Project Legato - V2

[jacob1995knight]

It's been a long time since I posted on here, last major activity was 2015! A lot has happened in 10 years aha.

Back in 2015 I built Project Legato - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/project-legato-long-build-project.18654023/

The time has finally come for a refresh as the OCZ 1250w PSU I was running finally gave up on me, I could have replaced the PSU with another, but the hardware was extremely outdated at this point.

My original hardware build had the following hardware:

Enthoo Primo case
I5 2500K overclocked to 4.8ghz / 5.00Ghz
Gigabye Z77_UD3 Motherboard
Aorus 1080Ti 11GB Waterforce Extreme
OCZ 1250W PSU (gold)
Samsung 500gb Msata
Kingston HyperX 32GB ram
16 x Cooler Master 120mm Jetflo White LED fans

Water cooling:

480 EK Coolstream Radiator
360 EK Coolstream Radiator
240 EK Coolstream Radiator
Primochill 13/10mm White tubing (pack of 4)
Alphacool Repack Duel VPP665 Pump / Reservoir
2 x VPP665 aplhacool single pumps

Over the past 10 years, the system held up very well, used for a mix of gaming + 3d work, university as well as personal use with 3d printing and design work, never let me down in all that time, no leaks from the water cooling either!

But nonetheless, I wanted to refresh and upgrade, not total overhaul, but the major parts, same Enthoo Primo case & fans + I was going to stick with the Aorus 1080Ti card as well.

The refresh of hardware as following:

Intel Core i7-14700KF (Raptor Lake-S) Socket LGA1700 Processor
Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master (LGA 1700) DDR5 EATX Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance RGB 64GB (4X16GB) DDR5 PC5-52000C32 6600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Aorus GTX 3090 waterforce xtreme edition 24GB
WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCIe 4.0 Solid State Drive
Be quiet Straight Power 12 1000W 80 Plus Platinum ATX 3.0 Power Supply
Corsair Hydro X Series XT Hardline 14mm Satin White Tubing
Corsair Hydro X Series ICUE LINK XC7 RGB ELITE LCD CPU Water Block

Originally, I was going to stick with the Aorus 1080Ti as it was still performing strong in games at 4K, but I fell in love with the Aorus 3090 24GB extreme card, very attractive as well as very rare! so much so that I couldn't find one for sale in the UK!, however, mid-build I was off to Japan for a 2 week adventure, within that time I managed to track down the only Aorus 3090 waterforce in Japan! The shop thought I was mad as I said I came from the UK for the card they had Original box + all the paperwork, warrenty and cool little figure to go with as well, all the photos will be below, such a good find whilst travelling around Japan, not to mention the fun of getting the card home! wrapped in a blanket for carry on luggage, you know how airport baggage handlers can be!

So the last photo of the original system before tear down, was actually quite emotional to take it all apart, all the memories... as well as dust! really gross
But nonetheless, had to remove everything and clean it all, amazed at how well it held up coolant wise, minimal growth of nasties as well as no heavy deposits.

As you can see, coolant pipes were a little wonky, not the cleanest work on the old setup but I was rushed when doing them for the 1080ti back in 2018 when I got that card

Some serious lack of airflow on the radiators, I don't even want to guess how much DNA is in this image aha

The coolant looked more like dark grey then ice white! Thankfully I had two new bottles still in storage from 2018, I found that Mayhems no longer made the same coolant so I was glad I over ordered!

Moving onto some component porn! Gotta love a good photoshoot with new hardware, camera wise, only a samsung S23 Ultra, nothing crazy, still awesome quality compared to 10 years ago!

Throwback to the Aorus 1080Ti, such a gorgeous card, the design work is perfect!

A large issue I ran into was placement for the 3 storage hard drives, due to the water cooling, I had to work out a method of relocation, thankfully, some of the skills I have learnt in the past 10 years gave me the ability to make a new HDD bracket from scratch, to say it came out perfect is an understatement! Made me very happy, rubber mounting to stop any vibrations as well as noise, fits perfectly and an exact replica of the original fan plate, with some minor changes to depth to accommodate for the HDD's.

Onto the water cooling side of things, I previously ran the Alphacool Repack Duel VPP665 Pump / Reservoir, making 1 reservoir work for two separate loops, Always liked it, looked great but fancied changing it up a little, still with Alphacool but this time, two separate Alphacool D5 reservoirs, making each loop separate 100%.

Gotta keep that wiring neat, even though I can't see it, I know it is there aha

One trip to Japan and one Aorus 3090 found! hotel pics once acquired as friends couldn't believe I found one whilst in Japan!

Onto the pipe bending, this time around, just a heat gun and the silicone insert, no tools to bend with or aids, took a very long time yes, but patience paid off as all the pipes came out looking spot on, some very tight angles as well as some pipes with 4 bends aha!

Fair to say they came out pretty well aha, Not perfect, but better then I had hoped. Pressure testing went well, no issues so filling the loop, top loop was so easy, air bled out very quickly, the bottom loop however... I quite literally had the case tipped on all angles to get the air to move, took a very long time but got it bled in the end.

Initial start up issues, old bios version not supporting the 14700k, so reflash to latest, then ram issues due to running 4 x sticks of 16gb, motherboard hated it, but again got that solved, now been running about a week with 0 issues, had to do a fresh installation of windows 11, then copious hours downloading software and my usual programs etc.

Can't forget the wiring in the back, compared to previous, very tidy, so I'm happy about that as well!

Finishing off with some RGB lighting for the case to show off the Aorus and Phanteks logo, all controlled with a mix of Corsair and Gigabyte software, makes life so easy.

Last jobs I need to do is make a face place for both reservoirs, as I hate the stock covers, then the system is done for potentially another 10 years, If we even have computers like this by then aha.

I hope you have enjoyed my adventure building the revision, it's been great fun, challenging and the reward of looking at the system now it's all finished, brings great satisfaction for me aha.

 

[TrojanWhore]

Nice work on the drive plate! Still have my enthoo primo but it's looking a bit worse for wear after a couple of house moves. Will probably still build a second system in it at some point.

 

[jacob1995knight]

Nice work on the drive plate! Still have my enthoo primo but it's looking a bit worse for wear after a couple of house moves. Will probably still build a second system in it at some point.

Appreciate it thank you I looked at new cases in comparison to what I already had and to be honest, I still think the Enthoo Primo works very well for what I was after.

I know what you mean as far as keeping the case in good condition as well, 4 moves in the past 10 years, I still have the case for it as it can't be moved without, too many risks aha

 

[TrojanWhore]

Appreciate it thank you I looked at new cases in comparison to what I already had and to be honest, I still think the Enthoo Primo works very well for what I was after.

I know what you mean as far as keeping the case in good condition as well, 4 moves in the past 10 years, I still have the case for it as it can't be moved without, too many risks aha

Yeah, I stupidly forgot to thumb screw the side panel on before packing everything else, so taped it on and now have tape residue on the window... also snapped pegs on the front vent and top mesh
I'd already bought a 480mm rad before deciding to move on, so then took me a couple of years to find a replacement case I liked that would accomodate it - I'd kinda settled on the 'fish-tank' (O11D) look and eventually found the Sahara gaming p480, which I bought almost a year ago but still haven't got around to building.... build log coming 'soon'(tm)

 

[jabski]

Nice build mate. Should see a nice upgrade from that hardware

 

[Cenedd]

so taped it on and now have tape residue on the window

Ah, you want this stuff. There are cheaper varieties available but I know this one works. Smells like oranges (in a good way) but dissolves the glue in labels, sticky tapes etc.

The bends are really good if you've done them all freehand! I'll be honest, when you said you were doing them that way, I was expecting a car crash!

Drive plate looks good too. What did you do, bend it from sheet metal? I'd have been tempted to migrate the spinning rust to smaller (physical size) SSDs but it understandably comes down to cost I guess.

 

[dtokez]

really smart build, love the white colour scheme

 

[almostgfx]

what a "Glow up"!

 

[ZXSpectrum]

I have a load of the 5090 Xtreme Waterforce to go into a new build waiting on components. I also have a little army (About 50 maybe) of the little robot thingys on the other office they dont supply them with the new GPUs tho..

 

[jacob1995knight]

Nice build mate. Should see a nice upgrade from that hardware

Appreciate it thank you, it's not the latest hardware but performance wise, happily runs games like destiny 2 in 4k at ultra settings at 130fps with no issues and 3d rendering work is so fast now! So I'm very happy aha

 

[jacob1995knight]

Ah, you want this stuff. There are cheaper varieties available but I know this one works. Smells like oranges (in a good way) but dissolves the glue in labels, sticky tapes etc.

The bends are really good if you've done them all freehand! I'll be honest, when you said you were doing them that way, I was expecting a car crash!

Drive plate looks good too. What did you do, bend it from sheet metal? I'd have been tempted to migrate the spinning rust to smaller (physical size) SSDs but it understandably comes down to cost I guess.

Thanks dude

Indeed freehand on the pipes, I found it just took patience and being sure of the angles I was going for.

As far as the drive plate, flat 1.5mm stainless sheet, cut and bent and then hdd holes drilled, to be fair it was really easy, I have a large sheet bender in the workshop so made life super easy aha.

I'm tempted in the future to move over to a couple of 2tb ssd drives, just the time it will take to move everything over

 

[Cenedd]

Ah, a decent sheet bender is either hard to find it hard to afford! I bent some 2mm stainless sheet for the bottom of a door (was to stop rats chewing their way in to a storage area) but I only had a vise bender. I managed it but let's just say I had to rebuild the vise afterwards and make a new, straight handle! Looks like I may have to come to "Mars" next time I have sheet work to do!

 

[jacob1995knight]

Ah, a decent sheet bender is either hard to find it hard to afford! I bent some 2mm stainless sheet for the bottom of a door (was to stop rats chewing their way in to a storage area) but I only had a vise bender. I managed it but let's just say I had to rebuild the vise afterwards and make a new, straight handle! Looks like I may have to come to "Mars" next time I have sheet work to do!

Had it for many years now, a very good piece of equipment, adjustable jaws for angles as well as great bend plate to work with, anything up to 2.5mm, more then enough for what I need aha

Forgot my location was Mars as well Based in worcester UK

 

[jacob1995knight]

Another update for the PC, that being faceplates on the coolant reservoirs, hated the stock face covers, Also found that behind the covers laid secret cut-outs for temperature sensors, so win win for me as another point of monitoring!

Original face plate below:

As you can see, very boring, as well as basic, I didn't want the logo on show from Alphacool either.

Straight back into 3D to design custom plates for both CPU and GPU loop, came out very nice!

Came out so well, perfect fitment when testing as well, more then happy

Had to infill the wording as well, took me far to long with a little needle and white UV paint, but came out just how i wanted!

The finished look not massively fussed that the front temperature screens are blue, the door on the case is closed most of the time.

That's all for now I think, I may change the fans in the future as I know these are all 10 years old, not had any issues with them yet, but new age tech will be far better as well as far quieter as well I believe

 

[Cenedd]

Nice brake. Had a look and similar ones are the better part of £400 and only spec'd for 1mm sheet steel (0.8mm in stainless!). Worcester you say? You should be safe...it's a bit of a trek from me!

3D printed covers? What was the paint you used? I tried a similar infill like you'd do with engraved marks and it just bled along the layer lines; looked a right mess.

 

[jacob1995knight]

Nice brake. Had a look and similar ones are the better part of £400 and only spec'd for 1mm sheet steel (0.8mm in stainless!). Worcester you say? You should be safe...it's a bit of a trek from me!

3D printed covers? What was the paint you used? I tried a similar infill like you'd do with engraved marks and it just bled along the layer lines; looked a right mess.

Indeed 3D printed, I can't get enough of 3D printing, such cool tech!

As far as the white lettering, white UV nail paint, it doesn't set without being uv treated, 60 seconds and solid as a rock, no issues with running either so i found.

If you are having issues with layer lines, that could be due to temp settings on the bed, I found if i run a little hotter on the first layers, you get a far better finish, seals better, otherwise I have experienced the same issues as you with bleed.

 

[Cenedd]

It might have been my first printer (Ender 5) as I remember one of the things I did once I got an X1C was throw a 0.2mm nozzle in it so I could inlay small enough text to fit in the spacing I had. That worked very nicely - so nicely in fact that I still haven't finished that project *facepalm*
So it might just be that the problem I had wasn't so much with the idea but with the implementation of the 3D printing I was doing at the time. Worth knowing - could be a technique worth re-trying at some point.
Useful? Yeah, very. I've got an M68.5x1.25mm thread printed here. I still have to make it from steel but at least I was able to confirm what fits the thread I have to match. There would have been far more swearing if I'd had to try manually machining each attempt!