MODDING / READERS’ DRIVES
Some of those components,
such as the Strix graphics
card cooler, don’t have white
parts on them by default.
How did you paint them?
Paul: With white PlastiKote paint.
I stripped down the graphics card,
then pulled off sections of the Strix
shroud with a knife – they’re only
held in place by glue, so it’s fairly
easy. Then I painted these sections- it only takes a few light layers to
get good coverage. I then glued all
the bits back into place. I was going
to paint the whole shroud white,
but I thought it looked better with
the end result I got. The SilverStone
fan blades were also originally
blue,butI paintedthemwhite.
What CPU is sitting under
that massive DeepCool heatsink,
and can you get a decent
stable overclock from it?
Paul: The CPU is only a Core
i5-6600K, so it runs fairly cool
on cheap coolers. The DeepCool
Neptwin is a decent little
cooler, and the CPU is currently
running at 4.8GHz with a 1.27V
vcore. The temps while running
OCCT for two hours peak in
the low 70s (°C), but they sit in
the low 60s during gaming.What specs did you
choose for this PC, and why?
Paul: There was no reasoning
for using those specific parts
really – they were just what I
had on my parts shelf at the time
of building. The only ones I had
to buy were the two Samsung
SSDs. They’re running in RAID 0
configuration, so they’re really fast,
despiteusingtheSATAinterface.How long did it take you
to complete this build?
Paul: Not too long really – around
three hours, and most of that time
was spent sleeving cables and
making the graphics card mount.
It’s a fairly straightforward build.SYSTEM SPECS
CPU Intel Core i5-6600k
OC to 4.8GHz
GPU Asus ROG Strix
Radeon RX 480, with BIOS
flash to RX 580 specs
Storage 2 x 250GB Samsung
SATA SSDs in RAID 0
Memory 8GB 3200MHz
Crucial Ballistix
Motherboard Asus Z170
Mark S Sabertooth
PSU EVGA 750W G2i
Cooling DeepCool Neptwin CPU
cooler, 4 x SilverStone SST-FQ121
120mm fans painted pure white