JayGee's Thermaltake Core v21 Lan Party Build

JayGee

JayGee

JayGee

Associate
Joined
3 Jan 2018
Posts
205
Location
Cambridge
Having recently completed my Dark Base Pro 900 build my previous rig in its Phanteks Enthoo case is somewhat redundant, a fact that hasn't exactly gone unnoticed by the good lady wife as that rig is now taking up space on her side of our bijou study.

So, being the dutiful husband I've committed to her that this weekend I'll start tearing down that system to get it out of the way. What I've so far omitted to tell her is that I've decided to recycle a lot of the component parts into a new build. Hopefully, when a few extra bits and pieces start showing up for that she'll understand what a great idea this is because not only shall it be a fairly cheap build (what with it being mostly recycled), it's also a build that is specifically intended to be small(ish) and portable by design, i.e. easy to keep out of her way! Win-win right?

Anyway, here's the approximate list of stuff that I plan to recycle:
  • Intel i5-6600K with EK water block
  • Two Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 with EK water blocks and backplates
  • 32GB (4 x 8GB) of G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4 2800MHz
  • EK D5 PWM Pump
  • EVGA Super NOVA 850W PSU + Cables
  • Two Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5" SSDs
  • Samsung 850 EVO 250GB M.2 SSD
  • Seagate 2TB 3.5" HDD
  • Various Noctua Fans
  • Various Monsoon Free Center Hardline Fittings
And here's what's currently on order to accomodate this build:
  • Thermaltake Core v21 case
  • Asus ROG Maximus VIII Gene mATX mobo
I'll figure out rads, reservoir and various other bits once I've figured out the fit - as such I'm expecting the build to stretch through March and possibly into April.
 
orbitalwalsh said:
have you seen kimeraindustries Cerberus X - their ATX vesion of the their mATX Cerberus case ?
either one would make a sweet small LAN party build- though does have a slight cost to it...

should be able to keep your water kit to a high standard/use all of it maybe ?
Click to expand...
Thanks, no, that case didn’t come up on the radar when I was looking. But, as you say, it does come at a cost. Somewhat moot now though as I’ve got the v21 on order and I’m expecting it to arrive by Tuesday next week - suppose I could still cancel, but then I’d have to throw away all the theory crafting that I’ve invested in that case too. ;)

That said, I did specifically look for cases with an integrated carry handle and that did turn up a Lian Li case (I don’t recall the exact model) which didn’t look so very different from the Cerberus and at a similar price point. I largely discounted the Lian Li on the basis of cost (after all I’ll be “selling” this indulgence to my wife on the basis that it’s a “cheap build”).

Oh, and for completeness, my plan for making the v21 rig a little more portable is to fashion a harness out of some 50mm polypropylene webbing. Cheap and practical (and also arriving next week).
 
This weekend I did the tear down of the old rig, I probably should have taken some photographs but unfortunately I ended up getting so engrossed in the task at hand that I completely overlooked to do that, so a written update shall have to suffice.

In fact the main things to share are really reinforcements of what I think is understood as best practice by many of us, but best practice and real life are sometimes a little different from each other. Put another way the main things to share can be collected together under the heading of don't forget to maintain your water cooled rig(s)!

Looking back over some records I think the rig in question had been running for ~2 years without a drain/refill or any kind of maintenance beyond cleaning filters and surface dusting. So notable "finds" from this weekends tear down, included:
- The EK liquid had changed in colour significantly (I still has some of the original liquid in storage), from a "blood red" to more of a "dark plum" colour. I suppose in hindsight I was aware that the colour had changed but only when I drained the system did I appreciate by just how much.
- All the water blocks had some level of staining which had progressed to a greater or lesser extent to cause some restrictions across the fins in the blocks. It was particularly interesting to note that there was a significant difference in the staining and extent of the restrictions between the two cards which had been connected together using an EK *serial* block. The significance of this being a serial config is that the flow through each block is different: in one card the flow is in through the rear most port and out through the front; the other has it the other way around. The block that had suffered the most was the one where the flow went from back to front. (I'll be learning from this and in the new build I'll be running the cards in parallel, front to back).
- Cleaning the blocks was rather harder than I had expected, I had imagined that a bit of a soak and and then agitating with an old toothbrush would have been enough but it actually took quite a lot of elbow grease too. I found the ideal tool for clearing out the fins was a thin piece of plastic, the bare plastic stems from ear buds also made for great scraper for other areas.
- The amount of dust that had collected in the fins in the rads was also a lot worse than I had anticipated given that I had dust filters over all in-feeds and regularly cleaned filters etc.

So, yeah, don't leave it too long between deep cleaning your rig. You know it makes sense!

BTW, in other news, I shared my plan to recycle stuff into a smaller, easier-to-keep-out-of-your-way, case with my wife this weekend. I'm not 100% sure that she really understood why I needed another computer, but at least I survived broaching the topic (which may or may not have been a result of having accumulated quite a few brownie points over the last few days ferrying her to and from work as she hates driving in the snow).

Oh, and the case has been delivered this afternoon, pictures of that to follow.
 
A couple of pictures to show some internal dimensions of the main cage have stripped off all the panels that I wasn't able to find elsewhere:

Looking down with the mobo plate horizontal with the floor
8PobhPp.jpg
Worth noting that in stock configuration using the removable cross beams in this orientation the case can accept 4 x 120mm fans or 2 x 120mm + 2 x 140mm; it won't support 4 x 140mm.
Similarly, it will support 2 x 240mm rads or a 240mm + 280mm but not 2 x 280 (and all assuming rads that are 120mm/140mm wide exactly to fit within the frame).
However, I believe that I'll be able to accomodate 2 x 280mm rads by making up a simple plate as an alternative mounting mechanism - which is now the plan.


Looking down with the mobo plate vertical relative to the floor
62cA9L1.jpg
Plenty of clearance for rads with fans.
 
Having been away from home for the past week it was nice to come back to find a few deliveries have been made:
DwpmSlv.jpg

It's still going to be a while until I can start on the build proper (for some reason my wife feels we should do something else to mark our wedding anniversary this weekend! :)) but having got the rads in my hands I've been able to confirm that accommodating both in the roof is very doable by simply drilling a few mounting holes.
 
The packaging on those radiators is different to the one of the same model I received last week. Have EK done a refresh on their design?
 
Yesterday evening I took a look at how things lined up on the mobo and found that the CPU water block lined up perfectly with the GPU parallel inter-connect - which got me thinking about putting all the blocks (CPU + 2 GPU) in parallel, mostly because I think it will simply look neat, but also because it appears to simplify the routing.

I appreciate that dividing the flow across three blocks in parallel where one of the blocks will have a different level of restriction compared to the other two is not ideal and will likely mean that I'll have to run the D5 pump hard to get the necessary flow, but what do you folks think?
- Worth giving it a go?
OR
- Non-starter, waste of time?
 
If your running ek blocks it'll be fine, not really restrictive like Alphacool Blocks , specially the GPX ones , DDC works better with them dual to head pressure, but D5 should be fine with the above at faster speeds . Still the most critical elements is the fans for getting rise of the heat :)
 
orbitalwalsh said:
If your running ek blocks it'll be fine
Click to expand...
Which is what I have.

orbitalwalsh said:
Still the most critical elements is the fans for getting rise of the heat :)
Click to expand...
No shortage of fans - I have 7 x Noctua Industrial 140's ready to go! Might be a little noisy, but I much prefer the colour of the industrials and they shift air (and heat) when wound up to 2000rpm :cool:
 
I ran two gtx 1080 through Alphacool Eisbaer.. god the flow were so slow the flow wheel didn't actually move ! But both stayed at 54c underload and 240/30 and 120/45 rad ... Just damn good fans !
 
Fueled by choclate eggs I found some time to spend on the build over Sunday...
N9ZaT3g.jpg
0WlKmLz.jpg

Running both GPUs and the CPU block in parallel seems to be perfectly fine - temps are very comfortable with both D5 and fans running at low-ish revs. In fact, the biggest problem is that the pump can't really be run at high revs because if it does it causes a ton of turbulence in the radiator which results in air being mixed into the liquid in the loop.
 
subbytna said:
Doesn't the 970 SLI get gimped much these days given the SLI option is more and more rare. Isn't a single card option a better call? 1080 or the like. Sell the 970 kit to get readies to get the 1080 and block?
Click to expand...
Maybe, but the point of this build was really to reuse a bunch of kit, including the two 970's, that I had lying around after completing a new main rig. I'm realistic enough to know that I'm not going to use this secondary system very much, but it was a fun project being my first mATX build and also my first experiment with running three blocks in parallel. I'm pleased with the way it turned out both in aesthetic terms and also practicality - airflow is great, two 280 rads for cooling the loop with the pump and all seven fans idling means it's relatively quiet too, and the form factor is ideal for transporting (low centre of gravity, stable foot print). But yeah, you're right, if this was a rig I'd be using more often then I'd have thrown a 1080/1080ti into it.
 
Heyo

Do you reckon you could push pull those rads?

I'm hoping to fit 2 nzxt x56 aios one for cpu and one +nzxt g12 to the gpu
hopefully in push pull, mainly to keep things quiet and because I have a gazillion fans....
well 8 haha
 
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