Soooo after 9 years out of the scene, my eldest son decided he wanted to upgrade his rig. I need something to offset the crazy amount of work I've been doing lately, so we decided to do a father and son build separately with individual PC's but alongside one another. This as some of you may know was a huge part of my life almost 10 years ago, but health issues meant I stopped modding and building. Now my son is old enough to be able to do his own project I felt inspired to get back into it. My x99 rig is still a beast, but the urge to build a watercooled rig was too great and since my lad has never watercooled a PC before, I decided to do it alongside and guide him. We game together, and he has helped me on car related projects, but building his first proper rig, well, that's special! The reason for the build name? Well, working all hours is Vanity unless you see something for it and enjoy the time you have, I'm sure you would agree! So what did I decide upon? Components: Lian-Li PC-011WGX ROG Edition Case i9 9900k Asus Maximus Hero XI 64GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 2 TB Samsung Evo 970 Plus Asus STRIX 1080TI Cooling: EKWB GOODNESS!! HaVe A LoOk SeE! The ethos of the build is to build an extremely classy, dark zero cables on display silent gaming and editing rig... we shall see if I succeed
The case is an absolute beauty. Having made most of the cases from scratch that Ive ever owned, I am quite selective with my cases. They need to be aesthetically pleasing, constructed of well chosen materials, and I hate bling! So I spent a loooong time deciding which design to go with. My initial choice was the Corsair 1000D as I quite liked the idea of doing a dual system build, but as my son and I are doing this to hep him pick up the hobby and passion, I decided to go with the Lian Li. It meant he could opt for the slightly cheaper 011 case and copy some of the techniques used, and the layout of the case is perfectly suited to my design. The quality is second to none: Top brushed Aluminium plate Rear Panel - Fit and Finish again is excellent! The SSD Cages are mounted with a slot and then a standard finger screw to release, paint finish again is amazing: Started off with the standard boring bits, installing the PSU: The Corsair one got my attention due to the iCue link. All of my peripherals are iCue compatible, and I have the Commander installed in my current system. After using things like the Aquaero, which is great, for the money I like the iCue system so decided to go with this again. Ive looked at the EKWB Control system, tempted to try it, but we shall see... Very well packaged as usual from Corsair: and fitted: Although annoyingly the badge is the wrong way up... this will change
As some of you may recall... I used to adore the Ek watercooling fittings, fixtures, rads everything. Having been away for a while with no real knowledge of the changes that have taken place, I decided to look into their offerings again, and wow! Still top notch quality, still innovative, and guess what... still my choice Decided on a single loop, with a 360 in the roof of the case. Im going for clean and minimal dont forget so although I like the idea of a dual rad setup, with the layout I have in mind, it wont work. Flushed the rad out and dried it all, and then popped it into the roof to see if the fans Ive chosen will fit. It fits well, with a filter above to prevent excess dust ingress which I like, this Lian Li case has won me over.
The reason I wanted to get the rad in was to check on clearance with the Motherboard. Ive opted for the Meltemi fans from EK and as they are a lot thicker than the standard case fans available I wanted to measure it all up to ensure they will fit nicely. Reference Pic to demonstrate just how thick they are (38mm to be precise): They look purposeful though and I am happy. I will create a surround for them to cover the sides, but the overall aesthetic isnt all that bad in standard guise Ive done a lot more since but will post updates as and when I get a few minutes free each week. Im currently pondering what to do with the rear section of the case. I want the cables and the PSU side to be as neat and tidy as the front, and I have a few things in mind to allow for this, Im spending a little time cadding things up and hope you guys will give the stamp of approval. In the meantime, its good to be back and I hope you all like the direction this is going in. Thanks all...
