Dreadnought: New Build

Update: 12/28/2013:

My friend's graphics card was DOA so I lend him the GTX680 that originally came with my build. I ended up selling my second on GTX 680 and combined my christmas bonus to buy two GTX 780 FTW w/ EVGA ACX Cooling which were on sale because the GTX 780ti just came out. I also bought a Xonar DX sound card because my sister gifted me a pair of Sennheiser PC 360 gaming headset since her lovely puppy chewed on my previous gaming headset, haha. I wanted to enjoy the new sound experience!

Update: Late Feb 2014:

I experienced a random bluescreen while I was playing a game that initially caused my keyboard to become unresponsive right before the crash. Afterwards my fans sounded strained and the corsair LED that sits over the CPU stayed stuck on red. I eventually called Digital Storm after going through customer support with corsair to determine if this was as software or hardware issue. They informed me it was hardware failure and to RMA it.

3/12/2014: Shipped Fenix off! T^T

3/17/2014: Fenix arrives to Digital Storm.

3/18/2014: I ask them to upgrade the exhaust fan while Fenix was getting her H100i replaced and requested a 2nd set of fans on the radiator. Since the corsair fan controller gave out within a year I figured to get a fan controller to control the speed of the 4 fans on the radiator. Initially I opted for the Hydrolux but that was on backorder for 2 weeks so I compromised with the Strike X fan controller that wasn't too grotesque once I realize they had a black front plate to replace the red, haha. Additionally, the fan controller allowed 5 fans to be controlled so the new exhaust fan was also connected. The RPMs were lowered on all of them so they don't sound so loud anymore.

I personally want to thank Shadaab and Mike for being so patient with me! Digital Storm Customer Service is superb!

3/28/2014: My Darling Fenix arrived back at home so I put all her insides back. We are planning to move soon and my pc will be transferred to my room instead of a studio room so I opted to buy a N900 dual band wireless adapter since the router would be placed in the kitchen. Both the sound card and wireless adapter fit perfectly between the cards without obstructing airflow. Just in case though I added a fan into the VGA fan duct to blow cool air between the cards. I won't be adding anymore things to Fenix at this point I am quite happy with the build and my friend is happy with his GTX 680 hehe.

Final Update with pictures:

Here's the Fan duct that I took out the center separation so my second card's cables could fit through (I'm not that great with the dremel power tool haha):



Corsair SP120 with an adapter cable that came with the fan allows me to change the volts from 12 to 7 so it isn't so loud:


GTX 780 FTW w/ EVGA ACX Cooling in SLI w/ backplates- I figured that was the best place to attach the remaining temp sensors, but other suggestions are welcomed:


Wireless Adapter under first card:


Xonar DX under second card, it has a floppy power adapter that I prefer to hide behind the fan duct:


How the back looks with the connections, thankfully the antennas can be adjusted so they don't get in the way of the dvi connector:


Second set of fans on radiator and upgraded the cooler master exhaust fan to a corsair AF140 quiet fan:


Everything together:


The Strike X in the front:




Introduction (sorry for the novel!):

This was my belated birthday present. I can tell you that I used to only purchase apple products. I blame my family because my cousin has apple products since the first e book that came out in the early 90ties. He got me into them at a young age and by 2005 my parents bought me the little 13' White Mac Book for college. Eventually I upgraded that to a 15' Mac Book Pro 2008 mid range model so I could work on my multimedia projects at home.

A few years passed by and my sister needed a more powerful machine because she chose to focus on digital photography, so she went an bought 27' iMac 2010 high end model with the internal components soldered behind the display.

I would say that within 8 years we went through 3 different Apple products because I couldn't add anything else past upgrading the RAM, changing the battery and replacing the HD Drive. What drove me up the wall was the lack of options I could expand on. Of course with all the hype and aesthetic minimalist looks, I continued to be drawn to their products. Shame on me. :x

I had my Mac Book Pro and iMac partitioned with Windows because most of my research software ( I eventually switched from Art to Psychology major ) was only compatible for Windows. If I wanted to play games on the Windows side, it was a hit or miss because it had two graphics cards, one was integrated, and sometimes the FPS would fluctuate all over the place, causing the screen to flicker.

I still love my Mac Book Pro and it works wonderfully but the programs I used on the Windows side really did make it heat up at uncomfortable levels. :(

Last year, I had to part ways with the iMac because my sister needed it more than I did after she recently married and moved out, since she was focusing more on Photography as a career while my digital art was pushed back as a hobby.

Haha, I have learned the hard way that when I need something to last I should actually look into building my own PC. I could still add the Mac OS X if I really wanted to but I am not fixated on that. I was hesitant at first with buying a more powerful PC because I found other websites that offered builds at a overly excessive price, resembling Apple's overprice products. After much research, I stumbled upon this wondrous website.


Here's the beast I ended up buying. I can say that I have switched over from being an Apple consumer + Console Gamer to a Rising PC Gamer. My poor, poor consoles have been collecting dust for a about 3 weeks now. I still use my Mac Book pro as a second display as reference while calculating data until I get a second monitor.


Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X Exterior
Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 3930K 3.2GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme
Overclocking) (Six-Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X79 (Intel X79 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and
SATA 6Gb/s)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (120GB Solid State (By:
Corsair) (Model: Neutron GTX Series) (SATA 6Gbps)
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western
Digital/Seagate/Hitachi/Samsung (7200 RPM) (32MB Cache)
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x
/ CD-Writer 48x)
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB (Includes PhysX) (Overclocked EVGA)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio Extreme
Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Corsair H100i 240mm Radiator Liquid CPU Cooler(Extreme-Performance Edition)
Cooling System Selected Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Red)
CPU Boost: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires
Pro/Deluxe/Sabertooth Motherboard)
Graphics Boost: Yes, Overclock the video
card(s) as much as possible with complete stability









Digital Storm - Customer Service 10/10: They were very helpful when I had issues paying through the website. I was able to immediately contact support over the phone and get everything squared away quickly. My Rig also shipped 2 weeks faster than I had anticipated!

Digital Storm - Technical Support 10/10: I called them only once to ask them about some minor things and they were very helpful. I didn't have to wait that long either.


The Rig - 10/10 I absolutely love it! The computer starts up so fast it makes my Mac Book Pro look like a snail. I initially was going to get the build with 2 SLI GTX 680s but at the time of purchase it was out of my budget range. However, recently I was able to buy the second graphics card and it is on its way to me as we speak! I am adding 240gb SSD as well to put the current games I am playing in there instead of the HD Drive. I don't think I will buy all the games I have already on my consoles but the few that have been my favorites I did purchase them in PC version. They look delicious in ULTRA settings. I did buy a Asus VG248QE 24' monitor on Newegg that has the refresh rate at 144Hz using the DVI connection so that makes everything look even more visually stunning. Planning to get a second one of these guys because I found a sweet spot in the settings so I don't strain my eyes when analyzing data.

Digital Storm Community - 11.5/10 If it wasn't for you guys I wouldn't have been able to sort through the builds as easily based on my needs. Using you guys as reference really helped me out!


Digital Storm over all - 10.5/10 I really wished I found about this place a lot sooner! I think I will be satisfied with this build for quite sometime, haha!

Edited by antinaka - 26 Apr 2014 at 7:11pm

Looks real nice.  Thanks for the review and pics. 

Awesome! Thanks for choosing Digital Storm. I'm glad you love the PC!

It is a nice desk, Costco or not. 

Very nice, I still remember how excited I was when I got mine.

Very Nice Rig. Love the pics and the review.