#NotABuildLog - Transplant with some added flair

Dezroxx

Efficiency Noob
Original poster
Nov 21, 2018
7
10
I purchased my Cerberus (non-X) at Christmas this past year, and have been slowly tweaking things over the past month, but with my new addition this week (RTX 2070) I thought I might share my own build and thoughts on some customization ideas I had for the case.

My setup is mostly a transplant that I built in 2015. But the current part list is as follows:

- Silverstone Tek SUGO SG-11 Cerberus Slate - Gray/Black
- Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5
- i7 4790K OC @ 4.7GHz
- Silverstone Tek NT06-Pro Corsair H100i Pro
- EVGA GTX 960 SC 2.0 EVGA RTX 2070 XC Ultra
- HyperX Fury 16Gb (2 x 8Gb) DDR3 @ 1866MHz
- WD 1Tb Blue HDD
- WD 4TB Blue HDD
- Crucial 256Gb SSD
- Samsung EVO 970 500Gb M.2 SSD
- Phanteks PH-F120MP (2x)
- Corsair CX600M PSU

And for some subtle flair (no judgments):
- Phanteks Halos 120 D-RGB (2x)
- Custom LED Strips (from cannibalized Phanteks Halos 120 D-RGB) (2x)
- Corsair Lighting Node Pro

I love to tinker, so you might think building a PC would be enough. But for this build I thought I would try some subtle LED effects. More than anything, I wanted to share some of my custom tweaks in the event that they will help someone else out in the future, or spark some neat ideas/conversation.

Completed Photos below


Case in the Slate Grey with a Black top panel.


Top panel off, I got custom length screws and some washers to set the top fan bracket lower. I think the LED's viewed through the perforated pattern alone looks better than if they were underneath the fan bracket. Lowering the fan bracket was a bit of a gamble because of it's proximity to the MOBO and PSU, but it did fit with just enough clearance.


These Halo LED's were stuck on with industrial 3M tape rather than screws because the perforation pattern of the fan bracket wouldn't allow for these to be dead center. You can see there are no slots for screws in the bracket where the holes are in the Halo housings.


With the front cover off, you can see a few modifications I made:
  1. The custom LED tubes I made from cannibalized Phanteks Halo 120's (more on these later)
  2. High-quality dust filter mesh that I cut and mounted to the front cover's cutouts. I have one fan pulling fresh air in the front, but found this to be a simpler, better looking solution than slapping a dust filter over the fan directly.

It's all quite a tight fit, especially with the triple-slot card :) On the bracket I have a Phanteks PH-F120MP pushing hot air out, and you can see the PSU behind which pulls fresh air in. H100i Pro on the bottom as intake directly into the GPU, and another Phanteks PH-F120MP pulling cool air in from the front of the case, across the GPU.


WIth the bracket out of the way, you can see some simple cable management. I used some corrugated plastic tubing that is pre-slit, so you don't have to remove or replace wire terminals. It just slip it over and hide the seam. HDD Cage barely fits between the lower fan and top of the case. Had a real hard time getting the SATA connections in there. Also the Lighting Node Pro is stuck to the side of the HDD cage with 3M tape.


This fan on top is a 20mm thick fan, that was actually taken from my old CPU cooler (Silverstone Tek NT06-Pro). It barely fit in between the PSU, HDD cage, and the side bracket mounted exhaust fan. I had to actually cut off a corner of the shroud because of clearance issues with some heatsinks on the MOBO, but it all fits now.


One other little mod is that I made my own filter for the bottom. I was having issues with the mounting screws for the H100i Pro, and one of the case feet. So I used some plastic strips and magnetic strips, templated a shape around the screws and you can see the results.


It was a whole lot of effort, but I am happy with the results.

For the lighting:
I originally bought the Phanteks Halo 120 D-RGB's because I was going for a certain effect. Once you take it apart, you have a single length of 30 LED's which perfectly pairs with the Lighting Node Pro because the Corsair LED strips come in 10 LED increments. So within the iCUE software, 1 Phanteks Halo 120 = 3 RGB strips. I opted for the Phanteks Halo 120 D-RGB's because of the density of the diodes. They are tightly packed which really helps with reducing hot-spots. Take for example, Corsair's D-RGB LED strips that come with the Lighting Node Pro - The LED's are roughly 30mm apart, so you get a sort of "Christmas" light effect. They don't glow, and imho look pretty bad.


The only hurdle is that the two companies use different terminals, so I had to do some wire surgery to make them compatible. The filter mesh and custom LED tubes were both stuck on with more 3M tape inside the front cover. I also have a small plastic lip on the bottom to keep air from coming in. All my intake from the sides is forced through the filters.


Up close you can see the individual LED's through the frosted 1/4" tubing I used. The bundle of wires there is my junction of the Corsair terminals and the Phanteks terminals, all nicely covered in some heat-shrink and taped to the cover to keep it stationary.

I might do another post later to elaborate on my custom wiring, but I don't want to get into it here. I also need to make some GIF's to show how the lighting works, so more to come...
 

Dezroxx

Efficiency Noob
Original poster
Nov 21, 2018
7
10
I should say, I've still been tweaking my overclock so no concrete thermal tests yet. It idles about 15°C above ambient on the cores. Under load though, I'm getting some substantial differences between Intel Burn Test and Prime95 - nothing conclusive yet but it can run hotter than I'd like at times.

The RTX 2070 XC Ultra is a dream though. Just ran a benchmark on Shadow of the Tomb Raider @1080p 60Hz on Ultra, and it doesn't break 65°C at full load. I ultimately settled on this one because it is supposed to run cool and quiet. Plenty of head room for the planned 1440p monitor I'm looking at down the road.

Decibel wise, I'm sitting at about 35 - 40 measured at the source, which is just fine for me.
 

Dezroxx

Efficiency Noob
Original poster
Nov 21, 2018
7
10
Here's a somewhat reasonable GIF example of a 20 second lighting loop that I have it doing this evening (this gif is sped up considerably). I'm not one for super flashy, but a little bit of attention-getting isn't a bad thing.