Well that's the build done, first PC built in about 20 years
Case: SG05 with fan swapped out for a Noctua NF-F12 PWM
Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-I
CPU: I5 9600K
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 16GB
GPU: MSI 2070 Super Ventus OC
Storage: Western Digital Black NVMe 1TB
CPU Cooler: BeQuiet Shadow Rock LP with fan swapped out for a Noctua NF-A12X25 PWM
PSU: Corsair SF750 with fan swapped out for a Noctua A9x14 PWM (based the PSU on GPU recommendations but if I am honest I think it is over the top)
Optical Drive: Bluray slotload combi burner
Build went reasonably smoothly, motherboard is a pain and if I had known before I installed it the issues I might have chosen something different, VRM heatsink and I/O shield is just really bulky, limits coolers (couldn't fit a Noctua NH-L12S which would have been first choice based on thermal performance v noise).
The build was limited to air cooling only, water cooling was ruled out by wanting to fit in the optical drive, it is being used as a bit of a gaming rig and a home theater PC so needed to be quiet and have the bluray for back catalogue.
The rest of the components fitted really well (lots of research on here and technical manual measurements which got a little tedious in the end but measure twice and all that) although you do need to take unconventional approaches to which components are fitted when
1. CPU cooler bracket to motherboard
2. Hard-drive into motherboard
3. Motherboard into case
4. Took the opportunity to remove the 2 USB 3 ports the case came with and replace with one USB 3 and one USB C (see front picture, again found out SIlverStone actually sell this but then half the fun is mucking about right?) Then spent some time making the front panel cables the right length so soldering and crimping again, all to route around the bottom edge of the case, a bit tedious but worth it for air flow. Also adjusted the length of the case fan cable to neatly route around the bottom edge on the other side
4. GPU into motherboard (simply couldn't get it in with even RAM fitted)
5. RAM
6. CPU
7. Cooler
8. PSU (before fitting I checked out the noise levels, air flow and power details of the fan on it and took the opportunity to swap it out for the Noctua fan, little bit of a solder and crimp to to the GPU style PWM connector and all good
9. Measured up and made GPU cables to length
10. Completely chopped the optical drive bay down removing all other drive bays and chopping out some of the back section and extending the holes for the GPU power connectors, spray painted it to make it look neat, needed to chop some more so left it not painted. Took a slim optical drive adapter, cut it down the middle to separate the power from the data, then made a connector direct to the PSU, reducing cabling was a real aim on this
11. Was really happy with the build and its thermals and then put it in a cupboard and was surprised that it began to get hot
12. Completely deconstructed it in the reverse of above, added a splitter to the case fan PWM cable, chopped a small section out of the I/O shield routed a PWM cable through and chopped a bit out of the I/O backplate for the connector to be fixed into, added a fan to the cabinet the runs off the case fan PWM, whisper quiet and only speeds up with the case fan... reconstruct as above. Also took the opportunity to replace those mental power and HDD LEDs that enable you to see your skeleton on the wall behind you.
13. For no real reason replaced the GPU cables I made with some custom ones to match the rest of the PSU cables, really wish I hadn't bothered because the ones I had made were about the same
So thermal performance (no overclocking at the minute) at ambient temp of 22 degrees Celsius and with some pretty light fan curves to ensure it remains as quiet as possible for as along as possible
IDLE
Mainboard 36 (delta 14)
CPU 32 (delta 10)
Hard drive 42 (delta 20, the MB has the hard-drive stacked on the PCH as a cooler arrangement which I am not sure is the best)
GPU 30 (delta 8)
Furmark 1080 gets GPU to 70 (delta 48) at 166 FPS
Furmark 2160 gets GPU to 74 (delta 52) at 60 FPS
Prim95 gets CPU to 64 (delta 42)
Black MESA on 1080 gets
CPU 42 (delta 20)
GPU 65 (delta 43)
All in all a neat little machine which is genuinely less than 20db in normal operation, less than 25db in 1080 gaming for any length of time, the loudest bit in the machine is the optical drive. Pretty happy
Thanks for everyone who has posted on the forum which helped me not to have to make huge errors
as well as some light general usage, like browsing and Skype with friends and family.
