[build log] Corsair 650D to 750D and 420 rad

bipolarbear · 7 Jan 2015 at 14:52

Hey, thanks for watching. I'm between contracts at the moment so in order to keep myself sane I'm finally going to redo my gaming PC... below is how it looks currently:

Basic specs:

Corsair 650D
Intel Core i7 4770K
Asus Maximus Formula VI
16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro
2 x EVGA NVidia GTX780 Hydro Copper gfx cards in SLI
Corsair Link Commander Mini
250GB Samsung 630 SSD
250GB Samsung 640 Basic SSD
EVGA Supernova G2 750 PSU

For the water loop, I've got a Magicool Slim 280 30mm rad in the roof. To fit this I had to dremel out the plastic hot swap thing at the top front of the case. Attached to this is 2 140mm Akasa Black Apache fans (good fans). At the back is an EK XT120 rad, a single 120mm fan is mounted to the outside of the case. The pump is a Phobya DC12-260, which I intend to reuse in this build, and at the front is a basic XSPC dual-bay res. The tubing is masterkleer red with EK clear koolant (which has gone a yellowy colour and should be changed anyway). I will not be reusing either of the rads.

Before anyone asks yes 750W is more than enough to drive 2 x GTX 780's in SLI... maxed the whole system pulls around 500W at the wall.

The bottom hydro copper card is a recent aquisition... as they are somewhat hard to come by now. One of those late night drunken ebay purchases. So I've hacked my loop just to get it in and working... at the moment it is *very* temporary to say the least. I had trouble finding flow bridges for the cards, on the Formula VI with the cards in the top 2 x16 slots I have 40mm between the blocks. I think I've found 2 variable-length bridges which will fit but they have not arrived yet. But more importantly the loop in its current state is simply not up to the task of cooling both cards and the CPU, which brings this little project into being...

So here's what arrived today:

Corsair 750D
Alphacool NeXxos XT45 420mm rad
3 x Noctua NF-14s redux-1500 pwm 140mm fans
EK-RES X3 250 res
EK X3 multiport top (plus tube)
Mayhems pastel red coolant
Masterkleer clear tubing
Silverstone 140mm magnetic dust filter
Various connectors

First task will be to dremel out the top optical bays to fit the 420 rad. I will flip the rear 140mm fan and use it as an intake, and I'll keep the front 140mm fans as they are timebeing. So stay tuned to watch me hack up my shiny new 750D !

bipolarbear · 7 Jan 2015 at 23:57

Yes you guys are correct I don't overclock - if I did I would definitely need a bigger psu.

bipolarbear · 8 Jan 2015 at 16:28

yeah I've just never really needed to overclock... the only game that totally destroys my PC is Civilization V, huge map, late game. I swear that game is so poorly coded... I don't know if the new one is any better, not that I have any desire to play it because it's been pretty much universally panned *sigh*

lol I have an in-line temp sensor on the outlet of the top rad feeding back into the bay res, I don't play Civ V much anymore but I spun it up to see if it was any better when I added the second hydro copper. the improvement was significant but when i checked the coolant temp had just touched 50 degrees. with the fans on full the heat being pushed out of the top rad was unbelievable. and that's when i shut the game down... and decided i needed better rads....

bipolarbear · 13 Jan 2015 at 13:25

Ok I'm finally getting around to doing something with this. I've stripped the 750D completely, I think I know what I need to cut to remove the drive cage - at least the bottom and window side of the drive cage. I'm not sure if its necessary to remove the m/b side of the drive cage, some other builds I've been have just left it in, but it might make things easier to just remove it entirely.

Here's some pics, sorry I can't seem to get the phone to focus properly and I'm rubbish at taking photos anyway... I'll try and take some better ones.

Here's the Alphacool NeXxos XT450 sitting on top of the 750D. Shows just how big the rad actually is:

and this is what I plan to do to it:

Comments or suggestions welcome!

bipolarbear · 13 Jan 2015 at 20:34

Done. I left the m/b side of the drive cage in, as there were no clearance issues except for the bit highlighted. 420 fits in fine now. On with the rest of the build...

bipolarbear · 16 Jan 2015 at 10:26

I don't think it's made a difference, even when it's empty and with the sidepanels off the main chassis doesn't bend at all. Possibly not removing the m/b side of the drive bays helps a bit. I think once the rad and fans get bolted back in and the sidepanels go on it will be fine.

bipolarbear · 1 Feb 2015 at 22:14

Ok so it's been quite a while... finally got around to putting the case back toegther:

Basic side on view. I'm not sold on the Noctua grey to be honest. But when it comes to high static pressure fans there's little to be had in the 140mm market - the Corsair SP140's look to be rubbish and the phantek's were sold out so I got these. They come well packaged and they are pwm which is good for my corsair link commander mini.

Not much clearance left up front:

But managed to put the cable unit back in ok:

Here's a close-up of the top rear, clearance between the bottom of the top rad fan and the rear fan. If anyone manages to get a 60mm rad up top in this case they're going to lose the rear fan:

Overall I really like the 750D... for £125-ish it is extremely good value. Much better than my 650D v1 which I thought was rubbish in comparison. My dream case is a CaseLabs Merlin SM8 but at £550-ish landed in the UK is slightly ridiculous, I think at less than a quarter of the price the 750D is awesome for the money.

bipolarbear · 3 Feb 2015 at 11:17

I thought about that and tried to measure it up, I don't think another one would fit. If I need more rad space I'd be inclined to put a 280 xt45 or ut60 in the front.

I've been thinking of moving the fans into a pull config instead of push. For a single set of fans is there any performance benefit in push vs pull?

bipolarbear · 3 Feb 2015 at 12:07

yeah my reason was kind-of the opposite... I think they grey fans might clash with the rest of the build so if they were in pull at the top of the case when the side window goes on they would be more hidden, and more rad awsomeness would be visible.

bipolarbear · 6 Feb 2015 at 17:34

Here's a new pic with the res installed. This is an EK X3 250 res with the multiport top and the internal tube. I'm using the original top as the bottom - mainly because EK didn't provide enough blanking plugs... which means I can't use the anticyclone but I don't think I'll need it anyway. In hindsight I probably didn't need the multiport top, I could have just flipped the thing upside down. I drilled into the 2.5" mounting bays to mount the clamps.

I also changed the fans to pull instead of push.

bipolarbear · 7 Feb 2015 at 17:35

Some progress today...

shows how much space is really in the 750D with the drive cages removed. Rear cabling is still a nightmare - I am seriously considering the aftermarket EVGA sleeved cable kit though its like £70 or something. I found a couple of spare plugs so the bottom res is back on, with the EK anticyclone thing in it.

I was going to reuse my Phobya 260 pump, which has been fine... but thinking of selling off all my old watercooling stuff on ebay in one lot and the only thing missing is the pump so.... any suggestions on pump upgrades? Must be pwm.

bipolarbear · 8 Feb 2015 at 15:28

ugh. had to to a bit of a botch job... i wanted to connect the res to the pump directly by a male-male connector. during the initial leak test i found it was leaking significantly. I removed it and re-inserted it, but it was still leaking and i must have cross-threaded it when i put it back in because for the life of me i cannot get it out...

Might have to resort to dremmelling it out.

Anyway so i've temporarily botched it using 2 right-angle connectors. my in-line temp sensor is in the middle, i think i will get a new temp sensor to fit in one of the spare outlets on the res. I'm just testing it with filtered water at the moment and it's all fine except for a minor leak in the right sli connection, so i'm going to have to drain it down again and look into that.

bipolarbear · 9 Feb 2015 at 13:28

pair of vice grips sorted that stuck connector, so i'll put the bottom piece back on the res when i drain it down to finally add the pastel coolant.

and some good 'ol ptfe sorted my sli leak

(can you get black ptfe?)

Now to just try to tidy up the rear cabling...

bipolarbear · 22 Feb 2015 at 20:36

It's been a while, thought I'd better post a status update. Had the house re-wired and had to move everything out, then back in again. ugh. Anyway, here's the system up and running, and pretty much done except I've still got to cut some led strips to length and decide the best place to stick them, this will connect to the led header on my CL commander mini.

I looked into replacing the pump but in the end I couldn't justify £100+ for a D5 or DDC. I have been happy with my old Phobya 260 so I just got the new pwm version of the same pump, mainly because I now have it connected to the cpu fan header. There's nothing really wrong with my original pump and I was going to re-use it but I'm going to put a combo auction up on the bay for all my old watercooling kit and the only thing missing for a complete setup was the pump lol...

I replaced the 3x 140mm corsair fans with Akasa Apache Black 140mm fans, because they are awesome fans and also pwm so they play well with the CL commander mini.

I wasn't going to fill the res so full but there was only a little bit of coolant left so I put it all in... so there's a full 1L of mayhems pastel red in there now.

bipolarbear · 22 May 2015 at 15:52

Hey. Just resurrecting this thread... i'm kinda getting bored with my pc and it's a long weekend soooo.....

cos you can never have too much rads...

and i'm getting rid of the Asus Formula VI in favour of the Gigabyte X97 Gaming 7, for no particular reason - the chipset upgrade in itself isn't worth the hassle of swapping motherboards, it's just I still prefer Gigabyte over Asus and I don't buy into the whole ROG branding thing... but that's just personal preference.

plus I've found a small leak in the inlet port of the res, so I have to drain the loop down anyway.

while I'm at it I thought I'd have a crack at some acrylic tubing, so I got me some hardline tubing and a bagfull of fittings:

This should prove interesting...

bipolarbear · 16 Jun 2015 at 17:41

Update!! So I went through 3 lengths of 80cm acrylic tube... but it's all a learning exercise...

I added a set of braided EVGA cables (expensive but so much easier to manage), the EVGA SLI bridge, a t-section with a tap (Phobya ball valve) after the pump to use as a drain valve, and I had to cut another hole in the bottom of the case to access the drain port on the front rad. oh and I swapped out the 3 akasa 140mm fans i was using as intakes for another 3 of the noctua pwm fans - i found the akasa fans made an annoying tick (all of them) and I lurve the noctua fans but I wish they came in black. the bottom of the case is a sticky sheet of some sort of anti-vibration sound-dampening foam i cut to fit (from Akasa i think). All the tubing is now Alphacool 10/13 hardtube and all the fittings are Alphacool.

I got another 250GB Samsung 850 EVO as well.

Not much more I plan to do to it. I might top up the res, I've still got half a litre of mayhems pastel red (after the spill which has resulted in a bright pink stain on my carpet ugh...) It would look a lot better if I could work out how to clean the inside of the res and get rid of the condensation.