Finally finished the watercooling

Stan_Lite

Stan_Lite

Stan_Lite

Man of Honour
Man of Honour
Joined
27 Apr 2004
Posts
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In bed with your sister
As promised, here are some pics of my first watercooling project. It's taken me a while to get it how I want it but now I'm reasonably happy with it. It might not be as pretty as some other rigs but I'm pleased I've managed to get it up and running without destroying anything :p

Side on:

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55mm Triebwerk fans :D

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I love this waterblock:

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All lit up:

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GTX295 with Heatkiller block:

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Full gallery can be viewed here - it's not that exciting, just some photos of a PC.

Basically; XSPC single bay res, 12V Laing D5 Vario Pump (Swiftech MCP655), Black Ice GT Stealth 360 Radiator, Alphacool HF 14 Yellowstone CPU block, XSPC RX120.1 120mm Radiator, Heatkiller Full Cover GPU-X² Nvidia GTX 295 Dual PCB Water Block - Copper; all nailed together with 1/2" Tygon hose and bitspower black matte fittings and controlled by a Zalman ZM-MFC1 Plus fan controller - all sitting on a FoxconnBloodrage GTI mobo along with 6GB of Corsair Dominator GT PC3-12800 1600MHz RAM, housed inside a Corsair Obsidian 800D case alongside a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Professional Series 7.1 Sound Card.

CPU running 8 cores at 4.0GHz, GTX295 running at 600/1508/1073. Temps while Folding (A3 SMP + 2 GPU clients) are 71-78C, CPU and 47-48C, GPU with fan speed at minimum (quiet enough that I can hear the hard drive working) and 64C-71C, CPU and 41C-42C, GPU with fan speed at maximum (not quiet but not unbearable). I've removed the perspex window for two main reasons:
  1. The reflections annoy me.
  2. With it on, the temperature inside the case gets really high while Folding due to the triple rad blowing into it.

PPD, as reported by HFM, between 30k and 33k - realistically, between 25k and 28k allowing for gaming sessions.

I know it's not that impressive to some who have been watercooling for years and have awesome set-ups but it's my first attempt and I'm happy and want to share :p

Plays games at a hell of a lick too :D
 
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That looks very nice indeed, I did however spot a mistake, its on folding when it should be on seti - get it sorted sharpish and I wont tell anyone ;)

Never had the nerve to run water through my rig :(
 
halz said:
That looks very nice indeed, I did however spot a mistake, its on folding when it should be on seti - get it sorted sharpish and I wont tell anyone ;)

Never had the nerve to run water through my rig :(
Click to expand...

I used to run SETI - until I saw the light :p

Always been a bit wary of water myself but decided to take the plunge. I'm glad I did. As long as you do the groundwork and plan it properly, it's not that difficult - honestly ;)
 
Looks good!
First water build is always satisfying :D, nerve racking yes, but great once its running. did you have any issues along the way?

With your gtx295 under water you should be able to overclock it far higher than that if you want to. These cards seem to prefer being cool over anything when it comes to clocking them!

stock: 576/1242/999 (core/shaders/mem in MHz) @ 1.037V iirc
for gaming mine sits at 702/1548/1242 (core/shaders/mem) @ 1.112V
folding: 666/1692/1242 @1.112V (this nets up to 10.2k ppd on each core)

I really haven't tried that hard to push it any further.
702 seems to be as fast as the core will go even at higher voltages, and the shaders dont seem to clock well with the core this high.
Lowering the core to 666 has let me get the shaders up to 1692 (from 1242!), they might run higher.
Its getting the core/shader clock to work together thats the hard part!
 
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Very nice, Stanley!

I really do want to watercool my shiny new toy, but it may have to wait. Aside from my computer which was a known large expense, a lot of smaller expenses lately have all added up and caught me by surprise! :eek:

I have the money, just seeing it all totalled up has prompted me to curb my spending a tad for 2-3 months! Still, awfully tempting all the same! :p If I was sensible I would put my credit cards in my dad's safe! :D
 
That looks very impressive, a very clean and tidy build :cool:

As above, those black fittings look the part!
 
I meant to say that it is very tidy! I love a case that has good cable management. This RV02 of mine is brilliant for it. The only cables you can see, if you bothered to look, are the main 24 pin connector as it sneaks in from behind the mobo tray, and the SATA leads for the HDD/Blu-Ray. Replace these with some black ones if I can find any and you wouldn't notice - the bright yellow Gigabyte ones tend to stand out in a black case! :p
 
At the time I didn't have any red ones handy. Turns out I got millions of the bloody things! Can't really complain. My two monitors are in front of my case anyway, so the window is largely pointless at the moment! :p
 
Didn't get around to posting again after the comments - better late than never.

vertica said:
Looks good!
First water build is always satisfying :D, nerve racking yes, but great once its running. did you have any issues along the way?
Click to expand...

Thanks.
No major issues. Biggest one was the first Yellowstone CPU block I got was leaking like a teabag so I had to RMA it. I was too impatient to wait for it so I bought a Delta V3 to use until it got back. I couldn't get the swivel 45s I wanted so had to improvise - especially on the Yellowstone block as the 1/2" compression fittings were too big to fit on it - I ended up with one solid 45 with a barb and a straight barb. I wasn't happy with the multioption res I got at first so changed it for a single bay res. Then I got the GTX295 and had to change the loop again. The system has been through so many changes, I have pretty much enough bits left over to watercool the other i7 rig (as of tomorrow, I will have all the bits required :D). It's going to be a temporary arrangement until I can afford to get the case I want for it (Cosmos S).

vertica said:
With your gtx295 under water you should be able to overclock it far higher than that if you want to. These cards seem to prefer being cool over anything when it comes to clocking them!

stock: 576/1242/999 (core/shaders/mem in MHz) @ 1.037V iirc
for gaming mine sits at 702/1548/1242 (core/shaders/mem) @ 1.112V
folding: 666/1692/1242 @1.112V (this nets up to 10.2k ppd on each core)

I really haven't tried that hard to push it any further.
702 seems to be as fast as the core will go even at higher voltages, and the shaders dont seem to clock well with the core this high.
Lowering the core to 666 has let me get the shaders up to 1692 (from 1242!), they might run higher.
Its getting the core/shader clock to work together thats the hard part!
Click to expand...

I hadn't had a chance to fiddle with the clocks at the time so had put them on ultra safe settings until I got a chance to do it.

I got them sorted today. Everything seems stable at the following clocks:

Gaming: 743/1602/1156 (Core/Shaders/Memory) @ 1.15V
Folding: 711/1691/1165 (Core/Shaders/Memory) @ 1.15V

I've tried various combinations of clocks and voltages (didn't dare try anything above 1.2V) and the above give me the best results. Can't seem to get the memory to go any higher for some reason :confused: NM, memory is less important than core and shaders - especially for Folding.

The above clocks are giving me ppds as follows: 10,350 for P10502, 10,250 for P5784 and 10,166 for P5766. I've just got a new WU - a P6602, which is giving me 10,508 :D

Marine Iguana said:
Nice, especially the black bitspower fittings really would like them in my new build.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yes, the bitspower fittings are smashing. Next build will be out of sight so no need for pretty fittings - should save me a few bob.

Happy said:
That looks very impressive, a very clean and tidy build :cool:

As above, those black fittings look the part!
Click to expand...

Again, thanks :)

SiriusB said:
I meant to say that it is very tidy! I love a case that has good cable management. This RV02 of mine is brilliant for it. The only cables you can see, if you bothered to look, are the main 24 pin connector as it sneaks in from behind the mobo tray, and the SATA leads for the HDD/Blu-Ray. Replace these with some black ones if I can find any and you wouldn't notice - the bright yellow Gigabyte ones tend to stand out in a black case! :p
Click to expand...

Cable management is so easy - everything just gets crammed behind the motherboard tray - should see the mess behind there :o (good job nobody ever sees it). I may get in there with some cable ties some time just for my own benefit as I hate it being untidy.

dekez said:
Very smooth! Wish my first (and so far only) watercooled build looked that good! :)
Click to expand...

Thanks again.
 
Stan_Lite said:
NM, memory is less important than core and shaders - especially for Folding.
Click to expand...

Actually you don't even need high cores, you could save a lot of voltage (and also electric bills) by actually dropping the core speed and memory speed, leave the shaders as high as they can go. At worst you will get the same sort of electricity useage as if they were at stock :)

Oh and btw, that looks great. Very sexeh build :D

The only thing I would think about if you have the motivation is a better radiator.
 
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Stan_Lite said:
Cable management is so easy - everything just gets crammed behind the motherboard tray - should see the mess behind there :o (good job nobody ever sees it). I may get in there with some cable ties some time just for my own benefit as I hate it being untidy.
Click to expand...

Mine is good old-fashioned crap-heap behind my mobo tray too :D

I might tidy it up a bit one day as I am thinking of getting two matching fans for my H50 - it is using the Corsair supplied fan and the case fan at the moment!

The problem is it is hard to run the cables exactly where you want them as they are all the same length but come from different places! I suppose if I had the inclination I would get a roll of electrical wire and re-wire all my case fans! :p

Might save that for when I develop OCD :D
 
The problem is mostly the case and CPU fans - plus some connectors for the front panel. You can't see any of them from the front at all. But it is a little messy behind the mobo tray with wires criss-crossing. If I had my way the would all follow the same route and be nice and neat.

Still, it's a non-issue as you can't see any of it. I am just like Stan, it bugs me to know there is a mess, regardless if anyone else knows about it! :p
 
Biffa said:
Actually you don't even need high cores, you could save a lot of voltage (and also electric bills) by actually dropping the core speed and memory speed, leave the shaders as high as they can go. At worst you will get the same sort of electricity useage as if they were at stock :)
Click to expand...

I tried that but reducing the core clock to stock drops my ppd by 635 per core. Dropping the memory to stock loses me 328ppd per core. When both are at stock, the loss stays at 635ppd. These losses were noticed on the 353 point WUs.

One thing I have noticed is a lot more capacitor whine - I'm starting to get used to it and the pitch changes depending on the WUs being Folded. Pretty soon I'll be able to tell which WUs I'm Folding from the pitch of the whine :p
 
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