My Cosmos ii build

[omgitsdavie]

I cant really call this a project/build log just yet because its already assembled for now lol. That being said i do plan to ditch the Sapphire GPU and get 2 reference model cards and get me some watercooled crossfire goodness very soon!

All freshly re-housed in a coolermaster cosmos ii today which looks fab. I was hoping not to have the dreaded fan controller issues as OCUK told me this has the revised version of the fan controller, but the buzzing/clicking is present when the fans are on med/low speeds. A little dissapointing, but no biggie as i half expected it anyway.

The current spec consists of..
2500k i5
ASUS p8z77 board
sapphire 7970
x2 Samsung ssds (120gb and a 250gb) and a WD 1tb storage drive
8gb of Crucial Ballistix ram

First things first pull off the front panel and trim down the ridic amount of cables coming from the front panel. This photo was taken yesterday however ive since decided to ditch the CM fan control because its utter garbage so that should thin the rats nest of wires down even further.

This is my first build where ive been concious about cable management, for my first attempt i dont think ive done TOO bad, although there is some room for improvement, however ill re-tackle this when i go for a full w/c solution

A shot from the business side! First of all i know the cables need braiding, the yellow/black and multi coloured wires in the GPU and main mobo connectors stick out like a sore thumb! Also the front panel on this case needs its own feed direct from the PSU, sods law has it that its a molex connector on the front panel, the ONLY molex connector in the whole damn rig so that means a whole cable with x4 molex plugs from the PSU to hide! I think im going to look for some sort of sata/molex adaptor or just get a fresh sata connector and crimping tool from MDPC so i can power the front panel from the sata cables currently powering my hard drives

The only real "mod" (and i use this term loosely lol) is to alter the bottom compartment to house x2 240mm rads. In stock guise the cosmos 2 comes with 2 HDD cages in the bottom compartment, however these are removable to make way for one 240mm rad. Coolermaster supply these 2 adaptor plates which allow you to mount a radiator on the two vertical support posts at the rear of the case.

I have managed to aquire a second damaged case for the price of naff all and plan to remove the support posts and fit them to my case which will let me fit a second rad and it all be factory fit with no bodging lol.

And just cos us men love "seeing how stuff works" i took the entire second case apart as it was just plastics that were damaged. Maybe ill look into painting this or doing something else with it in the future lol?

Think that will do for now. Apologies for the crappy photos lol

 

[omgitsdavie]

Well i said hello to some new bits and pieces today!

Im not a big fan of having pumps out on show so my first job was to dremel out some of the old drive cages as this is where i decided to put my pump.

Fits nice and snug, apologies for the hideous photo, that will teach me to check each photo after ive taken it haha



after that it was time to build up a rad frame so i could get a better idea of where id need to drill in order to mount the second 240mm rad in the bottom compartment.




All drilling and riveting done. Couldnt really get close enough to rivet the top right hand side mounts without taking half the case apart, but its plenty sturdy enough as is so im happy enough at that



heres both rads built up and ready to go into the bottom of the case


Was kind of fiddly to cram all this in there, but its in now and all secure



Not sure whether its the mounting points on the XSPC rad or the CM case, but either way i had to modify 4 of the holes to mount the rad :/



GPU block and CPU block installed, all now in position!


Leaktesting! Didnt want to have any pump flow problems so i ended up moving the res a little higher up. Not really the most secure configuration with regard to the clamps, but it holds steady enough. Something to re-think when i change stuff around


Did some cable management, again i could probably improve, but its not too bad


And heres it is all finished.


This is my first w/c build so feel free to point out anything i could/should have done better or just any general pointers. Oh yes, i know the case fan isnt spinning in the last photo Still working through some fan controller issues haha

 

[MorleySA]

Nice build! I have Cosmos II as well and my 360 rad didn't line up properly to the mounting holes, mines a XSPC rs360 not sure what one you are using! What sort of temps are you getting?

 

[omgitsdavie]

I had the ex360 crossflow so i could drop the tubing down into the drive cage, behind the mobo tray and into the back of the res as i dont like having loads of tubing on show As for temps ive not really ran any benchmarking software yet. After a good smash on BF3 highest temps recorded by cpuid hw monitor were 47 on the cpu and 42 on the gpu. Not really sure how it should be performing as im pretty new to W/C, but its a good chunk off my previous aircooled temps so im happy enough with that for now