Soldato
Over 10 years ago I bought my Lian Li PC-70 and my adventure in watercooling began.
Starting with a pump/res combo that lasted 6 months, a radiator that lasted 5 years, and a CPU block barely more advanced than a block of cooper with an inlet & outlet, it's safe to say things have moved on.
Over the years I've upgraded 6 times, rebuilt the loop with new components, had some scares (copper/alu electrolysis being one!), but never once had any leaks and never lost a single component. To water damage anyway!
Here's how it looks today.
After that long I feel it's time to retire this noisy, ridiculously massive box of aluminium that's travelled around with me...
And replace it with an even bigger one. Silly me, right?
My search began with a friend of mine who has a more modern Lian Li with quiet fans. I knew I wanted another one immediately after looking at some of the more modern cases - they have too much going on! I wanted simple, clean design, preferrably in Midi ATX format, with modern considerations. However even Lian Li's current generation doesn't have the well thought out design of the latest Corsairs, opting for massive drive capacity when the case world has moved to massive radiator support, and drives have moved to the NAS and SAN. So, I had to bite the bullet and look at their full tower range if I wanted to have Lian Li design, and resort to some modification where necessary.
I have gone for the V2120B over the X despite preferring the all black as £60 for a paint job seems steep - plus I have plans for the bare alu left inside. In the meantime the design is going around the current component fit:-
PC
i7 4770k
Asus Maximus Extreme IV Hero
16GB Adata 2133mhz RAM
Gainward GTX770 4GB
2xSamsung 840 SSD RAID-0
2xSeagate 250GB RAID-0
Samsung Blu-Ray DVD-RW
Watercooling
EK Supremacy CSQ
EK GTX680 CSQ
Thermochill 120.3
Laing DDC Ultra
XSPC Bayres
Masterkleer UV Red tubing
Phobya Compression fittings
Case
Nesteq MaxZero Fan Controller
4x Corsair SP120 High Performance 120mm fans (3 on Thermochill, 1 side intake)
Since the Asus board is a red/black combo, this will be my theme for the new build. I'll be adding the following to it:-
PC
(2nd) Gainward GTX770 4GB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB
Watercooling
Black Ice GT Stealth 240mm (front mount)
(2nd) EK GTX680 CSQ
EK FC-Link Parrallel
Primochill 13/10mm Tubing
Case
2x140mm BitFenix Spectre 140mm (front)
2x120mm BitFenix Spectre 120mm (Rear, Side)
120mm Corsair SP120 (plus existing for the 240mm rad)
The rest of the components will be kept and refurbished as necessary.
Wish me luck!
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