I'll post some finished pics with the window on the side panel next! :clap:
Great looking build!
Those are some monster latencies you're getting with the patriot memory.
Tyty!
It is very nice ram indeed! While I love to apply volts (a throwback to my BH-5 days), I like even more when I can get beyond rated speeds with
less than rated voltages. The ram is rated at 2.3V, and runs fine with only 2.1V at 1080mhz and 5-5-5-9. Something that this CPU certainly cannot do, it wants volts almost from the getgo!
They will also run 3-3-3-8 or 3-3-3-9 at DDR2-800 with 2.3V, but not much farther... I think I got them to about 860mhz before they start pooping out in memtest.
This particular kit hasn't been dropping in price like the others, either. I think the Mushkin 8500's or the Buffalo Firestix 8500's are a much better deal at the moment (ncix.com).
man, that looks nice, i think those photos just set it straight, and i want one of those cases. what is that vent in the 5 1/4 in drive bays ? does that come with the case or no. hoping it comes on sale at NCIX soon :sad:
The vent is a Scythe Kama Bay, and NCIX stocks them but last time I checked there weren't any in stock, this one was one of the last ones a few weeks ago.
They never go on sale, but you can get a fairly good pricematch from Direct Canada.
I simply love them, and used them a few times when simply bolting or strapping a fan in the bay's will not do. They add a very nice manufactured finish to the case, something that is fairly difficult or time consuming to fabricate. Whenever I run into a situation where the intake is obstructed, I look to see if I can fit one of these in the budget.
There is a couple things about them you should be aware of:
- They have short mounting brackets, and don't hold tight in most drive bays that are screwless. With this Aurora, they are loose on the right side, but on the left side I could catch one screw hole per bracket (through a single hole in the screwless lock). It is not loose this way, but doesn't sit flush. The workaround is to wedge some cardboard inbetween the brackets and drive bay on the right side, keeping the whole thing flush and fairly tight. I ran into the same problem and fix with a Silverstone TJ04. In both cases, you cannot use the plastic drive rails with the kama bay, instead just slide it in, and use screws whereever you can, and wedge it to make it sit flush.
- It comes with an absolutely silent 800rpm fan, and is also filtered. Obviously, it doesn't move a huge amount of air, but any air is usually better than no air. In fact, I have found it can also work great without any fan at all, if you have enough exhaust and case circulation. However, if you put in a more powerful fan, you will most likely have to remove the filter. The way the filter is held in place can let the fan actually suck parts of it into the blades causing an annoying noise. I tried an 1800rpm Zalman ZM-F3, and it was powerful enough to cause the problem. Removing the filter is a simple fix, but I hate dust more than noise or heat so that wasn't an option in this build. Glueing the filter down would also work, but if the glue ever let go...
If you are serious about getting an Aurora, you should read Skymtl's review here (or ncix) on them. It is very comprehensive. We went into this build knowing all the challenges we would face, and had ideas and solutions to try already in place and parts ordered and picked up with the rest so no delays. This would NOT have been possible without his review, I simply cannot praise him enough... here's a link:
http://forum.ncix.com/forums/topic.php?id=1315772
You can save a few bucks by pricematching it from directcanada.com:
Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 Black Aluminum ATX Tower Case 5X5.25 2X3.5 5X3.5INT No PS W/ Window - DirectCanada
Careful of your PSU selection, it is a bit of a stretch to reach some things because of a 4" gap between the top of the mobo and the bottom of the PSU. Make sure you have long lines if you want clean cabling. OCZ's GameXStream fit... just. My own PC is in a P180, so this is easy by comparrison lol!
These Gigabyte cases have one major flaw in that the front intake fan is restricted by a fairly fine-knit filter, the front bezel, and the hard drive bay. Also, the stock fan they supply is completely gutless. I put a 80+ cfm fan in there and you can still barely feel any air passing over the hard drives.
So the fix was to add the Kama Bay, swap out all the gutless Gigabyte fans, and bolt on another fan to the other side of the hard drive bays (using one of the Giga fans for this atm, great light and doesn't trap as much hot air below the vid card).
With the side panel window on instead of the grill, it still isn't perfect, and more experimentation etc is required to really dial it in. There are plenty of options as to mounting more fans, adjusting fan speeds, etc, and this build is still patiently a work in progress (gotta leave some stuff for the owner to play with lol).
With the grill on the side panel it is nearly perfect except that it lets in dust, lets out noise, and ruins the complete case circulation because the dual 120mm exhaust no longer draws from inside the case, and rather, just sucks air from outside the case right through the grill, and right out the case again. Even so, the temps are all great except for a pocket of hot air below the vid card. The lower outside of the case itself gets quite warm and the exhaust air is completely cool. When the window is in use, the case is completely cool, and the exhaust air is warm, yet feeling the air under the vid card inside the case, is still quite warm. I have a PCI exhaust fan on back order to try and deal with that.
One final thing to note; I mounted the Freezer Pro pointing down to the NB heatsink for a couple of reasons.
- This motherboard is a fairly recent release, and finding much info on it is difficult. What you can find out is that NB heatsink gets hot. While it looks good on paper, with plenty of surface area via many fins, it is solid copper and does not convect the heat away into passing air very well. Also, it's angled mounting makes passing air go over it rather than through it, IMHO exasperating the situation. Let me tell you, this sucker gets really hot! Under load and overclocked, it will burn the back of your fingers if you touch it for more than an instant, and that is with the Freezer dumping air on it. Simply put, you must add active cooling to this thing somehow.
- Since there is no info on this board, I was unaware that the Freezer would fit when orientated towards the exhaust. It makes just a little too much contact with the NB heatsink. An easy fix is to dremel out small notches on a few of the Freezer fins to allow clearance. However, I decided to try it mounted down first, since I could potentially kill two birds with one stone this way. After seeing how hot it got even with the Freezer blowing on it, I decided not to try it pointed to the exhaust, as it would mean I would have to rig up some sort of other active cooling for the NB heatsink.
It's a bit of a Catch 22. We don't want any visible ugliness, so any active NB cooling we may use would have to be professional looking or completely invisible from the side panel window.
I feel that the entire case cooling and airflow circulation would be vastly improved if that Freezer were pointed to the exhaust, because as it is now it causes a lot of turbulance. It is evident when the window is on because the dual 120mm exhausts push out a lot less air than they do with the side panel open. The S775 Freezer is a fairly high CFM fan, and would help a lot if pointed to the two rear fans instead of down, this I am sure.
This situation is still very much a work in progress, and we may move to a different HSF alltogether. However, we will try the dremel first because there is a slight chance that the better case circulation will do a decent job of cooling the NB without having to add active cooling for it. There is only one way to find out, and one weekend my buddy and I will try it.
.
.
