Cosmos SR-X- Factor

[coolmiester]

Well with the new EVGA SR-X hitting the retailers, its time for a new build to coincide with the release.

My aim is to show off the ridiculously high spec of the new 2011 platform together with a couple of EVGA GTX680 Hydro Copper cards.

Due to the massive HPTX form factor, i've decided to use the Cosmos II to house it all in which can handle the size no problem and in fact looks much better in my opinion as a normal ATX board gets dwarfed in there.

So, the spec so far which will be added to as things progress and a quick look at the SR-X motherboard...

System Spec:
Cosmos II
EVGA SR-X Motherboard
Intel 2011 CPU’s
EVGA GTX680 Hydro Copper GPU’s
Memory – TBA
SSD’s - TBA
Coolermaster 1300w Silent Pro Hybrid PSU

 

[coolmiester]

Still waiting on a few parts to arrive so decided to crack out the laser guided fret saw and make a new bezel for the reservoir complete with the EVGA X logo that will be back lit so the red edges glow.

Started by sticking some red 3mm plexi to an offcut of 1.5mm aluminium then applying the X template which is split down the middle so actually made things a little easier.

Anyway, cut both of the X bits out followed by a bit of filing and sanding the edges then moved on to a bit of 5mm gloss black plexi that will fit into the entire drive bay section of the Cosmos II – marked a rectangle and cut that out......bit more filing and sanding the edges and that’s about it really – sorry it wasn’t a bit more interesting.

Oh yeah, one of the GTX680 Hydro Copper Cards also tuned up which look really nice and just waiting on the other to arrive

 

[DBZ33]

What cpu's are you going to run? Can't wait to see how it turns out. Great job.

 

[USF-Nealio]

Dream build is dreamy.

 

[coolmiester]

What cpu's are you going to run? Can't wait to see how it turns out. Great job.

Cheers, going for a couple of Xeon E5-2687W's which should be here Monday.

 

[Noblesoft]

Looks slick, subbed.

Just out of curiosity, could you comment on the hardware you used to make the cuts? Is it just the fret saw you mentioned above? They make a laser guided one of those? @_@

I am planning on a similar process of adhering aluminum to some plexi, then backlighting it (see here: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038737991&postcount=24), but have no tools yet to fabricate this. Was gonna start doing some research on bending aluminum/plexi also, since I haven't ever tried this level of fabrication before.

Thanks for any info you can provide!

 

[coolmiester]

LOL the laser bit was meant to be a joke – i had an awesome metal work teacher when i was a kid and to this day use an identical cheap £10 Fretsaw with 42 TPI blades which admittedly can be pretty hard to master but once you get the hang of it you can do some neat stuff.

It petrifies me when i see the Dremel culture these days attacking intricate case designs as those things scare the living daylights out of me.

I know a fret saw isn’t everyone's preferred method but it suits me just fine and i find them way more user friendly and would recommend anyone give one a go before jumping for the dreaded Dremel

 

[Noblesoft]

I know a fret saw isn’t everyone's preferred method but it suits me just fine and i find them way more user friendly and would recommend anyone give one a go before jumping for the dreaded Dremel

Noted! I have a dremel, and don't get me wrong, it has it's places... but it can do a lot of damage as you said (my tear down of my case over on the Azuremight v3 thread can attest... )

I always was one for hand tools, too... looks like I'll be stopping by the local hardware store on the way home tonight. Thanks for the info!

 

[Jesse B]

I always love builds involving this board. Everything is looking great so far!

 

[coolmiester]

Cheers for the feedback

Just quickly had to mount 4 red LEDS to the reverse side to see if the red plexi was going to glow OK and all looks well considering these were taken in day light so should look much better at events where it always tends to be darker.

 

[craigbru]

Beautiful work as always man. I may not build anything but SFF, but your mods are always inspiring just the same.

 

[coolmiester]

I've got to totally strip the case and get it ready for the painter on Monday but couldn't resist seeing what the bezel and res looked like in place.

I've also made some Aurora Red dye to match the logo which looks pretty cool and can be seen better in the Youtube video at the bottom.

Intel Xeon E5-2687W s2011 CPU's should be here Monday and hoping to go quad Sli on the Hydro Copper 680's but not sure on that just yet but with a bit of luck i might be able to get it fired up on the bench at some point next week but at least i'm well happy with the way the front end is looking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18Mim3zpNyI

 

[coolmiester]

My apologies to all hoping to see a bit of a mod update but i’ve had a few teething problems with the SR-X board – nothing major but as there is very little info out there at this point it was a little trial and error which is very quite time consuming but got their in the end and just want to update the thread as it may help others in the future.

Here’s the shortened version - the week started off great with a nice package from Intel landing early Monday in the shape of a couple of retail Xeon E5 2687W CPU’s so i set about getting the system up and running on the bench, air cooled so installed a GTX295 dual PCB graphics card and managed to get a fresh install of W7 but immediately ran into problems with BSOD.

Tried as i might to get it to run stable that night, it wasn’t to be so was well happy when i woke the next morning to find a new BIOS had been released for the board but the happiness didn’t last long as once the new BIOS was flashed i wasn’t able to get a signal to the monitor.

The SR-X comes with a three way switch to load separate BIOS’s so decided to risk another and flashed the second with the new BIOS which led to the same problem.

Looking back now I’m wondering to myself why i didn’t swap the graphics card out but it really didn’t cross my mind at the time and it was only when another guy posted similar problems with a GTX690 on the EVGA forum that the penny sort of dropped.

Both of us were using dual CPU graphics cards so swapped my 295 out and replaced it with a GTX7800 (stop laughing) and BINGO, working fine and BSOD had been fixed with the new BIOS so all working champion and i can now get on to running a few benchmarks but more to the point, get on with making the case look pretty.

Sorry for the long winded post which probably doesn’t mean a lot to most but you never know who’s searching Google – full original thread here - EVGA SR-X - BIOS 013 Released
Oh the other good news was that a second EVGA GTX680 Hydro Copper arrived so couldn’t resist getting a few photo’s of that fitted to the board

Anyway, a few pictures.....

stop laughing at my GTX7800 hehehehehehe

 

[coolmiester]

I couldn't get the case painted before the bank holiday and neither could i wait to get this up and running but luckily most of the parts that will be getting painted can be removed without too much disruption to the system.

Started to hose route the build last night but had a change of heart on the way to route the Hydro Copper blocks - i went for the curved look at first but decided swapping overnight and going for the straighter route which left a shorter run back to the bay-res which looks better IMO and keeps things even more minimal which is definitely the look i was after though pretty tricky considering the size of the motherboard i had to squeeze in but at least it fills the Cosmos II up.

Just need to add some fluids and do a bit of cable management and i can get this beast fired up

 

[Noblesoft]

Looking great! Those red metallic head spreaders on the ram really stand out against the black case/motherboard. Love the contrast.

Are you planning on painting any accents in red? I think that would really add to it. Not too much, mind you... just some accent pieces.

Did you sleeve the 8 pin power connectors to the VGA cards yourself, or are those default? If you are still planning on sleeving them, or want to try something... consider some red sleeving, or maybe one/two red sleeves with the rest staying black. Just a thought.

 

[Stevennoland]

Looking awesome man! Will follow this thread for sure.

 

[coolmiester]

Fluids added........time to hit the GO button

 

[DBZ33]

Love the build. Congrats.

 

[Goatsongoats]

That is awesome looking. The lack of symmetry in the ram slots doesn't even bother me as much as I thought it would. How are the RayStorms with cooling the 2687Ws? Any luck with getting above 105 BCLK?

 

[coolmiester]

Cheers Guys, not even tried clocking yet but the Raystorms are doing a stella job at cooling

Well not exactly how i’d envisioned things happening but a few initial teething problems with the BIOS and a bank holiday to contend with meant the chassis painting was delayed and with Computex kicking off in two days, i decided to complete the build so at least i could grab some pictures of the fully working system and luckily all the parts that are getting painted can be easily removed in the coming week or so and paint work carried out.

I just wish i had better photographic skills as i haven’t done this thing justice because in real life it looks absolutely stunning even though i say so myself..........i honestly don’t think there is one aspect i’m unhappy with and the X logo on the front looks amazing.

Anyway, a few finished (until its painted) photos and spec....

System Spec:
Cosmos II
EVGA SR-X Motherboard
Intel Xeon E5-2687W s2011 CPU’s
EVGA GTX680 Hydro Copper GPU’s
Memory – Kingston HyperX 48GB
SSD’s - Kingston 120GB
Coolermaster 1300w Silent Pro Hybrid PSU

 

[fullvietFX]

Are the CPUs overclocked at all? Also did you install the red LEDs on the videocard and CPU block? This computer looks stunning.

 

[coolmiester]

Are the CPUs overclocked at all? Also did you install the red LEDs on the videocard and CPU block? This computer looks stunning.

Although the EVGA SR-X board supports overclocking, unfortunately Intel E5's are locked so no overclocking with these particular CPU's.

The XSPC Raystorm CPU blocks can use any 3mm colour LED but the EVGA Hydro Copper Blocks came with red LEDs as standard which was amazing as i thought they would be blue but yeah red fits right in with the rest of the build so no complaints from me

 

[fullvietFX]

Just googled these CPUs and saw that they are octo-core. *droools*

 

[coolmiester]

Just googled these CPUs and saw that they are octo-core. *droools*

LOL, yes they are, they don't overclock but between the two of them have 32 threads at 3.1GHz

 

[fullvietFX]

LOL, yes they are, they don't overclock but between the two of them have 32 threads at 3.1GHz

Aren't they 3.8GHz?

 

[Goatsongoats]

You mess with the turbo at all?

 

[Opty1218]

Aren't they 3.8GHz?

Looks like the Cinebench run is complete in the background. So the processors are probably idling and clocked down when he took the screenshot. As for the processors being 3.8Ghz, they only turbo up to 3.8 on low-threaded loads, iirc. So atleast for Cinebench, I think the processors would be using all the cores/threads at the stock non-turbo speed of 3.1Ghz.

 

[DraginDime]

Awesome build Coolmeister, the drive bay cover with the X logo you made is just wicked.

 

[HAF72]

Wow, now this is an awesome build! Wish I had the money and skills...

 

[coolmiester]

A BIG thanks to Intel and to show my appreciation i thought i'd make them a nice logo for the upcoming iSeries event

 

[coolmiester]

A few pictures of the SR-X system on the Cooler Master booth at the recent Multiplay i46 LAN

 

[coolmiester]

Well the newly installed EVGA SuperNOVA NEX1500 Classified Power Supply finishes this mod off perfectly and i’ve got to say, i think this is as close to perfection i will ever get.

Yes there were a couple of issues with the original BIOS on the SR-X board which were quickly ironed out but since then i’ve never looked back and its been rock solid ever since.

Simply put, there is absolutely nothing i would change with this system which is probably a first for me.........oh wait, yeah i’d add another couple of 680’s for good measure or swap them out for a couple of 690’s but apart from that, this is as good as it gets for me.

Final Spec and a few pictures with the new PSU...

CoolerMaster Cosmos II
EVGA SR-X Motherboard
Intel Xeon E5-2687W s2011 CPU’s
EVGA GTX680 Hydro Copper GPU’s
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX1500 Classified PSU
Kingston Limited Edition HyperX 48GB Memory
Kingston HyperX SSD’s
XSPC EX480
XSPC EX240 Multiport x2
XSPC Raystorm CPU Blocks
XSPC D5 Pumps
Bitspower Fittings
7/16” Masterkleer Hose
Thermochill FC6 Liquid
Phobya 120mm Fans

 

[Noblesoft]

Very nice! All the pieces in the case compliment each-other very well.