Aurora R8, Experience of Buying

@r72019 :

I went and read some of the 3 or less stars review on big online retailer. Seems that some of the trays required such as a $5 tray to mount the H150i AIO isn't shipped with the case, and OOS as well. As to why said reviewer was thinking about mounting an AIO in this case, that's his choice. 

@Anonymous , @Cass-Ole , @r72019 , @coldfish_91 , @amstel78 , @HanoverB :

Today, on the first day of 2020, I struck down the first anaconda.

Comparing the PSU swing arm chamber before and after:

Tested with Dr. Power II before plugging in. It's ALIVE!

Ran basic XTU benchmark, bumped up to max OC profile, reran XTU benchmark, followed by Prime95 small FFT. No board VRM warning or smoke (yet).

Hopefully I can get the CPU_PWR and GPU_PWR cables done by this weekend.

@No board VRM warning or smoke (yet).

That's a good sign, since the time for fireworks was yesterday night!

@Anonymous :

The images you posted just got approved this morning. Love that similarity you pointed out. 

Is that an InWin case you were looking at? I think it's going for > $1k. Those guys build really crazy cases but some are really nice. I just learnt about them yesterday while looking at EKWB's website and started googling about what case was used for their EK Supremacy line demo. It's the InWin 909 which is pretty much extinct. 

Thinking of just bleeding out the and get the Phanteks Elite before it goes the way of some great extinct casing. 

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@GTS81 wrote:

Today, on the first day of 2020, I struck down the first anaconda.

Ran basic XTU benchmark, bumped up to max OC profile, reran XTU benchmark, followed by Prime95 small FFT. No board VRM warning or smoke (yet).

 

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That all looks very nice (much better air-flow).

GPU with Liquid-Cooling looks like a factory-installed option. However, if GPU-radiator assembly is there, where is the Aurora's "Front Fan" ?

@Tesla1856 :

GPU with Liquid-Cooling looks like a factory-installed option. However, if GPU-radiator assembly is there, where is the Aurora's "Front Fan" ?

Good catch. It's at the upper front chassis but the newly sleeved custom cable is pushing against it. I planned the cable length before thinking about moving a fan up there. My previous setup was sans a front fan and relying on negative pressure to work for the CPU radiator fan.

How did I work around FRONT_FAN header POST error? I hooked that up to the Kraken G12's GPU PWM fan. With the EVGA Hybrid, I don't need to do that anymore so I had to find another "victim" fan hence I placed that 120mm intake fan at the top front.

@Anonymous :

If you can move your build timeframe to June, with CES 2020 next week, you can hope for more new offerings in cases. The InWin 925 is a scaled down 928 but only fits 2x 360 (45mm?) radiators. While an excess in water cooling loop sometimes means the most/ thickest/ longest radiator, maybe it can also mean less in radiators but more in bigger/ double reservoirs, interesting bends, fittings, etc?

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@GTS81 wrote:

@Tesla1856 :

GPU with Liquid-Cooling looks like a factory-installed option. However, if GPU-radiator assembly is there, where is the Aurora's "Front Fan" ?

It's at the upper front chassis

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Cool. I thought it might be but could-not quite tell from those pics. Yes, that should all work just fine. 

Oh, one more question ... the GPU-radiator-fan ... is it blowing hot-air out, or bringing cool-air in ?

So... I've just gone "928 hunting" and here's what I found out (that you probably have as well):

1. Jayztwocents has one.

2. It costs $999 retail when available in May 2019.

3. InWin says it is out of production.

4. People are begging for it right up to 2 weeks ago.

5. People are speculating a 928 refresh in CES, that InWin would not confirm nor deny.

6. InWin will have a CES Booth in LV this year.

Sources: The company's Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Woke up this morning to this itch to move to a Z390 motherboard and new casing. Is there a PC-building-addict Anonymous help group I can join?

EDIT: The saddest thing of all is I'm modding and building my PC which I then play "PC Building Simulator" on it. 

@Anonymous :

If you compare the 925 with the C700M, doesn't the C700M come out to be bigger and supporting 2x 420mm rads compared to the 2x 360mm rads in the InWin?

I actually found one seller in a south east Asian country that has a 928 for sale (and a few having the 909 in stock ) but I don't feel comfortable doing such a big transaction virtually. At $1000, the selling price converted to the local currency is 4.5k which is more than what most fresh undergrads earns monthly. I will be back there for a short visit end of this year. Seems that certain tech parts like Galax 2080 Ti can be bought there. I'd just have to be very careful buying stuff there due to counterfeits and unscrupulous sellers ripping off unsuspecting buyers. Especially if they smell US Dollars coming from you. 

Now, should I pick up the phone and call InWin Taiwan?

@Anonymous :

It appears to be built solid, where the C700M is built like a toy, so it could be more modular and flipped around and have much optionality.

I'd like to think of it the other way around. The 925 looks quite rigid in design and uses up so much for the thickness of the frame such that the internal real estate gets shaved away. Where the thick bars are wrapped by the aluminium panel, if they are reduced by 1/2, you'd get some really beefy radiators into the casing.

Of course I'm biased here because I love modular case design. Favorite so far is the Dark Base Pro 900 Rev. 2 which has been touted as one of the most modular cases around. 

@Anonymous :

Look what I stumbled upon:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raijinteks-eris-evo-case-accommodates-8-feet-of-radiators

https://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail.php?ProductID=124

And there's some stock for stuff across the pond. Unfortunately the 928 comes up as "exceeding maximum weight for shipment" 

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/in-win-928-full-tower-gaming-case-black-ca-08l-iw.html

EDIT: That overclockers UK site is killing my productivity! Check this build based on the Lian-Li PC-V3000 out:

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/rFr6Mp

"I want to build a beautiful monster gaming PC and I want to document my process to share with others to give back for all the great builds others have made. As such, I created this youtube channel to document a noob building a custom PC. "

And look where he found his machine shop. I think these guys will become your new best friends:

https://clockwerkindustries.com/index.php/about-us/

Check this out:

Nocuta NF-A12 x 15mm black slim fan.........no more ugly fan

https://noctua.at/en/nf-a12x15-pwm-chromax-black-swap 

Good job with the Dremel and those temps are great.

Centering the fan on the chassis takes a lot more work and measuring, I had to do it for the blowhole in the XPS 8930.

Was the issue the temps with the fan slightly offset or the fan wouldn't fit under the front bezel with the offset placement?  Or just min/max experimenting for better GPU temps?

@HanoverB :

Was the issue the temps with the fan slightly offset or the fan wouldn't fit under the front bezel with the offset placement?  Or just min/max experimenting for better GPU temps?

It was a little bit of both. If you looked at the picture of the inside of the front bezel I posted, those 2 vertical plastic pieces are just a mm or two wider than the width of a 120mm fan. So that means only 1 place for the fan to rest in. Before this latest mod, the right side of the 120x15mm fan was overlapping with the inner bezel piece leading to the bezel slightly pushing back the fan towards the radiator and tilting it inward a little.

And as I know that the theoretical limit is 50C thanks to the open rad test you recommended me to do, I wanted to see if a purely orthogonal airflow can bring me nearer to that.

Now I can't even see my own comments. 

Edit:  Figured it out.  It seems Dell reversed the order in which posts appear, from oldest first, to newest first.