Project OVERLOADED (part 4)

Good day (or evening in some places)

So part four of the overloaded project, its been just under a year since i last updated, but as time goes on, parts get better

First off, i went crossfire with both of my powercolor HD 6950's they performed amazingly! i could play any game at ultra without an issue - apart from crysis 3 little bit laggy

So i decided to get some new graphics cards something that would give me a little bit of space for the future, all in all i decided to stick to the AMD route and get myself two Sapphire R9 290X 4GB graphics cards

But that's not all as i knew that the stock coolers where like jet engines, so i decided to go water cooled (many thanks to those on the water cooling page btw)

And.... Finally, as a birthday present from the folks, they went out of there way to get me a new Samsung 28" U28D590D UHD 4K monitor and all i can say is that its mind blowing, with 6950's in crossfire, but then! with two R9 290X's in crossfire 4K comes ALIVE

I also got myself a new mouse, Mad catz MMO 7 in white, its fantastic really smooth and looks good to

Here are some images of the cards and the build process, i didn't get any shots of the cards being built but there are plenty of images anyway



Loads of boxes, so much packaging!!!



They where a little dirty after being built



Ready to be cleaned







The insides where dirty, a lot of bits in the water blocks





Some arty tarty shots my camera skills are not the best and it was getting late (1:00) but i was determined to get it all done





















So as the cards where cleaning on the floor, i started to strip down my computer felt weird doing it





Drained the fluid



Got the first card in the system nice and easy, no issues....... so far



Then came the second card! OMG!!! what a pain the connection between the cards was so small!!!





But none the less i got it done it took 40 minutes but i got there.











a lot of mess





Final pieces of tubing and then tidying up the system





Time to fill the loop and leak test it, i was very happy at this point







SUCCESS no leaks, what so ever, left the system to settle over an hour, time was really dragging on at this point

First start up and drivers installed no issues what so ever



CPU temperatures after 20 minutes at 3.7ghz clock speed



GPU temperatures also after 20 minutes




So put the machine to bed, went to bed and today, started the machine up, all good no issues what so ever + my room is still looking awesome

















And then when im in a gaming mood the lights go crazy








Also had a chance to do some testing, showing what the cards can do, with temps at stock and being pushed.

Here is the idle temperature



Here is the temperature after 3D mark 11



Also here is the 3D mark 11 score



Here is the temperature after 3D mark vantage



Also here is the 3D mark vantage score



Well thanks for looking im sure that there will be more upgrades in the future

Jake

Looks good m8
Pics are a bit oversize imho,but hey they look ok
By the look of the position of that mouse you must be a leftie?
(Thats why you had trouble getting that second card fitted j/k

Good to see you capped the blank gpu ports .

Looks great well done! Such a tiny gap between those cards must have been difficult.

Out of interest what was that pump setup you used for flushing?

lol, were you making coffee in your mouth mr bean style. Spotted pot of coffee in one of the photos, the pyrex jug looked like a pint of milk and all you needed was a kettle of hot water hahah!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSFMmv9LUtc


cracking build mate looks good! did you braid your mobo leads yourself?

Jeeze, I had to look twice at that picture of your mouse, at first glance I thought youd taken a picture of a McLaren hotwheels car, I scrolled back and was like woah that's your mouse haha! looks trick though, and the rigs looking good pal good work! great to see someone happy when things have gone well!

Mynight said:

Good to see you capped the blank gpu ports .

Looks great well done! Such a tiny gap between those cards must have been difficult.

Out of interest what was that pump setup you used for flushing?

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I used the EK 2.2 pump/res combo with Thermo Chill coolant to clean the graphics card blocks, im amazed at how well a job it did, they are really clean

Ahaha thanks for the replies the coffee joke hahaha im still laughing

Protoype said:

lol, were you making coffee in your mouth mr bean style. Spotted pot of coffee in one of the photos, the pyrex jug looked like a pint of milk and all you needed was a kettle of hot water hahah!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSFMmv9LUtc


cracking build mate looks good! did you braid your mobo leads yourself?

Click to expand...

Yes i did the cables when i first got the case, they are not the best and need to be done again, but it took a really long time im tempted to buy some extensions.

Well done on making the jump to watercooling.......but blimey, when were those fans and radiators last given a good clean?

NMBlack said:

Well done on making the jump to watercooling.......but blimey, when were those fans and radiators last given a good clean?

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Hahahaha i knew someone was going to say, im cleaning them now, filthy i know poor computer

Is your top card getting a lot hotter than the bottom? Seems like a big difference in max temps there unless I'm reading it wrong?

Yes you are reading the graph wrong, im guessing its the graph for 3D mark Vantage? its the top two, the bottom line is the GPU usage over the test for 3D mark Vantage.

The cards stay cool pretty much all of the time, i have been playing games and running bench marks for a couple of hours and the highest temperatures have been just under 67.C

And the second card only hit 52 degrees is what I mean? Was it just using the top card? I have had 7950's and 780's under water and they are always within a few degrees of each other. That is a 15 degree gap isn't it?

Just as a reference my 780's currently won't break 45 degrees with the fans turned up and 52 with them on low. Are the 290X's that much hotter?

Alz D is correct here, the top is maxing out at 67°c and the bottom is 52°c max, I would say the top card is seated badly so there isn't enough contact with the Heatsink. not saying you done a bad job just might have to much or to little thermal paste compared to the other card/ or trapped air still.

the reason I say this is because once the water has reached its peak temp which after running all the tests it should have... then both graphics cards should be around either the 52 or the 67, not one at each end.

so I agree with Alz D on this one and I think you may need to re do your top graphic cards thermal paste. but then again for 290x's 67 isn't take high so you could leave it. its up to you

*tip* when mounting the cards tubing in between place both cards in and work out the distance, then take both cards out and mount the tube in between the cards and the slot them both back in at the same time. my 2 cents on sli tubing unless that's how you done it in the end. then ignore this xD

Oh, my bad peeps, that is the test for unigene, testing with only one card, there is nothing wrong with the thermal paste i know that for a fact

josh_king said:

*tip* when mounting the cards tubing in between place both cards in and work out the distance, then take both cards out and mount the tube in between the cards and the slot them both back in at the same time. my 2 cents on sli tubing unless that's how you done it in the end. then ignore this xD

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Bitspower crystal links also work really well in this situation!

So long as the cards are similar temps when both in use then it's all good! Just worried as stated that your top card wasn't seated well with the block!

Alz_D said:

Bitspower crystal links also work really well in this situation!

So long as the cards are similar temps when both in use then it's all good! Just worried as stated that your top card wasn't seated well with the block!

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Yes in the end i had to drop the card out, slot the tube in and then push up pain it was!

I have done several tests with 3D mark programs to see what the GPU's are doing temperature wise, i can confirm that they stay within 2 - 3 degrees of each other

Woo, thats great news then!! Great build too keep it up....and yes gpu sli blocking is a pain lol