Ai Crystal build log/parts list/gallery

[neurotix]

So, my wonderful wife installed my new EK Nucleus AIO CR360 Dark for me this morning. Since I just had hip surgery and have back pain too, doing this on my own wasn't possible.

 

 

 

Previously I had the Corsair H150i RGB Pro XT. With like four cables coming off the block ruining the clean look of my rig. The performance was pretty poor, too.

 

Some preliminary test numbers, on my 7900X3D:

 

Windows Idle temp with Corsair: 45-50c

Windows Idle temp with EK Nucleus: 32-35c

 

CPU-Z bench multicore Corsair: 78-80c

CPU-Z bench multicore EK Nucleus: 62c

 

More testing needs to be done, but running folding@home on Linux on my 4090, the waste heat would heat my CPU up and to 69-72c with the Corsair. With the EK Nucleus, the highest I've seen is 62c.

 

It looks better and cools way better. I'm glad I read the review here about the unit. I used to use an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 before and would have continued using it in my build, except its around 38mm thick without fans and did not clear the VRM heatsinks on my new board, the Asus ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming Wifi. That cooler worked better but it seems the EK Nucleus (which has a 27mm thickness, and fit fine) is at least as good as the Arctic cooler, if not better. I'm thrilled.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by neurotix

[neurotix]

A few pics of my system off with the EK cooler. And some of the front of my case. Took these while doing the monthly cleaning.

 

[neurotix]

On 16/09/2023 at 15:32, Snakecharmed said:

What's going on with the sequential write speeds? Those are obviously way off where they should be.

 

That also reminds me that I should benchmark my SSDs. I never did that after completing my build.

 

@Snakecharmed

 

I just tested the Crucial T700 speeds again, and I think when I did the benchmark before I think I was downloading Forza Horizon 4 and 5 in the background, causing a lot of write operations that interfered with the benchmark.

 

This should look a lot better

 

 

Spoiler

970 Evo speeds for comparison

 

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by neurotix

[neurotix]

Here's the fan noise from 5 feet away from Ai Crystal folding, on the MSI Gaming X Trio 4090 with fans set to 80%

 

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by neurotix

[neurotix]

Latest picture of Ai Crystal with my new RGB RAM and cooler:

 

[neurotix]

These showed up today. My current ones are almost 4 years old and setting them to white, they are all yellow. So I'm about to replace the old ones now.

 

[damric]

51 minutes ago, neurotix said:

These showed up today. My current ones are almost 4 years old and setting them to white, they are all yellow. So I'm about to replace the old ones now.

 

What are they?

[neurotix]

40 minutes ago, damric said:

What are they?

They are RGB lightstrips. Unfortunately they are getting returned. They couldn't do magenta, magenta showed up as a light purple.

 

Since my rig is almost always on a synthwave Cyan and magenta color theme, the strips not doing magenta is no good. Back to Amazon they go. At least it's fairly easy to replace them.

[neurotix]

Ordered these instead, they should be here Friday, and they better damn well do cyan and magenta properly.

 

Amazon.com

WWW.AMAZON.COM

 

[neurotix]

Unfortunately, they arrived and were 4 pin digital RGB instead of 3 pin ARGB which is what my system uses. Sigh. We're not even bothering returning them as they were $12.

 

Fortunately, I have the same ones but 3 pin ordered and they should be here early next week.

[damric]

1 hour ago, neurotix said:

Unfortunately, they arrived and were 4 pin digital RGB instead of 3 pin ARGB which is what my system uses. Sigh. We're not even bothering returning them as they were $12.

 

Fortunately, I have the same ones but 3 pin ordered and they should be here early next week.

I swear LEDs need to become standardized. That crap drives me crazy with all the pin-outs and proprietary connectors.

[neurotix]

46 minutes ago, damric said:

I swear LEDs need to become standardized. That crap drives me crazy with all the pin-outs and proprietary connectors.

Agreed, there's two varying standards and it's ridiculous, it's so easy to get the wrong thing, and this is not the first time it's happened either.

[Sir Beregond]

On 14/10/2023 at 14:21, damric said:

I swear LEDs need to become standardized. That crap drives me crazy with all the pin-outs and proprietary connectors.

This is where my strategy of no lights whatsoever inside my builds helps my sanity a ton. 

[The Pook]

1 hour ago, Sir Beregond said:

This is where my strategy of no lights whatsoever inside my builds helps my sanity a ton. 

 

trying to get my motherboard + GPU to the same temperature shade of white was enough to make me swear it off forever

 

 

 

[neurotix]

Yep, RGB is a pita. I have Aura Creator that I use for the light strips, RAM and fans, MSI Center that I need to control card lighting, GMMK keyboard software to control the keyboard, and Cooler Master MM520 that I use to control the mouse lighting.

 

MSI center is terrible and so is Aura Creator, which now *requires* you have ASUS horrible Armory Crate software installed and like 10 Asus services running.

 

I remember in 2020 when I first built Ai Crystal and transferred parts into it from Big Red, my former build, there was a standalone Aura Sync software you could download and not install Armory Crate and all the bloat that comes with it, if you wish. If anyone can find a link to that old Aura software, I'd give you like ten reps.

Edited October 17, 2023 by neurotix

[neurotix]

The effect is worth it though imo.

 

[The Pook]

2 hours ago, neurotix said:

Yep, RGB is a pita. I have Aura Creator that I use for the light strips, RAM and fans, MSI Center that I need to control card lighting, GMMK keyboard software to control the keyboard, and Cooler Master MM520 that I use to control the mouse lighting.

 

MSI center is terrible and so is Aura Creator, which now *requires* you have ASUS horrible Armory Crate software installed and like 10 Asus services running.

 

I remember in 2020 when I first built Ai Crystal and transferred parts into it from Big Red, my former build, there was a standalone Aura Sync software you could download and not install Armory Crate and all the bloat that comes with it, if you wish. If anyone can find a link to that old Aura software, I'd give you like ten reps.

 

OpenRGB?

 

Works with most things. For me the only thing it doesn't work with is my MK730. My keyboard saves profiles to device anyway so it doesn't really matter. I just install Portal, use it, save, and uninstall.  

[neurotix]

I looked into it on Linux and was just baffled at how it worked, plus it messed up my custom GMMK lighting (synthwave fade across it) when I opened it and I had to redo it using the software for the keyboard in Windows.

 

I found an old version of Asus lighting control standalone, I uninstalled Armory Crate and like 8 other things, and used a registry cleaner to get rid of any traces of it. Going to reboot now, install the old version of Asus Lighting control, and see if it works. Tired of sending them telemetry

[neurotix]

 

[neurotix]

Here is a rarely seen image of the back of my rig, with the cable management done by Queen @bridgypoo. Everything has to be flat mounted because I believe the clearance on the back of the case to the glass is only 0.5mm.

 

 

I know the bottom middle looks horrible but I have three platter drives there that you can't even see, then on the left there's a lot of unused wires from the case like the case top USB 3.0 connector, the USB 2.0 connector, and the sound connector all of which go to the mobo but they are not connected for the purpose of cable management. Then the big box on the top left is the anidees fan controller/RGB controller with a ton of thin proprietary connectors for fans going to it.

 

Anyway, we got the new PSU in (Superflower Leadex VII XG 1300w Gold), have the machine folding and all is well.

Edited July 10 by neurotix

[Alex]

1 hour ago, neurotix said:

Here is a rarely seen image of the back of my rig, with the cable management done by Queen @bridgypoo. Everything has to be flat mounted because I believe the clearance on the back of the case to the glass is only 0.5mm.

 

 

I know the bottom middle looks horrible but I have three platter drives there that you can't even see, then on the left there's a lot of unused wires from the case like the case top USB 3.0 connector, the USB 2.0 connector, and the sound connector all of which go to the mobo but they are not connected for the purpose of cable management. Then the big box on the top left is the anidees fan controller/RGB controller with a ton of thin proprietary connectors for fans going to it.

 

Anyway, we got the new PSU in (Superflower Leadex VII XG 1300w Gold), have the machine folding and all is well.

lol I dont have time to cable manage the back of my pc, just so long as it closes - we're good

[Sir Beregond]

3 hours ago, Alex said:

lol I dont have time to cable manage the back of my pc, just so long as it closes - we're good

My spaghetti mess is nicely hidden by a large bar in the back.

 

[neurotix]

16 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

My spaghetti mess is nicely hidden by a large bar in the back.

 

That's really nice.

 

You have the Lian Li 011 Dynamic Der8auer edition right?

[Sir Beregond]

1 hour ago, neurotix said:

That's really nice.

 

You have the Lian Li 011 Dynamic Der8auer edition right?

Yeah the original O11 Dynamic. I have a few complaints with this case though, so will probably swap it out for either a newer Evo XL, or something similar.

[neurotix]

15 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

Yeah the original O11 Dynamic. I have a few complaints with this case though, so will probably swap it out for either a newer Evo XL, or something similar.

Hmm, Evo XL says it only supports 280mm radiators (at least from a glance), it also looks mostly identical to the O11D. Unless it's bigger. What size radiator do you use, it looked like a 360mm on the backside of your case?

 

If you want a pretty nice case, that also has a cube option, check out anidees! We have two cases from them and they've been great. Airflow is not the best but mine basically has two filters in the front (thin vents on the side of the front glass, a removable 360 dust filter held on magnetically inside, with 3x 120mm fans behind it mounted inside the case). Their fans are nice too and seemingly dust proof. Come January I will have had this case for 5 years, and it stays really clean inside for the most part. I dust it every month or two and it stays really clean.

 

PC Case Archives - anidess

ANIDEES.COM

Take a look at their different cases.

 

The only problem with them is that they don't have much US availability, they used to have a limited selection on Amazon, but had everything on Newegg. Now on Newegg I only see one case and its a full tower. I even tried caseking.de and AliExpress, no go. Tbh I don't know where you can get their products anymore, but if you can find them they are worth it.