Description

Upgraded i5 4460 to i5 4690K. Overclocked to 4.0 GHz (4.2 GHz - 2 cores). This is not the limit, just turning up multiplier. Seems stable.

Turned CPU cooler fan-side down to pull air from GPU area.

Added 1TB HGST Travelstar 2.5" HDD mounted behind motherboard tray.

Added 3x Corsair AF120 White LED fans and hooked them and included 200mm intake fan to Phanteks PWM hub on SYS_FAN1. Mounted behind the motherboard tray. Linked the system fans to the temperature of the GPU using SpeedFan: Cooling while gaming, silence while browsing. The white LEDs are a nice touch with all components being black (except cooler) and I like how they get brighter as they ramp up with the GPU temperature.

Power Supply is a little noisy but I otherwise recommend it. Last build had XFX 550W and I never heard a thing.

Very happy with the motherboard, BIOS options, and the Bluetooth and WiFi AC performance.

Case is intake restricted but I just pop the bottom of the front cover out at the bottom only and temps improve on warm days. Removed HDD trays in basement.

Games like a beast. Huge improvement over FX-8350/GTX660 build and all in a smaller case. Both chips overclock quite well. Cooling is an issue on hot days, but it's winter here 9 months of the year. Thanks for looking.

Part Reviews

CPU Cooler

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler

This is my second one and for the price keeps CPU at reasonable temps. Quiet. Easy to install.

Motherboard

MSI Z97I AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard

Great features and boots very quickly. Integrated AC wireless is awesome. The all black color scheme is really cool too.

Memory

Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

Rating is based solely on looks which was my primary motivation when purchasing this RAM.

Storage

SanDisk Ultra II 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

A very fast drive and an excellent price. Wish I would have got the 480GB now, filled it in 3 days. 9 second boot.

Video Card

MSI GeForce GTX 970 4 GB Video Card

Very fast graphics at reasonable price for high end.

Case

Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ITX Mini ITX Tower Case

Nice looking case with a good 200mm fan included. Cleans up very nicely. Graphics card runs very hot even with a full complement of case fans for unknown reason. Drive cage must be removed when using regular size power supply.

Edit: I do not recommend this case for air cooling. While load testing, pulling front of case off yields about 5C drop on CPU and GPU. Needs less restrictive intake to be competitive.

Power Supply

EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Pros:

Looks awesome Plenty of cables of varying length, which also look awesome.

Cons:

Noisy. Rushing air combined with slight flicking sound.

Comments

  • 41 months ago
  • 1 point

Are the 2 top fans exhaust or intake?

  • 30 months ago
  • 1 point

exhaust

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  • 51 months ago
  • 1 point

The GPU overheats no matter what the Thermal Limit is set at. The case fans are a necessity. I run the intake fan at 100% full time from the PSU. What I've figured out is the case has intake issues (suffocation) and if you pull the cover off the front, temps drop drastically and no more GPU throttling.

Many games, if you limit FPS to 70 or so, don't push it very hard at 1080p so I'm overall happy with the build but I do not recommend the case. If you were going 100% water, though, it may be alright.

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  • 51 months ago
  • 1 point

I had no other case fans when I built it and the overheating problem was very bad. It is somewhat better with extra case fans installed. Opening front is still best option on warm days. If you try the 2x140 configuration, let me know how it works out.

  • 50 months ago
  • 1 point

I turned my CPU fan to exhaust upward and it seems to have made a difference. I am also going to get a quintet of 140mm fans. These are great upgrades you found here, mate. I'm currently at 83C load GPU and 58C load with CPU, I will post here when I get the fans and see what type of gains I make.

As an aside, you should do whatever you can to get a Phanteks fan hub. Control your 5 fans based on GPU speed. Ballin.

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  • 51 months ago
  • 1 point

If you have a backplate, it will touch.

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  • 51 months ago
  • 1 point

I'm quite sure rotating the 212 evo interferes with the RAM on my mobo. Just a heads up.

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  • 51 months ago
  • 1 point

That's good news. I tried to figure it out using a dimension drawing on the CM website but must have made an error. Looks really cool I bet those 140mm fans work better than mine. PSU looks awesome. Also make sure you get the fan hub.

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