Liquid Art: From Mini P180 to infinity...

[Jay85]

Some of you may remember my Mini P180 build which hosted a crossfire micro atx board, 2 x 5870's and a phenom 955 chip (see sig).

Well it's time to upgrade and go complete water! After much help from Cleeco, i've chosen my parts and ready to head down to the shop to collect my components .

Parts used in the build:

Case: Antec Mini P180
Phenom 955BE @3.8ghz
8GB crucial 1333 ram
MSI 890GXM-G65 board
ASUS GTX 570 Direct CUii edition with back plate
ASUS CD/DVD RW drive
2 x 1TB HDD's (samsung and seagate)
1 x 500GB WD Black

Watercooling components:

EK H30 Supreme LT 120 kit
EK-CoolStream RAD XT (120)
TFC Hot UV White Tubing 2M (3/8" ID and 1/2" OD)
EK-PSC nickel Compression fittings 10mm (G 1/4") - 8 in total

FANS:

3 x Gelid Wing UV 12 fans
2 x Sharkoon SE 120 modular fans (1200rpm)



So my loop will consist of 2 x 120 Rads and cooling only CPU for now. In brief it will go like this:

RES --> PUMP --> RAD1 --> RAD2 --> CPU --> Back to Res.


My only concern is whether my tubing will be flexible enough to bend around from Rad1 to Rad2 since Rad2 will be sitting directly above Rad1. I'll take a picture when i'm home to explain this better in detail.

Any other advice or help please post and comment! I'm open to Any suggestions that you might have.



And Nearly a year on! This is what i have ended up with so far

Updated Pics for November 2012!

More Artsy pictures to come soon




Pictures for 2012!

Pictures for 2013!


New components:

Parvum Systems S1.0 Case
Bitspower Multi-Z 80mm Reservoir
Creative Z Soundcard
Seasonic X850 modular PSU.

 

[Jay85]

I'll be using the EK DCP 2.2 pump provided with the kit but wondering whether to upgrade to the 4.0 pump since i'm running 2 x120 rads.

Is the pump going to be effecient enough to run both rads?

 

[Jay85]

Its something different i suppose, i've always wanted to try put watercooling properly and since funds are right now i can. I would rather get an i5 2500k but just cant afford it now.

Thanks! Ill update as the components are collected.

 

[Jay85]

Finally i can update! It's been another crazy experience with leaks and stupid silly mistakes but in the end i got there with the help of OCUK's members , thank you all in advance.



So heres the kit to start with, i bought an extra 120 rad and some other fittings to ensure i could create my loop without hassle.

The instructions were easy to follow although a lot of the kit was pretty self explanatory apart from mounting the back plate to the AMD board which consisted of a mish mash of washers and raisers.


AMD Face plate mounted onto board with the block in place aswel , nice and easy!

Assembled my EK DCP 2.2 Res and pump combo, was a absolute nightmare to fit together and the tools provided are crap! I would advice buying a set of allen keys for this scenario.

I had everything fitted and assembled in my rig, ready to power on when the worse of the worst happened! While screwing in my rads i had stupidly tightened them up too much and punctured both radiators which caused a massive leak! One was caused by a longer screw which is provided by EK but i did not notice until it was too late .


I managed to fix one of the rads with some Super Steel Epoxy Resin however the other Rad seems to be beyond repair as i may have punctured more than 1 tube within the radiator itself.


Pic of repaired rad:

So for the time being i am left with 1 x 120 rad until my new one arrives... Also used the incorrect water -_- and put still water in instead of de-ionised water but will fix that next week.



Finally some pics of the semi completed build, it's tight but it works well for me .

No Room light, all internal lighting:

Thanks for looking

 

[Jay85]

A few updated pictures coming, just compiling them now .


Another two 120 rads have been fitted, 1 x EK 120 XT and a Feser Xtreme 120 XTX provided by a forum member (Many thanks to him)

 

[Jay85]

Side Panel on:

Side Panel off:

Rear Angle:

Missing a waterblock for my GPU now and i'm set

 

[Jay85]

Glad you appreciate my efforts, it was a nightmare trying to get it all in. Draining the loop is just as hard but thinking of putting a t-piece in there soon for drainage.

 

[Jay85]

Looks nice!

Which LED strip is that? Trust message me if you cant post a link


Thanks

Think it's a Phobya LED Strip in white, either that or the NZXT one.

Sorry i really can't remember but it's one or the other .

thanks for the updated pics! the panel frames it all nicely once on...jealous!

Thank you, it really does but im not happy with the panel yet. It's still got some rough edges that need abit of rubber sealing to finish the look. Also need a bit more lighting for the finishing touches

 

[Jay85]

Aligning the lights is a pain lol, fitting isn't too bad though.

 

[Jay85]

FOR NOISE COMPARISON PURPOSES.

http://youtu.be/Q7RlA36KNDQ

 

[Jay85]

where is your psu ???

It's underneath my pump in a seperate bay . The dark pictures disguise it haha.

 

[Jay85]

I am loving the colour, real nice blue effect going on

Its changed again now, ive used mayhems pastel white with a few drops of EK's uv blue for a baby blue colour !

hey jay did you decide to water cool the gpu ? i got suspended so couldnt answer on your thread hehe......

Hey no problem, i'll be ordering next week or week after as it will be a special order through ocuk. Im replacing my LTX block with XSPC's raystorm aswel. Check back to this thread regularly

Cudos to you sir, i have a p180 mini and i can hardly fit my CPU cooling loop in there.

Its ridiculously uncomfortable to work with but it does work and keeps my 955BE at a sub 48c primed
Rob

 

[Jay85]

BABY BLUE


Got my Mayhems Pastel ICE WHITE coolant and filled my loop up again . Very nice stuff, looks rather like semi skimmed milk lol. I added a little something to try out and it turned out okay! Added a few drops of EK's UV Dye and i got my BABY BLUE colour.

Also i decided to rearrange my loop slightly so i moved my pump and res next to my PSU in a seperate compartment and made some space for my GPU to breath and to vent properly. Quite happy with the loop so far, all that's missing right now is my GPU block which i'm not 100% sure how i will route it yet and my XSPC Raystorm CPU block.

SIDE PANEL ON

Stay tuned for more in this Micro ATX Build

 

[Jay85]

just came accross this from your sig link... absoutely beautifull! I love it!

Thank you Stueng, it's come along way. It's not quite finished yet though, i'm still saving up for a waterblock and i still need to fit a draining tube to drain the loop...

 

[Jay85]

GTX 680

Final update on this system!

Won't be doing anymore until i completely replace it in a few years time! Thanks everyone for the support and complimenting on the build

Jay

 

[Jay85]

Very nice indeed, you go through more GPU's than i have hot dinners, only joking it is really nice indeed.

ha! My gpu selection went from

5670 -> 5870 -> xfire 5870 -> GTX 570 and now GTX 680!

This will be the last for a long while to come.

Very pleasing on the eye. What about some Corsair Vengeance Blue RAM?

Not a bad idea but there would be zero benefit from doing that and i dont think amd systems benefit much from going faster than 1333mhz ram?

 

[Jay85]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

gtx 680

It is rather yummy!

KiiYzOo can your antec Skeleton hold 3 x 120 rads?

They do, chuck some DDR3 1600Mhz in there

Ah i see! well then might not be finished with this afterall LOL! Damn you!!!

 

[Jay85]

Hey Jay,

Quick question for you as i know you've crossfired in this case before, i'm thinking about getting a second 5850, do you think it would fit?

It will fit no problem at all although you will need to remove your bottom hard drive cage if you haven't done so already.

The 5870's are longer than 5850's so it will defo fit no problem. You might want to get a spot fan to feed some fresh air into your bottom gpu as it will run very hot being sandwiched in this case.

 

[Jay85]

Looks like i just can't leave this rig alone lol.


I wasn't happy with how close the tubing was with the 24pin connector so i rotated my rads 180! Quite happy with the outcome especially with the side panel on . The EK compression fittings show up nicely!


All i'm waiting on now is a block for my 680 and i'm set xD... or am i?


120 x 3 rads should be more than enough to cool it right?

*Cable management arghhhhhh!*

 

[Jay85]

DPD knocked on my door this afternoon with these puppies! EK gtx 680 block with back plate .

I was eager to get started straight away so went about draining my loop first to get access to my gpu.


Once all drained it was time to fit the block. Removing the stock cooler was a doddle, i was surprised at how easy it came off. Didn't have to use any force whatsoever. Luckily for me all the thermal pads had stuck to the cooler aswel and not the pcb so didn't have to do much cleaning .

Some pics to tell the rest of the story...




Fresh Thermal paste, decided to try and smooth it out instead of using the cross shape that EK recommends.

About the use of that compression fitting in the corner... well i ran out of connectors lol. Had to make do with what i had left so i ended using one of those 45 degree instead of a straight fit . Doesn't look as nice but it'll have to do for now until i can get another ordered.

Performance results:


Idle temps:

3Dmark11 run at stock:

3Dmark11 run at overclock:

+140 +170

3Dmark11 overclock score:

Super happy with the temps! The gpu didn't even peak 50c when overclocked and only went higher by 2c overclocked , result! And all this in a tiny micro atx case.


Well that's it, no more upgrades until i can afford a new cpu and board! Will be keeping to this until i literally can't run games anymore or unless SB drops below £200 including mobo.


Thanks for looking, feedback and comments welcome.