Summer is very short here in Finland and when it starts I put my AC on lol. (Yeah Im not from UK, hopefully Im welcome anyway).Excellent results!
Wait until summer rolls around
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Watercooled Case Gallery
- Thread starter MikeTimbers
- Start date
Associate
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- 30 Mar 2017
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Living the PC builders dream in a cold climate. Most welcome!
Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Jun 2005
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- 7,657
Split my loop into 2. Not sure why I didn't do that to start with, but I'll assume laziness. The top rad is dual chamber, so CPU and GPU have 1.5 rads each. The GPU gets the larger bottom rad and CPU the slimmer side one. It works out well as unless I'm rendering or gaming it idles on just 3 fans.
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Man of Honour
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- 8 Nov 2007
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- Outer Space
@Skunkworks Pics aren't showing 
Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Jun 2005
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- 7,657
Fixed, I think. I can't find my tripod so the low light pics are garbage.
No idea how I've never seen this thread but oh well! Here I am. I've been doing WCing for a long time now; first WC rig was back in 2007.
In more recent times, I switched to hard tubing in 2021 and did a whole new build.
My many times updated/modified, old school soft tubing rig and a 3090 FTW3:
I purchased a whole new rig to build alongside this one (excluding PSU), and then plotted out the new loop on a whiteboard. I couldn't do the 480 rad at the front with the fittings down low as the case didn't allow the bottom radiator to be mounted far enough back, sadly.
Here are some images of pieceing the loop together, with a Radeon 6870. I kept switching between various cards at the time, and hadn't decided on one to keep. I eventually settled on an MSI 3090 Suprim.
My very first bend of hard tubing:
Worst pipe to do in the whole rig and I got it first try somehow:
Finished loop in phase 1 with no GPU:
Adding the 3090 Suprim into the loop:
Phase 2 completed. I partially added the fill and drain loops here. I wouldn't end up adding them on until 18 months later. Whoops.
Eventually, I added the missing fill and drain portions of the loop.
I then upgraded to a new board, CPU and fresh block Oct last year. I took no pictures of this process other than the end result, I'm afraid! Even then it's not a good picture to boot.
In more recent times, I switched to hard tubing in 2021 and did a whole new build.
My many times updated/modified, old school soft tubing rig and a 3090 FTW3:
I purchased a whole new rig to build alongside this one (excluding PSU), and then plotted out the new loop on a whiteboard. I couldn't do the 480 rad at the front with the fittings down low as the case didn't allow the bottom radiator to be mounted far enough back, sadly.
Here are some images of pieceing the loop together, with a Radeon 6870. I kept switching between various cards at the time, and hadn't decided on one to keep. I eventually settled on an MSI 3090 Suprim.
My very first bend of hard tubing:
Worst pipe to do in the whole rig and I got it first try somehow:
Finished loop in phase 1 with no GPU:
Adding the 3090 Suprim into the loop:
Phase 2 completed. I partially added the fill and drain loops here. I wouldn't end up adding them on until 18 months later. Whoops.
Eventually, I added the missing fill and drain portions of the loop.
I then upgraded to a new board, CPU and fresh block Oct last year. I took no pictures of this process other than the end result, I'm afraid! Even then it's not a good picture to boot.
Thanks for getting in touch - love your build and pretty much set on transplanting my son's rig from the Lancool 3 into an O11D Evo.Upgraded GPU from 3080 to 5090. Upgraded Linkup gen4 riser to Linkup gen5.
Redone the loop few times and here we go
Will share pics once "Santa" has made his deliveries.
Tried convincing myself I didn't need to watercool when I got the Xikii case but that only lasted a few months! Couldn't help myself.
Ended up cooling the RAM & NVME too. Might go back and try to find a VRM block as they can reach 100C+ during 30+ mins of cinebench.
You can also add brass passthroughs with threaded holes for fittings.
MO-RA sits hidden behind the desk. Managed to get a spare Astral cooler off ebay and modified it with a hacksaw to keep the aesthetic.
Ended up cooling the RAM & NVME too. Might go back and try to find a VRM block as they can reach 100C+ during 30+ mins of cinebench.
You can also add brass passthroughs with threaded holes for fittings.
MO-RA sits hidden behind the desk. Managed to get a spare Astral cooler off ebay and modified it with a hacksaw to keep the aesthetic.
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That's awesome dude! Love the use of the GPU aircooler there!
Sorry mate, your pics aren't showing in your post, nor the quoted post under yours
https://images2.~imgbox~/89/e2/J6JfEsKo_o.png
Cheers for the heads up should be fixed now. Hard finding a decent image hosting site these days.
Soldato
- Joined
- 28 Dec 2017
- Posts
- 10,173
- Location
- Beds
That is a STUNNING build. Mind boggling work on the hard tubing over the motherboard.
What image hosting are you using? I've always used ~imgbb~ but it's being discouraged.
Cheers, I'm using postimages now although that also had problems in the past.
really nice build mateTried convincing myself I didn't need to watercool when I got the Xikii case but that only lasted a few months! Couldn't help myself.
Ended up cooling the RAM & NVME too. Might go back and try to find a VRM block as they can reach 100C+ during 30+ mins of cinebench.
You can also add brass passthroughs with threaded holes for fittings.
MO-RA sits hidden behind the desk. Managed to get a spare Astral cooler off ebay and modified it with a hacksaw to keep the aesthetic.
Fractal Design North XL case.
Case modified by using a cutting disc, removing bits of metal here and there.
So noisy cutting away the metal. :O Better use ear plugs or something, or risk damaging your hearing if cutting into metal.
Various issues not mentioned here, some major, some minor, in this cramped case.
Don't think I could have used hard tubing here, not enough space.
Top rad: Alphacool's 280 crossflow radiator, 45mm thick.
Front rad: Alphacool's 420 crossflor radiator, 45mm thick.
Thermal Grizzly cpu cooler (delidded 9950x3d).
Thermal Grizzly gpu monitor.
Barrowch flow meter.
Cheap Arctic 140mm fans. Because the new Noctua ones would have been super expensive to buy.
Really happy the Alphacool Apex pump, makes no noise from what I can tell. I did add sound dampening to the res/pump structure.
The too-tall crossflow radiator required removing metal at the top in various places.
At least, now whenever refilling the loop after maintenance, I can unscrew and gently move to the side this top lid (usb ports on top) and fill the front radiator with liquid 100%, to remove any remaining air.
Because I also made a hole in the case at the bottom, and using these larger crossflow radiators, I can now use the bottom opening, to drain the loop.
Heh, the piece of furniture in the photo, has a large hole on top, so the loop can be drained of liquid, straight down into a bucket, without having to move the case.
I turned off some of the existing led's, ending up with this more mysterious looking cpu cooler on the inside behind this darkened glass panel.
I very carefully glued on a strip of black paper around the reservoir, to avoid starting directly onto led lights from the bottom of the reservoir.
Note, super glue don't mix well with acrylics afaik.
Performance:
With 31 deg ambient temp last summer, the loop temp held at max 42 deg C, playing Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings, with path tracing and 1440p.
With 22 deg ambient temp this winter, the loop temp held at max 40 deg C, playing Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings, with path tracing and 4k (an upgrade from summer).
Air temp inside, was measured to be the same as the loop temp, so 40 deg C, cooler than I thought.
The fan speed was ofc adjusted for minimal noise, and less performance. Really happy with the end result!
Only five fans are mounted atm, so I have the option to add three more fans at the front for a push/pull configuration. Maybe later.
There is no clearning distance between the gpu power cable and the cheaper Barrowch flow meter.
Very unhappy with the FSP 1350W Hydro PTM Pro power supply. The psu makes a lot of noise at some lower threshold in games, when the gpu don't pull much power.
Playing Stellaris on this machine, makes the psu create never ending noise. I have to play Stellaris on my old gaming computer because of this.
In Windows desktop, there is no noise.
Some random noise occasionally when playing Squad, but it tends to go away.
I sent FSP an email, haven't heard back from them at all.
Somehow the usb ports on top, are extremely tight. Not happy about that, but a minor issue atm.
The Alphacool 5090 backplate was bent out of the box. Backplate was already screwed onto the main metal piece inside the box. Unsure if the backplate is supposed to be like this. I mean I expected the back plate to be simply flat.
For working with the delicate parts, the cpu and gpu cooler (I opened it up to remove the CORE logo plate), I used a cheap torque hex screwdriver.
Some months later I bought a second 2TB nvme drive, and had to drain the loop and remove the graphics card in order to mount the new nvme drive. :|
https://i.~ibb.co~/kgMvLZy6/cas2.jpg https://i.~ibb.co~/qMDSYFXY/furn.jpg
Case modified by using a cutting disc, removing bits of metal here and there.
So noisy cutting away the metal. :O Better use ear plugs or something, or risk damaging your hearing if cutting into metal.
Various issues not mentioned here, some major, some minor, in this cramped case.
Don't think I could have used hard tubing here, not enough space.
Top rad: Alphacool's 280 crossflow radiator, 45mm thick.
Front rad: Alphacool's 420 crossflor radiator, 45mm thick.
Thermal Grizzly cpu cooler (delidded 9950x3d).
Thermal Grizzly gpu monitor.
Barrowch flow meter.
Cheap Arctic 140mm fans. Because the new Noctua ones would have been super expensive to buy.
Really happy the Alphacool Apex pump, makes no noise from what I can tell. I did add sound dampening to the res/pump structure.
The too-tall crossflow radiator required removing metal at the top in various places.
At least, now whenever refilling the loop after maintenance, I can unscrew and gently move to the side this top lid (usb ports on top) and fill the front radiator with liquid 100%, to remove any remaining air.
Because I also made a hole in the case at the bottom, and using these larger crossflow radiators, I can now use the bottom opening, to drain the loop.
Heh, the piece of furniture in the photo, has a large hole on top, so the loop can be drained of liquid, straight down into a bucket, without having to move the case.
I turned off some of the existing led's, ending up with this more mysterious looking cpu cooler on the inside behind this darkened glass panel.
I very carefully glued on a strip of black paper around the reservoir, to avoid starting directly onto led lights from the bottom of the reservoir.
Note, super glue don't mix well with acrylics afaik.
Performance:
With 31 deg ambient temp last summer, the loop temp held at max 42 deg C, playing Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings, with path tracing and 1440p.
With 22 deg ambient temp this winter, the loop temp held at max 40 deg C, playing Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings, with path tracing and 4k (an upgrade from summer).
Air temp inside, was measured to be the same as the loop temp, so 40 deg C, cooler than I thought.
The fan speed was ofc adjusted for minimal noise, and less performance. Really happy with the end result!
Only five fans are mounted atm, so I have the option to add three more fans at the front for a push/pull configuration. Maybe later.
There is no clearning distance between the gpu power cable and the cheaper Barrowch flow meter.
Very unhappy with the FSP 1350W Hydro PTM Pro power supply. The psu makes a lot of noise at some lower threshold in games, when the gpu don't pull much power.
Playing Stellaris on this machine, makes the psu create never ending noise. I have to play Stellaris on my old gaming computer because of this.
In Windows desktop, there is no noise.
Some random noise occasionally when playing Squad, but it tends to go away.
I sent FSP an email, haven't heard back from them at all.
Somehow the usb ports on top, are extremely tight. Not happy about that, but a minor issue atm.
The Alphacool 5090 backplate was bent out of the box. Backplate was already screwed onto the main metal piece inside the box. Unsure if the backplate is supposed to be like this. I mean I expected the back plate to be simply flat.
For working with the delicate parts, the cpu and gpu cooler (I opened it up to remove the CORE logo plate), I used a cheap torque hex screwdriver.
Some months later I bought a second 2TB nvme drive, and had to drain the loop and remove the graphics card in order to mount the new nvme drive. :|
https://i.~ibb.co~/kgMvLZy6/cas2.jpg https://i.~ibb.co~/qMDSYFXY/furn.jpg
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Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Dec 2019
- Posts
- 8,625
- Location
- Planet Thanet
To hide leds on reservoirs
Around the edges of side glass panels etc
So you dont see the actual leds just the glow
You can use adhesive car door sills vinyl
The stuff people have cars wrapped in
Couple of inches wide
Comes in all sorts of colours
I used black carbon fibre effect
Cost me £5 for dont even remember how many meters
But enough to go round all 4 sides of a side panel
Multiple times
Can also stick it on anything else in/on the pc
To give matching highlights
Around the edges of side glass panels etc
So you dont see the actual leds just the glow
You can use adhesive car door sills vinyl
The stuff people have cars wrapped in
Couple of inches wide
Comes in all sorts of colours
I used black carbon fibre effect
Cost me £5 for dont even remember how many meters
But enough to go round all 4 sides of a side panel
Multiple times
Can also stick it on anything else in/on the pc
To give matching highlights
Use a separate PSU to power the pump and fill her up. Use de-ionised/distilled water with a biocide for ultra low maintenance and minimal conductivity risk.
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Dec 2019
- Posts
- 8,625
- Location
- Planet Thanet
Ideally you want to
Pressure test each time you add
Something to the loop during building
Much easier to know where the leak is then
Should you have one
Don't normally like green
But that actually does look good
Pressure test each time you add
Something to the loop during building
Much easier to know where the leak is then
Should you have one
Don't normally like green
But that actually does look good
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Dec 2019
- Posts
- 8,625
- Location
- Planet Thanet
Don't necessarily need a separate psu
If dont have a second psu handy
Just unplug 8 pin cpu connectors
Unplug 24 pin
And jump/bridge green and black wire
On psu