Parallel In The Black

[Mysterae_]

Welcome to my project, Parallel In The Black.

This is actually a mod of a previous mod (on a different forum) so many elements will have already been done and will carry over.

I'm currently in the middle of my progress so the first few posts will be a bit of catchup.

This mod was due to changing from 780Ti SLI to 980Ti SLI; it's never a simple swap when your system is watercooled as you need new blocks. I also thought I'd do something different and plumb the water blocks in parallel, mainly for looks than any perceived performance benefit. The 980Ti's will be water cooled but not in the traditional manner, I still want to retain the reference GTX look.

Here's an up to date schematic of the water cooling:

Rig Specification:

Processor – Intel i7 4770K @ 4.7GHz​

Memory – Corsair Dominator Platinums 16GB @ 2400MHz​

Motherboard – MSI Z87 XPOWER​

Graphics Cards – MSI Reference Nvidia 980Ti SLI (overclocks to be determined)​

Power Supply – Corsair AX1200 (considering changing this)​

Boot Drive – Sandisk 240GB SSDs (2 in RAID 0, 480GB total)​

Case – Silverstone FT02 Black​

The water cooling, fans and lighting will all be controlled by an Aqua Computer Aquaero 5XT. I'm adding flow rate sensors to both in an out as well as some lighting control. The wiring schematic below gives some hints to my intentions.

The case (Silverston FT02) will be modified to give more space, the USB ports upgraded to 3.0, the viewing window extended and the all too easy to scratch acrylic window will be replaced with tempered glass.

I want this build to quick, but as I'm waiting on some parts from the states I've extended the target completion date to end of September which is more than achievable.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

980Ti GPU Cooling

One of my aims with this mod was to retain the reference GTX look yet still be able to water cool the 980Ti’s. The solution had to be non-destructive to the graphic card for resale purposes in the future. Then I found the Koolance PLT-UN40F cold plate; a 40mm square water block which is the perfect solution to my needs. No dremelling required to fit this.

Take one reference 980Ti:

The method shown below of stripping the 980Ti makes getting the heatsink out quite easy, but I did previously strip the whole thing down. I found that some of the thermal pads were a bit skewed so I’m glad I did that.

The PLT-UN40T is relatively small water block. I quite like it; a solid good design, deep channels, offset inlet and outlet ports and a highly polished surface on the base. The only criticisms I have for the block is that the top isn't very thick so the thread length isn't very deep and it doesn't come with any fixings of any sort.

To fix the water block I sourced a number of items, such as M2.5 screws, washers, springs and thumb nuts. I considered many options and thought putting the block under spring tension to be the best option. The image below shows the fixing arrangements for two water blocks.

Pre-assembly and fitting of the water block. I decided to use Noctua NT-H1 as my thermal interface material this time.

The 980Ti reassembled with the PLT-UN40T fitted. I used some nuts to refit the screws that previously held the acrylic window on, otherwise it wouldn't have looked right with the holes.

Added some push fittings and chrome tubing for these pictures to see what it would look like .

I chose this hybrid method of cooling because I have the theory that the water cooling can focus on cooling the GPU core and the fan can cool the VRMs and RAM modules. The air from the fan will also pass over the water block aiding in the cooling but that is secondary. I'm aware than the fan speed is set by the temperature of the GPU core but that the VRMs need just as much attention. When at load the water cooling will mean a lower GPU core temperature (than normal) and thus a lower fan speed, but the VRMs will be getting hot powering that load. To mitigate this issue a custom fan curve will be set in MSI Afterburner, probably by adding a +20C offset to the fan curve or implementing a 1:1 ratio for core_temp:fan_speed, i.e. 20C:20%, 35C:35%, 50C:50% and so on. This will need a little experimentation.

Illumination? When Nvidia promoted the Titan X I really liked the images with the green glow coming from the graphics card, so I thought I'd imitate it .

The resulting effect is exactly what I was looking for .

With some chrome pipes fitted:

The green light is visible through the fan as well, nice.

Here is the LED strip, not the best imo and I may replace it with a Phobya Flexlight as it has more LEDs per cm. Although the light strip I have fitted is RGB so any colours are possible, but only green or white would be of any interest in this build. I may also double up on the strip, fitting another on the bottom of the card but I think that may glare too much. It's pretty good as it is I reckon.

The cable to the lighting won't be white as in these pictures but sleeved black instead and will be carefully hidden by the SLI bridge.

Twins .

Thanks for your interest and I'll update again soon.

 

[Mysterae_]

Any reason why you have two flow meters in series? They'll only differ if you have a major leak.

The flow meters are actually placed at the in and out of the parallel branches and I'm doing it out of curiosity really, to measure the effects of the blocks in parallel. I could pretend that I'm doing it to monitor in case there's a change in pressure indicating a blocked block, but I would be only kidding myself!

That is a VERY cool idea and those schematics are so detailed.

I have a question. Your last picture - where does the tubing for the top card go? Down the middle of both cards with a 90 degree bend?

That image was from an initial test fit and I didn't like it - I'll fast forward a little bit and show this:

I did away with the 90 degree fittings and bent the pipe myself, much better looking I reckon. In my next post I'll show how I arrived at the above result .

 

[Mysterae_]

That looks fantastic. Very different to the sort of build I'm used to seeing. Look forward to seeing the finished results.

Cheers mate. It's good to be a little different .

looks amazing. im guessing you work with copper day to day ?

also what Finnish are you going for on the tubes?

Day to day I work with copper pipes as often as a fish rides a bicycle . I just really like it a material for water cooling, you just need practice to work with it. The copper you see above are purely templates pieces as they will be replaced with chromed copper tubing. Making the templates and testing the system lets me use the pc while I wait for other parts. It's much cheaper to work with the normal copper than the chromed stuff. I tend to waste a lot of copper tubing getting the bends and lengths just right.

Chromed copper tubing:

The tool in the middle is a Kwix tool, fantastic for straightening out coiled copper tubing

Probably Mika Häkkinen

Really interesting build, the design of the GPUs is crazy - really like it!

How do you plan on cramming this all into a case though? That last pic looks like it'll be a tight fit

Ha ha! Cheers, not quite finished with the GPUs yet either, just waiting on some parts. It's actually all test fitted, the FT02 is a very large case but I have had to modify it and losing 3 hard drive cages and 5 cdrom mounts. Having the radiator, reservoir and pump external is a must. I place the radiator next to a window to remove the warm air from the room. More on that side of things later.

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

Welcome back.

In order to remove the existing 780Ti's and install the 980Ti's for testing before modding I had to bypass the water cooling of the graphics cards and use the on-board graphics for a bit.

Here's a close up of the installed bypass from the XSPC Raystorm CPU block to the XSPC XPOWER motherboard block. The XSPC Raystorm is the chrome edition with chrome and clear acrylic mount kit, not available together which is strange as they are such a good match. Illuminated with four white LEDs and their brightness controlled by the Aquaero.

Talking of the Aquaero, you can see in the images above I've mounted it where I'm more likely to see it. I can see water temperatures, fan and pump speeds at a glance.

Case now stripped of all parts and I've marked out what I need to remove. I loose all but one CD-ROM drive bay and two hard drive slots. I don't have an optical drive installed and I've plenty of storage available on the network so it's no great loss. If you are wondering what the white tape is for - it helps increase the lighting of the motherboard by reflecting it back - those tracks that indicate the separation of the auto circuitry and MSI logo.

The rear of the FT02 is marked for the new placement of the Koolance Quick Disconnects. The other connectors will stay where they are. When I installed these previously I also dremelled out the PSU fan grill of the case as I found it a bit too restrictive.

Time to drill 18mm holes required for the new placement of the QDC's.

1. Holes marked with an automatic centre punch
2. Pilot holes drilled
3. 18mm drill bit at the ready!
4. Holes drilled, cleaning them up with my trusty deburring tool

The Silverstone FT02 has 7 accessible PCI slots with the 8th being blocked off with a plate, as if Silverstone changed their mind somewhere in the design process. Anyway, it was time to liberate that 8th slot as I needed it clear to improve the airflow from the far left 980Ti.

1. The plate concealing the 8th PCI slot, image from above
2. The plate concealing the 8th PCI slot, image from below
3. Rivets drilled out, plate removed and the 8th PCI slot is clear
4. Air blower connected to my compressor at the ready to blast all the cuttings from out of the case, goggles on!

Now ready for some dremelling of the optical and hard drive cages.

I didn't take any pictures of the dremeling as I was running out of time. Also apologies for the low quality of the following images.

Dremelling complete and taping up the edges.

Refitting all the hardware back in to case so that I can work out the best paths of the copper tubing.

Then I realise that the placement of the bottom pipe isn't ideal....

More soon!

 

[Mysterae_]

Interesting project, looks really good so far and love the chromed tubes. Thought it was Swagelock at first!

Looking forward to seeing the finished project

Cheers! I had to google Swagelock - they have some nice kit! Their benders look especially nice to use.

Now this is different, I like what you are doing. The gfx card hybrid is awesome, I'll defo be following this. What diameter is the tubing 12mm?

Thanks, the tubing is 10mm outer diameter.

this is too cool man

Ta, that's the intention

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

When at the initial design stage I thought I'd try some 45 degree fittings but due to the varying height between the CPU and motherboard ports I noticed it started to affect the straightness of the main horizontal feed pipe. So I ditched the 45 degree fittings and set about bending the pipes to the correct angles myself.

Much better. If you look to the right of the image you'll notice another hole in the frame of the case. During the installation of the pipework I found that the distance between the two horizontal feed pipes was too little, so I drilled another. I'll get some blanking grommets and close of these open holes.

When I reached the left 980Ti I wasn't entirely happy with the routing of the pipes for it.

So I went with a kind of staggered overlapping layout which I like better. This is the final layout, well, until I replace the copper pipes with the chromed copper - the pipes fitted will be my templates so that I don't waste a lot of the chromed tubing.

Because I do get through a lot of copper tubing getting it just right!

Looking good I hope you'll agree . The masking tape on the three bottom intake fans provided me with a datum that I could use with a set square to get the pipework how I wanted it.

Time to leak test it . Blue paper towel placed strategically wherever there is a connector. Paper clip PSU jumper at the ready. When the PSU is turned on the Aquaero is powered which provides power to the USB D5 pump.

After a successful leak test (yay!) it was time to power on.

This is where I'm currently at. The system is running nicely with no ill-effects from having all the blocks in parallel. You may notice I don't have the flow meters in circuit as yet, I still need to make up the USB cable for them. I'll do this when I change the pipework to the chromed tubing.

Still lots to do, with further modding to the 980Ti's. Please leave a comment if you'd like and I'll update again soon!

 

[Mysterae_]

Impressive work!
Always wanted to do copper tubing but never have the time sadly.

Thanks, make the time .

Holy Crap!! Thats naughty. Take your time, dont rush.

, taking my time but I am aiming to have it completed before the end of September. The problem I have is that I keep thinking of other ideas, it's knowing when and where to stop.

What do you call those fittings you've used? Is there an o-ring in there or is it some sort of press-loc?

The fittings are 10mm push-fittings. I've included an image below as this is a common question. The fittings to the water blocks are G1/4 threads which is what most blocks use. Each of these fittings have two o-rings - one on the thread to seal against the waterblock and one inside to seal against the pipe. There's also a metal 'clinch' inside the fitting to grab the pipe so that it doesn't fall out. To release the pipe you simply press on the outer ring of the fitting and pull the pipe out.

 

[Mysterae_]

Looks fantastic!

Cheers

Another image of fittings.

They come in varying types and designs, also notice how the thread length can vary - the 45 degree fitting (far right of bottom section) was incompatible with the waterblock I used for the GPUs, the thread was too long.

 

[Mysterae_]

This looks like an absoloute monster of a system
All the plans and hardware design make me think it should be in a powerplant! Have you thought about installing a coal generator or some kind of brimstone power facility?

Seriously though, I do envy the copper pipe look and your work ethic to be building such a brilliant system

Thanks for the kind words and let me get back to you on the brimstone power plant .

i love this, nice to see you didn't just bend pipe and put it in.

Keep it up

As the window is always within sight I know I'd always look at any section that wasn't right and think why didn't I put it right. So it's measure 3 times, cut 6 times and replace once!

Amazing job, are you not seeing any temperature difference between gpu 1 and 2? I would be worried that there could be a path of least resistance and therefore one really efficient part of the loop at the expense of the others.

Cheers. The system is very well balanced, there's only 1 or 2 degrees C different between the GPUs and I think that's due to the right hand card dealing with the comms to the PLX chip on the motherboard. When graphic cards in SLI are mounted horizontally the top card is usually the hottest, and while hot air rising does play some part, in my case with the cards mounted vertically and no other source of ambient heat around, I've attributed the slight difference in temperature to the PLX comms.

However, there was one worrying moment after removing one of the cards. Once connected and booted up I noticed the GPU temp wasn't at the usual 28C idle temperature, but at 49C. A quick (and I mean quick!) run of Heaven made the GPU run up to 90C, my custom fan profile ramped the fan up to 100% but of course that would do nothing due to the waterblock and not the stock heatsink being on the GPU. Why was it doing this? The waterblock was just fine before I drained the system to remove the other graphics card. Then I realised why - AIRLOCK.

So I have discovered a pitfall of parallel configuration when compared to serial. In serial if you get an airlock (which is unlikely) you'll know about when testing the system for leaks (before powering on) because of no returning flow. With a parallel system you only know it's happening when the system is running and your temperatures aren't what they should be.

Thankfully airlocks are pretty easy to solve. Ramp the pump up to 100% and give the case a wiggle and a wobble .

 

[Mysterae_]

Glad it is working for you. I would be very tempted to have a temp.sensor on each return pipe to check the temperature in the whole system. it would mean you can check for any inneficient parts of the system. If you have a temperature differential at stock clocks it might magnify later if you dont pick it up now.

Thanks. I've settled on two water temperature sensors; water in and water out (see my water cooling schematic in my first post). This gives me a lot of information such as - how efficient my radiator set up is (delta 1: water out - water in), and how much heat the water is absorbing (delta 2: water in - water out). That's all I need to know as far as water temperature goes. CPU and GPU core temperatures are far more important and since I can tap in to these with the Aquaero (virtual/software sensors) I can monitor them in Aquasuite (how I first noticed the odd GPU temperature) and set the system to respond appropriately, or me thinking wtf in this case!

If I have uncharacteristically high core temps at stock clocks due to an airlock, (which like I mentioned happened earlier) it only happens once - right after filling the system up. Once I've got the air out of the system, it's gone and it's not returning. It takes a good gulp of air to stall a waterblock, but as I've found out, it's more likely to happen in a parallel config than a serial loop (highly unlikely!). I'll show some screenshots of Aquasuite later in the build to show how I've got it configured and how it performs.

Loving the shiny and chrome look, Immortan Joe would be pleased.

Yeah, I admit I had to google Immortan Joe .

First time i have ever seen anything like this.

Not usually a fan of metal piping but this looks great.

Cheers, glad you like it, more stuff to come .

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

this is next level stuff keep it up cant wait to see it

Having seen the case mods in this forum I consider that a compliment!

Another day, another update

First, a nice easy modification to the Silverstone FT02 - upgrade the USB ports on the top of the case to USB3.0. I bought the case so long ago before it came with USB3.0 at the top.

Next, is some retrospect, although you could consider it cheating . The next few parts are things I did last year but are relevant to this build to illustrate the project as a whole.

I modified the Corsair AX1200 PSU and the air intake of the FT02 by changed the original fan of the AX1200 (because it was crap and making a high pitched whine) to a Noctua, much better, and dremelled out the restrictive fan guarding of the FT02. Made sure the filter still fitted though.

Again, another part done last year but this is more relevant - the cooling part of the build - the combination of the Watercool MO-RA 4x180 radiator and Aqua Computer Aqualis reservoir. I think that's enough radiator and fans to handle overclocked i7 4770K @4.7GHz, 2x 980Ti's and a motherboard chipset .

In the image below, 1. Aqua Computer Aqualis and USB D5 pump, 2. the bracket mounted to the radiator, 3. the Aqualis base and pump fitted, and finally 4. the borosilicate glass reservoir fitted (the tubing was not the final routing).

This was connected to the case by use of some Koolance Quick Disconnects (QDCs).

Next is some maintenance to the above radiator and reservoir, then moving on to some more mods, thanks for reading!

 

[Mysterae_]

omg that is one monstrous rad, I guess it's external to the case?

Yes, it is a big radiator and it sits on my window ledge to either draw cool air in or vent warm air out.

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

Update time again

In order to do the modifications to the 980Ti's that I have in mind but still keep it reversible for when I sell them in the future, I needed a sacrificial lamb or two, so bought a :

Just the cooler from an old-school Titan. As ever the inquisitive one, I stripped it down to see the components.

Have you ever wondered how Nvidia get the 'GEFORCE GTX' moniker to light up so uniformly? Yeah, so did I, so thought I'd find out as I wanted to know if it would be useful for my intended mod.

In reference to the image below:
1. The victim
2. Start to peel back the tape
3 & 4. The tape fully peeled back carefully so as not to damage the silver strip on both edges.

There's no LEDs in this thing - I reckon it's an electroluminescent panel. You can't see it in the images below as my camera isn't good enough but there is a very fine pattern in the slightly flexible acrylic.

1. The EL panel lights up with 5 to 6Vdc, any less and it just turns off. That makes me think it's PWM controlled as you can vary the brightness of this strip (and make it pulse) via the Nvidia software.
2. On the other side of the EL panel you can see the copper tracks, not very complicated but still very effective.
3. That signature glow.

This may be of use to my mod, some experimenting to be done still .

The disassembly of the Titan cooler gave me some further inspiration, but the Titan cooler's mounting is incompatible with the 980Ti. So hunting began again and I sourced some more little lambs .

A pair of reference Titan X's - just the coolers I must add! In brand-spanking-new condition too. There won't be much left of them once I'm done with them; only the fan, the screws and the Titan name plate will be left over. Perhaps I could mix up the letters anagram fashion and make another name badge such as ATTAIN TINT, which would give a clue as to my intentions .

Until next time...

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates, life got in the way as it does but I have been busy modding behind the scenes. This post is going to be a bit wordy but with plenty of interesting pictures.

I really wanted to crack on and get the mods to the 980Ti’s that I intended. There will be destruction! I still wanted to use the computer so thought I’d only remove one 980Ti, mod it, then swap it. As the loop is parallel a simple bypass in place of the removed card would just have meant the water would go straight in and right back out again, so I had to “dead end” the pipework where the removed 980Ti once was fitted. I thought this would have done it, but oh no…

So I went with a simple return pipe and crushed the middle of it so that no water could flow through it. This worked

Here is a summary of my intended mods for the two 980Ti's, some of which I have already mentioned:

I shall cover each of the above mods in more detail when I get to them in the flow of the project.

First up, modifying the vapour chamber heatsinks. I first started on one from a Titan (non X) cooler that I got earlier, this type is bare metal, silver in appearance.

In reference to the image below:

1. The stock cooler from a Titan.
2. Marked up the required cuts using the mounting bracket from the water block.
3. Rather than use a Dremel I tought I'd save some time and use my circular saw. As I had no idea as to what was in the "vapour chamber" of the heatsink, I wore all the PPE - goggles, ear defenders, gloves and double filter mask - See no evil, hear no evil, feel no evil, smell no evil!
4. Unfortunately it's not the best quality cut finish.

Then I thought I'd use the circular saw to cut the thicker area of the heatsink that contacts the GPU core.... this didn't go so well!

The saw blade must have caught something; it ripped the heatsink from the clamp, almost taking my finger with it, thankfully wore my rubber coated gloves. Hey folk, always use PPE! Just as well it was the test heatsink, it's scrap metal now.

Scapped the idea of the circular saw and went back to the trusted Dremel.

Both Titan X sacrificial heatsinks cut. The masking tape was in place to see the marking for cutting but also to stop the fins from vibrating while cutting.

Have you ever wondered what's in the vapour chamber of the heatsinks? So did I, and I had to flatten them anyway for mounting, so time to open one up.

Emm...interesting..


That's all for now, more soon!

 

[Mysterae_]

Hahaha awesome destruction! So wtf is that sand-like powder?

It does look like sand, but from what I've read it's sintered copper powder and acts as a wick to move the heat. The small rods in the middle are provided for structural integrity and to assist in this movement of heat. There was no liquid in the vapour chamber that I saw, so unless it evaporated or was a minuscule amount it's likely to have been a gas, possibly nitrogen.

 

[Mysterae_]

where did you get those fittings from ? pm if need be please

Going by the rules I can't mention where from and I can't send you a PM for some reason.

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

I will admit I had to google "sintered" too!

Work on the 980Ti advanced cooling mod continues.

The stock heatsinks of the Titan X coolers have been stripped of their vapour chambers (dremelled off) and then cut up in to individually shaped pieces. Then a little bit of time on my bench sander to get their edges straight and the copper bottoms flattish.

I'm not too concerned with the bottoms not being perfectly flat, this will help the thermal adhesive to bond.

The fins of the heatsink parts were a bit rough to say the least, so a lot of filing was required with the needle file. This took ages.....! Then a good few blasts of air from the compressor to make sure there is no swarf left. The smallest piece could short out the PCB of the graphics card.

To make them look good again they needed painted. All the parts lined up ready for their many coats of gloss black paint.

I think they came out very well .

What's all this for? To improve the transfer of the heat from the graphics card's chassis plate, as I reckon at stock it may soak up the heat from the VRMs and memory IC's very well, but it does a poor job of dissipating it - this mod aims to fix that .

The air from the the stock fan will (I hope!) pass through the fins, over and around the GPU water block and out the back of the card, taking the heat from the VRMs and memory ICs with it.

The acrylic window will of course be put back on once I've drilled the holes required for the pipes to go through. Thankfully the release ring of the push-fittings I'm using will be proud of the window meaning that I can still release the tubing when required.

Looking forward to getting the window back on, the LEDs in position and the other little mod I have intended .

Thanks for reading, 'til next time...

 

[Mysterae_]

Update

Well i've never seen anything like this before, amazing attention to detail... Going to be very interesting to see what temps you get on these bad boys!

Cheers, I do think the temps on the 980Ti's will be quite impressive for "reference" cards.

I love how your cards turned out nice and clean looking .....looking forward to the next update

Glad you like them, you should like this post .

Modification number 5 to the 980Ti's was to paint, anodise or chrome the black part that surrounds the fan. At first I looked in to getting this part anodised, perhaps dyeing it green during the anodising process. However, a company that specialises in anodising told me that the finish may not be acceptable as the part is cast aluminium and not billet aluminium. Cast aluminium has a number of additional alloys that don't play ball with the anodising process so the results could be unpredictable. I even thought about buying the chemicals myself and having a go, but if a specialist wouldn't consider it worthwhile then I shouldn't either.

I then thought about getting the parts chromed and one company would do the job, but it was costly and would have been about a 2 - 3 weeks turnaround. So I settled on painting them myself and experiment with different paint finishes and colours.

Before doing anything to the fan surrounds I removed the brushed aluminium ring that is around the fan aperture. This is stuck on with light adhesive and I found the best method is to get your nail under it and gently work around it, lifting it more with each rotation. See image 1 below:

With reference to the image above:

1. Ring removed
2. The aluminium disc fan hub cover, stuck on with adhesive tape. This tape is really strong and difficult to remove with damaging the metal disc. I won't bother removing the others, just use the original fans from the 980Tis.
3. The fan housing - this surprised me as the heat sink at the back of the reference cooler (image 4) is totally closed off - there is no air flow over it. So positioning an additional fan at the rear of the card will give little benefit imo.

One beneficial difference between the reference coolers of the Titan and Titan X is that on the original Titan the fan is stuck down with strong adhesive tape and screws, whereas it's only fixed to the Titan X (and 980Ti) with screws.

The parts of the shroud around the fan are powder coated black which can be a pain to remove. I thought about sanding them down but chose the most aggressive method - Sodium Hydroxide (caustic soda) . A few words of caution here - wear every part of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) - gloves, 2-filter mask, goggles, long sleeves and do it in a well ventilated area as the exothermic reaction with water produces hydrogen gas and the chemical will burn your skin! Add the caustic soda to the water, not water to the soda, this way you will reduce the splashing. Also, don't leave aluminium in sodium hydroxide for long and you must keep checking it - it eats aluminium quite aggressively! If in doubt about it, research it or don't do it.

I lightly sanded the parts to take the shine off the powder coating to give the chemicals something to bite in to and dipped them in the sodium hydroxide. Fizzing .

After a short while:

After a few thorough rinses with clean water and a bit of wet sanding with 1200 grit sandpaper the parts where ready for painting.

As you can see there are three of them - 2 from the Titan X and one from the original Titan I got before. The one from the non-X Titan is my test piece as it has a broken tab on it.

My initial thoughts on a colour/finish for these parts was chrome and in my research the ideal way to achieve a perfect chrome finish is to paint them gloss black first. Sounds counter-intuitive but the smooth reflective finish of black is ideal for the chrome paint. After the first few coats of gloss black had dried I wasn't happy with the finish, sanding marks could still be seen through.

So a bit of wet sanding to flatten them out.

Much better:

The silver one in the image above is actually unpainted, I wasn't happy with the finish (it had a few runs) so I stripped it back down using cellulose thinners to start again.

So, colours. First, my wildcard - metallic green:

Looks quite good, and that's before the clear coat is applied. The clear coat will definitely give it more "pop" and help in its durability.

Not sure if this will be too much green with the green LEDs as well. Definitely unique though.

Next, the chrome:

Looks good, quite industrial. The chrome paint polishes up well and that is without the clear coat as well, so it should shine even more. Will there be too much chrome in my build, with the chrome tubing and fittings?

However the chrome paint is a pain! Perhaps I put too many coats on (3), the paint is quite heavy and takes ages to dry. Even after 3 days drying the paint was still soft enough for me to leave finger prints, damn!

So what do you reckon is the best - metallic green or chrome?

 

[Mysterae_]

Ooooooh very nice indeed

Thank you!

imho (and it's very humble) the metallic green pops out so much more. Depends if you are looking for complimentary or contrasting colours here, but I think the green led + metallic green paint should add some nice accent colour. Will you be continuing the colour anywhere else in the build?

The green certainly does, and your last sentance struck a cord - there isn't any other green in this build apart from the LEDs inside the cards and the Geforce logo. The green might stick out a bit too much.

Remember you can sand down the rubber on the LED to make it white

I have seen that done before and looks good, it's the black around it that looks a bit funny. It looks fine when the shroud is black, but not when the shroud is another colour. I've a spare Geforce logo so I'll experiment and see what I can do .

looks very nice. personally i would use chromed copper pipe. looks cleaner.

Indeed, the pipes will be replaced with chrome pipes soon, just need to get these graphic cards done!

I prefer the green, chrome paint just looks tacky in my opinion.

Interesting opinion, perhaps it was my amateur paint job that makes it look that way?

I second this, the green should add a nice look to the system and make the GPU's stand out whilst looking classy

That was my intention when I first thought of painting (or anodising) them green. It has a certain draw, but might look a bit out of place in a case otherwise void of green.

I have however decided to go with the chrome but give up on the painting - it isn't the true chromed look I envisioned. So I'll be getting them chromed properly, should look a lot better!

Thanks for the feedback guys.