JayGee's Dark Base Pro 900 Water Cooled Build

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Mobo, PSU, CPU, Memory and Storage laid out ahead of first sanity test:
sff7eqI.jpg

And the beast breathes for the first time (Noctua NH-U12S fitted purely for the purposes of testing):
8cFr0Np.jpg
 
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This afternoon I've mostly been planning cable stuff...

Colours:
RviFXXV.png

Plotting out the pin-outs of the cables included with the EVGA Supernova 1000 T2 using a meter:
xfIVfjc.png
 
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ohhhh nice fiery colour scheme you're going with there :D

cablemod?
I'm planning to make my own cables (a first for me) so the colours/pattern might change yet. I'm keen to give it a go though because I'd really like to get nice, neat bends for the cables on display which means needing different lengths of individual cables in the same loom.
 
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sounds awesome... i'm looking out for some cables myself... trying to find some of the old Bitfenix alchemy ones that had the white connectors as well as the white cables

not sure if i'm confident enough to sleeve and wire them them myself lol
 
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sounds awesome... i'm looking out for some cables myself... trying to find some of the old Bitfenix alchemy ones that had the white connectors as well as the white cables

not sure if i'm confident enough to sleeve and wire them them myself lol


I was actually very scared at first too but It's not as bad as you think if you truly take your time and do it thoroughly
 
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I was actually very scared at first too but It's not as bad as you think if you truly take your time and do it thoroughly
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.
 
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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.
Yeah man I'm building a pc atm which gives me the feeling that "some day it will be worth it" but goddamn it's a long ride :) Sorry if I went offtopic and nice build I'm following how this turns out
 
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heh, thats awesome XD

i'd be tempted to break out the masking tape next, then spraypaint the outside of the case in lego brick style too lol
 
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heh, thats awesome XD

i'd be tempted to break out the masking tape next, then spraypaint the outside of the case in lego brick style too lol
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.
 
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that might work

the lego look oddly reminds me of the handlink from Quantum Leap lol

2nbg7s6.jpg
 
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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...
VTnoy8q.jpg
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...
dUAqwpU.jpg

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...
GIOH8Pq.jpg
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.
 
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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

Run my silent wings at 80% on my rads, just enough to hear them when gaming without headphones or sound :D
 
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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.

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
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:
UAih1lE.jpg
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).
 
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would use the green route, phanteks state to go through the inlet port , but technically will be fine going via the output port for the bottom card . Really couldnt when you use alphacools extremely restrictive GPX blocks which are do give a negative flow effect when reversed
 
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