Case Mod - In Progress The Powerful Pretty Pink Processor (aka, "The PPPP")

Dude drop Mike from Mayhems an email about it. He will tell you exactly how to make the colours more into the colour of the case. I think you can make the pastel pink really pop when mixed right.

 

In contact with Mick already.....will keep you posted!

 

I didn't have time to open it before church tonight....but I left Taylor and Tebow in charge and told them to guard it with their lives...

 

GAHHHH!
So exciting!

 

Fairly obvious choices. Here's a quick peek at the boxes.




That's a lot of ASUS goodness sitting on the table right there. I'll have time to open them up and take some good hardware shots tomorrow and Saturday.

 

That is a sick package to receive. Have fun with it.

 

I'm pretty pumped about it. Taking some unboxing pictures of the RIVE BE now....

 

This first group of pictures is just kind of an unboxing series of pictures for the RIVE BE motherboard, and is intended to show off the packaging and all of the accessories that come with the motherboard.

For a primarily black motherboard.....you clearly need a primarily black box. Check.





And like a lot of motherboard packages, there is a flap that opens to reveal a clear view into the box inside to show off the motherboard. Flap also serves as space for additional marketing yada yada to be printed on the inside of the flap...





There are two boxes inside the large box. The solid cover one on the left holds the accessories, and the clear cover one on the right holds the board itself. And that strange little Star Wars-esque thingy. What is that thing? Let's take a closer look....





The Star Wars looking thingy is what ASUS calls the Overclocking Command Center.





You plug this thing directly into the motherboard, and it allows you to monitor AND CHANGE voltages at the hardware-level. You can also adjust overclock settings and fan speeds directly from the device. It sounds like it could be very useful while setting up your overclocks. I'm intrigued, and you will definitely see some more pictures and/or video of thing in action....





it even comes with this 5.25 inch bay adapter.....





...which allows you to swivel the LED head and slide it into this mount, and install it in your case. I probably won't install it in the case just because I want to keep the front of the computer as clean as possible. I'll already have an Aquaero on the front panel.





Here is the marketing gib gab related to the overclocking panel from the box....





Ahhhhhhhhh. The board itself. I've always found the RIVE BE beautiful, and it's one of the main reasons I approached ASUS about partnering with me on this build. I just love how tough, black and powerful this thing looks. And with me going for a primarily black interior theme....and wanting an X79 board again.....it really just made the most sense to go this route.




The heatsinks won't be on there after I block the board....but even the heatsinks are well done. I'm going to try and find a way to leave the I/O cover that is incorporated into the heat pipe. Probably have to cut the heatpipe....but no big deal. The I/O cover itself is a very nice touch. I've spent a fair amount of time on some prior builds trying to cover up the back of what is usually just some shiny metallic boxes on the I/O panel. This is a far more elegant solution. Nice touch ASUS.









Enough of the board for now. I need to take off some of the protective stickers, and take some real glamour shots. These shots are just to show what was in the box really. So lets move on to the accessories included. There are 10 SATA cables included. The ones with the white band on the tip are the SATA3 cables, and the all black ones are the SATA2 cables. 1/2 of the cables are 90 degree angle ends, and the other 1/2 are straight ends. That should keep it easy to plug and unplug when they are stacked on top of each other. Nice touch ASUS.





....and 10 cables matches perfectly with the 10 SATA ports on the board. The grey ones are SATA3 and the black ones are SATA2.




Check out the I/O shield that I have leaned up against the I/O panel. That's the backside of it showing. You'll notice there is a rather thick layer of foam with a metallic type backing that surrounds all of the cut-outs.





Here is the front side of the I/O shield, and if you look at the cut-outs closely, you can see the thick foam extending behind each cut-out. This foam takes up the empty space that normally exists in most motherboards between the I/O shield and the I/O panel itself. A very nice touch ASUS.





Here are some of the other cables that come in the box. From left to right along the bottom of the board....first up is the WIFI antennae. Now...I will always end up running CAT6 cable to the box when it's in it's final location, because almost every room in my house is wired. But....I can't tell you how nice it will be to have WIFI access built into the board so that is can be connected while it's still being moved around a lot and worked on in every room of the house. It's one of the features that I truly miss on my Asrock Extreme11. I will definitely use the built-in WIFI. The next cable (the white one in the middle) is just a USB cable. The one on the right is the Overclocking Command Center cable that has to plug into the board. Additionally, you must connect a SATA cable between the board and the panel also.




It comes with all the SLI connectors you might possibly need....







This is a pretty neat idea. For all the little dupont style connectors, ASUS has created a single plug that can be removed from the motherboard and all of the little connectors come off with it. This will save a ton of time for those of you with fat little fingers like mine and have trouble with the 2pin dupont style connectors. Nice touch ASUS.





Sticker for a case badge? Not on a $500 motherboard. This is a hefty magnetic case badge. Nice touch ASUS.





I haven't gone through the User Manual yet.....but I gave it the "bulk test" review....and it passed. It's thick. Nice cover too!





Now....I don't know how many people spend $500 on a beautiful motherboard....and then use these atrocious stickers on their HDD cabling.....but maybe some do. [Seinfeld Voice] Not that there's anything wrong with that! A DVD of drivers and user manual, along with a coupon for a copy of Assassin's Creed Black Flag....round out the accessory package.





Very pleased with the initial run-through. Now I'm going to take off some of the protective film and get out my macro lens. The board has so many features on it that I'll take some close-ups of some of the neat stuff it has on it. More soon.....

 

that'S just an awesome board and really nice pics.

Dude if I win the lottery I will get this one,too. It's just looks paralizing

 

Thanks hanssx2! There are so many more features. I knew it was packed...but I've been flipping through the user manual while I decide what to shoot...and there are some amazing features on this thing!

 

This group of shots is intended to highlight some of the features of the board. I basically got out the user manual and my camera...and snapped a shot of everything as I went through the manual and learned about all the "stuff" on the board. Some really neat features packed in here.

First...I'll show the power connectors. Of course there is a 24 pin. It's situated in the normal spot on the right edge of the board. I think a nice tweak here would be to rotate it so that it faces out from the board instead of straight up. Some companies are starting to do this now...and it really makes sense to me.





On top of the board is a 4 pin and an 8 pin power connectors....





...and on the bottom of the board is a 4 pin molex style connector. The manual says it should be used when running multiple graphics cards. Check. I'll be powering this baby up on all possible fronts.





The board has NUMEROUS fan options. They are all PWM compatible also, which is a nice touch. The first is up on the top of the board above the CPU socket....





There are two more on the top/right corner of the board....





....two more right behind the 24 pin socket....





....and two more on the bottom edge of the board. That's 7 total. That's a lot. Nice touch ASUS.





Another really nice touch is adding thermal sensor connections right on the motherboard itself. There are three of them. The first is up in the top/right corner...





The second is behind the 24 pin connection....





..and the third is at the bottom of the board between the USB and fan connections.





I think that these thermal sensor connections would be extremely useful for someone who is air cooling and driving their fans from the motherboard fan connections I showed previously. For water coolers....you probably will want to control your pumps AND fans based on temperature readings....and I wouldn't recommend trying to power your pump from one of the motherboard fan connections. So I think these will be useful mostly for air coolers....not water coolers. But it's still a real nice touch. I wonder if the thermal sensor readings become available to Aida64....and thus...available to something like an Aquaero. I'll try that once I hook up my Aquaero and get things running.

The "start" and "reset" buttons are in an easy to access location. One of the things I don't really like about my Asrock Extreme11 (but I love the board overall!) is the location of these buttons are on the very bottom edge of the board. It makes them very difficult to access in any circumstance....and almost impossible to access when you have something in the bottom PCIe slot.





Very similar to the "start" button....the debug LED's are in a very easy to see/reach location on this board. Mine has a scratch across the LED....but I'm hoping it is a cosmetic defect only. If so....not that big a deal.. I'll know once I power it up.





These next two features are kind of cool. Both are related to our LN2 brothers out there....that are trying to boot this board cold. The left arrow points to a jumper switch where, when activated, optimizes the board to remedy the cold-boot bug during POST at extremely low temperatures. The right arrow points to a "slow mode" switch. Flipping the switch down clocks the CPU instantaneously, which allows LN2 users to boot at non optimal temperatures. Neat stuff. But since this will be a water cooled build...I won't use these two features.





Here's a neat little switch. This one lets you enable or disable the corresponding PCIe x16 slots. So...if you had a problem with one of your cards...you could use this slide switch to find out the faulty one without removing the card itself. Very nice...if they all happen to be hooked up to a water cooling loop. Nice touch ASUS.





USB 3.0 header. Wish there were two of these....





Here's another nifty little feature. There is a little LED (right arrow) that lights up if memory issues are causing your boot to fail. That alone is nice. But the button to the left (left arrow) is even neater. If you press it, the sytem initiates a memory tuning process where the system loads and tests failsafe memory settings, until it can successfully boot. Very nice touch ASUS.





Down in the lower right corner of the board, you'll find the ROG Extension connection, and the front panel connections for the power, reset, HDD LED, etc. If you don't have the ROG overclocking panel plugged into the ROG extension....the right portion of it becomes a USB 2.0 connection. Nice touch ASUS.





Two very cool features in this picture. On the left, you'll see a "DirectKey" button. When you press this button, it allows your system to go to the BIOS setup program without having to press the DEL key during POST. Hello! I'll definitely use this feature. Not available on my Asrock board. Me likey. To the right of this button is the BIOS Switch button. This board allows you to have two different BIOS loaded. When you press this button, it switches to the other BIOS. Hello! I can definitely find use for this feature also. My Asrock board allows me to save 3 different BIOS settings....but I have to reboot and enter BIOS setup to activate them. Not having to enter BIOS setup will be sweet. Very nice touch ASUS.





Two more USB 2.0 connections at the bottom of the board....





Front panel audio connections....





And in the center you'll find the CMOS battery....as well as what appears to be a little power connection for an LED inside the ROG logo in the middle of the board.





Overall...I find the feature set on this board amazing. This is actually my first ASUS board. I've owned primarily Gigabyte and Asrock in the past. Features are way cool on this board. Can't wait to fire it up and try them all out.

This board has a ton of features that my Asrock Extreme11 doesn't have.....but it's also missing some things I'd love to see on it. If I were in charge of creating the perfect motherboard, here is what I would do. I would start with this board. This board, because it really has most of what any user could ever want. I'd start with this board, the ASUS RIVE BE....and here are the changes I'd make:'

- add 2 PLX chips so that you can have 4x SLI with 16x lanes for each card
- add an LSI 2308 chip for expansion of SATA connections
- add a second USB 3.0 header
- rotate the 24 pin connection so it faces the edge of the board

There you go. The perfect board.

But this one appears to be pretty darn close anyway. Next up are the glamour shots. I've already taken them......they are in post processing now. More soon!

 

Subbed. I have a soft spot for pink as well

Great photos by the way, what lens are you using?

 

Thanks ChromAnomaly! Pink is for men.

Almost all of the shots I've used so far are from either:

Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS II

Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS

Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro


The 17-55 is kind of my go-to lens, and I use it for a lot of shots. But the 70-200 can create some interesting bokah if I back up about 4 feet and zoom way in on a small piece. And macro lens' are of course always fun. It can focus from as close as about 7 inches.

 

Wow, that 70-200mm is a nice lens, wish I had one. I've got the 100mm macro, but it's better suited to insect shots than case modding

 

Some glamour shots of the RIVE BE.....








































It really is a beautiful board even with the stock heatsinks. I'll leave these on until I know that everything is working....and then I'll be ready to block the board. Can't wait to see this beauty with those acrylic blocks and pink coolant running all over it.

 

A few unboxing photos.....and then I'll post the glamour shots.

ASUS has been gracious enough to provide 2x of their GTX 780 Ti's DirectCU II OC graphic cards. Not a reference card.....this baby has the ASUS custom PCB and power delivery system, as well as their custom cooling solution with dual fans.





Inside the glossy marketing cover is a simple but elegant box with the ASUS logo in the center. In search of incredible. Always liked that slogan....





Inside the box is another slim box that contains the accessories and some foam padding on the right....





Underneath the accessory box is another slim layer of foam padding.....





Underneath the 2nd layer of foam padding, is another ring of foam protection with the card itself in the middle. So it's well protected.





Here is what is in the accessory box. It's not much, but I think one of the accessories is kind of cool. There is a mini-manual (not much in there), DVD of drivers, power connection adapter, and some aluminum bling to put on the card. The power connection adapter could be useful for a lot of people I'm sure. Takes 2x 6pin connections and turns them into one 8pin connection. But...I think my Corsair AX1500i should have plenty of connectors without use of the adapter.





The aluminum bling is what I find interesting. They are colored aluminum pieces with sticky tape on one side. Comes in both red and gold flavors. The idea is you get to pick which one fits your build colors better, and install those yourself. You can see in the picture down here where they go. Think of these kind of like the Corsair accent rings on their fans. It's simply a quick and easy way to customize the component quickly to go with your colors. And kind of like I'm planning on painting the Corsair rings my own custom color....you could easily paint these aluminum pieces also to go with your theme. Nice touch ASUS.

Even though I'll eventually block these cards, I'll probably paint a set of these pink and stick them on to see how they look. Plus, I plan on putting the cards through their paces with the custom ASUS air cooling on first anyway....just to see how it performs.





You can see the side of the card in this picture where the stickers would go....




...and here is the other side of the card.





It really is a mean tough looking graphics card with those pipes showing and massive heatsink underneath the dual fans. Even the backplate has a mean aggressive look. And I love that it comes with a backplate. This should be required on any card in the $700+ range. I really like the aesthetics of the cards.

I took a lot of glamour shots also....and I'm working on processing those right now, so there will be more pictures of the cards soon.....

 

Glamour shots for the graphics cards!

These really are good looking cards.....































I keep coming back to the words "mean" and "tough"....but I think that describes them best. These cards look like they came here to kick some butt and chew some bubblegum. And they're all out of bubblegum.

I've got my i7-4930k that will be going in this build....so after my low profile air CPU cooler gets here tomorrow, I should have everything I need to fire this baby up on air and make sure everything is in working order. Then I get to do the fun stuff. Cooling loop, fans, cabling and lighting.

 

that is just a damn sweet card, won't you switch to water ? Or will they blast with air?

 

Ultimately....I'll put them under water. Pink water, that is.

But I'm kind of excited about testing them out with the ASUS cooling solution on there first. I've heard good things about it. Much nicer than the reference card cooling setup. Want to see how much noise they generate and temps. I'll have two of them driving a 4k monitor that ASUS is sending.

 

Big fan Chris.. Love this Bold Color Choice. Really like the Photo Rich Log..

Outstanding Presentation..