My old Enthoo Primo build has been going solid for years now, but the case is huge and I've been long overdue an upgrade anyway. Having sacked off SLI a while back, I was set on doing a mini-ITX build.
Originally I wanted to go for the Phanteks Shift - I changed my mind though because it would mean compromising too much on cooling (and I'm planning to upgrade my 980Ti in the not too distant future). I could have gone for the Shift X, but I feel like it was a bit of an afterthought and doesn't look as good as the smaller Shift.
System specs
InWin 301
Asus ROG Strix Z370-I
Intel Core i7-8700k
16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4
nVidia Geforce 980Ti
Crucial MX300 1TB M.2 SSD
WD Green 3TB HDD
Corsair SF600 PSU
Cooling
EK Supremacy CSQ CPU block
EK-FC Titan X GPU block
EK CoolStream SE 240mm radiators
XSPC D5 pump
EK-XRES 100 Revo pump top/reservoir
Barrow hard line fittings
XSPC thermal probe
Mayhems borosilicate glass tubing (16mm OD)
Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15 fans
Silverstone SST-FN123 slim fans
The build
I tried my best with the photos, but it's just a OnePlus 3 camera so some of the images are pretty grainy.
Stripping and cleaning the old system was a pain. I'd previously been running a blue Mayhems coolant which left a lot of the acrylic parts badly stained. My old build was my first attempt at watercooling, and was built up out of budget second-hand components. I'd originally planned to re-use the Alphacool 240mm radiator, but with space being so tight I preferred the look of the EK radiators.
I started off with a few fittings to help with planning the loop. I really like the Barrow fittings, although now that they're more commonly known they aren't always the bargain they used to be.
I absolutely love the clarity of the glass tubing. It's difficult to use, but in my opinion it looks far better than PETG/acrylic.
First things first with a new Intel CPU... (I used a mini-vice)
Cleaned and prepped for Coolaboratory liquid ultra:
Ready for testing. I didn't have any spare CPU cooler that would fit aside from a stock Intel one, so overclocking results would have to wait.
Test-fitting some parts in order to plan the loop. One thing that was pretty annoying about this case is the bottom fan/radiator screw holes don't line up with the radiator bracket in the front. Since I wanted to mount radiators in both positions and I wanted them to line up, I had to widen the holes on the bottom of the case. As you can see, it's pretty tight with two radiators fitted - airflow at the front is very poor, hence needing to use slim fans. Cooling performance could be improved a lot by cutting holes in the front of the case and using full-depth fans for the front radiator.
Some runs ended up being pretty interesting. Even though it's technically an mATX case, the limited room still made things harder than I expected.
Some people say with enough angle fittings you can achieve anything!
I encountered a couple of problems with the motherboard/CPU block combination. First off, the hold down bracket had to be sanded down on the corner to avoid it contacting the RAM.
Secondly, there's a row of caps near the CPU socket that were just a little bit too close (you can also see how badly stained the CPU block is; I cleaned it up later with some white vinegar solution).
If the CPU block isn't placed correctly, it sits on the caps and doesn't mount flush.
It has to be right at the edge like this. I'm not entirely happy with it being in contact with the caps, but I've not noticed any side-effects from it yet.
Fill port goes in the top. I wanted to make a drain port too, but routing one was pretty much impossible. I may have another go when it comes to GPU upgrade time.
GPU length is very strict (I seriously hope nVidia don't change their reference board layout too much). You need to screw down the compression ring for the rear radiator fitting before installing the GPU, otherwise it won't fit.
A tip for scoring/snapping shorter lengths of glass tubing - put something inside that roughly fills the inner diameter to give more leverage. If I did this again I'd probably get a hacksaw with a glass cutting blade instead - snapping is too imprecise and it's easy to completely ruin the edges meaning you have to re-do the cut anyway.
I thought I was smart putting a ball valve here for when I turn the PC upside down and use it as a drain. I was an idiot. The opening was so small it just caused an airlock instantly - this became immediately obvious to me only AFTER I'd put everything back together and started filling.
Swapped out:
This was probably one of the most difficult connections. Since the distance is so small, I will probably swap out the two compression fittings with some kind of M/M extension in the future. The clearance is strict enough that the ~2mm increase from adding the lower compression ring causes it not to fit.
Had to be rebuilt a few times, but ready to fill!
There were a couple of minor drips where I didn't tighten everything up properly due to space constraints; nothing catastrophic though.
Lots of tilting and lifting to get rid of bubbles like this. I'd originally hoped for this section to run underneath the card, but there just wasn't the clearance between the GPU and the radiator.
A small workout later, the airlocks were dealt with so I let the bubbles collect in the reservoir so I could tilt them out of the fill port later.
Powered up temporarily. I hadn't even tackled the cabling yet, so I ran it for a little while with the PSU outside the case using some spare extensions.
There's definitely a danger in making something usable before it's finished...
I also added a nice 144 LED/m addressable strip - I had to cut it down since the LED header on this board only supports up to 80 LEDs, but I think the increased density looks a lot better.
Ordered some nice extensions from Shakmods, which turned up surprisingly quickly. I much prefer this sleeving compared to the cloth-like Bitfenix extensions I had before.
HDD installed, everything closed up like a real PC.
Overclocking
<TLDR 5.1GHz @ 1.41v, 5.0GHz @ 1.36v, 4.9GHz @ 1.29v>
I had some trouble initially with BIOS settings either doing nothing or not what they said they were doing. The best advice I can give for overclocking with this board is don't disable MCE, and always monitor your voltages while tweaking because I had some instances of the board trying to push 1.5v+ through the CPU and offset mode not working correctly when MCE was disabled.
5.0 and 5.1GHz passed all benches I tried, but I feel it wasn't 100% because I could reliably crash in FFXIV after about ~4-5 hours of gameplay. I've dialed it back to 4.9 for daily use, especially since I sacrificed some cooling for aesthetics.
Future
I hope you liked reading my project log. Like any project, it's never really finished - here's the list I still have in the back of my mind:
Originally I wanted to go for the Phanteks Shift - I changed my mind though because it would mean compromising too much on cooling (and I'm planning to upgrade my 980Ti in the not too distant future). I could have gone for the Shift X, but I feel like it was a bit of an afterthought and doesn't look as good as the smaller Shift.
System specs
InWin 301
Asus ROG Strix Z370-I
Intel Core i7-8700k
16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4
nVidia Geforce 980Ti
Crucial MX300 1TB M.2 SSD
WD Green 3TB HDD
Corsair SF600 PSU
Cooling
EK Supremacy CSQ CPU block
EK-FC Titan X GPU block
EK CoolStream SE 240mm radiators
XSPC D5 pump
EK-XRES 100 Revo pump top/reservoir
Barrow hard line fittings
XSPC thermal probe
Mayhems borosilicate glass tubing (16mm OD)
Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15 fans
Silverstone SST-FN123 slim fans
The build
I tried my best with the photos, but it's just a OnePlus 3 camera so some of the images are pretty grainy.
Stripping and cleaning the old system was a pain. I'd previously been running a blue Mayhems coolant which left a lot of the acrylic parts badly stained. My old build was my first attempt at watercooling, and was built up out of budget second-hand components. I'd originally planned to re-use the Alphacool 240mm radiator, but with space being so tight I preferred the look of the EK radiators.
I started off with a few fittings to help with planning the loop. I really like the Barrow fittings, although now that they're more commonly known they aren't always the bargain they used to be.
I absolutely love the clarity of the glass tubing. It's difficult to use, but in my opinion it looks far better than PETG/acrylic.
First things first with a new Intel CPU... (I used a mini-vice)
Cleaned and prepped for Coolaboratory liquid ultra:
Ready for testing. I didn't have any spare CPU cooler that would fit aside from a stock Intel one, so overclocking results would have to wait.
Test-fitting some parts in order to plan the loop. One thing that was pretty annoying about this case is the bottom fan/radiator screw holes don't line up with the radiator bracket in the front. Since I wanted to mount radiators in both positions and I wanted them to line up, I had to widen the holes on the bottom of the case. As you can see, it's pretty tight with two radiators fitted - airflow at the front is very poor, hence needing to use slim fans. Cooling performance could be improved a lot by cutting holes in the front of the case and using full-depth fans for the front radiator.
Some runs ended up being pretty interesting. Even though it's technically an mATX case, the limited room still made things harder than I expected.
Some people say with enough angle fittings you can achieve anything!
I encountered a couple of problems with the motherboard/CPU block combination. First off, the hold down bracket had to be sanded down on the corner to avoid it contacting the RAM.
Secondly, there's a row of caps near the CPU socket that were just a little bit too close (you can also see how badly stained the CPU block is; I cleaned it up later with some white vinegar solution).
If the CPU block isn't placed correctly, it sits on the caps and doesn't mount flush.
It has to be right at the edge like this. I'm not entirely happy with it being in contact with the caps, but I've not noticed any side-effects from it yet.
Fill port goes in the top. I wanted to make a drain port too, but routing one was pretty much impossible. I may have another go when it comes to GPU upgrade time.
GPU length is very strict (I seriously hope nVidia don't change their reference board layout too much). You need to screw down the compression ring for the rear radiator fitting before installing the GPU, otherwise it won't fit.
A tip for scoring/snapping shorter lengths of glass tubing - put something inside that roughly fills the inner diameter to give more leverage. If I did this again I'd probably get a hacksaw with a glass cutting blade instead - snapping is too imprecise and it's easy to completely ruin the edges meaning you have to re-do the cut anyway.
I thought I was smart putting a ball valve here for when I turn the PC upside down and use it as a drain. I was an idiot. The opening was so small it just caused an airlock instantly - this became immediately obvious to me only AFTER I'd put everything back together and started filling.
Swapped out:
This was probably one of the most difficult connections. Since the distance is so small, I will probably swap out the two compression fittings with some kind of M/M extension in the future. The clearance is strict enough that the ~2mm increase from adding the lower compression ring causes it not to fit.
Had to be rebuilt a few times, but ready to fill!
There were a couple of minor drips where I didn't tighten everything up properly due to space constraints; nothing catastrophic though.
Lots of tilting and lifting to get rid of bubbles like this. I'd originally hoped for this section to run underneath the card, but there just wasn't the clearance between the GPU and the radiator.
A small workout later, the airlocks were dealt with so I let the bubbles collect in the reservoir so I could tilt them out of the fill port later.
Powered up temporarily. I hadn't even tackled the cabling yet, so I ran it for a little while with the PSU outside the case using some spare extensions.
There's definitely a danger in making something usable before it's finished...
I also added a nice 144 LED/m addressable strip - I had to cut it down since the LED header on this board only supports up to 80 LEDs, but I think the increased density looks a lot better.
Ordered some nice extensions from Shakmods, which turned up surprisingly quickly. I much prefer this sleeving compared to the cloth-like Bitfenix extensions I had before.
HDD installed, everything closed up like a real PC.
Overclocking
<TLDR 5.1GHz @ 1.41v, 5.0GHz @ 1.36v, 4.9GHz @ 1.29v>
I had some trouble initially with BIOS settings either doing nothing or not what they said they were doing. The best advice I can give for overclocking with this board is don't disable MCE, and always monitor your voltages while tweaking because I had some instances of the board trying to push 1.5v+ through the CPU and offset mode not working correctly when MCE was disabled.
5.0 and 5.1GHz passed all benches I tried, but I feel it wasn't 100% because I could reliably crash in FFXIV after about ~4-5 hours of gameplay. I've dialed it back to 4.9 for daily use, especially since I sacrificed some cooling for aesthetics.
Future
I hope you liked reading my project log. Like any project, it's never really finished - here's the list I still have in the back of my mind:
- Sleeve front panel/fan cables
- Get an alternative to the ugly rubber pins holding the exhaust fan
- Re-position fan controller so I can control my radiator fans by the coolant temperature sensor (Asus software only allows this from one of the three motherboard headers, for some reason)
- Cleaner-looking CPU block (I had originally planned to sand the one I had smooth, but seeing how much material I needed to remove I decided against it)
- GPU upgrade (2080Ti or whatever it ends up being called - definitely get a block with a backplate this time!)
- Figure out where I can fit a drain port
- Clean up the cabling in the back (this will probably require all-custom cables - still, it's good to be ambitious)
- Customise front IO LEDs and design
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