It’s been many years since I started Invision Community, previously called Invision Game Community, but recently we knocked the ‘Game’ from the title as we wanted to branch out and cover movies, technology, and entertainment as well. Well It’s now 2017, some time has passed since I started the idea of Invision back when I was in University 2011, 2 years of designing and reimaging and four years then of total domination of our website as we grow and create more and more content thanks to the help and support from many PR, Publishers and Developers around the globe, without them we simply would not be where we are now, so thanks all.
As we have grown we have also started to show off our site and the gaming industry to local Schools and Universities around wales, well local for now, where we take our products to show off to the kids what is possible and we thought, the best thing we could show off is a PC fully built with the support of PR teams (Public Relations) so end of 2016 I asked, and in 2017 I received, so now thanks to the companies that supported, we are able to build and showcase Invision’s first High-end Gaming Rig.
So first of all thanks to the following companies
What did we get to build well this is the spec
- MSI Z170A Gaming M3 Motherboard
- Crucial 3000mHz 32GB Ballistic Tactical DDR4 Ram
- Cooler Master Seidon 120 V2 Cooler
- Cooler Master Pro 5 NVIDIA Edition Case
- Cooler Master V850 PSU
- Intel Core i5 7600, Kaby Lake, Quad Core, 4 Thread, 3.5GHz, 4.1GHz Turbo, 6MB Cache, CPU
- 2x 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache HDD
- 1x 6TB X300 High Performance Hard Drive from Toshiba
- 1x 128GB ADATA SSD – Boot Drive
- 1x 275GB Crucial SSD – 2nd Boot Drive
- 1x GPU Still TBC
- TP Link TL-WDN4800 N450 PCI-E Network Card
- 2X CoolerMaster SickleFlow 120mm Silent Green LED PC Case Cooling Fans
- And BIOSTAR
Motherboard first the MSI Z170A Gaming M3 with latest Bios update, runs off socket 1151 and support up to an i7 CPU. Supports up to 3600(OC) DDR 4 Memory, with a max memory of 64GB based on 4 DIMM slots. 2x PCI-Ex16, 2x PCI-Ex1 and a PCI-E Gen 3 and 3 STD PCI. Comes with 2 SATA Express ports and 4 SATA3 ports and 1 2280 M.2 SSD Slot, enough slots for loads of storage. Has support for USB 3.0 front and has 4 USB Gen 1 and 2 USB Gen 2 3.1 Ports on the back, and the old school USB 2.0 x 2. Forgot to mention that the motherboard’s form factor is ATX.
The first thing I did was attached the CPU to the Pin set, easy to do, slots in and can only be slotted in one way, easy job, pull a lever up, with the placeholder for the CPU, slot in CPU, push back down, clip in place, how hard is that. Next thing to do was attach the motherboard to the case, using motherboard feet and screws, another simple job, but it was not going to be that easy to finish this part of the build as I had the water cooler from Cooler Master to attach.
The Cooler Master Seidon 120V Ver.2 a Factory filled Liquid Cooler, sealed and pressure tested, which will require no maintenance for years, the questions is how many year? Comes with an optimized water block, which offers the best water flow and system performance. A 120mm Radiator for heat dissipation and a 120mm Silencio Fan for strong air pressure and low noise, which is very true.
Attaching this was no walk in the park; I had to assemble the Mounting bracket first, then push the mounting bracket through the back of the motherboard through four holes around the CPU, see below for the picture of the Seidon Mountain System.
Once I had the mounting bracket through, it was time to thermal paste the CPU, for this I used Artic MX-4 Thermal compound, I have always used this compound and trust it more than anything else on the market currently, so it was a no brainer what I was going to use.
After pasting a small amount on the CPU it was time to mount the Cooler to the case
I had already attached the fan to the radiator and was now ready to attach the radiator the back of the case with four screws, but for some reason the screws did not attach the radiator firmly, the cooler was able to move up and down, I was not able to tighten the screws anymore, not sure if this was an oversight from Cooler Master or a general design choice.
Now to attach the block to the CPU, this was tricky, one side I had the mounting bracket which was being held in place by four holes, and can easily be pushed out and on the CPU side, I had another bracket that needed to go over the mounting bracket and be screwed down, if there was any force on the mounting bracket, it would simply pop out of the motherboard. So I slowly aligned up the Cooling block bracket the mounting bracket, making sure the mounting bracket screws went through the holes made available on the cooling bracket, then it was a simple case of attaching the cooler block bolts to the end of the mounting bracket screw ends, one at a time first just so the block was secure, then tighten them up, one at a time, equal amount of tightening per screw, not to tighten up one side more than another, this is highly recommended.
That was the tricky part done, the rest would be simple to a degree, next to install would be the Cooler Master V850 PSU a fully modular cable design with a single 1000w _12V output that delivers up to 70A. Has a 135mm FDB fan for low noise and long lifespan and six PCI-E 6+2 pin connectors for those high-end GPU’s enthusiasts.
The cables you get are 1x M/B 20+4 pin, 2x CPU 4+4 pin, 6x PCI-e 6+2 pin, 9x SATA, 4x Peripheral and 1 floppy.
This was easy to install, all I had to do was remove the PSU bracket from the back of the case, and slide the PSU inside, then screw the PSU to the bracket then finally reattach the bracket to the case, and you are done, simple job.
By now you are probably wondering what case am I using? Well it’s the Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 NVidia Edition and its looks like this;
Nice case right? Well, you can read my full review of this here, where I scored it a 10/10 because it is a fine bit of kit and well worth every penny. So to show you what I mean by PSU bracket, see this image below
Now the PSU is in place I decided to slot in the Memory, a whole 32GB of Crucial Ballistics Tactical Memory 4x 8GB 1.35V 3000Mhz
Specs: DDR4 PC4-24000 • 15-16-16 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR4-3000 • 1.35V • 1024Meg x 64
Ballistix Tactical DDR4 Memory
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS
- Speeds start at 2666 MT/s
- Faster speeds and timings than Ballistix Sport DDR4
- Dual and four channel memory architecture maximizes data rates
- Gun metal gray heat spreader with black PCB
- Certified Intel®XMP 2.0 profiles for easy setup
- Optimized for the latest Intel platforms
Now for the geeks out there, the performance test with Passmark for the Memory
Memory all sorted time to move on the drives, so Boot Drivers, first we have from ADATA the SU800 128GB SSD
Specs are as follows
| Capacity | 128GB – 1TB |
| Form Factor | 2.5″ |
| NAND Flash | 3D TLC |
| Controller | SMI |
| Dimensions (L x W x H) | 100.45 x 69.85 x 7mm |
| Weight | 47.5g |
| Interface | SATA 6Gb/s |
| Sequential R/W performance (max) | Up to 560/520MB/s *Actual performance may vary due to available SSD capacity, system hardware and software components, and other factors |
| Operating temperature | 0°C-70°C |
| Storage temperature | -40°C-85°C |
| Shock resistance | 1500G/0.5ms |
| MTBF | 2,000,000 hours |
And now for the Speed tests done with Crystal Disk Mark 5
The Second boot drive is from Crucial and it’s an MX300 275GB
| Product Specifications | |
| Brand | Crucial |
| Form Factor | 2.5-inch internal SSD |
| Total Capacity | 275GB |
| Warranty | Limited 3-year |
| Specs | 275GB 2.5-inch internal SSD • SATA 6.0Gb/s • 530 MB/s Read, 500 MB/s Write |
| Series | MX300 |
| Product Line | Client SSD |
| Interface | SATA 6.0Gb/s |
| Device Type | Internal Solid State Drive |
| Unit Height | 7.0mm |
| Form Factor | 2.5-inch (7mm) |
And now for its speed test using Crystal Disk Mark 5
Well those are the two SSD Boot drives thanks to ADATA & Crucial for their Help sorting us out with those drives, we are now able to duel boot Windows 7 and Windows 10, so we should have no issues running any games or software from now on.
Upgraded as of 18.02.2017 with a 6TB HDD Mass storage from Toshiba, with the X300 High-Performance Hard Drive.
| Form factor | 3.5-inch |
| Interface | SATA 6.0 Gbit/s |
| Capacity | 6 TB |
| Rotational speed | 7200 rpm |
| Buffer size | 128 MB |
| Dimensions | 147 (L) x 101.6 (W) x 26.1 (H) mm |
| Weight | ca. 770g |
Crystal Disk Mark tests came back with these
This drive is for pure storage, not about speed and does the job perfect for all our gaming needs. Have to give a massive shout out to Toshiba for hooking us up with the Drive, Thanks, Alot.
Let’s go back a little, back to the CPU, I have got an Intel Core i5-7600K 3.80GHz (Kady Lake) Socket 1151 CPU and the specs look like this
Specification:
- Lithography Process: 14 nm
- Cores: 4
- Threads: 4
- Frequency: 3.80 GHz (Turbo Mode GHz)
- Integrated Iris (HD 630) Graphics with 350MHz base clock and up to 1150MHz max GPU clock
- Cache: 6MB shared L3
- Memory Controller: Dual channel DDR4 2133/2400/2666/3000/3200/3600/4000/4200/4400/4600/5000+ MHz
- Socket: LGA1151
Let’s do a Passmark score this CPU and see what it says
This section did belong to PNY, however, due to their ignorance and lack of support they pulled their product back ruining many students and graduates chances to see a system running with one of their cards, which is a shame, but as we say, their loss someone else’s gain TBC
So what does the final build look like, well for that I’ll let the images say it all for me, and massive thanks to Cooler Master, Crucial, ADATA, and big thanks for nothing to PNY.
Oh yeah, final Passmark Score for the system overall.
