HANGAR 45 FORUM

2017-10-10

Quote from Hangar45 Admin on December 17, 2017, 7:42 pm
(Original thread started on 11-16-12 by Mark L.)

Well, time for a new PC so I'm building a new system that will replace my current FSX PC (I7 920 OC'd to 3.8, 8gb ram) and become my everyday normal use PC. My new build will be the new FSX PC and it is:

I7 3770K CPU with an overclock target of 4.9

GSkill 16gb (2x8gb) Ram (2100)

ASUS Maximus V Formula motherboard

128gb Samsung 830 SSD drive for Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

600gb Velociraptor Sata 3.0

DVD Rom drive

Corsair AX 750 PSU

Top it off with a custom water cooling loop!

XSPC D5 RX360 kit

Massive radiator that has 3 120mm fans

Dual Bay Reservoir

Raystorm CPU Cooling Block

Danger Den Nvidia GTX 580 full card cooling block

and stuff it in a Cooler Master HAF 942!

This is gonna be sweet! Oh and it's rumored that thru the side glass door, you'll probably see some pretty lights and UV reactive tubing! Yea, could have doubled up on the hard drives, but even I have budget limits! Just go with good backups for now.

(Posted by David Gutierrez on 11-16-12)

Sound great Mark, liquid cooling really is a must. I also have liquid cooling at OC 4.8 GHZ and made some long haul flights like for 10-12 hours and it keeps fresh. No signs on overheating.

My Ram speed its at 1600mhz because I overclocked it. I put the CAS latency at 7. You will find out that by default they came at 1833 or like yours at 2100mhz but they came with CAS latency 8 or 9, and the best for FSX is 7. So when you want to put the latency at 7 you have to lower the mhz to 1600, or even to 1333mhz with latency of 6. With latency, lower means better. So a 1600mhz latency 7 is faster than a 2100mhz latency 9 and so. And the best is 7 for FSX, way better. This is easily done at the BIOS.

(Posted by Lakz on 11-17-12)

Hey Mark, sweet build. The Raystorm is an amazing block. I can only recommend a good CPU ETI to go with your watercooling. It's much better/safer than thermal paste and will help you keep the temps slightly lower.

May I ask why 16Gb of memory? This will have absolutely no impact on FSX, being a 32bit application.

Also, why the 3770K? It has a temp problem, you could reach the same performance with a 2700K or even a 2500k.

(Posted by Mark L. on 11-17-12)

I occasionally run other apps that can use the memory, plus depending on what happens with improvements with prepar3d it won't hurt. Besides, it didn't cost that much.

The 3900 series CPUs cost is way beyond what I was willing to pay and with the water cooling the 3770 heat issue isn't that big a deal and some reviews showed where it does outperform. That I found.

(Posted by Lakz on 11-17-12)

I see. Overclocking it to 3.9Ghz under water should be a breeze. I just salvaged two aviation grade rad (I built an external cooler that takes care of all my computers). Can't wait to have it set up.

(Posted by Mike Badger on 11-24-12)

This site is the holy grail of making your FSX/P3D run the best it can:

http://kostasfsworld.wordpress.com/fsx-software-and-hardware-guide/

(Posted by Mark L. on 12-01-12)

Finally got it built up and running today! No leaks! Ran a 12 hour leak test and all is well. Haven't overclocked it yet, still have a few hardware items to deal with and load software, but so far so good and its Fast!! and it's still stock! Original post with photos below was made on the rog.asus forum HERE

Wasn't really sure what to call it, I thought this might be appropriate. It's not a over the top mod, just something most experienced builders can do. Standard HAF X 942 case, Maximus V Formula with a I7 3770k, 16gb Gskill 2100 Ram and a XSPC RX360 D5 kit. The rest of the specs are in my sig. So the basic case, throw in a CPU, ram, motherboard, watercooling and a few lights and you have a Saturday Night Special.

Installed a Lamptron Touch to run the fans, added a second 200mm fan to the top, wired up some red LEDs for the 2 top fans. They don't show up a lot as the fans are black, but some red does come thru, just right for me. I wired up a separate circuit with a switch so I can kill all the lighting if I want to. As for lights, went with Sunsticks, a Red and a UV. I was concerned that the UV wouldn't do anything, aha! It worked out beautifully! I mounted in facing down on the outside door and it reacts with the tubing perfectly while I got the Red on the bottom facing up and it doesn't hurt with the Red door fan. The CPU block came with Blue LEDs and I like the look, so it's staying for now.

I leaked checked the system Friday night into Saturday for 12 hours with no issues and over the weekend finished up the details and wiring, software installation and such. I haven't overclocked it yet, but it ran Prime95 as a baseline and never went over 50C. For giggles I cranked my GTX580 up to 950 and it never went over 46C, so it can be played with some more. Really liking what I see so far.

Had issues at first getting the screw posts to bottom out into the backplate. I think the springs were not going into the recess of the lower knob causing the problem as it eventually went together as expected:

Had some issues with the 360 Radiator hitting the 3/8" barb on the motherboard:

Not sure why these are kind of fuzzy if it's my camera or the UV:

I have a couple of changes I still need to make, I found out I need 2 90 fittings, one for off the GPU block back to the Res and one for the Fill hole on the res so I don't have to keep taking it out. I have the adapter and a new cap, but no room, need a swivel 90.

Again, nothing fantastic, just my first water cooling build with lighting. Was fun putting it together and looks really cool in the dark! Wife says it looks like a Arcade game!

Getting closer to wrapping up all the software etc. Clean install of FSX, REX, GEX and a bunch of other stuff. Spent most of the day trying to tweak the system. Following Kosta's lead, I ran a comparison against the Venetubo configuration and getting much better results with Kosta's. Much much smoother than my overclocked 920! Really liking it so far. Running both my CPU and GPU overclocked and hope to push it further as temps are not even going over 60C. CPU at 4.6, would like at least 4.8 and GPU from 772 to 850. The GPU runs Heaven at 950, but blows up with anything else, will take a considerable amount of time to push it further. The GPU temps don't go past 50c.

Was my first time with the water cooling and wasn't that bad. The hard part is picking out what components and mfg to use. Do you want a bay reservoir or one that can fit in the case somewhere? Always use compression fittings! I put in a 'T' to provide a drain which makes it nice for maintenance, without it, it could get messy. It does add in this case about $600 to the cost of the PC, but the cooling it provides is remarkable compared to air cooling. You may or may not need a fan controller, that can isn't too bad at $35 to $250 depending on complexity, the higher end can run/vary the speed of the pump as well.

(Original thread started on 11-16-12 by Mark L.)

Well, time for a new PC so I'm building a new system that will replace my current FSX PC (I7 920 OC'd to 3.8, 8gb ram) and become my everyday normal use PC. My new build will be the new FSX PC and it is:

I7 3770K CPU with an overclock target of 4.9

GSkill 16gb (2x8gb) Ram (2100)

ASUS Maximus V Formula motherboard

128gb Samsung 830 SSD drive for Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

600gb Velociraptor Sata 3.0

DVD Rom drive

Corsair AX 750 PSU

Top it off with a custom water cooling loop!

XSPC D5 RX360 kit

Massive radiator that has 3 120mm fans

Dual Bay Reservoir

Raystorm CPU Cooling Block

Danger Den Nvidia GTX 580 full card cooling block

and stuff it in a Cooler Master HAF 942!

This is gonna be sweet! Oh and it's rumored that thru the side glass door, you'll probably see some pretty lights and UV reactive tubing! Yea, could have doubled up on the hard drives, but even I have budget limits! Just go with good backups for now.

(Posted by David Gutierrez on 11-16-12)

Sound great Mark, liquid cooling really is a must. I also have liquid cooling at OC 4.8 GHZ and made some long haul flights like for 10-12 hours and it keeps fresh. No signs on overheating.

My Ram speed its at 1600mhz because I overclocked it. I put the CAS latency at 7. You will find out that by default they came at 1833 or like yours at 2100mhz but they came with CAS latency 8 or 9, and the best for FSX is 7. So when you want to put the latency at 7 you have to lower the mhz to 1600, or even to 1333mhz with latency of 6. With latency, lower means better. So a 1600mhz latency 7 is faster than a 2100mhz latency 9 and so. And the best is 7 for FSX, way better. This is easily done at the BIOS.

(Posted by Lakz on 11-17-12)

Hey Mark, sweet build. The Raystorm is an amazing block. I can only recommend a good CPU ETI to go with your watercooling. It's much better/safer than thermal paste and will help you keep the temps slightly lower.

May I ask why 16Gb of memory? This will have absolutely no impact on FSX, being a 32bit application.

Also, why the 3770K? It has a temp problem, you could reach the same performance with a 2700K or even a 2500k.

(Posted by Mark L. on 11-17-12)

I occasionally run other apps that can use the memory, plus depending on what happens with improvements with prepar3d it won't hurt. Besides, it didn't cost that much.

The 3900 series CPUs cost is way beyond what I was willing to pay and with the water cooling the 3770 heat issue isn't that big a deal and some reviews showed where it does outperform. That I found.

(Posted by Lakz on 11-17-12)

I see. Overclocking it to 3.9Ghz under water should be a breeze. I just salvaged two aviation grade rad (I built an external cooler that takes care of all my computers). Can't wait to have it set up.

(Posted by Mike Badger on 11-24-12)

This site is the holy grail of making your FSX/P3D run the best it can:

http://kostasfsworld.wordpress.com/fsx-software-and-hardware-guide/

(Posted by Mark L. on 12-01-12)

Finally got it built up and running today! No leaks! Ran a 12 hour leak test and all is well. Haven't overclocked it yet, still have a few hardware items to deal with and load software, but so far so good and its Fast!! and it's still stock! Original post with photos below was made on the rog.asus forum HERE

Wasn't really sure what to call it, I thought this might be appropriate. It's not a over the top mod, just something most experienced builders can do. Standard HAF X 942 case, Maximus V Formula with a I7 3770k, 16gb Gskill 2100 Ram and a XSPC RX360 D5 kit. The rest of the specs are in my sig. So the basic case, throw in a CPU, ram, motherboard, watercooling and a few lights and you have a Saturday Night Special.

Installed a Lamptron Touch to run the fans, added a second 200mm fan to the top, wired up some red LEDs for the 2 top fans. They don't show up a lot as the fans are black, but some red does come thru, just right for me. I wired up a separate circuit with a switch so I can kill all the lighting if I want to. As for lights, went with Sunsticks, a Red and a UV. I was concerned that the UV wouldn't do anything, aha! It worked out beautifully! I mounted in facing down on the outside door and it reacts with the tubing perfectly while I got the Red on the bottom facing up and it doesn't hurt with the Red door fan. The CPU block came with Blue LEDs and I like the look, so it's staying for now.

I leaked checked the system Friday night into Saturday for 12 hours with no issues and over the weekend finished up the details and wiring, software installation and such. I haven't overclocked it yet, but it ran Prime95 as a baseline and never went over 50C. For giggles I cranked my GTX580 up to 950 and it never went over 46C, so it can be played with some more. Really liking what I see so far.

Had issues at first getting the screw posts to bottom out into the backplate. I think the springs were not going into the recess of the lower knob causing the problem as it eventually went together as expected:

Had some issues with the 360 Radiator hitting the 3/8" barb on the motherboard:

Not sure why these are kind of fuzzy if it's my camera or the UV:

I have a couple of changes I still need to make, I found out I need 2 90 fittings, one for off the GPU block back to the Res and one for the Fill hole on the res so I don't have to keep taking it out. I have the adapter and a new cap, but no room, need a swivel 90.

Again, nothing fantastic, just my first water cooling build with lighting. Was fun putting it together and looks really cool in the dark! Wife says it looks like a Arcade game!

Getting closer to wrapping up all the software etc. Clean install of FSX, REX, GEX and a bunch of other stuff. Spent most of the day trying to tweak the system. Following Kosta's lead, I ran a comparison against the Venetubo configuration and getting much better results with Kosta's. Much much smoother than my overclocked 920! Really liking it so far. Running both my CPU and GPU overclocked and hope to push it further as temps are not even going over 60C. CPU at 4.6, would like at least 4.8 and GPU from 772 to 850. The GPU runs Heaven at 950, but blows up with anything else, will take a considerable amount of time to push it further. The GPU temps don't go past 50c.

Was my first time with the water cooling and wasn't that bad. The hard part is picking out what components and mfg to use. Do you want a bay reservoir or one that can fit in the case somewhere? Always use compression fittings! I put in a 'T' to provide a drain which makes it nice for maintenance, without it, it could get messy. It does add in this case about $600 to the cost of the PC, but the cooling it provides is remarkable compared to air cooling. You may or may not need a fan controller, that can isn't too bad at $35 to $250 depending on complexity, the higher end can run/vary the speed of the pump as well.

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