iLLucionist reviews his silent Blackhammer Pro build

[iLLucionist]

Y'all I was fed up with my Late 2010 MacBook Pro. I only heard the fans spinning up constantly. Then my mom's Mac Mini died... GPU capacitor. Nothing I could do. Then Apple came out with the MacBook Pro 2016, which I utterly despise. I KNEW IT WAS TIME... time to go back... time to build my own rig again.

Requirements: suitable for high-end gaming, suitable for computation, inaudibly silent.

Software I run: SPSS, VMWare, R, Python, Lightroom, Illustrator, Office, MPlus, databases.

Parts

• Case: Fractal Design R5 Blackout Edition (foam padding for sound, white power led, spacious)
• PSU: Seasonic X-750 (fans off up till 50% load.. silence is bliss)
• CPU: Intel Core i7 6700K (good for multi-threaded AND single threaded)
• GPU: ASUS Strix GTX 970 STRIX DC2OC 4GB GDDR5 (fans off until load... 3 fans)
• SSD 1: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB NVME M.2 (superduperfast)
• SSD 2: Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SATA (fast enough for secondary)
• Motherboard: ASUS MAXIMUS VIII Hero (easy OC for 6700K.. much easy has been done before... 6700K up to 4.8 ghz stable with good voltage and multiplier)
• CPU cooler: Noctua NH-D15 (supersilent and cool)
• Case fans: Noctua NF-A14 PWM x 2 (supersilent)
• Memory: Kingston HyperX Savage DDR4 16x4 kit = 64GB (good for VMing)

So people may think I crazy for not buying 1080. But back then (November 2016) there were no OS X drivers for 1080 and I was still thinking about doing Hackintosh.

The Good

Silence:

It's freakin' silent. I CANNOT hear it. Not even if I hold my head against my case. The fans spin at 300rpm, 500rpm under max load. That's around 7-9 dbA according to the fan specs.

When I game, like BF4 on ultra, I can only hear I light breeze coming out of my case due to the GTX 980 spinning up. My PSU still fans off. It's crazy.

Speed:

My system benches around 14800 in Geekbench 4 multicore 64 bits. Everything is instant in Win7. Whatever I click, I cannot perceive lag / delay in clicking and seeing. This is VASTLY different from my experiences with OSX. I could get up to 16000-16500 if I overclock my CPU but I haven't done so. Compared to my Late 2010 MacBook Pro (4200), it's around 350% faster. wieeeh

Gaming:

QHD (2560x1440) I hit 60 FPS with all my games, except GTA 5. No ragrets in this department. Though now I went from console peasant (PS4) to pc masterrace 60 fps I WANNA GO 100+hz. I spoiled quickly..

I play Battlefield 4, Doom 2016, Titanfall, and CIV 6 mostly. Everthing is fine in this department.

The Bad

Installing Win7 was a pain in the butthole. Coz I haz nvme I had to patch Win7 installation to recognize nvme. And still the patched drivers are a bit unstable at times. Sometimes Win7 won't boot and I have to boot in safe mode first. But that I can live with.

And then there is the eventual should-I-win10 question. I know win10 is much faster, but I am really afraid of the telemetry. I just don't like me being f**ked in the A constantly by MS. I'm not ready for it.. no lube in the world will that make feel comfortable.

Finally, it was really expensive to do this build. I cost me around 2500 euro's. GTX 980 was expensive because I had to go some obscure place to get it as it was already phased out in favor of 1080. The memory was also really expensive, but yeah it's overkill so I could've went with 16GB  and upraded later. Finally, the 950 pro + 850 pro together was alone 500 euro's. But worth it. so fast.

Conclusion

No Apple for me anymore. I was wondering for some time why Apple products are so slow and lagging. Then I built PC. Everything files. Apple is back in the 90's. Expensive yet slow and not that good quality.

10/10 I would build another rig even if it's with windows. It's SO FAST. My computer is as fast as I can think. I am no longer annoyed with waiting on system response, like opening windows etc. OS X is horrid slow these days.

Also, Apple has the moniker "silent". Well...no. Apple is silent if you only browse kittens. If you stress your machine... which is quite easy as it only comes with mobile hardware and a confined thermal envelope.. you hear the fans spinning up quite a bit.

[fanpeople]

get your PCs clothes off i want to see where the sun dont shine.  mmmmmmmmm money shot

[iLLucionist]

get your PCs clothes off i want to see where the sun dont shine.  mmmmmmmmm money shot

OK OK I'LL MAKE PIC HOLD ON.

I knew this was comin'... but I hangover so probably gonna drop PC now. we'll see.

I'll guarantee high quality pic with mah Nikon D7200 with nice lens.. mmmm

[Coreda]

I love silent systems. It's too bad I like my Hadron Air chassis for its appearance and size or I'd switch to something dead quiet.

[iLLucionist]

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN YALL:

At angle:



Side:



Dat 950 pro nvme:



Dat 980 ti:

[tp4tissue]

You might want to tie a fishing wire to that gpu's right corner. it's sagging, that's not good for the port..

[iLLucionist]

You might want to tie a fishing wire to that gpu's right corner. it's sagging, that's not good for the port..

Yeah I was a bit worried in the beginning but then I tried to research it and peoplez over OC and hardforum said it doesn't really matter.

BUT IT DOES?

[tp4tissue]

You might want to tie a fishing wire to that gpu's right corner. it's sagging, that's not good for the port..

Yeah I was a bit worried in the beginning but then I tried to research it and peoplez over OC and hardforum said it doesn't really matter.

BUT IT DOES?

well within the timespan of planned obsolescence, i suppose one could argue from that practical standpoint, it does not matter..

But we know that copper traces, plastics and solder joints are not especially durable structures, and that they will crack/ break if you apply pressure over time.

It's more prophylaxis

 

[iLLucionist]

You might want to tie a fishing wire to that gpu's right corner. it's sagging, that's not good for the port..

Yeah I was a bit worried in the beginning but then I tried to research it and peoplez over OC and hardforum said it doesn't really matter.

BUT IT DOES?

well within the timespan of planned obsolescence, i suppose one could argue from that practical standpoint, it does not matter..

But we know that copper traces, plastics and solder joints are not especially durable structures, and that they will crack/ break if you apply pressure over time.

It's more prophylaxis

now iLLucionist needs to go out and buy fishwire and go ghetto with is GPU mounting. SIGH. okay okay..

[tp4tissue]

You might want to tie a fishing wire to that gpu's right corner. it's sagging, that's not good for the port..

Yeah I was a bit worried in the beginning but then I tried to research it and peoplez over OC and hardforum said it doesn't really matter.

BUT IT DOES?

well within the timespan of planned obsolescence, i suppose one could argue from that practical standpoint, it does not matter..

But we know that copper traces, plastics and solder joints are not especially durable structures, and that they will crack/ break if you apply pressure over time.

It's more prophylaxis

now iLLucionist needs to go out and buy fishwire and go ghetto with is GPU mounting. SIGH. okay okay..

hahaha.. u don't have to get fishing wire.. hahaha u can do it with any string or even a couple of twist ties put together.. hahaha


fishing wire would look better,  but if it's on the inside..  it's up to u..  I think u've already completely the job as far as clean airflow path, so a single wire in the way won't make a difference.

[iLLucionist]

You might want to tie a fishing wire to that gpu's right corner. it's sagging, that's not good for the port..

Yeah I was a bit worried in the beginning but then I tried to research it and peoplez over OC and hardforum said it doesn't really matter.

BUT IT DOES?

well within the timespan of planned obsolescence, i suppose one could argue from that practical standpoint, it does not matter..

But we know that copper traces, plastics and solder joints are not especially durable structures, and that they will crack/ break if you apply pressure over time.

It's more prophylaxis

now iLLucionist needs to go out and buy fishwire and go ghetto with is GPU mounting. SIGH. okay okay..

hahaha.. u don't have to get fishing wire.. hahaha u can do it with any string or even a couple of twist ties put together.. hahaha


fishing wire would look better,  but if it's on the inside..  it's up to u..  I think u've already completely the job as far as clean airflow path, so a single wire in the way won't make a difference.

that's true..

now with all the tempered glass cases I wanna do another build.. i'm so spoiled.

with spacemacs (the text editor) color scheme. purple leds through tempered glass would look so baller

but then i perhaps more noise.. couldn't accept that in my life. SO MANY CHOICES SO LITTLE MONEYS

[fanpeople]

mmmm puta pron i am satisfied now