Hey guys, thought I'd post the build log for my first custom loop. I have a feeling most people probably wont like it as everyone these days seems to like there tubing as tidy and short as possible but I wanted to do something different and make the most of my first building experience, especially with hard acrylic tubing.
When I decided to go about this build I didn't really have anything in mind, it was for temps, it wasn't for over clocking, it was purely to have a go and see what I could do.
Ended up spending farrrrr more than I had ever planned to, but once I started buying stuff I couldn't stop. I didn't go with any one specific brand, I just got stuff I liked the look of and thought would be interesting.
Part's list -
AMD FX8350 Black Edition Processor
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 Mobo
Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Edition (Had major issues with this card and had to RMA it multiple times, would have liked a refund to get something I could WC but didn't work out that way).
Avexir Core Blue Series 1600mhz RAM
Super Flower Leadex 750w PSU
Samsung 840 Series 250gb SSD
Corsair Force GS 128gb SSd
500GB HDD
2 x LEPA Casino 120mm Fans (Front Intake)
3 x Cooler Master JetFlo Fans (Rad)
NZXT Sentry Mix 2
XSPC D5 Pump
XSPC D5 Acrylic Res Tank
XSPC Photon 170 Tube Res
XSPC Temp Monitor
Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis Radiator GTS 360
EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ CPU Block
Monsoon Free Center Hardline fittings
Monsoon Hardline 13mm Acrylic Tubing
Primochill Vortex Flow Meter
Mayhems X1 UV Blue Premixed Fluid (Already the UV effect has faded within a week)
Also used a bunch of odd fittings here and there such as Bitspower Crystal T and L junctions and a few XSPC Male to Male fittings.
Have to excuse the image quality of the upcoming pics, I was just snapping away on my phone as I was building
My original Zalman Z11 Plus case, had to destroy it a bit to fit the GPU in, pretty much when I decided I needed a new case!
Next to the new 760T
When most of the parts arrived
Original plan on where I wanted the 2 reservoirs to sit, I went with 2 for no other reason than I couldn't decide which one I wanted more, so I got both <3
At this point I was trying to decide how I wanted to do my tubing and I couldnt help but think the tubing would take away from a lot of the parts Id spent time choosing specifically for there aesthetics, so I decided I would use the tubing to frame the parts, meaning they would go around the borders of the case and not over lap any of the main stuff where possible!
Using the Monsoon Hardline Pro Bending Kit I managed to get the top half of the loop done fairly trouble free
I then went on to do the lower half and made the mistake of not checking the inlet and outlet on the XSPC D5 Tank Res, took me a fair few attempts to do the run from the Photon to the top of the D5 Tank before realising the Inlet was actually on the front of the D5 Tank, apparently gravity didn't factor into the design.
It wasn't until I started filling it that I noticed the liquid going backwards and trying to push back into the Photon that I checked the instructions and realised the D5 Tank inlet/outlet where not what I thought they were!
Having already glue the Lock Caps onto the tubing for the Monsoon fittings I had to wait a few weeks until I tracked down some spare caps and get them delivered here to the UK! Lesson learned painfully to check before you start things!
All of the tube runs
When the caps and extra tubing finally arrived I sat down and redid the bottom half, turned out quite well despite having to use more Crystal fittings to get the angles right. Would have liked to have re-done the 2 fittings coming out of the radiator with these Crytsal link L fittings just so it all matched up but I didn't.
Filled it up and leak tested it and did some custom cables for the 24pin
Plugged in all the UV LEDs for a finished experience, still got the GPU cables to finish off but waiting for some nice cable combs to get them sitting right.
Other than being dissapointed at how quickly the UV effect has lasted (even after adding 250ml of extra UV Blue Concentrate to brighten it up) I've really enjoyed spending time building it. Taken me a few months from start to finished as I kept ordering more stuff or having to wait on things coming but the building itself was great, getting up super early on my days off and working until midnight just to get as much done as I could!
The Corsair 760T is a beautiful case in my opinion and really shows off the parts well, was great to work with and has crazy amounts of space to work with! The built in fan controller works great too as I hooked all the LEDs upto it so I can switch them on and off when I like.
Going for 2 reservoirs was probably an unnecessary step and waste of money but I really like how they sit together and fill up the space around the parts! Aside from the inlet being on the front and outlet on the top of the XSPC D5 Tank which I thought was odd, its a nice little res. Doesnt give off any vibrations from the D5 Pump at all.
Trying out hard acrylic tubing on my first build was a bit of a learning curb, but I'm glad I used it as I dont think I would have gotten anything like this with flexi tube. The bending kit really helped getting nice angles but I was lost trying to work out my routing with the rulers in the kit when using different axis. The Mandrels were a life saver though, dont think Id have gotten as nice angles without them!
My temps have really dropped too, with the Corsair H60 I was previously hitting 70-80'c when gaming under full load (Doesnt help that the room my pc is in is rather small and stuffy and gets warm all the time).
Now Im hittings maybe 45'c tops even with my fans on extremely low, the Cooler Master JetFlos I'm using go upto 2000rpm and I've got the NZXT Sentry mix 2 probably knocked up a tiny bit from the lowest setting. Really quite and keeps it nice and cool, can't argue with that!
When I decided to go about this build I didn't really have anything in mind, it was for temps, it wasn't for over clocking, it was purely to have a go and see what I could do.
Ended up spending farrrrr more than I had ever planned to, but once I started buying stuff I couldn't stop. I didn't go with any one specific brand, I just got stuff I liked the look of and thought would be interesting.
Part's list -
AMD FX8350 Black Edition Processor
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 Mobo
Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Edition (Had major issues with this card and had to RMA it multiple times, would have liked a refund to get something I could WC but didn't work out that way).
Avexir Core Blue Series 1600mhz RAM
Super Flower Leadex 750w PSU
Samsung 840 Series 250gb SSD
Corsair Force GS 128gb SSd
500GB HDD
2 x LEPA Casino 120mm Fans (Front Intake)
3 x Cooler Master JetFlo Fans (Rad)
NZXT Sentry Mix 2
XSPC D5 Pump
XSPC D5 Acrylic Res Tank
XSPC Photon 170 Tube Res
XSPC Temp Monitor
Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis Radiator GTS 360
EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ CPU Block
Monsoon Free Center Hardline fittings
Monsoon Hardline 13mm Acrylic Tubing
Primochill Vortex Flow Meter
Mayhems X1 UV Blue Premixed Fluid (Already the UV effect has faded within a week)
Also used a bunch of odd fittings here and there such as Bitspower Crystal T and L junctions and a few XSPC Male to Male fittings.
Have to excuse the image quality of the upcoming pics, I was just snapping away on my phone as I was building
My original Zalman Z11 Plus case, had to destroy it a bit to fit the GPU in, pretty much when I decided I needed a new case!
Next to the new 760T
When most of the parts arrived
Original plan on where I wanted the 2 reservoirs to sit, I went with 2 for no other reason than I couldn't decide which one I wanted more, so I got both <3
At this point I was trying to decide how I wanted to do my tubing and I couldnt help but think the tubing would take away from a lot of the parts Id spent time choosing specifically for there aesthetics, so I decided I would use the tubing to frame the parts, meaning they would go around the borders of the case and not over lap any of the main stuff where possible!
Using the Monsoon Hardline Pro Bending Kit I managed to get the top half of the loop done fairly trouble free
I then went on to do the lower half and made the mistake of not checking the inlet and outlet on the XSPC D5 Tank Res, took me a fair few attempts to do the run from the Photon to the top of the D5 Tank before realising the Inlet was actually on the front of the D5 Tank, apparently gravity didn't factor into the design.
It wasn't until I started filling it that I noticed the liquid going backwards and trying to push back into the Photon that I checked the instructions and realised the D5 Tank inlet/outlet where not what I thought they were!
Having already glue the Lock Caps onto the tubing for the Monsoon fittings I had to wait a few weeks until I tracked down some spare caps and get them delivered here to the UK! Lesson learned painfully to check before you start things!
All of the tube runs
When the caps and extra tubing finally arrived I sat down and redid the bottom half, turned out quite well despite having to use more Crystal fittings to get the angles right. Would have liked to have re-done the 2 fittings coming out of the radiator with these Crytsal link L fittings just so it all matched up but I didn't.
Filled it up and leak tested it and did some custom cables for the 24pin
Plugged in all the UV LEDs for a finished experience, still got the GPU cables to finish off but waiting for some nice cable combs to get them sitting right.
Other than being dissapointed at how quickly the UV effect has lasted (even after adding 250ml of extra UV Blue Concentrate to brighten it up) I've really enjoyed spending time building it. Taken me a few months from start to finished as I kept ordering more stuff or having to wait on things coming but the building itself was great, getting up super early on my days off and working until midnight just to get as much done as I could!
The Corsair 760T is a beautiful case in my opinion and really shows off the parts well, was great to work with and has crazy amounts of space to work with! The built in fan controller works great too as I hooked all the LEDs upto it so I can switch them on and off when I like.
Going for 2 reservoirs was probably an unnecessary step and waste of money but I really like how they sit together and fill up the space around the parts! Aside from the inlet being on the front and outlet on the top of the XSPC D5 Tank which I thought was odd, its a nice little res. Doesnt give off any vibrations from the D5 Pump at all.
Trying out hard acrylic tubing on my first build was a bit of a learning curb, but I'm glad I used it as I dont think I would have gotten anything like this with flexi tube. The bending kit really helped getting nice angles but I was lost trying to work out my routing with the rulers in the kit when using different axis. The Mandrels were a life saver though, dont think Id have gotten as nice angles without them!
My temps have really dropped too, with the Corsair H60 I was previously hitting 70-80'c when gaming under full load (Doesnt help that the room my pc is in is rather small and stuffy and gets warm all the time).
Now Im hittings maybe 45'c tops even with my fans on extremely low, the Cooler Master JetFlos I'm using go upto 2000rpm and I've got the NZXT Sentry mix 2 probably knocked up a tiny bit from the lowest setting. Really quite and keeps it nice and cool, can't argue with that!
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