Advice on first ever "Project", wish me luck!

kalvindeane

kalvindeane

kalvindeane

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Didn't post this in the Project Logs section as it may be a while in the making.

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PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A VERY LONG READ. ALL FEEDBACK IS HUGELY APPRECIATED
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My cm 690ii is boring me and frankly, doing my head in. So is the H50 and 5 ugly Vipers.
Have built 2 computers (both on here, one with h50 one with amd stock cooler)
which to be honest, are not satisfying my thirst!

Thinking of selling 3 of my vipers, or maybe all 5, and using the H50 for my q6600 G0
(never OC'd, motherboard didn't support it, and has since clonked out).

Proposed changes:

  1. New Full Tower Case
  2. Braiding all cables
  3. Custom Watercooling
  4. New fans/controller (suited to the case)
  5. Do something about my graphics cards (sell to replace/watercool/keep as is)
  6. Sell the HX650 to fund a HX850 or similar

First on the agenda, decide on a case!

This is where you come in, ideas are welcome!

Three cases have caught my attention:

  1. Lian Li PC-A70FB
  2. Coolermaster ATCS 840 (not too keen)
  3. NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Case

Practically drooling over the sleekness of the Phantom!

Main issue I can foresee is space. Whichever case is chosen (doesn't have to be one
of those above), watercooling seems to take up much space, and this needs to
last me a good couple of years.

Any case that can be seen from the inside must not be black outside and silver inside!
Looks are important here.

After suggestions for a case, then colour-coding the build should be pretty straight-forward (let's hope!).

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------------------------------[Where I am truly lost]------------------------------
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Watercooling

This is totally alien territory. Just watercool the CPU? Saves money - much needed.
Never seen 5770's under water, do the blocks look terrible, if so I'll stick to the stock air cooling.
Guides for watercooling newbies are greatly appreciated, a 'spec me' would be the icing on the cake :)

Tbh don't really want to spend more than £450 between cooling (water+fans) and a case
plus braiding maybe, and some new cables.
Though I could stretch a bit if required, just delays the build. The £450 doesn't include any
cash that my Vipers would net me, nor my current case/h50 if I end up selling them.

Perhaps £450 will be a bit unrealistic, the NZXT costs £130 to pre-order, plus what - £50
on fans? (Phobya Nano-G 14 1000rpm look nice for a red build), £30-40 on cables/braiding,
that's £220 out of £450 (the lower the better TBH!) leaving £230 for watercooling.

The computer that was in my aweful log not long ago is still around - deal fell through, can't get rid
of the thing. Someone in work told me it's barely worth £200, because of competition on the bay,
the components cost me £315 at the time, plus Win7 Ult 64-bit. I'm hoping some sucker will pay £350 for it.

That'll help somewhat towards this "Project", need some of the dosh to pay the bills though :p

As stated earlier - if a HX650 is not powerful enough, am more than willing to sell it to help
fund for a HX850. About that: any PSU's that would provide sufficient power, whilst being
modular would be superb!

Love the sound of a Crucial C300, will never happen I'm afraid. Sammy F3 isn't half as bad
as my previous Seagate Drives anyway..



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So then, let's recap! Any advice on the following would earn you my eternal gratitude:

  • Watercooling Guide
  • Watercooling Spec (CPU)
  • Suggestions for a Case (enough room for a good-looking WC settup, matching interior/exterior, under £250)
  • Fan suggestions
  • Braiding suggestions/tips, never done it before
  • "Egg-shaped" Sapphire 5770x2 Advice
  • Power requirements for PSU (and alternative PSU recommendations if poss!)

This won't be of epic proportions like Project: Excess or as flashy as half of the others in the Projects section. If you've read this far, you're a soldier ;)
Hopefully the normal thing won't happen with my threads - 1 person replies and then it gets left alone, as these forums are what makes OCUK so good imo,
in addition to their CS and the genuine advice the Don's give to customers. Really looking forward to some replies on this - don't let meh down :(

PS: The NZXT Red Phantom looks ok too, nice with white highlights (fans/cables)?
Really like the look of them cases, but the size is worrying me :(
 
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Well for the watercooling, I know a website that sells loads of great watercooling gear.

They also sell 'kits' - not pre-built poor quality ones, but more like a selection of all the 'proper' compatible parts that you would need to build your system - so you have no risk of buying a wrong part. But I'm not sure if it's allowed to name/link competitors on the Ocuk forums?
 
I'll give a reply a shot. I think we have different tastes in computers though, this is my most recent watercooled one. I have a suspicion that braiding is very time consuming and quite boring. It's also likely to void the warranty on a captive psu, so get a modular one. The rest I might be more useful on though.

A well chosen case can make watercooling much easier. Waterblocks are smaller than heatsinks, and routing tubing is rarely a concern unless you use really thick, cheap tubing for some reason. Similarly (laing) pumps are very small, so finding a place for one isn't very challenging. The difficulty with watercooling is that radiators are rather big. So ideally you want a large case with nicely lined up mountings for 120mm (or 140mm) fans that you can screw radiators to. I'm using the Akasa Omega, which is far from perfect, but is quite happily holding five small radiators without modifications. The silverstone TJ07 is as good as it gets for low effort watercooling, and Corsair have a similar effort.

When choosing a case, see if you can find it featuring in a watercooling gallery somewhere (google images is good for this). How many and what size radiator you need depends on how well you want the system to perform, and on the components you're cooling. Generally speaking, with radiators, bigger is better, and more is also better. I feel a vague need to watercool everything that gives out heat, but cpu only is a much saner idea. Watercooling graphics cards is mainly useful as a means of making them quieter, so most people start out with cpu block, pump, radiator.

You don't need to spend much money on fans, 38mm yate loons are probably still available for under a fiver each. As long as you have a fan controller that's ideal. I've not gone in for controllers in a big way, I either control them through software or by leaving them at a constant 7V. I don't really like needing to turn dials on the computer, it feels a bit old fashioned.

A newbie thread of sorts is here though it's badly in need of pictures and the first post being rewritten. Like most of my threads thinking about it.

I don't rate nzxt at all highly. My first case was their Rogue, as I thought it would be a good plan to start out with matx to make overclocking more difficult for myself. The build quality was rather poor, after some crude modifications in order to fit an aftermarket graphics cooler and a psu at the same time I basically gave up on it. A few months back I threw it out, and discovered that I could pull the chassis apart with my bare hands. Can't recommend them.

Finally, second hand is your friend with watercooling. Parts drop to roughly 50% of their value when new, but function identically (possibly need a clean first). Pumps are a potential exception, if you run one without any water in you'll damage it significantly. Depends how confident you are in the previous owner really.

Out of things to say. Apologies for this post being rather unstructured, I blame the late hour. Good luck getting more than one reply this time :)

edit: Ah. Took too long posting, there's already replies. That's good then. No mentioning of competitors, no soliciting contact details of competitors, no attempting to circumvent this rule in any way. That said, the range of watercooling currently stocked by ocuk is shameful, so I guess I'm breaching the "no criticising" ocuk rule when I say only having variants of the EK supreme, one pump, and exclusively bitspower fittings is pathetic.
 
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After glancing over a few newbie guides (not really reading them) there does seem a fair bit
to know before I get started. That's just as well, as it'll take a little while to gather the funds.

Perhaps I'll make a separate thread about the case - as they are at best, a very opinionated subject.
And there are already a lot of questions that could do with answering.
I find it a shame that you had a bad experience with NZXT, as I rather like the look of the case,
perhaps they have improved since you tried their case(s), will do some research on that later, bed now :)
 
Separating this into a few smaller threads is probably a good plan. Watercooling is definitely an educational experience, the more you read before you start the fewer problems you'll run into.

Everything is quite opinionated on here, you'll run into no end of arguments over fans and pumps, and even a few over radiators. Such is life. I think the NZXT cases are pretty but flimsy. My Omega is ugly but definitely not flimsy. I'd rather have one built like a tank than a pretty one, but that's definitely user preference :)

G'night
 
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