Advice needed on Phanteks Enthoo Primo build

foop · 8 Jun 2014 at 16:09

I've just bought a white Phanteks Enthoo Primo case to kickstart a new desktop build, and have spent the weekend staring inside it wondering where to put things. This is my first watercooled build (not counting closed loop cheaty stuff), so any advice is welcome.

I haven't got an exact spec yet, but it will probably be a 4790K devil's canyon and dual 780s in a Z97 board.

I'm aiming for a mostly white build - hoping they haven't become too cliched yet - and to that end have put together the following partial shopping list.

YOUR BASKET
1 x XSPC AX480 Quad Fan Radiator - White £109.94
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-D5 Vario X-TOP - Plexi (incl. pump) £89.99
1 x XSPC AX240 Dual Fan Radiator - White £74.95
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ £49.99
1 x Bitspower Z-Multi 150mm Water Tank £36.98
2 x Monsoon 19/13mm (ID 1/2 OD 3/4) Free Center Compression Fitting Six Pack - White £29.99 (£59.98)
3 x Corsair Fan, SP120 PWM High Pressure Fan 4 pin, Dual Pack (CO-9050014-WW) £25.00 (£75.00)
2 x Monsoon 19/13mm (OD 3/4) Rotary 90° - White £9.95 (£19.90)
2 x Monsoon 19/13mm (OD 3/4) Rotary 45° - White £9.49 (£18.98)
2 x Primochill Primoflex Advanced Tubing 19/13 - Clear £5.99 (£11.98)
Total : £557.28 (includes shipping : £8.00).

My plan for the case layout is something like this:

The pump sits in the back compartment of the case on the mounting bracket next to the PSU. Flow goes reservoir -> pump -> bottom 240 rad -> GPUs -> top 480 rad -> CPU -> back to reservoir.

In no particular order, my questions are:

1) The fan/radiator setup is currently designed for ease of fitting. Both rads are push, with the top quad rad pushing air into the case and the bottom dual rad pushing air out. The case also has two 140mm fans on the front and one 140mm fan on the back (which I may remove). Does this airflow make sense or should I be doing something else?

2) I've chosen 19/13 tubing, which will presumably reduce resistance and increase flow. Thinking about it, it seems quite thick. Is this tubing easy to handle?

3) I've picked up the idea that the Corsair SP120s are the best fans for radiators. Am I right? I want this case to be as quiet as possible, are the low noise ones any good?

4) Any other glaringly obvious noob mistakes?

TIA for any help.

Azza666 · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:10

How are you planning to mount the tube res? The bracket will need to be removed due to the length of your 2 780s. When looking at this that's why I have considered a bay pump/res combo.

I think the SPs are quite loud on max revs but you won't need to run them on max I wouldn't have thought.

setter · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:18

Depends on the length of the cards. My card in sig, (11.5") doesn't allow the res bracket to fit. Its a rev 1 wf, the rev 2 is 10.5" and allows the installation of the bracket.

Uncle Petey · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:22

The SP120 QE fans will be fine in terms of noise/performance unless you're incredibly sensitive

I've used them with AX rads fwiw.

I'd probably have both rads and front fans on intake with a rear exhaust.

setter · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:33

Id also check that that dual rad will fit in the bottom of the case. Ive seen on another forum that getting rads wider than 125mm into the bottom can be an issue.

Uncle Petey · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:35

Could be wrong, but I think it's fine with the 240 since the 'dividing' panel doesn't get in the way like it would with 360+ rads of similar width.

setter · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:38

Cant remember where i read it mate and cant check on my phone.

Uncle Petey · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:47

There you go

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=741710

setter · 8 Jun 2014 at 17:53

Ahh, nice one. And a good read there, some useful info on modding the case too.

foop · 9 Jun 2014 at 12:11

Thanks for all the helpful comments, folks. That build looks very nice and neat.

Azza666 said:
How are you planning to mount the tube res? The bracket will need to be removed due to the length of your 2 780s. When looking at this that's why I have considered a bay pump/res combo.

The res mounting bracket allows a max card length of 277mm, which is pretty much exactly the length of a lot of the smaller 780 cards. The 6GB EVGA card I was looking at will fit.

Or, at least, one will fit. To get dual cards, the motherboard needs to support SLI in slots 1 and 3. I thought this wasn't going to be a problem, but it's a while since I've used SLI and most motherboards these days seem to use other slots.

There are alternative res mounts on the inside rear of the case, or I could get a bay res or pump-top res. As it's my first water build, I'd kind of set my sights on having a nice big visible res inside.

Hmm.