My sense is that it's going to be a very similar experience to working with hardline for the first time: initial trepidation that it could all go very wrong and you may trash your rig; a bigger investment in time than you perhaps first realise; but when it's all complete you get a major sense of achievement at what should hopefully be a stunning outcome.
JayGee's Dark Base Pro 900 Water Cooled Build
- Thread starter JayGee
- Start date
Tempting, but as much as I love Lego, and having slept on it, this might be a good example of where less is more. I’m now thinking that I’ll make an acrylic shroud and only use the Lego for trimming edges and nothing more.
Update on the topic of GPU water block compatibility in the light of recent changes to the PCB layout of Strix 1080 ti cards - it seems that this is a non-issue for the Phanteks blocks. With statements from both Asus (first hand) and Phanteks (second hand) that corroborate this.
From Asus (via their UK FB account):
From Phanteks (via LTT):
From Asus (via their UK FB account):
From Phanteks (via LTT):
Last night (technically, the early hours of this morning) I gave in to the temptation of busting out the Phantek's blocks to confirm that they fit on the cards. But before doing that I thought I ought to check that the cards were working stock...
Which thankfully they were. I think in various reviews these bad boys have been described as 2.5 slot cards and that is a very fair description - the two cards with their stock coolers were practically touching each other, and with the Mobo mouting plate in the lowest of its three settings (which I was trying to see if the extra headroom would allow both rads to have their ports at the top) the bottom card was just effectively resting on the PSU!
With the water blocks fitted the cards are way thinner but I decided to raise the Mobo plate to its middle setting which I think gives the layout a more balanced feel to it and I'd anyway concluded that it wasn't going to be practical to have both rads with their ports at the top so the extra sliver of space wasn't really buying me anything. And then, this afternoon the EK Res and twin-pumps turned up which means that I've now pretty much locked down on the placement for all the key pieces of the jigsaw...
I've not yet fully decided on how to route the tubes just yet, I think that there's a natural flow to it (no pun intended) but the exact routing is, I think going to develop organically once I get the heat gun fired up. That said one idea that I've been thinking about is to use t-junctions to feed-in/out of the cards and then route the pipe up through the "slot" between the ports and the SLI bridge to the VRM block...
But as the gap is only 39mm in the gap between the two blocks it's looking like it might be too tight. As I don't yet have all the fittings that I've ordered (including some T's) I won't know for sure for a wee while yet.
The other thing to share is that I've decided that I'm going to try and get the cabling to a level where I won't need a shroud. Having never done any custom cable before that might be a decision that I may need to revisit, but on the other hand if I'm going to invest the time into custom cabling I think it would be good to show case it more fully.
Which thankfully they were. I think in various reviews these bad boys have been described as 2.5 slot cards and that is a very fair description - the two cards with their stock coolers were practically touching each other, and with the Mobo mouting plate in the lowest of its three settings (which I was trying to see if the extra headroom would allow both rads to have their ports at the top) the bottom card was just effectively resting on the PSU!
With the water blocks fitted the cards are way thinner but I decided to raise the Mobo plate to its middle setting which I think gives the layout a more balanced feel to it and I'd anyway concluded that it wasn't going to be practical to have both rads with their ports at the top so the extra sliver of space wasn't really buying me anything. And then, this afternoon the EK Res and twin-pumps turned up which means that I've now pretty much locked down on the placement for all the key pieces of the jigsaw...
I've not yet fully decided on how to route the tubes just yet, I think that there's a natural flow to it (no pun intended) but the exact routing is, I think going to develop organically once I get the heat gun fired up. That said one idea that I've been thinking about is to use t-junctions to feed-in/out of the cards and then route the pipe up through the "slot" between the ports and the SLI bridge to the VRM block...
But as the gap is only 39mm in the gap between the two blocks it's looking like it might be too tight. As I don't yet have all the fittings that I've ordered (including some T's) I won't know for sure for a wee while yet.
The other thing to share is that I've decided that I'm going to try and get the cabling to a level where I won't need a shroud. Having never done any custom cable before that might be a decision that I may need to revisit, but on the other hand if I'm going to invest the time into custom cabling I think it would be good to show case it more fully.
I think it's going to be impractical to get the t-junctions to work - just too tight a space, and even if I use male-to-male fittings between the t-junction and the cards, which on paper should fit, there's then the issue of being able to screw everything together when fittings that size are not going to have independent swivels.
Note: The green arrows denote an alternative to the reds - i.e. I could exit the cards either at the bottom (red route) or the top (green route).
Yep, the plan has always to run the loop through the cards in parallel and the t-junctions would have achieved that, but I think I'll most likely go with something very similar to what you suggest, ergo:Unless you run them in parallel , come in from the bottom card bottom inlet. Two tubes connecting the two blocks and then out the top cards top exit
Should be a dual rotary 45 to line you up for right port on CPU block
Note: The green arrows denote an alternative to the reds - i.e. I could exit the cards either at the bottom (red route) or the top (green route).
Nice idea... but waaaaaaayyyyy beyond my capabilities (plus I don't have ready access to a CNC machine, nor any real experience of using one).
Aren't the green and red routes logically the same - both cards get fed through their designated inlet ports and exits through their designated outlet port?
Just trying to figure out if I'm missing something (this is only my second water cooling build and the first where I intend to feed two water blocks in parallel).
Blue arrows to show the flow through/between the parallel sections.
That's cool, then I think that this is mostly a question of aesthetics, and being realistic that means that the final routing won't really be figured out until the heat gun comes out and I can see how things look in the flesh.option 2looks neater
I'll check when I get home this evening but I'm pretty sure that the inlet ports are closest to the pump end in my build.
EDIT: Picture of the ports showing indicated direction
Sorry, I'm not familiar with the phrase "double tubing", but if it means running the water through the two GPU blocks in parallel, then yes.
If it helps here's a (badly drawn) schematic of the proposed loop to illustrate:
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And that may well be how it goes
That's probably a question for the water-cooling section of the forum rather than for my project log, but for what it is worth, and please bear in mind that I'm no expert (my "wisdom" is only what I've gained from watching stuff on YouTube and reading various forums)... it probably won't make a great deal of difference in most cases.
Busy day, I'll add some pictures either later this evening or during Sunday (now done), but for now a few words on what has been done today:
1. Stripped everything out of the case frame.
2. HDD frame primed and repainted (one of the first things I did to the case was to dremmel out the HDD supports, I'd then fitted it back to check fit with other components in it's rough state).
3. Flushed out both rads.
4. Measured up final placement of the rads and then drilled out and filed additional mounting points for the top rad (pre-cut mounts only fitted with 4 out of the 12 mounting holes on the rad).
5. Fitted front rad with all three fans.
6. Fitted top rad using the new mounting points.
7. Figured placement of and fitted in-line temp sensor and flow meter to the far-side outlet of the front rad.
8. Got the first piece of hardline in - the long, near-side, drop from the top rad to the front rad that needs to skirt around the res and pump.
9. Mounted up the res to the front rad and also the pumps to the front rad (fitting to the bottom mounting points interferred with the ports on the rad).
10. Fitted to the EK multiport top to the EK X3 res, and of course the top ports and bottom ports didn't align as I wanted them so I had to sand down the top of the tube until I could get the top to screw down to where I wanted it.
Plan for tomorrow:
1. Refit the HDD frame so that I can measure up, make a backplate.
2. Figure out SSD placement and fitting on the backplate.
Stretch goals for tomorrow:
1. Hardline work: [a] res-to-pump; flow-sensor-to-res; [c] vrm-block-to-cpu-block; [d] inter-gpu-block-connections.
2. Refit the Mobo and graphics cards.
EDIT: Pictures Added
Repainted ex-HDD Frame:
Stripped out components:
Couple of shots of the res, pump, rads and the first piece of hardline (taken in the bathroom to try and get some decent light!):
1. Stripped everything out of the case frame.
2. HDD frame primed and repainted (one of the first things I did to the case was to dremmel out the HDD supports, I'd then fitted it back to check fit with other components in it's rough state).
3. Flushed out both rads.
4. Measured up final placement of the rads and then drilled out and filed additional mounting points for the top rad (pre-cut mounts only fitted with 4 out of the 12 mounting holes on the rad).
5. Fitted front rad with all three fans.
6. Fitted top rad using the new mounting points.
7. Figured placement of and fitted in-line temp sensor and flow meter to the far-side outlet of the front rad.
8. Got the first piece of hardline in - the long, near-side, drop from the top rad to the front rad that needs to skirt around the res and pump.
9. Mounted up the res to the front rad and also the pumps to the front rad (fitting to the bottom mounting points interferred with the ports on the rad).
10. Fitted to the EK multiport top to the EK X3 res, and of course the top ports and bottom ports didn't align as I wanted them so I had to sand down the top of the tube until I could get the top to screw down to where I wanted it.
Plan for tomorrow:
1. Refit the HDD frame so that I can measure up, make a backplate.
2. Figure out SSD placement and fitting on the backplate.
Stretch goals for tomorrow:
1. Hardline work: [a] res-to-pump; flow-sensor-to-res; [c] vrm-block-to-cpu-block; [d] inter-gpu-block-connections.
2. Refit the Mobo and graphics cards.
EDIT: Pictures Added
Repainted ex-HDD Frame:
Stripped out components:
Couple of shots of the res, pump, rads and the first piece of hardline (taken in the bathroom to try and get some decent light!):
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Needs some finessing but otherwise I'm happy enough with this:
Didn't get anywhere near the stretch goals.
Yep, I’m cool with that, my current rig has water cooled duel GPU’s (they’re linked serially using an EK block).
For this new build I’m set on running the two GPU’s in parallel (mostly because of the aesthetics). The debate I’m having with myself is about whether I can find a creative way to run the hardline that will be both practical and pleasing on the eye. That said I’ll probably simply do as you suggest: in bottom left and out top right - KISS.
Plan is to have a total of seven fans: three on each of two 420 rads and one exhaust fan to the rear. The fans on the front rad will pull air in and the fans on the top will exhaust.
Having had a heavy week with work last week, and most of Saturday lost to family stuff, I was pleased to get some solid hours working on the build today - unfortunately it turned into a good-news/bad-news kind of day.
Good news: I completed all of the hardline.
Bad news: Leak testing showed up a couple of leaks.
Good news: No damage done and the drain port worked well to quickly drain off water in the loop.
Bad news: The leaks weren't resolved simply by tightening up fittings.
Ho hum, time to strip things back and redo a couple of the runs - which brings me on to the gotcha: because I was using the Monsoon hardline fittings, any run that I redo needs new lock collars (because they get bonded to the tube), and I've already used up the small number of spares that I had. New ones orderd but that means I won't be able to do much more now until next weekend.
Good news: I completed all of the hardline.
Bad news: Leak testing showed up a couple of leaks.
Good news: No damage done and the drain port worked well to quickly drain off water in the loop.
Bad news: The leaks weren't resolved simply by tightening up fittings.
Ho hum, time to strip things back and redo a couple of the runs - which brings me on to the gotcha: because I was using the Monsoon hardline fittings, any run that I redo needs new lock collars (because they get bonded to the tube), and I've already used up the small number of spares that I had. New ones orderd but that means I won't be able to do much more now until next weekend.
Last night I redid some of the runs, adding some additional 90deg fittings to reduce the number of bends and simplify things. Once done it was back to the kitchen sink for a second round of leak testing, this time all was good.
All being well I'll be able to hook up the stock cables this weekend for the first full system test with loop in operation, before starting on the custom cables.
All being well I'll be able to hook up the stock cables this weekend for the first full system test with loop in operation, before starting on the custom cables.