I'm done with the restrictions of gaming laptops. Building a little monster instead.

Firstly, my apologies to the mods if this isn't the right place for this discussion, but seeming as I've been on this board (and in this sub-forum) for quite some time, I thought my fellow brothers might be interested to see the little monster I'm putting together to replace my 18. Plus, seeing vulcan78's similar thread has pushed me to make my own.


I've finally had enough of the restrictions of gaming laptops. They aren't upgradeable enough, the BIOSs (and vBIOS's) are far too restrictive for an enthusiast, the cooling is too limiting to push the system hard, I've had huge problems when it comes to part failures, and they're wickedly expensive. Don't get me wrong, they are very nice machines for those who just want to play games and have a portable system, but I want more.

I've been buying gaming laptops for years now because I needed the portability. I still do to an extent, but the emergence of the high performance SFF computing market now enables a monster desktop to be built in a console-sized enclosure - something that was much harder to do when I originally bought my M18x R2. While I still need portability, I don't need laptop-level portability anymore - something I can throw in a suitcase with a couple of layers of bubble wrap is sufficient.

So I'm putting together my dream mini-system. I've just ordered the parts for it, which should hopefully be here on Tuesday morning. Here's the configuration:

Case: Silverstone Raven RVZ01
As far as I'm aware, this is the smallest case on the market that can fit almost any dual slot graphics card on the market, thanks to its use of a right-angled PCI-e riser card. It also has surprisingly good cooling for a very small system thanks to the 120mm intake directly above the CPU and the two 120mm intakes directly above the GPU, with exhaust vents everywhere. I won't be wanting for storage either, with room for three 2.5" drives and one 3.5" drive. The biggest downside is the limited room for the CPU cooler, but I'm willing to make that tradeoff for the tiny size.

Motherboard: ASUS Maximus VII Impact (mini-ITX)
Holy crap, this is a ridiculously packed motherboard. The biggest downside of mini-ITX motherboards is the single PCI-e slot, limiting additional expansion for things like wireless cards and sound cards. ASUS solves this by adding a very nice sound card, an 802.11ac wireless card, and an M.2 SSD slot on daughterboards next to the rear I/O. Along with the huge power delivery system, this is an awesome board. However, all of those daughterboards combined with the height limitation of the case makes finding compatible CPU coolers quite difficult.

CPU: Intel i7-4790k
Shouldn't need much explanation. The fastest socket 1150 processor on the market right now. Not strictly necessary for gaming, but eh, it's a dream build. Plus I do actually have a few things that will make use of the hyperthreading.

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L12
One of the very few large CPU coolers that will actually fit in this build. Unfortunately it (probably) won't fit with the top 25mm thick fan fitted, but it should still provide pretty good cooling with the 15mm thick fan supplied with the case along with the smaller 92x25mm fan below it to pull the air through. The top 25mm fan will be re-purposed along with an extra NF-F12 as intakes fitted next to the GPU. I'm hoping to push at least 4.5GHz on this cooler, but I'm unlikely to hit anything much higher when the voltage needs to be ramped up hard.

RAM: 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400MHz C11
I wanted 16GB of RAM for this, and while faster RAM makes a negligible difference for pretty much everything I'll be doing (including games), this 2400MHz kit is only very slightly more expensive than a 1600MHz kit, so...why not?

GPU: EVGA GTX 980 Superclocked ACX 2.0
The highest clocked 980 on the market, excluding EVGA's higher clocked Classified model. It unfortunately uses a reference board with reference power delivery, so it probably won't clock as high as an ASUS Strix model would have, but the Strix's far larger cooler can't be secured down with the additional bracket supplied with the RVZ01 to hold graphics cards in place. As I will be occasionally traveling with the system, I'd rather have something that can be secured to the graphics card bracket.

Storage: Crucial MX100 512GB SSD (already owned), 2TB WD Red
The Crucial MX100 is amongst the very cheapest SSDs on the market. I picked it up a few months back, and at £145 for 500GB, it's incredible value for money. Yes, it's not the fastest SSD, but a faster SSD is also very unlikely to make a real world noticeable difference. For the hard drive, the WD Red was chosen as the 3.5" hard drive mount is right next to the PSU, so I wanted a reliable drive that I won't have to worry about if it gets a little bit toasty. As the Red is designed for 24/7 operation in a NAS, its reliability is exactly what I'm looking for here.

PSU: 600W Silverstone Strider SFX (80 Plus Gold)
There's very little choice in the SFX PSU market. If you want a high quality SFX PSU, Silverstone are the only ones that make them. The 600W model is overkill for this configuration (the 450W model would suffice) but I wanted to future-proof the build. If I want to drop a 300W graphics card in a few years down the line, I don't want to have to upgrade the PSU as well. As the 600W model is only £15 more than the 450W one, I didn't see any reason not to go for it.

Oh, and a Corsair K65 RGB for the keyboard. After owning Alienware laptops for 5 years, I couldn't not go for the keyboard with the awesome lighting...
I also already have the monitor I'll be using - a BenQ XL2420Z. Once you game at 120Hz, you'll never want to go back to 60 again.


This is going to be one awesomely powerful system, all in an enclosure that takes up no more space than a console would. And if I'm honest, I don't see the point in going for anything larger anymore unless you need multiple graphics cards or more storage space. I should be receiving my parts on Tuesday morning (unfortunately when I was ordering the parts, the order system screwed up and put down the wrong address, but that should be easy enough to correct tomorrow morning before shipping out when I give them a call), I'll post pictures of the build and impressions of what it's like compared to my 18.

I was also tempted to build a custom loop in this system, but I was unsure how well such a system would work compared to standard air cooling (as I'd likely have to use slim radiators and/or slim fans), it'd be extremely fiddly, and I had my doubts about traveling with a system full of liquid cooling.


As for my laptop...I've found a buyer and made an agreement. Assuming the sale doesn't fall through for whatever reason, I'll be prepping my 18 to be shipped off to its new owner once my build is completed. And with the money from that sale, I'll probably be buying a MacBook Pro Retina 13" for use at university. Expensive, but IMO it's a great little laptop, it'll be perfect for what I need, and I get a huge student discount and a free 3-year warranty. Not bad. When I'm at home, the MBP will likely sit under my monitor being used either as an extra screen through a streaming/remote desktop program, or as its own independent system.

 

Cool brother. Let us know how the build is proceeding!

 

I think it's a great idea going this way, I might take this route too!

 

I thought I'd want to drop the whole highend laptop thought all together and build a itx system but after lots of debate I decided I still need a real portable solution also and I just finished the big build in my sig I am just really starting to get good use out of. I'll hold off on another desktop for a few more months to see what else Asus bribgs to the table and ddr4 options are more abundant. I just wanted a platform that is a little more open to enthusiast and decided to move to a Sager machine for now. Still have my baby Alien 14 I use as my daily office machine and onsite laptop.

 

Corsair, excellent choices my friend, the Raven is extremely attractive for those that want a console sized form factor, Hardware Canucks gave it glowing praise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE-Tk5uzDA0

Good choices all around, that 980 SC ACX 2.0 is very impressive and has the best air-cooler of all the non-reference cards.

If you absolutely don't need the mobility, desktops are a wet dream in terms of customization, upgradability and price/performance. High powered notebooks still have a place and although you and I are moving away from them that market is on fire. As they become more commonplace the prices should come down to sane levels (the rationale for the insane prices is that it's a niche market). A year or so ago, $700-$1k for a mobile GPU that was half as fast as its desktop variant that could be had for less was a tough pill to swallow, but now Maxwell has changed that a bit with the mobile cards seeing more of a benefit from the new architecture. That said it is exciting to contemplate the performance of Big Maxwell which will probably be out next year.

I think you made good choices in terms of price/performance and form factor. Show us some benches and impressions when you get it together.

 

I know what you mean about portability. For this very reason I'm restricting my next laptop to 15" or below, and currently the Clevo P751ZM that will support a desktop 4790K is at the top of my list. Yeah single 980M is a major weakness, but of the few times a year I'm on the go I rarely have time to game, so 4790K + 980M (essentially 780M SLI) is plenty.

As for my desktop, I've decided to skip Broadwell entirely (including Broadwell-E) and wait for Skylake-E. Assuming Intel doesn't sacrifice raw performance on the holy altar of "efficiency", the 7960X should (hopefully) be a 10-core monster. With DDR4 being much more mature (and affordable!) and NVMe becoming more widespread in 2017, that would be a truly worthwhile upgrade to my current X79 setup. While I'm waiting for 390X and GM200 to duke it out sometime next year, I'm going to try and get a simple CPU loop going in the meantime as my first foray into watercooling.

 

For me, the main draw was not so much the extra performance, but a combination of upgradability, reliability, and (most importantly) the freedom to actually customise it any way I want in the BIOS and other areas.

I just get the impression that Alienware notebooks are no longer built for enthusiasts, they're built for the lowest common denominator. If they used high quality parts across the board for enthusiast-desktop-like reliability, if they offered BIOS options that I'd expect from an ROG board, and if there were standards that actually allowed the notebooks to be upgradeable, I'd have no problem with continuing to purchase them. But that won't happen, unfortunately.

I'm kind of hoping that the MBP I plan on purchasing (13" Retina) is good enough to play a couple of games at low settings, being able to play a bit of EU4 on the go would be nice, but I like now being able to choose from laptops that are actually portable...I'd wait for the Broadwell refresh of the MBP, but with Broadwell delayed multiple times and further rumours suggesting we might not even see a Broadwell MBP in Q1 2014, I'm just going for it now.

 

If that sale does go through, don't forget to change your signature brother Corsair

 

That is a great size for a mini system, and is still fairly portable for sure. This would be my next route if AW does not put something out that is worth my time in the next 2 years (i ordered a 980M so i can buy time)

The only depressing part is your going to Apple, and supporting that mickey mouse casual system. Ever since Apple started taking the market share Microsoft has had to figure out a way to take back the market in some fashion, so they left us with win 8... and companies like Dell who also had to suffer from Apples reign by dumbing down all their systems to stay afloat because of all the Apple fan boys. Thus the enthusiast get kicked to the curb side so Dell can focus on building... consoles.

Keep in mind this is my overall opinion on how i feel things have gone, just wanted to point it out since i see so many jumping ship and heading to the truly custom system builds of PC.

 

Hey I was thinking about the GPU you selected and I would like to advise that you don't open the package when it arrives until you are absolutely certain that it won't be dumping all that heat in that case. The Silverstone Raven may be designed to work with reference GPU's which exhaust the heat out of the PCI-E bracket, unlike non-reference cards that dump that heat out the side of the card, right into the case. This was actually one of the primary reasons I went with a semi water-cooling set-up, two 400W 780 Ti's dumping all of their heat in the case was barely manageable with the excellent airflow of the Air 540. I can't imagine how that PS4 sized case would handle one GTX 980, I don't think you will like the outcome, your CPU and mobo would literally be getting cooked, not to mention your HDD.

So please be sure the Raven is designed to deal with non-reference cards before installing. You can always return an un-opened package, even if you have to take a small hit in shipping. I would consider sending that back for an EVGA SC 980, its basically the same card with only slightly lower clocks (still higher than reference) and on the reference cooler.

As far as your other comments, yeah youre right, AW is over-priced and the components don't last very long, my 680M's lasted two years, seldom seeing temps higher than say 75C, and the motherboard's connector tabs were breaking from all of the times having to completely disassemble the unit for a simple re-paste job. Now, if I need to re-paste, the process entails undoing 4 screws holding the AIO down to the CPU.

Yeah I may upgrade to DDR4 and X99 when the prices come down, say in 3-5 years. I will try to time it so that I do a completely new build:

Win 10
5960 or better
GTX 980 Ti or Titan 2 SLI, reference as they will be getting water-blocks this time around
DDR4
Possibly the same case, but I have a feeling that RIVBE has a life expectancy of 10+ years (very high quality) so I may have to skip the X99 refresh altogether or do a completely new build in a new case and try to salvage the existing one.

 

Brilliant. Absolutely F'ing brilliant. After paying an additional £16 for guaranteed delivery before 10AM, and despite the payment being authorised before 10AM today, they failed to dispatch or even pick the parts today. I'm just left sitting here wondering why all of this s*** keeps going wrong for me. I now have to take Wednesday morning off to wait in for this, and it means further delaying the sale of my current laptop.

The moment that I receive payment for the computer and I'm sure I'm shipping it to its new owner, my signature (and sale thread) will be updated to reflect that. I'm keeping it there right now to try and see if anyone else is interested in case this sale does fall through for whatever reason. I don't see why it would, but frankly, with all the terrible luck I've had with computers recently (see above...*sigh*) I wouldn't be surprised if something happened like my laptop spontaneously combusting just before I put it in the shipping box.

How is the MBP Retina a 'mickey mouse casual system'? I'm not exactly going to be doing serious gaming on it - or any at all, it's only a bonus if I can do so. Not every computer in the world needs to be a high performance behemoth; not being a high performance behemoth doesn't make a computer a 'casual system'.

Microsoft is making terrible business decisions across the board, not just with Windows 8, I'd hardly pin their mistakes solely on trying to fight 'Apple's reign'. Particularly considering OSX's market share is still miniscule compared to Windows.

Dell has kicked the enthusiast to the curb because we aren't as profitable as the people out there that know nothing about computers. They'll make far more money by using cheap components and producing stuff that looks fast with 'go faster stripes', rather than actually producing a quality product. Again, that's got nothing to do with Apple. It's got everything to do with how big businesses are run in this day and age. Point me towards a single large OEM that's much better. Hell, point me towards one of the small boutique system builders that are any better.

I can absolutely appreciate the plenty of valid reasons that many people have for disliking Apple, but to be honest, your post appears to be pinning things you dislike in the computer industry on Apple because you dislike them.

Trust me, the Raven can definitely handle it. Built a system for my brother in the same case, he's got an ASUS DirectCU II GTX 770 in there, and despite only having the single slim fan above it as an intake (Silverstone recommend two intake fans for the GPU for open air coolers) it gets far better temperatures than I see from that card in most other cases. There's very little space for the air in the GPU area to 'escape' into the motherboard and CPU area, it's far more likely to be pushed out through the huge amount of ventilation on the sides and back of the case by the intake fans, particularly if the CPU area is left in its intake-only configuration providing even more positive pressure in that area to keep the GPU exhaust away. And I won't be using the stock slim fan for the GPU intake, I'll be using a pair of Noctua NF-F12s which will pretty much be ramming air into the card and forcing the exhaust out of the case.

It's a real shame that AW's quality is the way it is right now. Rather than spending a bit more on designing quality connections and using quality components across the board, they have to cheap out where they can to save pennies on each unit and massively bump up the cost of the extended warranty to compensate for that. I'm really hesitant to use them again. In fact, I'm hesitant to trust any pre-built system again, whether it's a laptop or a desktop. I'm trusting Apple with my money because they're very well known for their reliability, and they must be pretty damn sure of it if I'm getting a 3 year warranty for free with the system.

 

Just one thing to note: the 980 ACX 2.0's fins are oriented vertically instead of being horizontal as in the case of the 770 DirectCU II.

What this mean is hot air is for the most part going to get thrown around vertically instead of horizontally, so more waste heat will be dumped into your case compared to one with horizontal fins. My Gigabyte 970 heats up my mobo and PCH like crazy for precisely this reason. (that and no opening on the PCI bracket means 100% of the heat is dumped into my case)

 

I'll take my chances. The way the Raven is built, the PCI-e riser card and the graphics card bracket block almost all of the airflow between the motherboard/CPU/PSU and the graphics card. There's also lots of ventilation all over the case. I'm hoping the positive pressure from the CPU cooler will be enough to keep the hot GPU exhaust away from the motherboard.

 

Points taken, it was purely a biased opinion which i will not elaborate on, just figured since you seem to have a grasp on computers and tech that you are going down the Apple route when there are clearly better options for a much better price, so it should have been phrased more as a question.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBkTrbDFO54

Prepare to commence rapings!

But seriously though, I would reconsider the non-reference cooler design, you might actually see worse performance vs. the reference cooler design, especially if those ACX fans are trying to evacuate the heat through the cooler and because of the cramped enclosure it ends up with nowhere to go and begins to heat the cooler itself, or it can't get out of the case fast enough and the same thing occurs whereas with a reference cooler, although there is only one fan and less aluminum heat-sink with which to dissipate heat it is all going right out the back of the PCI-E bracket.

The only actual difference between the EVGA 980 SC ACX 2.0 and a reference GTX 980 is the cooler itself. You can overclock a reference GTX 980 for comparable performance, until you reach its thermal ceiling, which the ACX variant has more of in a case with adequate airflow.

These are things you need to be absolutely positive of before opening that package and installing it. I know amazon.com will accept opened computer hardware but I'm not to sure other outlets will.

Again, the issue here isn't airflow delivery, as I can see the intake side of the GPU is right up against the fan grill on the side of the Raven, it is what it does with the exhaust that is in question.

Personally I would send it back in favor of a reference GTX 980, people choose reference cards over non-reference precisely for this reason, it pushes the heat OUT of the case, a feature which may be of paramount importance with the case youve settled on.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/building-the-ultimate-matx-sli-pc-with-intels-5960/1100-6423349/

 

Seconded on the reference 980. Nvidia's reference blower is a great cooler. I wouldn't have it any other way in a mini-ITX build.

Oh hey Vulcan! Long time no see, how ya doin'! 4 months ago I quit the joke of a game that is PlanetSide 2 and haven't looked back since, you? And guess what? Instead of actually optimizing the game, those incompetent dweebs at SOE went ahead and increased the system requirements today. ROFL! What I find really hilarious is how they require a DX10 GPU and quad-core CPU when the game is still DX9 and primarily single-threaded. :laugh:

 

Why did I go and say this...

Yep, turns out the buyer might not be able to follow through on the offer. I won't say much more, the buyer's reasons are very reasonable, I still have an offer to consider but not for as much as I'd like so I'm still hoping to get a better offer through that thread.

I'm getting a reasonable student discount (6%) plus 3 years of warranty for free. If you can point out an option that offers reliability on par with a MBP, a 3 year warranty, similar performance, similar build quality, a similar quality of high-resolution screen, in a notebook that's of similar size and weight, that's available in the UK for about £1,000, please do point it out because I'd love to find a cheaper option that's better.

I've spent quite a lot of time considering it. I still honestly believe that there's more than enough pressure in the case to force the exhaust out of the top and back of the case, and enough positive pressure in the CPU area (consider that the PSU is also exhausting into the area that the GPU exhaust would have to enter through) to prevent the GPU exhaust from being a problem. It's a high quality motherboard so I'm not worried if parts of it get a little toasty either. The CPU cooler is positioned directly below the 120mm intake and is pulling air in directly from the intake so it shouldn't be recycling any of the hot air from inside the case.

The GameSpot article you linked isn't really relevant for my case at all, firstly it has two GPUs and not one, secondly the airflow to and from the GPUs is not mostly isolated in its own section by a riser card and support bracket, thirdly they're using a CPU that produces a lot more heat, and fourthly that CPU's liquid cooler would be taking in exhaust from the GPUs (if the cooler is configured for exhaust, which it should be or the GPUs would cook) so it definitely makes sense in their case to go with a blower.

I've seen builds in this case that use one of AMD's space heaters with an open air cooler on it, and they still manage their temperatures fine, so I'm fairly sure I'll be fine here with a much cooler GPU. I hope.

If there was a way to get the cooling of an open air cooler in a blower configuration that just exhausted out the back, I'd do it. Unfortunately, no such cooler exists today.

Still, I do wonder if it's possible to ziptie two or three of Noctua's 80mm or 92mm fans on the top and/or bottom of the case for more effective exhaust...hmm. It'd be an interesting experiment if there's room for them.

 

Octiceps I miss you man, yeah I am so saddened by the deteriorating state of PS2, it was SO and I mean SO epic when it was running smoother, before they took the nerf-bat to ZOE and the Saron etc. and ruined SLI among many other grievous mistakes. I am really REALLY missing those moments and have a lot of fond memories, especially the friendship developed with so many different players. PS2 was a magical game, I hope we get a proper Planetside 2 successor, actual or spiritual, in the immediate future.

I hope things are good with you, feel free to PM me.

 

And despite my order being marked as 'urgent' and being fully packaged and ready to go at midday today, it's not shipped today. Well, that's the last time I'm ordering any big orders through Scan. Assuming they haven't pushed it out without forgetting to log the dispatch, I now have to skip my Thursday morning lectures to be in for the delivery. Assuming their warehouse staff get off their fat arses and do actually ship it tomorrow, of course.

 

I hope you don't get bored with it

 

Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro 2in1 13.3" TouchScreen Laptop Intel Core i7 8GB Memory 256GB Solid State Drive Yoga 2 Pro - 59418309 - Best Buy

Is this offered in your area, this would be my pick. (as for the discount and free 3yr warranty, that is nice)

 

Yeah, it's available. It's also more expensive than the 256GB MBP 13" Retina after my student discount is applied, has a slower processor, and only comes with a one year warranty.

 

That's really annoying scan are normally pretty good.

 

As much as I suggested above that their warehouse staff are lazy, they've apparently had a huge number of orders over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. If they're not lying to me (and I do believe them on this), they've had their warehouse staff working overtime - on some nights as long as they are legally permitted to - to try and get orders shipped out. It's just the one hiccup so I'll probably still use them in the future, they've been great for me so far.

They're also refunding me the shipping costs as a gesture of goodwill and I should be receiving my parts tomorrow morning. It has actually shipped now and DPD are normally very reliable, so I do finally expect to get hold of them. Let's see if I can build it in the couple of hours I'll have before I have to head off to university.

 

Hey Corsair we're totally expecting you to have this thing together with pics and possibly video footage come this time tomorrow....

I'm really curious as to how the Raven is going to handle that ACX 2.0 cooler, I'm looking forward to a full report.

 

Will you scalp it? Because if not then even with their new "Next Gen thermal interface material" you will reach 4.5 max.

 

If it gets delivered today. Which, considering it's now 10:15AM, the parcel was on a pre-10AM service and hasn't even left the depot yet, and I'm out from 12 to 6...*sigh*.

Why is this the delivery that DPD have to screw up? Just another thing to add to the growing pile of computer-related "Why me?" questions.

There will be photos ( whenever the f- it actually turns up and I have time to build it) but sorry to disappoint, probably no videos.

No, I'm not risking a delid. I've seen people go higher without doing so, even poor chips will manage over 4.5 with a voltage in the 1.4-1.5 range, but I doubt my cooling will support that.

My little brother's 4690k in the same chassis easily hit 4.5 at a fairly modest voltage too and actually still had really good temps (70C range), although he had the ridiculously large (for a mini-ITX system) Zalman CNPS8900 cooler in his system which barely fit and blocked the first RAM slot...it wouldn't have managed to fit at all in mine. If I can hit 4.5 with my cooling, I'll be happy with it, anything more is just gravy.

 

Are you running a custom loop? Also that's a great way to kill it.

 

I never, ever, ever want to wire something like that again. Holy crap the wiring is ridiculous. It's hard to believe it even all fits in there.

On the upside, it all works. Currently still working on installing drivers and the such before I start hammering it. I'll post pictures when I have the time, I don't right now sadly.

I don't plan on running it above 1.4v. No custom loop, I don't plan on doing my first ever watercooled build in something this hard to build in. Plus I wasn't sure if you could move it around like I could now if it had a filled reservoir - I wouldn't want to risk that leaking everywhere.

EDIT: Turns out 4.5GHz may have been ambitious. The NH-L12 just isn't capable of cooling much when it doesn't have that full 25mm fan on top (which, by the way, could have fit with about 2-3mm more room...) which was resulting in temperatures in the 90s even at the stock 4.4GHz and stock volts, particularly when the CPU side is at the bottom (worsening CPU ventilation). Currently trying out 4.3GHz @ 1.125V, it's not immediately crashing and seems to be far more realistic with load temps of about 80C. I'm happy with that if it's stable, might try 4.4GHz at this voltage too.

The good news is that the two Noctua 25mm fans now blowing air straight onto the GPU are providing ridiculous airflow to it. I can feel a huge amount of air exhausting out of the top of the case. The GPU is idling at just 30C, maybe 6-7C above ambient. Time to test what it hits under load.

 

I've settled on 4.4GHz 1.125V for the CPU. I'm not comfortable with the temperatures at higher voltages. At this speed/voltage, under sustained 100% load applied by OCCT it typically stays in the high 70s with a few peaks in the low to mid 80s. It's fast enough for me. Interestingly, HWiNFO claims that my CPU is only consuming about 45W under 100% load...and the RAM is apparently consuming 30W on its own. Those 2400MHz 1.65V DIMMs are more power hungry than I thought if that's accurate.

I've also applied the low noise adapters to the two Noctua GPU intakes and set all of the system fans to their highest speed. It's not silent, but it is quiet and the little noise it does make is not annoyting at all (and inaudible with my headphones on). The GPU temperatures are absolutely fantastic, it's idling at 30-33C with the cooler's own fans off and peaks in the low 60s under 100% load, with the cooler fans running at about 1600-1800RPM on its quiet profile (adds very little noise to the system). This is with the GPU core at just over 1400MHz. I might try overclocking it a bit later, see what I can get, might even try bumping the voltage a tiny bit given that the temperatures are absolutely incredible. I haven't had much chance to test the system with games yet, but a 3DMark Fire Strike run gave a score of 11,995.

I'm happy with my choice of motherboard, too. The Impact VII was expensive and might be restircting airflow but it's a really high quality board, and the sound...the audio out of that sound card is the best I've heard from any device including a £50 FiiO DAC that I've tried previously. With my Sennheiser HD 558 headphones, I can really tell the difference.

I took a few photos of the build process and will be uploading them later, I'll link to them when I'm done.

EDIT: Here's a link to the image gallery: http://imgur.com/a/yMR2O

 

I am really impressed with. I have been considering building a system or buying an Alienware Area 51 or a Scan Carbon X99. Now I have seen these I might just build my own and I really like the small form factor case. I want to go desktop just for more grunt and 27" monitor @ 1440p. Also my 18 never moves, so I am getting a 13" Macbook pro retina.

 

Exactly what I'm doing. The MBPr is something I can actually take to university and get some work done on over there.

I don't see the point in a large desktop these days unless you absolutely need more than 1 expansion card or several 3.5" hard drives. Even if you want more CPU cooling, you can get SFF cases that will support much larger CPU coolers and aren't too much bigger than the Raven. But I like the Raven because I can have the CPU set 'fast enough' and I'm not actually aware of a single case on the market that provides better GPU cooling than this. Two 120mm intakes directly next to the GPU cooler, aligned with the cooler's fans, that can fit 25mm fans in so long as the graphics card isn't too much thicker than the dual slot standard.

I do warn you though - like I've said, the cable management is a pain to do. Wiring this beast up was by far the hardest part of this build. It's all worth it in the end though.

 

Nice build!

I went that route twice so far, it was fun but I quickly went back to notebooks for the portability aspect (I move around often, in and out of the house, sometimes more than once per day).

My first build was one of the mini cube looking cases they used to make. It worked well but carrying the accessories around sucked and the biggest limitation back then was the 250w power supply lol.

My 2nd attempt was more recent and I tried to make it common parts and sizes so I wouldn’t have any limitations. I bolted a 21” display to the side of a larger desktop case, wired it all together so I only had to move the one combined case/display (with speakers), plus KB and mouse. Just the 2 AC cords to plug in to wall. It worked well but wasn’t easy carrying it to friends or even moving it around house much.

 

Evil if possible, could you tell me how much this system cost you in all from Scan? Was just wondering as I might build a similar mini-ITX one...

 

Hmm. This is really weird, not sure if you guys will be able to offer any advice on this, but the audio coming out of the front panel is reversed (i.e. left side of headphones playing the audio meant for the right side and vice versa). It's fine from the rear I/O. It doesn't matter a great deal at the end of the day as there seems to be no difference in which one I use in terms of audio quality, but it's still a minor annoyance.

Back when I bought my M18x R2, this case didn't exist. The existence of this case and others like it, along with quality 450W and 600W SFX PSUs, enables console-level portability in a full performance desktop computer. There's still definitely a place for gaming laptops in there, but I don't need that much portability anymore.

The order was about £1,450, minus the cost of the SSD (which I already owned; bought from Amazon for £145 back in September) and Windows 8.1 Pro (free from my university), but that also includes the £110 for the Corsair K65 RGB keyboard. It's a lot of money, but keep in mind that my build is very overkill. A 4790k is fairly unnecessary unless you need hyperthreading, 16GB of RAM is overkill in most cases (8GB should still be sufficient for many), a 980 is overkill for 1080p60 and a 970 would be much better suited (I'm trying to drive 1080p144 hence the overkill), this motherboard is overkill unless you want the awesome audio like I do, most systems would be driven fine by the 450W PSU rather than the 600W model, and I also spent quite a lot on the cooling.

 

For the record, a post was deleted and infractions were handed for off-topic posts despite previous warnings. We have an off-topic forum to which you have access and which you can post there. Although I advise against it as I doubt they will think much of it.

Oh, and the moderator who gave you the infraction is in fact, caring and patient and most definitely not a fascist.

 

Then we may as well axe this entire thread since it's barely got anything to do with Alienware. Note I am NOT suggesting you actually do this, but I am pointing out the (from my POV) rather arbitrary enforcement of deleting off-topic posts.

 

While this thread is not really relevant to the subject of Alienware hardware, it is one of the few place on our forum where there are enough people well-equipped with knowledge to discuss it*. Besides, we tend to give a bit of lee-way for less-than-on-topic discussions on a forum if it is not really detracting from it.

The deleted posts were not remotely relevant to either this thread or forum.

* 18" Laptops are Desktop replacement hardware after all.

 

I just built a little machine out of spare parts plus 150 pounds from the parents and 50 pounds from myself. Christmas gift of first propper computer to the son and daughter of friend of my wife.

1680x1050 LCD (spare)
AMD A8 3800 (spare)
Asrock A75 mobo (spare)
AMD Radeon 260 OC (new)
8GB 1600mhz DDR3 (new)
128GB Hynix SSD (new)
320GB 7200rpm WD RE3 (spare)
500W 80 Plus bronze PSU (new)

Considering he is using a pentium 4 and cheap gpu of the same era it will be a nice step up as first propper computer

The boy particularly is really getting interested into computers so I basically threw in the SSD myself as a reward for his interest I remember what I was like at that age.

As for the beast, 4.4-4.5ghz is another tipping point for haswell usually so I am not surprised you settled here. Beyond that yes it gets MUCH more power hungry, you have those three regions, up to 3.8-3.9 it's pretty efficient, between 3.9-4.5ghz it's fairly rewarding but needs a decent cooler and beyond that all bets are off.

 

Pushed my little monster's graphics card a bit more to see what it could do. 1520 core 7500 memory appears to be stable, still under 70C at 100% load (on quiet fan profiles). I'm actually hitting my head against the 124% power limit here, under some loads the core has to pull back slightly to 1500-1510 because of the power it's pulling...

Now I'm scoring just north of 13k in 3DMark Fire Strike. In something the size of an Xbox. I'm really happy with it.

I think I'm going to take a look at sleeved cables (either buying some or making my own), it'd make cable management a LOT easier if the big connectors didn't have their wires stuck together.

 

Your friend is a lucky man. Can I also be your friend?

And what you said about Haswell is exactly why I decided to "downgrade" and stick with X79 and Ivy-E for my desktop. Skipping X99 entirely until Skylake-E shows up.

 

I guess you lost the silicon lottery then because even sticking with X79, you are only managing an average Haswell-E level overclock, and at a very high voltage at that.

 

Yeah my 4930K is a dud, but 4.7-4.8 seems to be the wall for most Ivy-E anyway, so not missing out too much. If anything it's the IMC that's truly world-class awful.

Still, less heat and power draw compared to Haswell-E so can't complain.

 

Lol, well here is a benchmark from it:

AMD Radeon R7 260 video card benchmark result - AMD A8-3850,ASRock A75M-HVS

GPU is reporting wrong it's actually at 1200/1700. CPU is at the 3ghz (A HUGE 4% overclock lol) the memory is running at 1940mhz though which helps.

 

I ,too, am tired of waiting for Alienware's upgrade GPU to 980M. I just bought this monster myself.

Paolo11's Completed Build - Intel Core i7-4790K, EVGA GeForce GTX 980 (2-Way SLI), Corsair Air 240 - PCPartPicker

Here are my parts in case you don't open the link:


Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core

Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 Micro ATX LGA1150

EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Dual SLI

G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600

Corsair Air 240 MicroATX Mid Tower

So with two EVGA SC 980GTX, all of my games are maxed out 1080p 60fps. Temps are below 70 degrees (except for Skyrim with ENB and graphic mods and Witcher 2 which is 71 degrees and below.)

 

Glad you guys are making the switch. Alienware notebooks just aren't what they used to be .

 

I know. It's a shame really.

I'll just hook my monster on the TV and 1080p gaming 60fps. Possible 4k too.

 

any pictures with your raven?

 

I'm surprised you are setting the bar at 60fps 1080p with a setup like that.

 

Two 980s for 1080p? That's ridiculously excessive. There are very few things that I can't get running at 1080p 144fps running on a single 980. You need to get a higher res and/or high refresh rate panel!

I've been considering picking up the 1440p ASUS GSync panel, but at £650 it's ludicrously expensive, for that price I could pick up another pair of these BenQ monitors and run a 3-screen Surround setup. That's also almost as much as I'm considering spending on the MacBook for university. But that 1440p GSync panel...it's really, really tempting once my 18 finally sells.

I don't suppose anyone here has had the opportunity to use GSync and can say whether it's worth it over a standard 144Hz panel?

It's a real shame. If they actually focused on making the best gaming notebooks out there, rather than cheaping out and making stuff they think they can sell at the highest possible price to console kiddies that don't know better, I'd still be buying from them. There's so much potential, particularly in the big beasts like the 18. So much potential wasted due to chasing profits...I really hope it bites them in the rear and they start making good laptops.

Bottom post on the third page. I linked the gallery there.