Potential Prodigy watercooling build!

BoonMonkey

BoonMonkey

BoonMonkey

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May be a bit ambitious for my first attempt, but!

As my motherboard is on it's way out, I am looking at getting a new one. I love the look of the prodigy so I'm thinking about swapping to ITX and getting it. However, I've been beating around the bush about overclocking for quite some time now... Really wanted to do it last year but money restricted myself! I'm thinking about putting away about £100 in Feb and going for it in March.

Will the below work as a loop in the prodigy? Also, can you recommened the bits I have left out, please? :) (I think its just the CPU block, GPU block and fittings. Lemme know if not!)

I'm going to swap from my green and black build to white/black so I'll just get some white pastel coolant I think.

Budget is around £450 (Obviously less is better if possible but!)


Should probably include I have an i5 2500k so 1155 socket on the CPU block and also a Gigabyte Windforce 3X 7950, so the best GPU that'll go with that please! :)
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £98.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Arctic White £57.98
1 x EK-BAY SINGLE RES CSQ - White Acetal £38.99
1 x EK DCP 2.2 Pump (12v) £29.99
2 x EK CoolStream Radiator XT 120 (120.1) £26.99 (£53.98)
1 x XSPC HighFlex Hose 1/2" ID, 3/4" OD, 19/12.7mm, 2m, Clear £4.80
Total : £298.82 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
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Friend has done this.

71704820120823132234.jpg


Also a sick build from youtube using the prodigy:

 
Not sure if I'm being blind but...where's the pump?

EDIT: Also regarding the res, look like it needs a tube putting in the top below the res' water level or he's just gonna keep introducing air into the system. This and no graphics card makes me think it's only half done!
 
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Any idea of the parts used for the watercooling? That's the kind of idea I'm going for with mine so if you could find out that'd be grand!
 
About to ask the same thing about the pump lol, the pic with the fluid in thats a huge air lock in the top pipe isnt?
 
Firstly by the looks of it your planning on cooling your graphics card too which a 120mm radiator probably won't cope with. At least you'd be looking at a 240mm radiator which rules out the drive bay res as you need to remove the drive bay in order to fit the radiator, either at the front or top.

For comparison I ran a 4.7GHz 3770k and a 670 and had load temps of mid 75s on the CPU and 40 degrees on the GPU, that was with a single 240 radiator. I've added a 120 to the back of the case now and it's improved temps by about 5 degrees.

From what I remember you can't overclock with the Gigabyte board either. Most people tend to choose between the Asus or ASRock ones.

Block wise I simply used EK ones, both for CPU and GPU although the new style GPU blocks are a bit of a faff as they only have ports on one side which made it slightly difficult to route the tubing.

It's tight and fiddly but does look good once finished.
 
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I'm happy enough to discard the optical drive for a 240mm radiator at the top with a 120mm at the back! Thanks for that info. Have you got any recommendations for a pump and top that will work well in this setup? I was looking at the pump mentioned in OP but I'm not sure if it will manage well enough for both rads. Will I need to use a D5 instead?


Also, I wasn't aware that you can't overclock with that Gigabyte board. I currently use a Gigabyte one, as mentioned in OP, that is on the Z68 chipset and it's fine. I thought that a Z77 was just a revised version of that to support ivybridge? I don't mind swapping to a different brand of motherboard either anyways. :)
 
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I've used a EK DCP 4.0 Pump before which coped fine with a 360 and a 240 radiator but that said the new pump/res combo I have is much nicer.

I replaced the above pump with this - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-004-TL&groupid=962&catid=2141&subcat=2145 - as the foot print was smaller as the height was the same.

You can see where the pump sits in this picture. I wanted to mount the 240 at the top but because of the 670 block and the tubing it wouldn't fit so mounted it at the front, then put a 120 on the rear.

14t2f7k.jpg
 
That build looks astonishing! Thanks for that link to the pump/top/res combo. Looks like exactly what I was hoping for.

With a 240 mounted on the top it looks like there will be no room for a 120 on the rear, so I think I'll be going with the same idea as you and putting the 240 in the top. I'll probably play around with things a little and see what I feel is best when I get the parts anyways!


How would you rate the noise on that pump?
 
It's quieter than the DCP 4.0 which I ran at 7v off a fan controller and it really feels like a solid piece of kit. I had the boffins at OcUK build it for me with the res. Could probably make it even quieter by running it at 7v if you really wished.

Yeah I don't think you could fit a 120 radiator with a top 240. Some people run a top 240 and a front 200mm radiator but I just used what I had at the time. You can also see what I mean with the tubing issue thanks for the stupid design of the 670 block. Because of the right angled connectors the tubing is so high the 240 wouldn't fit at the top.

I have this 240 so it's not a slim one - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-033-BX&groupid=962&catid=1523&subcat=1525

Still need to mount the pump properly as currently it's just resting there on the foam pad but for such a small setup the performance is impressive.
 
It does seem like a rather strange place to put the connections on that 670 block... I will get getting a block for my 7950, which hopefully will have a better connection location.

I was thinking about putting a 200mm radiator in the front, but I can't find any of them on OcUK (I like to keep things central, for ease! :p)

I think I'll have to pickup a fan controller as well then, currently just running all my fans at whatever speed they want to run from when connected to my molex -> fan connectors.

Are the fittings you use compression or barb? (They look like barbs to me but I'm not 100% sure) and if they are barbs, would compressions work with this?
 
Problem is removing the drive bay means you can't mount anything in there :p

Only way is to mod the drive bay cage by cutting a hole in it to allow the radiator to fit but even then with the radiator being at the front i'm not sure it's possible.

I'm using barbs. I used compression's before but they were such a pain in the bum to use I've used barbs ever since. They were difficult to tighten up and the tubing used to twist and that was in a full tower case, i'd probably quit life trying to do it in a Prodigy haha although I do agree compression's look better.

If you could mount the 240 at the top then you could mount the 120 at the front low down which might give you enough room for a fan controller? I think i've seen that done before although they had to drill new holes in the top to move the 240 back a bit.
 
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