So here's some pics of my new baby (don't judge the hot mess all around it):
First boot and post (crazy enough, everything worked on first attempt):
Here are the guts:
Guts powered up:
Full frontal:
I'm a huge fan of the case. It's wide open for air flow but thankfully the PC is pretty freaking silent most of the time. It's to the point where I can hear the constant whine of the pump. Once the rad fans spin up, though, you can definitely hear them. It's still probably, no bullshit, 4 times quieter than my previous one.
I did a super modest OC to 5.5Ghz on the 13700K. I'm sure there's a lot more headroom but I want it cool and it already draws absolutely insane voltages at times. I didn't know 1.4+ v was okay these days. ****ing LOL.
I tried to undervolt but was not successful and decided since the temps are straight $$$ under gaming load at 5.5Ghz, why even bother? So I gave up on that shit after about two days of reading a bunch of guides, trying my hand at it and failing.
Biggest thing I was not looking forward to while building was figuring out all of the RGB shit, which, in hindsight, was actually super easy but seemed like it would be pretty intimidating before I actually started doing it.
I also had to remount the cooler due to not ideal orientation after I initially mounted it. I also had to take the radiator out to reorient the little pump cable to go in the back of the case for cable management. Thankfully, the case was a dream for doing that. It would have been a massive pain in the ass with my old case.
All in all a pretty smooth journey.
First thing I tried was running RDR2 on it. I knew it was such a massive hog on my old PC. That shit runs at 120 FPS at 1440 with literally every setting set to the highest level possible. That's with DLSS set to Quality, though. The game looked great even on lower settings, but is just straight up stunning now.
I'll probably try Cyberpunk 2077 next just to see the eye candy I missed out on when playing compromised on my old PC.