Soldato
Some quick teaser pictures I made whilst I was waiting for parts to arrive
Update 19/02/16 - It's finished! Jump to final picture post.
So the plan has been to do a watercooling loop ever since GPU manufacturers couldn't keep the new GPUs cool whilst remaining quiet enough for me.
I chose the NZXT H440 as it is only mildly larger than my old bitfenix shinobi windowed, yet offers superior water cooling due to a lack of outdated and space wasting 5.25" bays. Not to mention is looks awesome and has some really cool features.
I ran it for a while with my stock 780 and i5 2550K with an NH-D14 and it was reasonably quiet though I had to undervolt my GPU to 0.96v to keep it cool and it still got quiet loud to prevent throttling. One thing I hate more than noise is throttling to keep cool. It feels wrong.
Main system specs:
i5 2550k at 4.4Ghz 1.32v
NH-D14
MSI Z77 MPower
8GB 1600Mhz 1.35v Corsair white low profile ram.
EVGA GTX 780 reference
Asus Xonar DGX
256GB Samsung 830, 240GB Crucial M500,1TB Samsung sprintpoint F3 - Fell during build
Corsair RM850 PSU
3 Noctua P12s
Bitfenix alchemy white braided 24 pin, 6+8 pin PCIe.
I mostly chose these parts cause they looked nice.
Here are the parts for the loop.
EK LTX Nickel Plexi
EK FC-780 GTX Ti - Nickel
EK FC-780 GTX Ti Backplate - Black
Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 240mm
XSPC AX360 Replaced with Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 360mm
3m Primochill PrimoFlex Advanced LRT
EK D5 Vario X-Res 140
3x EK Nickel Compression fittings
3x EK Nickel plated brass barbs
5x Alphacool rotary barbs.
Most of the loop stuff was chosen because it was cheap but still branded. The GPU block and backplate was a 2nd hand bargain that I stumbled upon when I first started looking into WC.
I would have gotten more EK compression but the internet has run out of them after I bled OcUK and another store dry.
First thing I did was measure and cut most of the pieces of tubing. I wasn't ready to remove the NH-D14 cause I was still waiting for parts so didn't cut the CPU -> top rad tube.
I then started to flush the radiators. Words cannot describe how boring and annoying this is to do. All over the internet there are guides on how to do this involving vinegar, alcohol, hundreds of pounds worth of equipment, the blood of your first born son and the tears of satan etc.
Fortunately Shayper's guide recommended hot water so that was what I used as I flushed each rad about 10 times over an hour.
Next up was GPU block installation. I love naked GPUs, the bare chip and the sense of you shouldn't be seeing this makes it exciting.
What this picture doesn't show is how warped the PCB is. Rather than sagging, it bends upwards when installed.
2nd hand year old 780 meant that I got an A1 chip that overclocks better than a 780 lightning I had for a while (I sent it back cause it didn't live up to lightning standards)
Block went on super easy
Backplate not so much as some of the screwholes where slightly misaligned. But it gave in eventually
I had ran out of things to do until my fittings arrived to I ghetto'd together a GPU loop using the pre cut tubing.
Leak testing
Those towels got quite wet by the end as the first time I filled the res I forgot to put in the extra stop plug so water went everywhere. Also when move the rad around to get rid of bubbles I span a rotary loose so it dripped a bit. But everything turned out fine and now I am left with this.
Temps on the 780 at aircooled settings where about 36C with fans at 50%. When I put 1.225v through they rose to mid 40s. Very impressed so far.
Update 19/02/16 - It's finished! Jump to final picture post.
So the plan has been to do a watercooling loop ever since GPU manufacturers couldn't keep the new GPUs cool whilst remaining quiet enough for me.
I chose the NZXT H440 as it is only mildly larger than my old bitfenix shinobi windowed, yet offers superior water cooling due to a lack of outdated and space wasting 5.25" bays. Not to mention is looks awesome and has some really cool features.
I ran it for a while with my stock 780 and i5 2550K with an NH-D14 and it was reasonably quiet though I had to undervolt my GPU to 0.96v to keep it cool and it still got quiet loud to prevent throttling. One thing I hate more than noise is throttling to keep cool. It feels wrong.
Main system specs:
i5 2550k at 4.4Ghz 1.32v
NH-D14
MSI Z77 MPower
8GB 1600Mhz 1.35v Corsair white low profile ram.
EVGA GTX 780 reference
Asus Xonar DGX
256GB Samsung 830, 240GB Crucial M500,
Corsair RM850 PSU
3 Noctua P12s
Bitfenix alchemy white braided 24 pin, 6+8 pin PCIe.
I mostly chose these parts cause they looked nice.
Here are the parts for the loop.
EK LTX Nickel Plexi
EK FC-780 GTX Ti - Nickel
EK FC-780 GTX Ti Backplate - Black
Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 240mm
3m Primochill PrimoFlex Advanced LRT
EK D5 Vario X-Res 140
3x EK Nickel Compression fittings
3x EK Nickel plated brass barbs
5x Alphacool rotary barbs.
Most of the loop stuff was chosen because it was cheap but still branded. The GPU block and backplate was a 2nd hand bargain that I stumbled upon when I first started looking into WC.
I would have gotten more EK compression but the internet has run out of them after I bled OcUK and another store dry.
First thing I did was measure and cut most of the pieces of tubing. I wasn't ready to remove the NH-D14 cause I was still waiting for parts so didn't cut the CPU -> top rad tube.
I then started to flush the radiators. Words cannot describe how boring and annoying this is to do. All over the internet there are guides on how to do this involving vinegar, alcohol, hundreds of pounds worth of equipment, the blood of your first born son and the tears of satan etc.
Fortunately Shayper's guide recommended hot water so that was what I used as I flushed each rad about 10 times over an hour.
Next up was GPU block installation. I love naked GPUs, the bare chip and the sense of you shouldn't be seeing this makes it exciting.
What this picture doesn't show is how warped the PCB is. Rather than sagging, it bends upwards when installed.
2nd hand year old 780 meant that I got an A1 chip that overclocks better than a 780 lightning I had for a while (I sent it back cause it didn't live up to lightning standards)
Block went on super easy
Backplate not so much as some of the screwholes where slightly misaligned. But it gave in eventually
I had ran out of things to do until my fittings arrived to I ghetto'd together a GPU loop using the pre cut tubing.
Leak testing
Those towels got quite wet by the end as the first time I filled the res I forgot to put in the extra stop plug so water went everywhere. Also when move the rad around to get rid of bubbles I span a rotary loose so it dripped a bit. But everything turned out fine and now I am left with this.
Temps on the 780 at aircooled settings where about 36C with fans at 50%. When I put 1.225v through they rose to mid 40s. Very impressed so far.
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