Hey guys, Back with another update on Toxic Chrome. I made all the modifications needed on the case and it has now left to get powder coated. The frame of the case and other bits will be powder coated a dark navy blue and the side and top panels will be powder coated chrome. Hopefully the chrome powder coat will come out good. Here's a look at the case with the side panel windows cut, filed and all ready. Also mounted the pump/res combo and drilled the hole for the Vandal switch. That is just a test Vandal switch. I will be receiving a nickel plated one from MNPCTECH which is currently on the way. I know here that the res doesn't sit in the middle but in order to make the loop work I think that this is how I will need to sit it. This may change however so we will see. All the side panel windows. I went and drilled holes in each corners of the windows for mounting the acrylic however I forgot to take pics of this. You guys will see that once the case is back. Pump/res combo mounted. Vandal switch mounted on top of the front panel frame. I will be making a new front panel out of 1mm aluminum which will cover this section here. I will stick that to the existing front panel in order to continue to be able to use the clip on and feature and access the dust filter behind it. I also cut the HDD cage in half as I will need to mount this back in the case to support the MB tray. I cut some 1mm aluminum panels which will be bolted on to help clean up the HDD cage look as that will be seen through the res window. All this will be powder coated blue. And that's about it for now. Hopefully I will get the case powder coated and back sometime next week. Thanks for checking it out. Cheers, Alex
Hey guys, I got the case back from powder coating! Here are some quick shots I took of the case. I think the navy blue looks awesome and matches the fan blade colour really well. The side panels are not finished yet as they had mistakenly coated them the same navy blue, they are now getting redone in chrome. I will be getting the front panel and rear feet colour matched to the same powder coated blue but will obviously get it painted. Thanks for checking it out guys and let me know what you think of the blue, I really like it. Cheers, Alex
Hey guys, Back with another update for the Toxic Chrome build. Sorry I've been absent for a while, been super busy with work lately. Had some time over the weekend and worked on the motherboard. Here's an overview and getting the red heatsinks ready for some black plasti dip! Also plasti dipping this little guy! I'll be back in a day or two once all this is done, dried and back on the board! Also an update on the side panels paint/powder coat. I've seen the chrome powder coat and it doesn't look like chrome at all. Looks like some sort of dark grey colour and not really glossy, so was not a fan of that. I did get them to do the EK ram modules which I will show you guys once done, just to see how the chrome powder coat looks. Through I probably won't end up using those either. So what I will be doing with the side panels is taking them to a car paint shop. Chrome paint is out of my price range at this time, costing around $250 just for the paint as they told me. Though what they can do is make it a nice glossy silver and try and get it as close as possible to the chrome effect. However that still won't end up being chrome so I guess we will see. Stay tuned for more guys! I'll try and keep the updates coming more regularly! Cheers, Alex
Hey guys, Motherboard is all done, here it is! Gigabyte GA-Z97N-Gaming 5 Black Edition I'm also happy to announce new sponsors to the Toxic Chrome build. The cables and LED strips will now be provided by Icemodz and also Primochill who are very kind to send me a set of fittings and some PETG tubing! Thanks for checking it out, Cheers, Alex
Hey guys, Here are some photos of the G.Skill memory I will be using and also the EK memory modules. These have been powder coated chrome and as you can see it looks more like a matte silver, so that's why I didn't like the chrome powder coat for the side panels. I will be getting new ram modules and keeping them black but wanted to show you guys this anyway. Also cleaned up the rear i/o shield Suits the build better this way! Stay tuned for more! Cheers, Alex
Hey guys, Here's a better look at the case and the awesome blue powder coat Thanks for checking it out! Cheers, Alex
Hey guys, Here's a quick look at some of the components going in the build. The CPU, fans and PSU. Custom decals for the PSU and fans incoming! Here you can see the difference between the 15mm slim Gelid fans and 25mm normal ones. Thanks for checking it out! Cheers, Alex
Thanks man! I guess we will see once done, never used them before. I doubt they will impact performance by much though They really came in handy for this build Also this build won't need much cooling anyway, G3258 even if overclocked won't have high temps and then same with the GTX 670, the rads and fans I have will be more than enough.
Hey guys, Here's a quick look at all the waterblocks! Gave them all a quick polish, no sanding was done, just applied the solution and used the Dremel with the polishing cloth attachment to polish around everywhere. Quick, easy and they came out pretty good! The frame of the CPU block was also done in the same powder coat chrome as the RAM modules however this also won't stay. I'm getting along with new RAM modules the nickel plated frame that EK offer. Should look pretty good with that on. Also giving this poor SSD a make over, was pulled from my Fractal Desing ARC Mini R2 build before becoming the Green Molecule. Not exactly sure what happened to the label on it. Everything looks good on the inside and still works well. That's it for now. I'm working on this build everyday after work pretty much now so updates should be rolling in regularly. Cheers, Alex
Sweet sweet polishing I'm still deciding what GFX to use in my upcoming mini build, but I'm thinking about a GTX 760 or a 670. Are they still somewhat up to date in newer games at 1080p?
Thanks a lot man! Yup these card are still pretty good for 1080p gaming at pretty high settings, I will be testing some games on this system once it's finished. Interested to see how games perform compared to my other SLI 970 build . The 670, 760 and now 960 are pretty much performing the same so which ever you can get cheapest go for that Cheers, Alex
Time for another update! Slowly getting everything in the case to figure out the loop layout and if I need any more fittings Painted the thumbscrews for the EK Supremacy black, think it goes better with the motherboard like this. The little Pentium is in I might change the CPU block layout, depending on the way I want to go with the loop. Also here it the GPU, this was in the Green Molecule build in SLI before the tear down. Will cut some vinyl to cover those pink and purple capacitors. Thanks for checking it out! Cheers, Alex