Liquid Art: From Mini P180 to infinity...

[Jay85]

Installed a Phanteks Vertical GPU mount today. Wasn't as straight forward as i thought it would be... As usual nothing fits as you think it would. For my scenario the bottom fans were interfering with the bracket so i couldn't align it up properly to get the screws in. What i ended up doing was drilling out the stock holes for the thumb screws on the vertical mount to make them bigger allowing me to screw the thumb screws into the case pci bracket. Was easy enough to do but would have rather avoided doing this. The riser cable is really good quality though, quite rigid and covered in a thick rubber coating/sleeve which all came in a sealed anti static bag for piece of mind.



With todays mods i also installed a BarrowCH M.2 temp monitor. Again not as straight forward to fit.... the damn thing interfered with the top pcie slot and the waterblock mounting plate!!! The M.2 monitor comes in 2 pieces, the bottom slider and a top piece which is the monitor. The bottom slider holds the M.2 drive in place while the monitor section screws into the bottom slider. The M.2 drive itself is covered on both sides with thermal pads for heat transfer onto the monitor. So to fix my issue i had to file down the slider where it was interfering until i could sit it down with the drive in and screw it down. Took some careful filing and making sure i didn't leave any metal filings in! Once in though it was good to see it all working and now i have a decent temp monitor for my M.2 drive. Now by all means it doesn't really act as a heat sink unless you get fresh cool air blown against it.




Next up... Hardline kit and try and source a waterblock for this card

 

[Jay85]

Good log.

Thanks!

Hardline kit ordered, arriving tomorrow! XSPC 14mm hardline fittings, XSPC PETG, XSPC Bending kit and a few 90 degree angle fitting adapters incase my bends goes **** up

 

[Jay85]

Hardline kit arrived but i didn't order enough and was a little dis-organised so ended up ordering more stuff and while i was at it i decided to take the plunge and sell my 2070 super and ordered this...



Total overkill for my needs but it came up really cheap at an auction site... opened but unused!

Will be continuing the build this week and hopefully have it finished before the end of the week. Really excited to get this, always wanted one but never could afford one till now.

 

[Jay85]

@Jay85 very nice! did the owner sign up to the 4 yr warranty ?

No they didn't, it was bought for a build but never registered. Card itself is still sealed in the anti-static bag! Really happy with the price that i got this at.

Will do a few pictures of the unboxing prior to the build

 

[Jay85]

get them to register it . Gigabyte is done via person and not via Bot check . Might get away with later registration if it isn't too late

Spoiler: went with cooler master Mount. higher up but closer to ram, and makes contact with 54mm tall ram kit

Ah i didn’t know that, so can i still register it with the cards serial number or do i need the original receipt etc as well? Thanks for the useful info.

I contemplated this one as well and the cablemods package but the phanteks one allows me to move the mount up or down so depending on my setup it gives me that flexibility to change the gpu’s position.

Does it just touch then or actually rub against it?

 

[Jay85]

need the original order. if you can get the person you ordered it from to do it, should then be able to claim 4 yrs. bit of a grey area that that rep on here touched about .

touches, gpu is pushed about 2 degrees off center but all fine . Xtreme ram kit prob tallest on market

Messaged the guy so hopefully i can get the original receipt then and register it. Whats the standard warranty then without registering?

2 degrees is not a lot, aslong as its not putting pressure on the pcie slot. Glad its worked for you, the coolermaster kit isn't expensive either. Much cheaper than the cablemods kit anyway.

 

[Jay85]

Finally finished! I got the hang of bending PETG so it was very quick compared to my original attempt. I was pretty lucky as well with getting everything to align up properly, didn't have to tweak much and it all came together nicely. The gap between the gpu and the pump/reservoir was so tight... can just about get a few pieces of paper through there.. haha .

First off! Update on the new GPU, finally got my Aorus 2080 xtreme watercooled gpu! This thing is gorgeous, always dreamed of getting one of these and it just so happens that one came up cheap on an auction site. Opened but unused, the gpu had not been touch and was still sealed in its anti-static bag! Great! Weighs absolute ton as well, so glad its mounted vertically and not bending the pcie slot with its mammoth weight. As usual, some pics to go with the build from start to finish. The only thing i am missing now is a 3rd bottom fan to take up the empty space for some more added airflow.

















Nifty position for the water temp monitor


Gigabyte RTX 2080 Aorus Xtreme watercooled unboxing















And she's in! Bloody tight! (That's what he said)





Some deburring, not the neatest but it does the job. Used XSPC's deburrer







And its finally assembled, ready for some coolant.









Straight in with some testing and some overclocking. Only managed a +55mhz on the core and +800mhz on the memory without crashes. At stock it boosted to 2010mhz with a score of 10425 on Time spy. Overclocked i managed a nice 10908 on the default settings on Time spy! Very pleased to say the least! Compared to the 2070 super with a hefty overclock i could not get past 10420, so quite a boost in performance (depending on the application of course).

 

[Jay85]

looking good! need to get a snap of it running with some rgb!

I'm thinking some Aorus Orange dye in the fluid would make this really stand out






She's a beaut!

 

[Jay85]

does look stunning!

found personally just using clear fluid works best with RGB and looks clean . And with glass is just magical

I know what you mean, i’ve clear fluid for the past 6 years and tbh i really want a change. Tell you what though, there has been zero corrosion on all my blocks using de-ionised water for years. My Bitspower EF summit is still crystal clean! Lets see how she fairs with mayhems pastel and some dye for the next 6 years again haha.

 

[Jay85]

@Jay85 very nice! did the owner sign up to the 4 yr warranty ?

So i registered it today without the original receipt, i used the paypal invoice i got from the transaction and the warranty has been confirmed now with the 4 year instead of 3. Is there anything i'm missing? Does this email act as an official confirmation?

 

[Jay85]

@Jay85 long as its been registered etc should be fine. any issues then Rep on here can assist

was the card registered past the 30 days from when the card was first bought ?

I dont know when the card was actually bought as the seller didn’t tell me. i just registered it using the receipt from when i bought it haha. Seems to have worked?

 

[Jay85]

guessing over 30 days then, and shows Gigabyte is flexible - wouldnt stand a chance with zotac if your late

Was quite surprised it had qualified just like that, only took 15 mins ish for a confirmation to come back.

 

[Jay85]

Update:

Added 1 more radiator to the bottom! Was a tight squeeze and tbh i wasn't sure it would fit but after some toying around i managed to get it to slot in there. It's a XSPC TX360 ultra slim radiator, measuring at just 20.5mm thick! Slimmest radiator i own upto now! There is about a 1mm gap between the bottoms and the bottom of the vertical mount for the gpu. With this i also changed the colour of the coolant to orange to best match the Aorus theme.... however ran into some trouble with the colour. With the RGB lights off its orange however when the lights are on it turns to a pinky red colour... can't explain it, maybe i added too much orange dye in there so its reacting to the strong White LED light from the fans? Ordered some EK cryofuel solid orange to see if it does the same.. just means draining the loop again! Added a memory RGB lighting kit as well just to fill in the empty gaps there, came up cheap so why not?

Temps dropped another few Celsius in particular on the cpu side.

Before:
GPU temp: 48-50c max
CPU temp: 70-75c max

After:
GPU temp: 42-44c max
CPU temp: 65-67c max

Love improvement! With the lower gpu temps, i'm also boosting upto 2055mhz contact now compared to 2040mhz constant previous.


Now for some pictures as per usual..












Update again once i get the coolant changed out and the lighting back to white to colour match everything else.

Happy with it so far

 

[Jay85]

New coolant arrive to test the theory if its the RGB causing the reaction or the coolant itself that has the issue. Can't wait to see what happens! Will try in some tubing first and hold it up against the light to see if it reacts rather than wasting time draining the loop.



Looks a lot like orange juice this stuff!

 

[Jay85]

The final images of the completed system. The fluid came out better than expected, had to add a few drops of red dye in there to give it a darker tone. Added 3 new ML120 fans in white and moved the prizm fans down to the bottom so the enermax fans could be used in another system.

Final piece to come is the shorter reservoir which should be here tomorrow, OCUK have given the shipped confirmation! With that i should be able to adjust the side 360 radiator and add another 120mm fan at the top for exhaust.

 

[Jay85]

Stumbled across this thread and its a great build. I've finally recently got a 144hz monitor and with the unlocked frames Im finding that the GPU temps are pretty high, so I'm thinking now of starting off watercooling with a GPU only build and extending to CPU where necessary.

Have the same case as you, so going to have a read through to get more details to see how to mitigate problems. Which vertical mount is that? I have the coolermaster one, which was great before as the slots were closer to the motherboard, which gave my air cooled GPU more room to breathe. However since I upgraded a couple of months back, it might be TOO close as it will foul on my RAM (same as yours by the looks of it).

Its a lovely looking build and I'm starting to look at pumps etc. Annoyingly the standard 011D is just a few mm short to give me real options without vertical mounting, so will have to see whats possible.

Any plans going ahead?

A watercooled gpu gets so much more performance gain than you would from a watercooled cpu, the temps difference is quite significant. GPU temps can drop as much as 25-35c depending on how many radiators and what else is in your loop. For me i saw a drop from 65c to 42c average which allowed me a further boost clock of 20mhz. I believe if i somehow managed to drop temps further i could squeeze another 10-15mhz out of it easily without going into sub ambient temps.

For a gpu only loop a single 360 rad would be more than sufficient to see significant drops in temps. A further 360 rad would help a lot if you had a cpu in the loop as well in the future. Use to be 240 rad per component but since components these days run a lot hotter than what they use to with some above the 300w mark, it just doesn't flow anymore.

I got the Phanteks Vertical mount for its ability to adjust up and down along the pci slots as it technically only uses up 5 slots not the advertised 7 slots.

If i had the coolermaster mount i would:

A) not be able to mount a bottom radiator or fans
B) foul the ram as you mentioned.

The phanteks version allows me to eliminate both of these problems.

If you spend some time measuring and having a closer look at the case its actually very versatile and can fit a lot in there.



I'm tinkering with the idea of swapping the 240 rad up top for a 360 rad but just working out the flow and fittings direction is proving to be abit of a ball ache at the moment. Furthermore i had to flush the system last night due to EK's Cryo fuel Solid Fire Orange losing its white particles and getting stuck to the blocks and tubing/res.. very disappointed in it. Looked amazing at first but shortly after i noticed white build up and knew what was up. Swapped it all out for de-ionised water again now for the time being. Will do a little tutorial on cleaning up scratched PETG as well tomorrow as i've ordered a kit to help me do this. The clear fluid shows up all the scratch marks unfortunately and its rather annoying me..

 

[Jay85]

@Jay85 what is your reservoir and mount please? I have the O11 dynamic XL, I plan to fit a thick EK-rad bottom and two normal for vertical and top. I was thinking of a EK-res and EK 120mm res mount, I have 16mm/14mm OD/ID Thermaltake PETG tubing. I'm wondering about Alphacool 16mm compression fittings or Thermaltake ones but I heard XSPC have 3 o-rings (also heard about some 16mm compressions not fitting 16mm OD tubes). I plan to get a dual serial D5 EK pump. I will get a GPU block first, after big Navi comes out. I'm thinking of getting some soft tubing for a drain port. I expect it could be tricky to drain with a radiator at the bottom and wanted some flexibility (plus I still have a t-piece for soft tube from the last time I watercooled).

I also want a water temperature sensor and fan control via water temperature:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aqua-computer-flow-sensor-mps-high-flow-incl-usb-port-wc-177-aq.html

Hi megatron,

It's a Alphacool reservoir:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Alphacool Eisbecher D5 250mm Fluid Reservoir - Acetal= £74.99

Total: £83.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

I bought a shorter tube for it through ocuk who sourced it for me since they didn't stock the size i wanted.

I managed to do 2 x 360 and 1 x 240 with this setup but im sure i probably could have squeezed a 360 in there still instead of the 240. The XL case has a lot more head room so you should be fine to fit thicker rads at the bottom.

Yes draining was a nightmare, i had to tilt the case on its side and remove one of the fittings to loosen a tube to drain it into a bucket. It did the job but not convenient at all, i wouldn't recommend it unless you have no other choice.



I've dropped the tube style reservoirs now and gone with EK's new Quantum Kinetic blocks and saved myself a lot of room.

View attachment 2uMEBe2.jpg

 

[Jay85]

Fantastic looking that is very very clean and love the red and black, looks smart as!

Thank you Pug! Just a possible CPU block to change but need to do my research first before i commit. The old Bitspower summit EF block needs to retire i think, it's had a good 4-5 year run.