Obsidian water cooled build, stage 1

timciren · 15 Jul 2010 at 16:05

Well hardly anything from my original picking list made it.
Trying to decide on which ASUS mobo and I saw the Rampage and was powerless to resist.
The red and black led onto Corsair Dominator RAM and the search for an older Corsair HX620 with a red label.
It took 5 different suppliers to get everything here within 3 days.

I have looked at lots of builds here and know there will be lots of tweaks, so I decided to get a basic loop running and see how it goes.

The reason/ justification for the build is to show my son ( who has just started his GCSE IT ) whats inside the boxes he loves so much ...

But that means I have to wait for him to get home from school before I can start...

rjk · 15 Jul 2010 at 16:09

sweet hardware

put you some image tags on there so the pics display

if you use photobucket and copy the

timciren · 15 Jul 2010 at 16:33

Thanks RJK, I did notice, but too late !
I have just gone for clear pipe for now and jubilee clips !
thought I would get all the angles right before I splash out on the Bitspower stuff

timciren · 17 Jul 2010 at 21:30

the loop went in pretty easy for a first timer, but a couple of things I need to sort ;

the pipe work is kind of saggy. Will some anti coil keep it in position ?

the writing on the cpu block is upside down, not sure what to do about that ?

but i am very happy with the match of the xspc front and the blu ray player

I didnt want to have to try to match the brushed aluminium with the dvd door.

its time to fire it up and test it now...

whipitrnd · 17 Jul 2010 at 22:56

that is looking sweet man.

sambot · 18 Jul 2010 at 22:17

nice colour matching between mobo/ram/psu!

looking well good

timciren · 19 Jul 2010 at 11:08

2 schoolboy errors ;

I followed the rampage manual order of installation, but you cant fit the bluetooth when the mobo is in the case, grr

I forgot the 6gb sata ssd cant go in the hotswap bay... guess I can remove a backplane

but first post works apart from sata

DotA · 19 Jul 2010 at 14:39

Very nice, you going to WC that gpu later on?

timciren · 19 Jul 2010 at 16:29

DotA said:
Very nice, you going to WC that gpu later on?

hope to at stage 2, when I can get the ssd sata3 and hotswap drives to work... :confused:

Starky · 20 Jul 2010 at 11:46

Looking very nice - there is plenty space in there to do things right and tidily!

timciren said:
The reason/ justification for the build is to show my son ( who has just started his GCSE IT ) whats inside the boxes he loves so much ...

Haha and he obviously needs to see a high-end water cooled PC - admit that most of the reason/justification is because you want a schmexy new rig !

TheCenturion · 20 Jul 2010 at 12:10

I thought that GCSE IT was all about databases and stuff like that? From what I've heard from friends, there's very little to do with hardware
nice build though mate

timciren · 20 Jul 2010 at 13:55

Starky said:
Looking very nice - there is plenty space in there to do things right and tidily!

Haha and he obviously needs to see a high-end water cooled PC - admit that most of the reason/justification is because you want a schmexy new rig !

my fave case ever for tidieness

no , he gets my old one !!

and who I am kidding really its an excuse, but heh

timciren · 20 Jul 2010 at 13:56

anant_shah94 said:
I thought that GCSE IT was all about databases and stuff like that? From what I've heard from friends, there's very little to do with hardware
nice build though mate

times have changed ! I did IT GCE 27 years ago when we soldered 16k RAM chips into a ZX Spectrum... I was the only kid in a school of 1600 who did IT A level :eek:

timciren · 22 Jul 2010 at 11:57

just waiting for some braided cables and stage 1 is complete,
ordered another 360 rad for the base, it will be interesting to see how that goes.
I am hoping it will mean I can remove the 3 corsair stock 140mm fans.
very happy with the Rampage mobo~ oc via a netbook

I will have few days to enjoy it before fitting another loop

Sunny Squash · 22 Jul 2010 at 12:46

nice setup you have there

timciren · 25 Jul 2010 at 15:27

I am hoping to keep some support and only remove one side of the lower hdd bay
so it was drill off 3 rivets

grind off the inside rivet

remove the feet

started marking out to cut the fan hole

just before I started cutting, after I had drilled thru mounting holes, I had a thought...

why not just drill hundreds of holes thru the grill thru the case ?

it took a while and 2 battery charges, but I hope it keeps the strength in the case

rjk · 28 Jul 2010 at 09:18

could you not have cut the case and mounted the rad grill on it?

timciren · 28 Jul 2010 at 09:32

rjkoneill said:
could you not have cut the case and mounted the rad grill on it?

is it too messy ?

I had a triple grill that I would have had to cut up because it stopped the dust filter if it was mounted under the case.

I thought this might leave more strength in the case

Its true I havent seen anyone else do this

, I hoped that was cos it took ages to do

will have to see what the airflow is like when my bits arrive

tezmo · 28 Jul 2010 at 09:35

this is (one of) the prettiest things I have seen today! The size of the 800d is such that I shouldnt think airflow will be much of a problem

timciren · 28 Jul 2010 at 09:53

tezmo said:
this is (one of) the prettiest things I have seen today! The size of the 800d is such that I shouldnt think airflow will be much of a problem

thx

airflow shouldnt be a problem, but the weight is becoming one !