CASEMOD: Twin Towers II - The Beast

[MrBurns]

OK so here are the pictures of my latest casemod and it's predecessor.



https://techhunter.board-directory.net/gallery/Personal-album-of-MrBurns/The-Twin-Towers-The-Beast-v1-pic_2.htm

The first link shows the old Twin Towers project, which contained:
Asus Z7S WS dual socket 771 motherboard with 2 x Intel Xeon 5460 3166 mhz quad core with 12 MB cache
16 GB DDR2-667 ECC FBDIMM quad channel
27 harddisks, 24 sata and 3 sas
3 hardware raid controllers (2 sata, 1 sas)
2 x HD4870X2 2 GB (4 x HD4870 1 GB quad crossfire)

The casings are modified Cooler Master Rebel 12 bigtowers stuck together to form a single megatower, with 6 x 120 mm exhaust fans topside, 2 x 120 mm side, 2 x 120 mm rear and 2 power supply units (one for motherboard and drives, the other for the fans).




https://techhunter.board-directory.net/gallery/Personal-album-of-MrBurns/Twin-Towers-II-test-setup-lights-on-pic_28.htm

The second picture shows Test Version 1 of the new project, aptly named Twin Towers II, or The Beast.
The idea was to build a single PC that could do everything I wanted it to do and fast.
I wanted top graphics, lots of fast storage, superior surround sound, absolute stability and excellent cooling during gaming but silence during idle or watching a video.
To that end I equiped it with the following:

THE BEAST - Gaming Supercomputer

CPU : Intel Core i7 3820, socket 2011, 4 cores, 8 threads, 15 MB cache, running at 4.4 GHz
CPU Cooler : Cooler Master TPC-800 dual vapor chamber + 12 heatpipes, 2 x 120 mm fan
Motherboard : Asus P9X79 Deluxe, 4 x PCIe x16, 2 x PCIe x1, 8 x DIMM quad channel ddr3, wifi, bluetooth
Memory : 16 GB (4 x 4) DDR3-2133 CL11 quad channel @ 1600 MHz CL9 XMP
Graphics : NVidia GeForce GTX 780 OC @ 1.2 GHz, 3 GB GDDR5 (room for one more)
Monitor : 52" LCD 100 Hz Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels, progressive, on-board hardware signal processing, OSD
Soundcard : Realtek 7.1 DTS, 192 KHz, 24-bit (my Recon3D Fatal1ty Pro didn't work )
Speakers : 10.2 (dual 5.1) spectral surround, AC3 + Dolby Prologic hybrid, 120 Watts RMS
Earphones : Sony Beats in-ear or 40mm full cover headset
Optical drive : 24-speed dual layer DVD-RW + external DVD players
Power supply : 1200 Watt + 200 Watt dual PSU's (main + casefan power), 6 x PCIe power (3 x 6, 3 x 8 pins)
RAID controller : Rocketraid 3560 2 GB cache 24-channel sata 2 PCIe x8
SAS controller : LSI megaraid SAS 8-channel PCIe x4
eSATA raid : Silicon Image 3132 dual channel sata 2 with port multiplier support (for HDD tower) PCIe x1
HDD controllers : 2-channel sata 3 ssd+hdd hybrid, 6-channel sata 3 raid, 2 channel eSata 3 raid
Boot disk : WD Velociraptor 300 GB 10k rpm + 60 GB sata 3 ssd caching + 1 GB RAM cache
Game disk : 4 x 500 GB 7200 rpm RAID 0 + 2 GB cache, 1000 MB/s cached, 400 MB/s random read/write
SSD's : 2 x 128 GB sata 3 (for the most demanding games), 560 MB/s sequential, 230 MB/s random
SAS disks : 2 x 36 GB 15k rpm RAID 0, 2 x 72 GB 15k RAID 0, 2 x 146 GB 15k RAID 0, 1 x 146 GB 10k
SATA disks : 2 x WD Raptor 150 GB 10k rpm RAID 0, 200 GB 7200 rpm, 250 GB 7200 rpm
PC Case : 2 x Cooler Master Rebel 12 combined, 22 x 5.25" bays, 2 x 3.5" bays
Cooling system : 12-channel fan controller (exhaust fans only), intake and direct cooling (psu's, cpu, gpu, hdd's)
Cooling fans : 16 x 120 mm + 5 x 80 mm + 3 x 70 mm, variable speeds, total 100 to 3000 CFM (idle to max)
External storage : 2 x 3 TB USB 3.0 for video
Network : Dual Gigabit, WiFi, BlueTooth 3.0
Keyboard : Logitech G105 COD:MW3 edition, 6 gaming keys, 3 layers, backlight + numpad
Mouse : 5-button gaming laser mouse + Raptor Gaming steel series mousepad
Crysis 3 score : 50 fps on ultra, 120 fps on medium (full hd), about as good as it gets for a single gpu setup

The black tower on the right next to the subwoofer is the hdd tower, containing 8 x 2 TB sata drives and a blu-ray RW and is connected to the Sil 3132 eSata controller.
The little box on top of the case on the left is an external sound card, the Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit, which is an excellent soundcard, however Creative doesn't support the EAX engine under windows 7, so I'm now using it on a different PC.

Now remember that this was the test setup, the complete project (finished product) will be revealed once I'm finished building it.
Most of the hardware (mobo, cpu, gpu etc will be the same but there will be several changes and upgrades made.
Also, I will run tests and do reviews on various parts, aswell as go into the details of the modding.




https://techhunter.board-directory.net/gallery/Personal-album-of-MrBurns/Twin-Towers-II-test-setup-lights-off-pic_29.htm

The same setup but with the lights turned off, showing the blue glow of the 80 mm fans, the lights of the 12-channel fan controller and the lights of the hotswap bays.





https://techhunter.board-directory.net/gallery/Personal-album-of-MrBurns/Twin-Towers-II-test-setup-2-pic_30.htm

This last picture shows the way the Twin Towers project looks now, and as you can see the changes are minor but visible.
Some drives were swapped for better cooling, and the final setup will look very similar.
The changes I will be making include:

On-board soundcard will be replaced by Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion (with front panel), which is still the best one available that works under windows 7 and above.
The new setup will have 8 x WD Velociraptor 160 GB in RAID 10 ( 4 x 160 GB striped, then mirrored with another 4 x 160 GB ) to replace the current game drive.
Fans will be moved or replaced for better cooling and all 80 mm fans will be removed for better silent running.


I'm hoping to finish this (and 2 other) projects by the end of next week, and will hopefully have a lot of pictures to show.