Watercooled PC build

[richy22]

Rather then clog up the other thread thought id start a new build new and do everything in here and post up my progress (and failures probably!! )

Specs of the unit are

Case = Xigmatek Elysium
Motherboard = MSI Z77A-GD65
CPU = i5 3570K (will be overclocked to around 4.4 - 4.5 Ghz) with Raystorm CPU cooling block
GPU = XFX HD 7990 6gb Gddr5 with EK waterblock 7990 Waterblock
PSU = XFX Black edition 750W
RAM = 16 GB Corsair Vengence Pro
Storage = Samsung 840 120Gb SSD for OS, Western digital 2TB "Green" HDD for games etc
Bitspower Reservoir
XSPC D5 Pump with multiport pump top
360mm XSPC Radiator mounted in top of case
240mm XSPC Radiator mounted in front of case
Fans = 6 Sorsair SP120 1450RPM fans on radiators and exhaust, Coolermaster Sickleflow 120mm for any other "intake" fans.
Fan Controller = Zalman ZM-MFC3 controller although may use my NZXT 5 fan sentry.
Various EK Compression fittings and angled fittings
MasterKleer UV hosing
XSPC Temperature monitor with screen
Mayhems Blue Coolant

Also some Sleeving from MDPC to tidy up and sleeve the wires inside. Yes I KNOW it doesn't make it perform faster...I just want to make it look pretty . All PSU cables will be individually sleeved as well as all internal wires within the case and SATA cables.


The case is a bit on the small side though...

Radiators, Mobo etc

Pump Waterblock and fittings

 

[benhiggs]

sounds like its gonna be a good build, you planning any case mods?

 

[Addicted]

Looks good, weird to see that XSPC 360 rad has the ports on either side, not seen that before (I've seen ones where you have stoppers and you can choose, but never only 2 holes in the opposite directions).

I wish I'd of done a build thread, oops.

Good shout on the D5, best pump you can get, will keep subscribed!

 

[richy22]

Looks good, weird to see that XSPC 360 rad has the ports on either side, not seen that before (I've seen ones where you have stoppers and you can choose, but never only 2 holes in the opposite directions).

I wish I'd of done a build thread, oops.

Good shout on the D5, best pump you can get, will keep subscribed!

Yeah is the XSPC "Crossflow" Rad. Liked the look/idea of it to try and stop untidy pipes. Il see how it goes!

CPU Block turned up today some chavvy UV led's . Apologies in advance for the slightly crap photo's.

The amount of space in this is unreal!

Mobo and top rad in

Roughly where the res will go I think. Will have to drill a couple of holes to mount it

And Pump down here

Unsure what to do with the Front Rad I want to mount.

If I want to keep one of the drive bay chassis and still have a few drives free for a Fan Controller and or DVD Drive then its really tight for the front rad

If thats the case I would need to make some special mounts as if I buy some universal radiator drive mounts like this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-093-EK&groupid=962&catid=1523&subcat=1545

they wont "line" up as seen below

You can see there is a good 10-15mm "drop" (ps dont worry about the inlet/output ports of the rad facing the way they are..was only for working out what I was going to do)

I suppose I could sack off the drive bay cages but would need to buy some form of caddies

 

[welshname]

Looks like a good build. We don't have enough proper PC build threads on here.

 

[Addicted]

Let us know how your Raystorm install goes, installed mine and 3 out of the 4 screws werent threaded properly!

I threaded them as best I could, and its on tight - I should have sent it back but in all honesty couldnt be arsed. Won't be fun if/when I remove it, hope yours isn't the same!

 

[ThomasBrentnall]

Looks good! However the cooling's a bit ott for the spec, no?

 

[Gareth]

Just be wary of the length of your GPUs and any necessary power cables linking to them before finalising your reservoir position, likewise if you are permanently fixing your pump just bear in mind your tubing routes before finalising it.

 

[Wilkeh]

Looking forward to the rest of this thread now mate

 

[mace¬]

Looks good but don't understand any of it.

Has anyone got a link to a build thread on the interweb that explains whats going on and why?

 

[richy22]

Just be wary of the length of your GPUs and any necessary power cables linking to them before finalising your reservoir position, likewise if you are permanently fixing your pump just bear in mind your tubing routes before finalising it.

Yeah im waiting for the 7990 to come tomorrow...I have a feeling its gonna be a big boy! Reservoir position I can't really make my mind up on at the minute.

Plan to whack it all together tomorrow and at least make sure everything works before fully building everything up. Just wish MDPC and watercooling uk would hurry up with my order as those bits are holding me up a lot.

 

[Gareth]

MDPC will take a few days with it coming from Germany.

 

[richy22]

OH hi big fcuk off graphics card!

Took delivery of the GPU, PSU, some more fans, Vengeance RAM and some lighting today

Put everything onto the "Test Bench"

Lets see if it boots..

OH Fail

Although I have now "fixed" it. It seems it wants to boot an OS from startup and to get into the BIOS you just type EXIT. The Gigabyte I had before didnt do that and went straight into the bios setting. Or it could be that I didnt have a HDD or SSD connected and it looks for one. Still got into the bios and it reported everything it should like RAM, CPU and the GPU appears to work too as was using that to display.

So it seems happy days so far

Reservoir will fit in place easily (no idea why this wont rotate..ive done it in PhotoBucket FFS) EDIT Oh it has now :S

So all is looking good.

The ONLY thing I dont quite like is the XFX power supplies use all black wires and they appear to be glued like a ribbon cable IE flat like this. Ridiculously rigid like that too.

I have already "split" them from each other. Just waiting for the Sleeving to come. As per the photo above I plan to use the 2 in 1 PCIE power connections to power the Graphics card. I dont gain anything from using another one as they all come from the same source anyway. Only thing I might do is get a proper 8 way PCIe connector as these ones are 6+2 and I hate those...they feel way too flimsy

 

[AdDaMan]

Whats the point in having it water cooled then adding big f**k off noisy fans too?

 

[welshname]

Over clocking mainly. It's more for temperature than noise. You'll struggle to get anything like the clock speeds cooling with air

 

[richy22]

Whats the point in having it water cooled then adding big f**k off noisy fans too?

But they are not big fcuk off noisy fans. They are low rpm (sp low noise) but push big air through them

 

[Addicted]

Looking good so far!

 

[richy22]

I have 2 amd gaming coupons with the new GPU.

I think I'll keep the never settle one as I can pick crysis 3, hitman, tomb raider and BioShock (I have sleeping dogs and far cry 3)

Does anyone want the radeon awards one at all?

http://www.amd4u.com/radeonrewards/

Far cry 3 has to be done by tomorrow though.

 

[richy22]

Haven't really had time to do much recently but I have damaged ligaments and a stress fracture in my ankle at the moment so of work and decided to crack on with some stuff.

SLEEVING. My god my fingers hurt! Forgot how much it hurts doing sleeving from my loom making days.

Anyway Fully sleeved PSU wires using MDPC Grande Blue. That stuff is awesome in comparison to other sleevings I have used (see later front panel photos) Its slightly darker then the blue on the MOBO but I wanted it that way to try and hide them a bit (I suppose I could have done them black but I wanted some colour on them). Depending on how I feel I may well redo them at some point to another lighter Blue.

Case wires = messy and horrible

So stripped the case down and started sleeving those too.

Power switch

Front panel connections. Basically sleeved all bar the USB 3.0 and E-Sata connectors as I don't really gain anything from sleeving those. The Front case wires I used a different sleeving. Think its AC Ryan Blue sleeving = cheap and no-where near the quality of the the MDPC stuff.

Front Audio connections

Looking much better on those now

Im halfway through the 24 Pin mobo connector but stopped as my hands hurt and some of those are a little trickier as some have 2 wires on the ATX side, going to 2 seperate connectors on the XFX PSU end. I guess XFX do their wiring differently as I haven't had that on other ATX connections.


Had a bit of a brainwave on where to put the fill ports for the reservoir.....

Not going to use that external hardrive thingy so took the PCB and connections for that out and will mount the fillport in there.

Also decided on where/how to mount the front RAD so bought some plain 45mm brackets from b&q and sprayed them black..

These will go in the centre radiator fittings and mount it to the drive bay slots with some spacers and nuts/washers. Thinking I should probably fit a small piece of foam underneath to aid any vibration too.

Mobo and psu are now screwed in place and over the next few days hopefully sort out all the wiring and figure out how to route them all. Currently sorting out the D5 pump wiring as that is unsleeved and looks nasty..I think after doing that part thats all my hands can handle for today!

 

[richy22]

As I cant walk or anything decided to do the D5 pump and for today I think im done. Might redo this at the PUMP end as I can't get the sleeving into the pump as it is literally tight up against the 3 wires. That involved desoldering the wires from within the pump and don't know if I want to do that...but for now its MUCH better. Now I wonder if I can get a replacement black sticker to get rid of the horrible white??

Molex end is not as nice as I would like but its hidden out of site. Also changed the connector from white to black which makes it look nicer. The Molex end could be tidier but I ran out of sleeving and it will be hidden anyway. Made a transition so that the 3 wires are under 1 sleeve upto a point and then individually sleeved from that point to the their relevant connectors.

Also started to fit things into the case. Hardrive caddy and HD are in as is the Zalman fan controller. Although I don't like the look of that so am going to get a Lamptron one but they are out of stock in a lot of places

 

[Wilkeh]

Spotted these benchmarks Rich for BF4

You must be pleased with the purchase

 

[Nickson]

Christ that case is huge!

Motherboard looks a little lost in there! :rasp:

 

[Silent_Scone]

Had this case 2 years, it's enormous Great stuff so far, look forward to seeing the finished build.

Whats the point in having it water cooled then adding big f**k off noisy fans too?

Uh, overclocking?

 

[Addicted]

Looking good so far, if you do add the fillport there, make it so you can extend it out, so you can put it vertically, otherwise ur gonna drip every time you undo it

I could never be bothered to do the sleeving myself, I just do the lazy option and buy BitFenix cables

I thought you'd of finished it by now, I'd be done asap just to play on it xD

 

[richy22]

Lol trust me if I had my way it would be built and running by now! But I want to do it properly.

Waterblock is installed on gpu, mobo and ram are in.

Ordered a different fan controller which turned up today, as well as some more 45 degree fittings. I underestimated how many I would need (had 4 45 and 4 90 degree fittings) and didn't really need the 90s. So ordered 4 of those and some koolance compression fittings to use on the rad that is hidden in the front. Also took a while to figure out how all the piping will go. The sleeving takes a lot of time.

Just need some nuts and bolts and to spray them all black and I'm good to go.

 

[richy22]

Not far off finishing now.

Reservoir is in place, New fan controller in, All waterblocks and fittings are in place to figure our tubing runs.

Front Rad is installed on brackets in the HDD bays and I can still use one of the cages for mounting HDD and SSD...although brought a SSD to 3.5" adaptor and the screws on the HDD cages are too big. Probably gonna drill those out and retap so I can use the Xigmatek supplied screws.

Also mounted a temp sensor into one of the spare front grilles...

Didn't turn out too bad.

Literally finishing off the ATX power sleeving, PCI-E sleeving and then I want to do the fan controller ones and it can be tidied up and used. Think tonight I will install all the piping and then leak test that/bleed whilst finishing off the sleeving parts.

 

[richy22]

Did some plumbing tonight..all done bar the fill port link so far

Only thing im not too sure about is the tube coming from the rad to the input of the GPU

Any ideas on if that looks "messy" and how to improve it? I thought about flipping the rad the other way but would still have that pipe running across the reservoir a bit..just don't know if it would be neater. Also might redo the input to the pump from the res I have enough tubing (loads) left to mess around a bit on that and the gpu link front.


Also what the temp sensor display looks like in the case

 

[Addicted]

Id do the loop the other way around, start from the top and work down, easier for the water to flow as well.

Not sure how you'd do it with how you have it currently, but imo you need a way to remove that long tubing, as it's ugly

 

[Cliotoby]

Spotted these benchmarks Rich for BF4

You must be pleased with the purchase

Good to see my 680 still capable of producing 60fps....

 

[ThomasBrentnall]

Any reason why you're not watercooling the ram?

 

[richy22]

Id do the loop the other way around, start from the top and work down, easier for the water to flow as well.

Not sure how you'd do it with how you have it currently, but imo you need a way to remove that long tubing, as it's ugly

Thinking about it I could move the other rad up the top and have the DVD drive and sensor moved.

That would mean at the top I would come out of one rad and go straight into the other rad then into the top of the inlet of the reservoir. And then at the pump end I would come straight out of that on top top outlet straight into the GPU.

Any reason why you're not watercooling the ram?

I could of done that but you dont gain anything from doing it. If I wanted to spend silly amounts then I would have gone all out and brought the most expensive of everything.

 

[Addicted]

Agreed, watercooling ram is a rediculous price for the very little gain!


In terms of loop layout, you could have the Pump -> Front rad (top - perhaps tubing going through the cable gromets to keep it tidy) -> Top Rad -> CPU -> GPU -> Res -> Pump

That'd be my idea (or something like that).

 

[richy22]

Yeah I thought about utilising the cable grommets and doing it like that actually.

As soon as I "wired" it up last night I said FFS that looks s**t! The only thing that may make it look untidy going that route is the top rad is crossflow so Id have to come into the Radon the Right side near the Reservoir.

The only long tubing then is from the GPU up and over into the res..that might look untidy. Il have to use a 90 and a 45 to come up and over the GPU I reckon too.

 

[richy22]

Redid just now. So now it goes Pump---Bottom Rad---Top Rad---CPU---GPU---RES

Looks a lot neater now. Im going to be making a few mods to the case to hide the pump under a shelf using some plexi and carbon wrap (possibly). Also some plexi down the sides to cover the side drive bays, cutting a big window into the side panel so its one big plexi window rather then how it is at the moment...that can be done at a later date though.

Also hiding/covering some of the fixings holding the reservoir in place as they are silver. Will be painting them matt black to try and blend them in. Pretty much ready for water now and to leak test. Still got loads of sleeving to do as I only have a spare half hour here and there. Annoying as I want to play COD and Battlefield 4!!!

Fcuk me the photo's look crap. Probably the lighting/flash though.

 

[Addicted]

Much neater

The plans sound good, await further updates!

 

[richy22]

Probably run out of posts but just had a random thought whilst walking the dog....

Do I really need to come out of the bottom of the graphics card? I know it says you can use any "port" as an inlet/outlet but dont know if i can m u 2 ports next to each other??

 

[richy22]

Almost there now. Did some more Piping rework tonight just down near the pump end. Fixed the bottom rad in place fully, Tapped out the original supplied screws for the HDD cage so that they would go into my SSD bracket...that worked a treat and the originals had too big a thread to go into the bracket originally.

Fitted the Fan controller and sleeved all the fan controller wires (just taken them out as I did the ends a bit too tight and they "might" pull out of the controller so redoing them slightly).

Am pretty much ready for water now Was gonna do that tonight but as its getting late I thought it could wait a day or so. So instead hooked up a spare PSU and started checking things like fan operations and a few bits

Shiney blue lights might be able to make the temp sensor display lying on the floor in the background

Fan 1 is Sickleflow Blue LED one
Fan 2 is Top Front Rad
Fan 3 is Bottom Front Rad
Fan 4 - 6 will be the top radiator ones

Fan on back of case will be hooked upto CPU fan header I think...can't decide if I want that exhausting or pulling air in though


Also thought id check the piping I bought under UV..

Im such a ***** for blue shiney lights! I even purchased a load of 3mm UV led bulbs to put in place of the supplied Blue leds with the Raystorm CPU block.

Really wanted to fill-er-up tonight but may wait a day or 2 to finish all the sleeving first. Then will fill and leak check me thinks.

 

[ThomasBrentnall]

Looking good, bet you can't wait to use it now!

 

[richy22]

Water went in last night

Bled air out quite easily although did have one hiccup..the bitspower reservoir ssemed to be leaking slightly around the bottom oring. Its done up silly silly tight and even did it up tighter still whilst connected in the case. annoyingly this moved the top ring out of the way slightly...so the 45 degree inlent to the res is a few degrees further round then it intially was. But since then it hasn't leaked at all.

Used Mayhems UV blue coolant...which is NOT UV reactive despite what it says! But then added a few drops of Ocean blue to darken the coolant up slightly. IT looks ridiculously dark in the res but its not as dark in real life. Will see how it goes and if im happy with the colour..if not il drain and use something else I reckon.

 

[Cliotoby]

My mate has this red Mayhem s**t, said it fucked his pipes up good and proper so they were all stained.