Sugo SG03 Watercooling & Overclocking

Well it's taken me a long time to complete, but I've finally built my Sugo after a nightmare build.

My original intention was to build a small quiet media PC for watching DVDs, playing music and a bit of light gaming built around a Gigabyte GA-33M board, mainly due to it's on board capability. But it turned out that that board couldn't run RAM 1:1 with the FSB limiting overclocking.

In addition to that my choosen type of tubing and fittings weren't 100% compatible, Waterchill 10/8mm tubing and Alphacool 10mm push fittings. The Waterchill tubing is superb, very similar to Tygon in it's non-kink bendyness and would have greatly simplified the tube routing. The alternative is polyurethane 10/8mm tubing with similar bending capability of drink straws . The main problem is that the Waterchill doesn't actually lock into the push fitting and when bent in tight turns the tubing slightly deforms in the fitting introducing potential leak paths.

So what I ended up going for was the Asus P5K-VM and a PCI-E RAID (more about that later ) card to get the best of both worlds and barbs and tubing. These will be paired up with:-

E2180 cooled by Swiftech Apogee GTX
8800GTX cooled by EK 8800GTS full cover block
Silentmaxx 500W watercooled PSU
DDC 18W pump with a Petra top
Black Ice Stealth 2.120mm, all plumbed with Masterkleer 7/16" tubing
2x Sharkhoon 1000rpm fans on the radiator
4GB (4x1GB) Crucial Ballistix 667MHz
Creative X-FI XtremeGamer
Adaptec RAID card
Blu-Ray drive
2x Samsung 64GB SSD

Jokester

CPU Preparation

First step was to lap the CPU, for those that don't know, lapping is where you sand the top of a CPU until it's as flat as possible. It's a particular problem with Intel C2D chips where the IHS isn't flat, and if you use minimal TIM the cooler doesn't actually make contact with the centre of the CPU where the actual core is.


What you need to lap, is a series of increasing fine sand papers and something extremely flat (a sheet of glass is good). You're looking to go from something like 400, 600, 800, 1200, and finally 1600 grade papers. You can use even finer grades as upto 2500 and beyond as they're fairly easy to get hold of and even metal polish for that final shine but the benefits for cooling are minimal if anything. Wet and dry paper is better as the water acts as a lubricant and aids with the sanding process.


The basic principle is to place the paper on top of the glass and to put the chip face down. I've added a touch of water to the rear of the water to act as a bit of adhesive to keep the paper in place. Also a few drops of paper on the top for sanding.


Applying pressure to the CPU all you do is a circular motion and every so often rotate the CPU in your hand so that you get an even finish. What I do is with 400 paper is keep going until only copper is showing on the top, this can take about 15mins or so depending on how much pressure you're using.


And just to show how unflat these chips are, as you can see from this photo I've taken more off one side than the other so rotating the CPU in your hand regularly is a good idea so that the pressure and sanding is evenly applied.


Still a fair bit to go.


Forearm is getting sore by this point


Getting there.


Great design by Intel, the worst spot is bang in the middle.


Done with this paper now.


That's the finised article. After removing all the aluminium down to the copper I then take each successively finer papers and follow the same procedure as above, but only do it for about 5mins. To get a shine on your chip at the end instead of using a circular motion use a linear motion and don't change the direction.

Last thing to do is clean the CPU and get rid of the metal debris off it.

Jokester

GPU Preparation

Not entirely convinced the PSU will be up for this, but there's no harm in trying.


Ultra core


RAM volt modded.


Core volt modded.


Read points.


Back of card showing all the mods.


Front of card.

Jokester

Nice work so far, as always

SG03 is the new, mini tower esque sugo isnt it ?

Could a PA160 / 120.2 fit ?

Expensive solid state drive array there

jellybeard999 said:

Nice work so far, as always

SG03 is the new, mini tower esque sugo isnt it ?

Could a PA160 / 120.2 fit ?

Expensive solid state drive array there

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's the new micro tower Sugo, lovely bit of kit, my only complaint is that it's a bit flimsy and the aluminium structure is easily bent.

You've got no chance to fit a PA series radiator internally. You could potentially mount a PA160 on the roof on the outside if you cut a hole. I had a look at a PA120.2 on the roof, but it's as long as the case and would cover the on button which is in the roof at the front.

As for the RAID, it didn't work . Apparently Asus P5K boards don't let you use add in RAID cards for some reason. Tried two different cards, though I could create an array, it wouldn't stick.

Jokester

Motherboard Preparation


Next up was to prepare the motherboard, I've removed the SB sink and applied some better paste and removed the NB to do the same.


Addition of GTX mounting posts.


Replacement of NB heatsink after the addition of some AS Ceramique.


Close up of socket.


And this time with the CPU retention clip removed to ensure that it doesn't clash with the bottom of the waterblock.


Going to use some Liquid Metal as I'm intending this build to be pretty permanant so the issues with it bonding the block to the CPU isn't a major concern for me.


After it's been spread over the waterblock and CPU.


And in the socket.


Waterblock bolted down.

Jokester

Putting it Together


So where do you put a radiator in a case that small?


It's a perfect fit in the front of the case. It's bolted onto the bottom fan only, as the screw holes in the front of the case don't line up with the holes in the radiator. I've had to remove the wiring for the power/HD activity LEDs on the other side of the front as they clashed with the radiator. I also later removed the cabling associated with the front USB etc sockets to save clutter.


Front shot showing the covers open.


As you can see it's a tight fit between the end of the motherboard and the radiator. Anything other than a slimline radiator won't fit in there without substantial modification to the front of the case.


Time to start plumbing it in, because of the tight space I've had to resort to using 90degree bends to avoid kinking the tubing.


PSU in over the top of the CPU block.


There's not much clearance between the board and the PSU above it.


Completed plumbing. I've got the pump suspended and just hanging off the tubing coming down from the radiator outlet. The fill line is close coupled to the pump to save space.

Jokester

Completed Build


Filled and bleeding air.


Shot showing it upright on my desk.


It's a really nice case the Sugo3, it's just ever so slightly bigger than my Aego M base speaker.

Jokester

That rocks! have some stars

Thanks


Full load temperature . Idles about 29-30C.

Jokester

Very nice. Unreal Idle Temperature.

is that PSU water cooled? - ignore just read the spec


Awsome build mate

Amazing build there m8!

Ok done a full suite of benchmarks at stock using Vista64:-

Graphics

3dmark2001 - 22049 - seems low, but it's repeatable
3dmark2003 - 27084
3dmark2005 - 11219
3dmark2006 - 7729

System
PCmark2005 - 6241
PCmarkVantage - 2911

CPU

Pifast - 49.20s


Sandra - 16749Mips


Superpi 1MB - 29.747s


Wprime 32M - 41.693s
Wprime 1024M - 1325.655s

Jokester

Very nice concept.

Do the Samsung SSD's live up to your expectations?

Bane said:

Do the Samsung SSD's live up to your expectations?

Click to expand...

Yeah, they were fantastically nippy in RAID 0, I haven't really noticed that much of a difference as single drives.

Jokester

Not bad for 1.2V.

Jokester

Looking good, are those temps at full load!

Im going to have to test my one out, see how far I can push that, so far at a whopping 2.5ghz

Rob

Very nice and simple system build!