Because 4 years is to long not to have built a new one

Its that time again! I got the fever the other night and well my 920 just isn't cutting it these days (sarcasm). I orderd the parts the other night and some of them came in today, the rest will be showing up later this week. 

New Specs:

2700K

Z77 GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER

GIGABYTE GTX670

G.Skill Ripjaws X 16gb PC2133

Antec P280

Corsair H100

Asus Blu-ray burner

Seasonic X650 PSU

Patriot Pyro 128gb SSD (I won that)

Pics will follow soon this weekend with the build! 

Oh Hell Yeah!

This will be bad-ass!

Looking forward to the pics, love to see new build logs.

As promised a Build log from last night. Took my time about 4 hrs total on the build from start to finishing OS install. 

The prebuild pic

Preping the case for the H100

Case is preped, removed the two top 120 fans. They will be relocated as intake fans.

PSU unboxing. I think PSU's deserve more unboxing pics. 

Next to install is the PSU, Just a box picture. I love Seasonic!

Crown Royal any one?

O never mind its a PSU

PSU installed now time for the H100

H100 in the case, I am trying to figure out the instruction which are only pictures (Yes I use the instructions for stuff I dont know about)

It fits yay!

Close up of H100 install on Antec P280 case

Next is the mobo

Another Unboxing goodness. 

Whats inside?

More of what is inside. Tons of connectors, also cam with dual wifi and bluttooth NEC card. I didnt Install it yet but maybe later as I am a LAN connection at the moment. Also for those who want to SLI/Crosfire there are a ton of connectors (SLI,Crossfire, 3 way SLI, 4 way SLI)

Next installing H100 Back plate

Mobo installed in case

H100 Cooler installed with the 2700k below

Installing the two 120mm fans that I removed from the top to the front on the case, Asus Blu-ray Burner dive installed as well

The dust cover installed over the fans, Also you can see 2 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 on the front of the case

16gb of G.Skill Ripjaws installed

G.skill ram fans installed also the Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce Also starting the cable management (that was most of the build time)

The back side of the mobo tray with the bird nest of cables. Note I had to use a 8pin extension 

ITS ALIVE!!!

another picture of it running while its installing windows

My plan is for a mild OC for both the CPU and GFX card. Will post results later once I get a stable clock that I like. Hope you enjoyed the build pics.

Thanks for the pics,.....it's a great looking PC and you'll love using it too.

Thanks! 

When I saw the specs I knew I wouldn't have much to add here except "pics pls!"  and I'm not disappointed.  This is right where I'd want to go from LGA1366: quality bang for buck with plenty of bang, a civilised OC and a case to dampen sound a bit.  I know it's tough to stop often and take pics when you're experiencing the adrenalized thrill of swimming in hardware, boxes, bags and twist ties, so whatever time that added to your build is massively appreciated.

Looking forward to benches, esp. 3DMark11, but I doubt I'll be disappointed there either!

Budget well spent, and it's a beauty! *Raises a glass of Crown Royal*

Edited to add: I'm a big fan of balance too and this, professor, is master class!

You, sir, are awesome.  I was speccing out the same build, of sorts, and had no clue how the G1.Sniper 3 would fit in the case (as in, covering grommets) and how the H100 would fit up top though I thought it would.  I'm even looking at the same Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3.  Two of 'em, but same card nonetheless.  Gotta put that PEX 8747 to work somehow.

Regardless, you have impeccable taste.  =)

I signed up here just to follow this thread and hear about your metrics.  I'm really interested in the thermal capacity of this case and how hot your GPU and CPU are getting.  I've had a P180SE for 5 years now and while I love the thing to death for its cable management and forward thinking design (at the time) I know it bumps up case temps a bit.  What concerns me most about this build overall is that the Windforce 3 cooler will vent a lot more into the case than the reference design.  It should, since the fins point towards the motherboard and case wall and are not sealed for external ventilation.  Seems like it could have an adverse effect on how cool you can get the H100 and the CPU and GPU in general.  Another option would be to push air down onto the H100 from the top, but that only leaves the one 120mm vent fan in the back and the other holes near the GPUs.

Looking forward to your post.  Now that I know it all fits, my trigger finger just got twitchy.

Loving the new build! Im hoping i can afford a new build next year but not getting any luck with the college life... lol

Haven't had much time to tweak it yet, busy with work (flying tons). But I was able to get some base benchmarks run, the only thing that is tweeked a bit is the CPU to 4ghz. Idle at the moment CPU cores are 37/37/35/34; GPU is at 35. Load is CPU 64/61/59/57 @4.0ghz, GPU 67

3d Mark11

PC mark 7

3d Mark Vantage

If you want to see other benchmarks let me know which ones. 

Suh-weet.

Prediction: It'll do just as well across a variety of benchmarks, getting awful jealous here. Thanks for the 3DMark11, pretty sure it'll go Super Saiyan.

very nice pics.

Wow, those temps are better than I expected, especially the GPU.  Moving those fans to the front must help a lot in the exhaust of hot air from the GPU. That's very promising...

If I look at your build pics correctly, you have the H100 mounted for exhaust, correct?  Have you experimented with flipping it over and making it intake cold air from outside the case?  CPU temps would probably drop, though your GPU temps would probably increase slightly.  All depends on how quick the air can be exhausted from the top rear vent and how much turbulence is created as well.  Idle temps seem a bit high, but your load temps seem nice.

I pulled the trigger on my parts this weekend.  Will update with any findings I have that may be of use since the build will be so similar.  I'll have an extra GTX 670 in there, so I'm planning on starting with the H100 set up as intake due to the extra heat inside the case.  I've also picked up a bunch of extra fans to experiment with.  Couldn't decide which would be better, Noctua NF-F12 or Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15, for the radiator, so I snagged both.  I'm going to start with the Noctua fans as they're PWM and I can hook them right up to either the H100 or the motherboard for speed control.  Figure the AP-15s would still do nicely as intake, with the directed flow and increased static pressure helping to push air through the hard drive cage.  Also got some Scythe Slipstream PWM fans (SY1225SL12LM-P) which I was going to put in the middle mount position, or swap out with the AP-15s, for general ventilation of the graphics cards.  Could also have them on hand for...

An Eleven Hundred side panel.  Found out that Antec will sell the side panel alone, though they didn't give me a price quote.  Found out about that in another forum (http://www.forums.custompcreview.com/f78/replacing-antec-eleven-hundred-window-1101/) and if the cost is $30 or less, I'd be tempted to pick it up if the case and GPU temps get too high.  Lose some of the silencing, but retain the 240mm radiator mount capability.

UPDATE: Heard back from Antec. The left side panel with window is $22.95 plus $5.00 for shipping in the US via UPS Ground.

yep I have the H100 set up as exhaust. I dont think having it as an intake would do much good for the internal case temps. It would prob drop the CPU temps a few degrees. But I would imagine it you increase the GPU temps a ton. At the moment I only have one of the front fans running and I didn't hook up the rear fan. I just got the cable extenders in the mail I plan on installing them this next weekend. I think It should drop the temps even more then they currently are. At the moment only the 2 H100 fans and one of the 120's on the front are running. 

I have used both Scythe fans and Noctua fans. The scythe fans are nice but after time 6-9 months I started loosing max RPM with them, they started around 1900 and ended up at 1500. My Noctua fans thought always ran strong. 

Der Meister:

I have the H100 set up as exhaust. I dont think having it as an intake would do much good for the internal case temps.

You don't have any temp problems as it is, so don't 'fix' it. Most I would do is set the H-100 up in a push/pull configuration, but only if it becomes necessary to do.

Once you tweak things with the new fans and such, you'll be happy with it then. It's a great looking system and your temps are fine.

I would think that if you set up the fans as intake they may work against your other fans because hot air wants to raise. However, since i haven't tested the two setups i could be wrong.

Did you have problems with any of your corsair fans? Only asking because one of the two corsair fans that came with my cooler always ran at full speed. I later changed the fan since i couldn't change the speed in my bio's or a program to control it. I even hooked it up to another computer and it still ran at full speed, and the fan was very loud. 

haven't had a problem with the corsair fan the are the standard corsair case fans. which means they have a switch attacked to them to control either low or high. They cant be controlled my the mobo to my knowledge. I just keep them on low, I like silent and fast computers.

Awesome build! Thanks for the pics and benches. 

How's the filter work on that case?  I've got the Antec 1200, and cleaning the filters require more work than I'm willing to do on a monthly basis.  From the picture it looks like it just slides out of there, vacuum, and you're done.

  On a side note, I'm at that 4 year mark as well.  However, I don't see a new build in my future for at least another year.  I've just been picking up a few things here and there as I go to keep her going strong.  

Filters are really easy to remove/replace, and from what I've seen so far do an excellent job catching dust.  Checked them both after the first month and the front one caught a good amount of dust while the bottom one was barely dirty at all (on hardwood floor, with a dog, non-smoker).  It should be noted, however, that I have my H100 mounted with the fans pushing into the case instead of out of it for lower base temps (by only a few degrees, most likely.  haven't tested the other way around) and so dust can certainly enter my case here.  If they were mounted to push out, I'd turn the rear fan inwards so I'd probably add a dust filter there and be done with it.  In general though, my case is set to vent out the back and is set for positive pressure with 4 intake fans and one exhaust.

Oh wow, I didn't even notice there were two sets of filters on the front of there.  I just saw the big one that's on the "door".  On my case there's 3 front fans all pushing out, but somehow I just get a ridiculous amount of dust build up on the front.  I do have 2 cats, but neither one of them go into that room, so I guess I just shed a lot.  

  Now you got me thinking... I think all of my fans are pointed outwards.  I'm going to have check when I get home, i've been having heat issues with my GPU lately that I never used to have, might need to experiment a bit. 

I have a hard and fast rule about case fans, and it works great for me.

Everything on the front and side is drawing air ~into~ the case.

Everything on the rear or the top is blowing air ~out~ of the case.

Every radiator has double the fans (both sides of the rad) in a push/pull configuration.

I do the same as neil above does. All of my front fans are intake back and top are exhaust. 

Its super easy to clean them, and it helps keep the case much cleaner as well