 3D printer the past week. I spent today building a bench for it & will finish the enclosure tomorrow- I ran out of screws of all things! Once it has it's own little house, I should be able to print ABS. I just couldn't get the temps high enough out in the open.

Things should start moving along now that parts are arriving & the printer is up & running. I have some of the brackets drawn up & ready to go.

My biggest hurdle at the moment is attempting to make a Dual D5 pump look good, it's not the most attractive component out there.

Some of the random ideas I came up with:
Printing a small industrial robot that could be posed lifting it into position.
Covering it with a shell in the shape of a steam turbine from a power plant.
I even considered making a model based on the machine in the new Unigene Superposition benchmark, which could look kind of cool using the pump & reservoir.

I need to make up some prototypes to see how they look.

Of course, I could end up just making a plain, tight fitting cover, but where's the fun it that?

 

[Moratek]

The good bits arrived today, it's so tempting having them just sitting there on the shelf.

PSU arrives tomorrow, memory on Friday, then the assembly & waiting for Vega begins.