I mentioned in another thread recently that I could do a "Build Log" of me re-building my Windows XP computer and at least one user (Samir) was interested so here's the build log. I'm finally getting to it so I'll log it here in this thread. Forewarning: This will not be a beautiful showcase build like you see on reddit. It's largely a bunch of older used parts I have left over from other builds and it uses older mid-2000's barb and clamp water cooling so it's not pretty. But it's focused on raw performance. Short summary: Rather exotic parts for 2013 and it runs with an I5-3570K @ 4.7 Ghz stable, 32GB DDR3 @ 2200 Mhz, and a water cooled EVGA GTX 780 Classified card. The rest I'll describe as we go. Also don't expect daily updates or anything. My ability to advance with this project will depend on how my body feels day to day and what ever else is going on in life but I have all the parts here and I will complete this and get it running before the end of 2021. Summary out of the way and let's get on to the pictures and descriptions and the building.
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Antec 1200 Full Tower computer case. Very old.. I've owned this since about 2004. Scratched up and modified. I cut the fan grilles out for mounting radiators and I added a set of 3" casters with rubber wheels to wheel it around.
ASRock P67 Extreme4 B3 revision motherboard with the PLX chip. Memory is actually this: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Memory/High-Performance-Memory/VENGEANCE®-Pro-Series-—-32GB-(4-x-8GB)-DDR3-DRAM-2400MHz-C11-Memory-Kit/p/CMY32GX3M4A2400C11R but I have modified it by removing the heatsinks and resin-bonding them to a set of older Corsair Dominator GT Water-Block enabled ram covers. I have the water block that goes on them and I will be installing it along in this build. I'll show that later.
Heatkiller Pro IV Intel Nickel-Plated Copper water block. The finest German Engineered water block in my opinion. I'm not taking it apart again just to show everyone but I'm running the CPU delidded with the IHS removed and bare chip right to the water block. This water block is specifically designed to give the exact mounting pressure for Intel CPU's with the IHS removed so they will function normally. Without this block people have to guess and use shims and all sorts of non-sesne. But I just put the block on, put paste on, crank down the mounting screws until they bottom out and it works every time.
Antec 1200W HCP / High Current Pro power supply. I expect this system to run around 700~800 watts under load when it's done. So this is actually necessary. I might try to find a raid card and put some of my 15,000 RPM SAS drives in here as a RAID array for more storage later so I'll need every bit of this big boy.
Hardware Labs Gen Two Extreme radiator. This may look like a thick 240mm radiator but it's actually a 480mm. Hardware Labs put two 240mm radiator cores in the frame and routed em together so it passes through one -> into the second -> then back to the rest of the system. So this will be cooling everything. 480mm of radiator should be perfectly fine for this system.
That's it for parts for now, on to the building.
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And here's the progress for today. I'm stopping here for now. Both of the other two fans for the other side of this radiator are broken apparently.. one had a broken blade and the other the frame cracked when I put the screw in it.. FFS.. !#@!#@!#$#@#$@ Oh well. I'll still continue to build the system. I can get it up and running with two fans on the radiator for now, it'll just run a bit warmer. Part of having two cores in this radiator is it really does need two sets of fans in Push-Pull to get the maximum cooling out of this abnormally super-dense radiator. So I'll get that for later.
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Antec 1200 Full Tower computer case. Very old.. I've owned this since about 2004. Scratched up and modified. I cut the fan grilles out for mounting radiators and I added a set of 3" casters with rubber wheels to wheel it around.
ASRock P67 Extreme4 B3 revision motherboard with the PLX chip. Memory is actually this: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Memory/High-Performance-Memory/VENGEANCE®-Pro-Series-—-32GB-(4-x-8GB)-DDR3-DRAM-2400MHz-C11-Memory-Kit/p/CMY32GX3M4A2400C11R but I have modified it by removing the heatsinks and resin-bonding them to a set of older Corsair Dominator GT Water-Block enabled ram covers. I have the water block that goes on them and I will be installing it along in this build. I'll show that later.
Heatkiller Pro IV Intel Nickel-Plated Copper water block. The finest German Engineered water block in my opinion. I'm not taking it apart again just to show everyone but I'm running the CPU delidded with the IHS removed and bare chip right to the water block. This water block is specifically designed to give the exact mounting pressure for Intel CPU's with the IHS removed so they will function normally. Without this block people have to guess and use shims and all sorts of non-sesne. But I just put the block on, put paste on, crank down the mounting screws until they bottom out and it works every time.
Antec 1200W HCP / High Current Pro power supply. I expect this system to run around 700~800 watts under load when it's done. So this is actually necessary. I might try to find a raid card and put some of my 15,000 RPM SAS drives in here as a RAID array for more storage later so I'll need every bit of this big boy.
Hardware Labs Gen Two Extreme radiator. This may look like a thick 240mm radiator but it's actually a 480mm. Hardware Labs put two 240mm radiator cores in the frame and routed em together so it passes through one -> into the second -> then back to the rest of the system. So this will be cooling everything. 480mm of radiator should be perfectly fine for this system.
That's it for parts for now, on to the building.
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And here's the progress for today. I'm stopping here for now. Both of the other two fans for the other side of this radiator are broken apparently.. one had a broken blade and the other the frame cracked when I put the screw in it.. FFS.. !#@!#@!#$#@#$@ Oh well. I'll still continue to build the system. I can get it up and running with two fans on the radiator for now, it'll just run a bit warmer. Part of having two cores in this radiator is it really does need two sets of fans in Push-Pull to get the maximum cooling out of this abnormally super-dense radiator. So I'll get that for later.
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And the more I look at it I realize I really need to stop at this point and wait for the other 2 fans to arrive before proceeding as it would be a nightmare to nearly impossible to get those two fans in once I get all this tubing routed into this system. So this project sits for now until more parts arrive. I'll post some photos of the current progress of the system and where it sits now.
