[Build log] Middle school science fair project system

[DonkeyOatie]

The last parts for this build arrived today.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($70.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK PALLAS 56.5 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($116.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX200 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($211.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($79.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series SP120 Quiet Edition (2-Pack) 37.9 CFM 120mm Fans ($27.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $799.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-28 16:47 EDT-0400

Since it was built, a number of spare parts, upgrades, and patent donations have changed the system to this (Jan 2016), with a huge improvement in performance. It rocks for editing and rendering as well as games.:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($314.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($79.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M OC Formula Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX200 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($159.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Video Card ($552.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($58.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($84.89 @ OutletPC)
Wireless Network Adapter: TRENDnet TEW-804UB 802.11a/b/g/n/ac USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($17.95 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series SP120 Quiet Edition (2-Pack) 37.9 CFM 120mm Fans ($27.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1476.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-15 19:39 EST-0500



No, I have not lost my mind (entirely). I have some students who want to investigate overclocking, memory performance, configuration and secondary, and CPU cooling timings for science fair projects next year.

The G3258 is easy and flexible to overclock, and if it gets fried, it's cheap to replace. I don't need to use a Z97board, but that's for the 4690K or 4790K to follow. The board I have chosen is not the greatest, but with six decent power phases and good parts, and a bargain price, after rebate, it's a good choice (since I'm funding this thing). I do expect to overclock the Pentium well on is and get to a decent level on an i5 or i7,

The cooler is also designed to be a step up for an i5 or i7. We will be cooling the Pentium with the stock cooler. Once we reach the limit, we will try the Pallas and see if we can get a little more. I got it open box at 35% off, so it was a great deal.

The parts are small because ultimately, since I paid for them, I'm going to use them to build my own new home system. (My wife's system go built last year)

The memory was provided by a parent. I was going to get Mushkin Redline, but free is good too. We expect to tighten up the timings considerably at Pentium speeds. For i5 or i7 I expect to be able to use them fully.

I need plenty of room for benchmarks, data capture, and some test games, so out with the HDD. For $189, this is a very good deal.

Good PSU with $20 rebate.

Case is big, to allow for work inside, good cooling, possible 240mm radiator, and general cooling and manipulation space. Seems huge compared to the V1. The case will probably end up in a student build along with any other parts I don't want or need.

Anyway, what's done is done, and if there were any significant errors made, I'll be sure to share them to warn others off. I'll decide what GPU I use when it becomes mine next year.

The case is huge as far as I am concerned.

Cases: V21 vs V1

I expect to start building next week.

The capacious Thermaltake Core V21 with the side panels off.

Side panels (2) have removable magnetic filters.

The PSU goes easily in the basement and the motherboard fits on the upper level tray with plenty of clearance for a cooler (except to the back)

Cooler would not fit on motherboard in case.
What comes with the new motherboard. SLI bridge, couple of SATA cables, I/O shield, board and overclocking manuals, disk, M2 screw, and ASRock Cloud info.

Compared with the mini-ITX board.

RAIJINTEK Pallas with ASUS GPU. The tips of the heatpipes have plenty of clearance at the back.

With the memory fitted to test clearance. - Great!

and with the fan.

Motherboard installed.

and from the side.

Boot and POST

I had to take the motherboard out to put in the backplate and it was a problem to align the mounting rails with the crossbar, so I put the crossbar in temporarily and tightened down the mounting rails.

And here is the Pallas mounted in place. It fits!

Data from this system

G3258 memory, GPU and overclocking http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2706290/g3258-memory-overclocking-project-reults.html

i5 4690K memory, overclocking, and GPU data http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2719471/4690k-memory-overclocking-project-results.html

G3258 4130 4690K comparison http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2761496/4130-4ghz-memory-testing-pentium-comparison-results.html

Haswells vs synthetic benchmarks, G3258, i3 4130, 4690K, Xeon 1231v3 http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2791401/xeon-1231v3-haswells-synthetic-benchmarks-science-fair.html

 

[DonkeyOatie]

RAIJINTEK PALLAS Overview

Planning the CPU cooler fitting and options. To start with, we will be using the G3258 on the stock cooler, then trying the PALLAS to see what extra speed we can get. We will do a benchmark set with both coolers as a base-line system.

The PALLAS can be installed N, S, E or W. In one configuration with the end of the heatpipes pointing to the I/O shield, the Memory is accessible.

Cooler in top of ASRock Z97E ITX/ac mini-ITX motherboard to W

Oriented heatpipes point E.

Oriented to S

Oriented to N. You can see the RAM slots.

Fan in place.

With memory in place (G.Skill Trident X)

I have received a GTX 970 as a gift and it will be incorporated into the build.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Construction has started. Photos are awaiting vetting. Put in PSU, SDD, and motherboard. The case builds easily so far.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Definite problem. The RAIJINTEK Pallas does fit on the motherboard, however when it is on, the motherboard will not fit in the case. The tips of the heatpipes extend beyond the case, beyond the I/O shield. There is only one way it will fit in this case, covering all the memory, and I don't want to use that orientation, so either I use a different motherboard, a different case, a different cooler, or mod the case with my trusty Mr. Dremel.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

I decided to nix that. The only orientation that will fit in the case is S, and the will block access to the memory which will interfere with out plans to mess with and swap out memory. I have decided to get another motherboard and reuse the mITX board in another gaming build. I have decided to get an ASRock Z97M OC Formula. It's an excellent overclocking board for mATX and good for SLI too and the extra size and different CPU placement will allow us to orient the cooler to the N, and it will fit in the case.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

This is a bit out of sequence. Here's the build under way.

The capacious Thermaltake Core V21 with the side panels off.

Side panels (2) have removable magnetic filters.

The PSU goes easily in the basement and the motherboard fits on the upper level tray with plenty of clearance for a cooler (except to the back)

 

[DonkeyOatie]

My new motherboard arrived. ASRock Z97M OC Formula in yellow/gold. The old motherboard will be used in another build. After this project is complete the i7 4790K can stay in this case, the i5 4690K can go with the old motherboard in a new system, and the two G3258s can find a new home (if they survive)

What comes with the motherboard. SLI bridge, couple of SATA cables, I/O shiled, board and overclocking manuals, disk, M2 screw, and ASRock Cloud info.

Compared with the mini-ITX board.

RAIJINTEK Pallas with ASUS GPU. The tips of the heatpipes have plenty of clearance at the back.

With the memory fitted to test clearance. - Great!

and with the fan.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Motherboard installed.

and from the side.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Photos to follow, but system POSTed and booted to BIOS today Yay!

 

[kimbo_schlice]

I was hoping to use the Raijentek Pallas in a new mITX build in the Silverstone SG13, because it's low profile and it's gotten great performance reviews. Well, PCPartPicker had been telling me that the Pallas and the Silverstone SG13 case are incompatible ever since I added them to my build list. I thought it was a height issue that I was getting around by using a shorter SFX PSU (the power supply is mounted at the top of the SG13), but after seeing the pictures in this thread and talking with DonkeyOatie I realized the issue is how far the Pallas would hang over my ASRock H97M-ITX/ac motherboard. Unfortunately I've already ordered the Pallas, so I'll be returning it when it arrives. I'm leaning towards the Noctua NH-L12 in single fan configuration now. Moral of the story, listen to PCPartPicker!

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Here's some more photos showing the overhang of the RAIJINTEK Pallas on the ASRock Z97e ITX/ac motherboard.

With ruler for measurement.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

In order to make sure that my students will get useful information out of their project, I have been working on things for the last week or so.

Now all I have to do is work out how to post the data table I have without the board removing all the formatting.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

I started a new thread for the data we have collected. here http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2694458/middle-school-science-fair-investigation-input-advice.html

 

[Frozen Fractal]

I would've almost cried if this would happen to me (that Pallas-on-mITX nightmare)

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Lucky we do lots of builds and I can re-use the cooler or motherboard. It fits easily into the case with the mATX board. I could have returned it.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Link to overclocking data analysis http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2706290/g3258-memory-overclocking-project-reults.html

 

[DonkeyOatie]

The new G3258 is going in and I hope I can get m ore than 4.2Ghz. To help the process, the RAIJINTEK Pallas is being fitted.

I had to take the motherboard out to put in the backplate and it was a problem to align the mounting rails with the crossbar, so I put the crossbar in temporarily and tightened down the mounting rails.

And here is the Pallas mounted in place. It fits!

I have collected temperature data on the old G3258 at various clock speeds and using the stock cooler, and I will compare the results using the Pallas and later water cooling.

 

[Frozen Fractal]

Okay, that should be interesting.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

So far at stock speeds and memory, Prime95 shows a drop from 61C to 52C with the Pallas over the stock cooler for the G3258

 

[Frozen Fractal]

That's 14.75% dip in temps! Nice!! But waiting to see clock-to-clock temps and "shooting for the moon" results

 

[BernieJJ]

I decided to nix that. The only orientation that will fit in the case is S, and the will block access to the memory which will interfere with out plans to mess with and swap out memory. I have decided to get another motherboard and reuse the mITX board in another gaming build. I have decided to get an ASRock Z97M OC Formula. It's an excellent overclocking board for mATX and good for SLI too and the extra size and different CPU placement will allow us to orient the cooler to the N, and it will fit in the case.

Just a quick question, on the south orientation, do you think the cpu cooler would still fit if the RAM slots were populated before fitting it?

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Yes, if the RAM is short enough. I would need to take the removable heat spreaders off my G.Skill Trident X to make it fit, but other memory would work. In this system, we will be changing memory a lot ( 1 x 4, 2 x 4, 1 x 8, 2 x 8, and 2 x 4 + 2 x 8) so it would be very inconvenient if we had to remove the cooler each time.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

I have decided to upgrade to 'big air' to see if we can get to 4.8Ghz on the i5 4690K (4.7Ghz at 1.310V at the moment) I'm still prepared to go to 'big liquid' like a Swiftech H-220X.

Because we are using the ASRock Z97M OC formula motherboard, a Noctua NH D15 will not fit. It blocks the PCIe slot. We also need to have access to the Trident X memory so we can change memory configuration in the middle of overclocking. So, the answer seems to be the new Noctua NH D15S which is an asymmetric cooler, with the radiator unit skewed away from the PCIe slot and with cut-outs for the memory.

Heres the box it came in

inside are two smaller boxes, well one small and one pretty big.

The small box contains the mounting hardware AMD and INTEL, a screwdriver, thermal paste (same as I use for standard), neat badge, low-noise cable, and clips for a second fan.

and finally a honking huge radiator with fan mounted. I'll need to take the fan out to mount the cooler. The fan has higher RPM and flow than the two on the standard NH D15 and the temperatures are supposed to be quite similar. I can fit another fan with the supplied clips, if I need it.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

'Big dog' cooler in place.

From the side

I need to fix the fan clip. You can see plenty (well, enough at least) for the G. Skill Trident X memory with tall spreaders under the radiator on the left and clearance to the top of the Thermaltake Core V21 is big.

From the top, you can see the space to the left for access to the PCI-e slot for my GPU.

 

[Frozen Fractal]

Looks cool, especially the packaging - which noctua, ofcourse, is famous for

Anyway, so this should give you more headroom for OCing that rodent of your. This by turn should give you the roof of the OC room. Looking forward to the data. :thumb: