Fractal Design Define R4 build
Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2013 9:55 am
Initially the upgrade to Haswell was planned on my beloved TJ08-E, but i had issues with Asus Maximus VI Gene, mostly in the Realtek 1150 and some stuttering that i wasn't able to fix, no beta driver, bios or other settings fix it. Also had some minor issues with AI SUITE III, so decided to go into full bios fan control, but Asus on ROG haswell motherboards decided to limit to 40% as the minimum PWM fan control, this is unacceptable, my past Sandy Bridge Maximums IV Gene Z had 20%.... i tried to see if Asus would update this on future bios, but there seem no interests from their representatives, ASUS Bios fan control request. Recently, like 6 months ago i did a build for a friend, in which i chose MSI Z77GA43 as the motherboard, i was surprised with the bios fan control, in terms of allowing lower restrictions than asus (0%, 12.5%, 25%, 37.5% > 40%), so decided to go with MSI for rebuilding my PC for haswell, also something very good about MSI is that they do offer two PWM fan headers (CPU_FAN1 and CPU_FAN2) at the begging i though was like Asus that second was only a mirror of the original, but this is not the case, both a re controllable and independently. MSI bios is very good imo, it lacks some things from asus though, like SSD secure erase, but their fan control on pure bios is much better, with min/max % and Temp min/max settings, so i decided to go with full PWM fans, and control them via bios.
Note: Worth mentioning that AsRock offers a much tweakbable bios fan control, multiple breakpoints and temp thresholds, but at the time didn't know, for anyone interested check Quiet gaming setup
Anyway here is what i built for my very quiet haswell build.
CASE: Fractal Design Define R4 Titanium grey
CASE FANS: 4x Noctua NF-A14 PWM 140mm
PSU: Seasonic X-660 SS-660KM
MOBO: MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING
MEM: Crucial Ballistix Sport Very Low Profile 32GB Kit
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K
CPU Cooler: Thermalright HR-02 (mine is no longer sold original none macho version)
CPU FAN: Thermalright TY-150
GPU: Galaxy GeForce GTX 780
GPU Cooler: ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme III
AUDIO: HT OMEGA eCLARO
LAN: Intel Gigabit CT
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 512GB
HDD: Hitachi 7K1000 1TB
HDD mount:ORICO AC52535-1S -SV 2.5 - inch to 5.25 + NoiseMagic NoVibes 2.5 Silent Hard Drive Mounting System
PWM Fan Splitter: Swiftech 8-Way PWM Cable Splitter - SATA Power (8W-PWM-SPL-ST)
Perifericals: Logitech MX 518 + Logitech G13 + Logitech G710+
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster SA850 27" 5ms PLS WQHD 2560x1440
OS: Windows 7 Professional SP1 64bit
I'm just posting directly one picture re sized, out of no longer seeing in imageshack the thumbnail forum option, if you wish to see more pictures click on the links below
Side
Front Side
Front
Back Side
Back
HR02 + TY150 + Crucial low profile
2.5 hdd suspension
All PWM fans are being controlled by MSI BIOS, on the TY150 its connected to the CPU_FAN1 (on HWmonitor displayed as CPUFANIN) and its settings is 37.5/100% for PWM control and temps 50/80C, for the case fans NF-A14 PWM, all are connected to the Swiftech splitter (placed on the back of the 5.25 cage), noctua supplies a lot of accessories, including extensions so its was very easy to to do, the splitter is then connected to the CPU_FAN2 (on HWmonitor display as SYSFANIN), the noctua fans are very good in their pwm control range, 200-1600rpm, but past 700rpm they become noticeable, so i set them up 12.5/37.5% and temps the same 50/80C, the TY150 is not noticeable inside so i left it reach 100%, but only under prime95 it will reach close. Here is a screenshot of me setting and testing the different PWM fan control settings to see how it will affect the the CPU temperature, the ambient temp was 22C.
If you cant read the above, click here is the original size.
Some other things worth mentioning, i bought most stuff on release, i had such a good experience with Galaxy GTX580 (it came with Accelero Xtreme from factory), so decide not to wait for the custom coolers, but this was a mistake, not that its not quiet, the Accelero III is probably the second best (second to the Prolimatech MK-26) aftermarket cooler probably none of the manufacturers can match its performance / noise ratios, the stock GTX780 has issues with the way it manages PWM fans, the stock is fine, but with Accelero III it control it fine, but it also ramp them up for no reason, like it loses signal and panics and ramps it up to full rpms every 2-10sec, this creates a lot of noise and very uncofortable for quiet oriented PC build, had the luck a friend had MK-26 being dissemble since he was also upgrading, so decided to borrow the fan connector of it and Prolimatech Vertex 140 slim (wonderful fan btw), but was worse, the fan were always at 100%, no control via vbios or software worked (although FanXpert2 was able to control the fine), so this is something directly related to the GTX780 stock PWM design, i even contacted Artic and they acknowlde the issue but said was nvidia fault, and suggested to use the 7V adapter provided with the cooler, which is how i have mine running, very quiet, but i lost the dynamic control of the fans. This two issues are not isolated incidents, if you wish to read more check Arctic Cooling Accelero Extreme III installation on GTX780 and Prolimatech Mk-26 problem with gtx 780. My suggestion is simply go with MSI GTX780 is been reviewed by a lot of sites as the quietest GTX780 on the market, or go with none reference card, maybe the manufacturers did a custom bios for their custom fan/heastink solutions, so the MK-26/Accelero might work, but i still dont recommend doing it this gen, MSI Twin Frozr IV Gaming N780 seems very good (avoid the lightning or hawk editions as their profile of fans is more aggressive since its more oriented for overclockers).
I didn't finish yet the CM, as I'm waiting for the Thermalright HR-22 that should be out by the end of the month, so ill have to take the motherboard out again, ill post an update picture with it mounted. The HR02 will go back to TJ08-E / Asus Maximus IV Gene with a Pentium 3220 for pure fan testing, i still like fanXpert2 for it, just not enough to have it running on my main PC.
Thanks for checking my build, if you have any questions feel free post, ill try to answer them.
Note: Worth mentioning that AsRock offers a much tweakbable bios fan control, multiple breakpoints and temp thresholds, but at the time didn't know, for anyone interested check Quiet gaming setup
Anyway here is what i built for my very quiet haswell build.
CASE: Fractal Design Define R4 Titanium grey
CASE FANS: 4x Noctua NF-A14 PWM 140mm
PSU: Seasonic X-660 SS-660KM
MOBO: MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING
MEM: Crucial Ballistix Sport Very Low Profile 32GB Kit
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K
CPU Cooler: Thermalright HR-02 (mine is no longer sold original none macho version)
CPU FAN: Thermalright TY-150
GPU: Galaxy GeForce GTX 780
GPU Cooler: ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme III
AUDIO: HT OMEGA eCLARO
LAN: Intel Gigabit CT
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 512GB
HDD: Hitachi 7K1000 1TB
HDD mount:ORICO AC52535-1S -SV 2.5 - inch to 5.25 + NoiseMagic NoVibes 2.5 Silent Hard Drive Mounting System
PWM Fan Splitter: Swiftech 8-Way PWM Cable Splitter - SATA Power (8W-PWM-SPL-ST)
Perifericals: Logitech MX 518 + Logitech G13 + Logitech G710+
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster SA850 27" 5ms PLS WQHD 2560x1440
OS: Windows 7 Professional SP1 64bit
I'm just posting directly one picture re sized, out of no longer seeing in imageshack the thumbnail forum option, if you wish to see more pictures click on the links below
Side
Front Side
Front
Back Side
Back
HR02 + TY150 + Crucial low profile
2.5 hdd suspension
All PWM fans are being controlled by MSI BIOS, on the TY150 its connected to the CPU_FAN1 (on HWmonitor displayed as CPUFANIN) and its settings is 37.5/100% for PWM control and temps 50/80C, for the case fans NF-A14 PWM, all are connected to the Swiftech splitter (placed on the back of the 5.25 cage), noctua supplies a lot of accessories, including extensions so its was very easy to to do, the splitter is then connected to the CPU_FAN2 (on HWmonitor display as SYSFANIN), the noctua fans are very good in their pwm control range, 200-1600rpm, but past 700rpm they become noticeable, so i set them up 12.5/37.5% and temps the same 50/80C, the TY150 is not noticeable inside so i left it reach 100%, but only under prime95 it will reach close. Here is a screenshot of me setting and testing the different PWM fan control settings to see how it will affect the the CPU temperature, the ambient temp was 22C.
If you cant read the above, click here is the original size.
Some other things worth mentioning, i bought most stuff on release, i had such a good experience with Galaxy GTX580 (it came with Accelero Xtreme from factory), so decide not to wait for the custom coolers, but this was a mistake, not that its not quiet, the Accelero III is probably the second best (second to the Prolimatech MK-26) aftermarket cooler probably none of the manufacturers can match its performance / noise ratios, the stock GTX780 has issues with the way it manages PWM fans, the stock is fine, but with Accelero III it control it fine, but it also ramp them up for no reason, like it loses signal and panics and ramps it up to full rpms every 2-10sec, this creates a lot of noise and very uncofortable for quiet oriented PC build, had the luck a friend had MK-26 being dissemble since he was also upgrading, so decided to borrow the fan connector of it and Prolimatech Vertex 140 slim (wonderful fan btw), but was worse, the fan were always at 100%, no control via vbios or software worked (although FanXpert2 was able to control the fine), so this is something directly related to the GTX780 stock PWM design, i even contacted Artic and they acknowlde the issue but said was nvidia fault, and suggested to use the 7V adapter provided with the cooler, which is how i have mine running, very quiet, but i lost the dynamic control of the fans. This two issues are not isolated incidents, if you wish to read more check Arctic Cooling Accelero Extreme III installation on GTX780 and Prolimatech Mk-26 problem with gtx 780. My suggestion is simply go with MSI GTX780 is been reviewed by a lot of sites as the quietest GTX780 on the market, or go with none reference card, maybe the manufacturers did a custom bios for their custom fan/heastink solutions, so the MK-26/Accelero might work, but i still dont recommend doing it this gen, MSI Twin Frozr IV Gaming N780 seems very good (avoid the lightning or hawk editions as their profile of fans is more aggressive since its more oriented for overclockers).
I didn't finish yet the CM, as I'm waiting for the Thermalright HR-22 that should be out by the end of the month, so ill have to take the motherboard out again, ill post an update picture with it mounted. The HR02 will go back to TJ08-E / Asus Maximus IV Gene with a Pentium 3220 for pure fan testing, i still like fanXpert2 for it, just not enough to have it running on my main PC.
Thanks for checking my build, if you have any questions feel free post, ill try to answer them.