Project "One" - Corsair 650D

Credit to: [email protected] for making my acrylic floor/box which has not yet been fit yet. Feel free to contact him should you want anything made

Phase 1 Complete:



Phase 2 To-Do List:

1. Purchse 2 X GFX cards and associated full blocks
2. Drill, tube and fit fill and drain ports
3. Add the water temperature sensors and cut out mounts in the case to display water temps
4. Obtain "basement" area and fit it in

Build Log

This is my first custom build and also my first water cooled build

Progress will be quite slow on this as I have a busy day job and it gets dark real early so I only really have the weekends to get stuff done

I have purchased the below list of kit, I haven't purchased a new motherboard and CPU yet... I will get the rest done first. I already have an Asus Sabretooth motherboard and Phenom x4 CPU

I currently have 2 X Geforece 560Ti, one is MSI and the other is OcUK. Neiter are reference. I have not decided what to do about this yet, I deffinately want them under water. Whether I buy new reference cards or manually watercool them is yet to be decided



1 X Corsair Professional Series 1050W
1 X Corsair 650D Case
2 X Corsair Dominator 4GB, 1866MHZ, C9
2 X Crucial 128GB M4 for RAID 0
1 X EK Supreme HF CPU Waterblock - Nickel Plexi
1 X EK Supreme HF GPU Waterblock – Nickel Plexi
1 X Hwlabs BlackIce 240mm SR-1 Radiator
1 X Phobya 200mm Xtreme Radiator
1 X EK Multioption Reservoir X2 250 Advanced
1 X OcUK Tech Lab - D5 Vario Pump & Alphacool Clear HF D5 Top Value Combo
1 X Lamptron FC5 V2 5.25" Bay Fan Controller - Black
2 X Mayhems Aurora - Tharsis Red Coolant 1L
2 X Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850 RPM - 3 Pin
1 X Xigmatek 200mm Red LED FAN
1 X Masterkleer Hose Pack PVC 15,9/11mm (7/16ID) Clear 3.3m
2 X EK-PSC Adapter Rotary 90° G1/4 Nickel
2 X EK-PSC Adapter Rotary 45° G1/4 Nickel
12 X EK PSC Compression Fitting 7/16 [16/11mm] - G1/4 – Nickel
1 X MDPC "Christmas Special" - Black Sleeving
1 X MDPC Red Small Sleeving
1 X MDPC Crimping Tool + 160 Crimps
1 X Artic Silver
1 X Artic Silver Paste Cleaner
1 X Dremmel

Assortment of rad mounting screws, washers, m3 screws, allen keys, precision screw drivers, double sided tape, velcro

Whats missing

1 X EK-RAM x4. Waterblock for Corsair Dominator RAM
1 X Motherboard (probably Asus Z68 Pro, I’d prefer a red board though…)
1 X Waterblock for Motherboard
1 X CPU (I think I want the i5 2500K)

looks really nice

Ok, so some updates...

I got the case out and removed two lower drive bays, this case allows you to then mount one of the drive bays behind the PSU freeing up space behind the front 200mm fan... this is a very nice feature



I then mounted the top 240mm radiator





Then had a look at the front radiator mounting position.. this is where the 200mm fan was and the metal plate comes with the Phobya 200mm Xtreme to help you mount



The plate has a few diferent holes in it to allow you to mount in different positions. The outer most holes are what the radiator mount onto, the inner most holes are supposed to be 200mm I suspect



Problem was that the holes were millimetres off.. I couldnt get the rad to mount at all, I tried bending the mounting plate slightly but no luck



So out comes the Dremel, I got this off ebay new for £20... I dont really know what all the bits are for but I made the holes slightly bigger quite easily..





Problem now was the bolts no longer catch onto the thread.. so I used masking tape to adhere some 3.5mm nuts onto the back side of the plate

The next problem was that the mounting bracket for the previous hard drive cage was sticking out enough to stop the radiator from being able to mount in this position



So out came the dremel again...



Problem solved



I then tried mounting again only to find that the radiator bleed hole was in the way




So you know what happens next...



Once I cut this hole the radiator mounted nicely into its position. I thread a bolt from the front side of the case, through a 200mm fan and into the radiator mounting bracket

Once the fan and radiator were mounted it looked quite good



The corsair 650D comes with a bunch of front IO ports as well as a fan controller and a hot plug SATA docking station.. all this adds up to a LOT of cables running around the case before you even install any equipment



So.. I got to work sleeving







And once I had completed all the internal cables



I dug out an old motherboard to make sure I could install it and discovered that I couldnt mount it because the radiator was obscuring the RAM. I had to switch the fans around on the top rad so the fans were under the rad not ontop... I prefered the old way, but I have to do it this way

My problem now is that I have white fans showing, I might spray them red or try get a red LED to light them up with

Anyway... Im gonna call it a night for today



I have no idea how I am going to sleeve this cable...

Very Nice, Intrested to see how this turns out.

looking really good

Got home from work and my fingers are sore from sleeving lol so thought I'd have a go at mocking up the loop... just connected up the pump.. to nothing so far

I like the nickel on black

Looks good mate. Subbed.
What pliers are they in the photo?

of those leather man type things got it from Cornwall or some place weird couldnt find my normal ones at the time lol

Look quite cool Thanks for the response

Can you talk abit more about the electrical tape and the nuts as I have a similar problem with a bottom mounted 240mm rad and will need to do some modding of my own.

Looking good

This sounds interesting, i love to see what others do with there 650d's gives me inspiration for my own, subbed.
Very interesting to see these issues mounting the phobya 200mm rad to the front of the 650D, i'll be doing just the same thing next week, gives me a good idea of what to expect.

this looks like its going to be awesome!!

James J said:

Can you talk abit more about the electrical tape and the nuts as I have a similar problem with a bottom mounted 240mm rad and will need to do some modding of my own.

Click to expand...

The radiator comes with a mounting plate



A = the holes onto which the radiator mounts (onto the back of the plate)
B = the holes onto which the 200mm fan mounts (onto the front of the plate)

The problem was that because I made the holes bigger for the 200mm mount point the bolt had nothing to latch onto when threading a nut through the front of the case, through the fan and into this plate

Because the radiator was mounted to the back of this plate I couldnt hold a nut there

So with the plate removed I attached nuts to the back side of the plate where the 200mm holes using electrical tape so that the bolts had something to latch onto

Does this help?

I drew a picture to try explain what I mean a bit better



If you imagine that the yellow square is the mounting bracked (hidden from view) onto which the radiator is mounted

The red star is a nut

The straight red line is a bolt

The black line is a peice of masking tape holing the nut onto the back of the mounting plate so the bolt can latch onto it

As this is my first introduction to water cooling I spent this evening figuring stuff out, compression fittings, 90 degree angles, 45 degree angles, how the pump and res work etc.. I set up a very simple loop without any cooling blocks



When looking at how I would run the piping to the top rad I found that the gap between the rad and the case is just about the perfect size allowing the piping leading TO the radiator from the pump to be hidden. I don't like it when the barbs are at the front of the case, I think it looks too cluttered. If I can keep this idea when the rest of the components are in this pipe leading TO the top rad will be hidden, only tubing which connects to actual components will be visible... much better imo



Anyone looking to do this, I suggest you stock up on 90 and 45 degree angles.. I need to order some more

Thanks for that, makes sense. Might have a similar issue with my build so gonna have to get a dremel out I think

I havent made much progress as I cant find a motherboard I actually like.. but in the mean time I have been in talks with PhillyDee on these forums regarding a box I want fabricating to fit in the bottom of the case to hide the pump and PSU

This is the image I sent to PhillyDee and am hoping he will contruct it for our of acrylic. I am also going to try making one our of aluminium by myself so I can see which I prefer





I also purchased an 18mm drill bit to drill holes in the box for my tubes

OcUK just tole me that the Gigabyte Z68 UD4 that they just got in stock is infact revision 1.3! So, I have now decided on a motherboard

Not sure if I mentioned this before but my colour scheme is red and black, this motherboard i am sure you will agree fits in quite well with that. My other options were Asus Maximus IV, Asrock Fatal1ty, Asrock Extreme IV or any of the EVGA boards

Im not paying £320 for the maximus because its not even Gen3
The Asrock and EVGA boards have massive heatsinks on the north most mosfet which obscure the fans attached to the top radiators

Here is the board I have chosen, you will notice that the north most heatsink/mosfet does not stick out any further than the RAM which is the absolute limit because of my 54mm top radiator

Love the 650D