Associate
Hi all
Bit of a long one, hope it's worth the read
In November 2009 I set about building a brand new system from the ground up. Moving back to the Intel platform after years of using AMD kit and had the simple aim of making a beautiful rig after following the MDPC-X builds of that time. Bright electric blue was the colour scheme hence the 'aqua', and the Corsair Obsidian 800D was new on the market, hence 'sidian', and I was immediately sold on that as the base and was one of the early adopters of that case.
Project Aquasidian was born - original build log is here if you've never seen it before:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/project-aquasidian-corsair-800d.18073725/
I7 920, Asus board and graphics, Corsair ram and PSU, MDPC-x braided cables alng with Swiftech, EKWB and XPSC water components, all pretty standard fayre for 2009. Use of 10cm white cathodes rather than 30cm ones to keep the light directed where I wanted it worked really well.
I think it came out very well indeed:
Anyone remember the modified black stick?
August 2010
About six months later I'd made a couple of changes, the white led fans had been replaced with blue ones, and the ram cooler which I'd not liked the look of was also replaced. But at that point I thought it was done.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17169359&postcount=209
February 2012
Two years later I posted this thread and picture:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/project-aquasidian-2-0-corsair-800d.18373311/
I'd got itchy feet and found myself ordering a I7 980 Hex core and managed to find a Rampage 3 Black edition. I'd never been happy with the white, blue and red parts on the Rampage 2 board and this being all black was so much better.
I'd also swapped out the compression fittings after numerous leaks and not getting them to stay tightened up, so standard black barbs and tiny allen clips were fitted.
I'd promised to take some better photos and update the thread but as things go it never happened.
January 2016
So we fast forward another 4 years now, the ATI 5870 was getting long in the tooth and a Radeon Fury X was ordered along with EK full cover block and aqua backplate of course. The blue case fans has again been swapped for newer white Corsair ones, and of course cable combs were now the in thing!
I never posted the images, didn't seem that important really but they were taken:
February 2017
A year later and the Fury X had already given up! Even though 1 months out of warranty OCUK were actually brilliant and helped with a 70% refund and I upgraded again to an Asus 1070, again with matching EK block and aqua back plate - even though it says 1080, the fit was the same and I can't like and pretend it's a 1080!
The hard drives were also replaced around here I believe, the 64Gb OS drive became a 250Gb SSD and also a 250Gb SSD for Steam too. 2x 1TB WD Black drives are also in use for data storage.
One thing I'd always had an issue with since the RE3 Black Edition board was dropping level of a power on the 3.3, 5 and 12v lines. This had plauged me for a good few years and was eventually tracked to the PSU being faulty. A new HX1000i was purchased and has been rock solid ever since! I also bought the blue genuine cable set for this PSU and replaced the MDPC-x braiding at the same time on everything apart the sata cables which stayed black.
The Aquacomputer front panel fan controller had also one day just gone bang, so a small hidden fan controller now sits inside and just manages the fan speeds now.
Later this year I also decided I fancied a bit of a project and had seen this image posted by RSR which really stood out. Hard tube was of course the way now, but I finally decided against it and thought 90% of that could be achieved with standard tubing with the right layout and fittings
Over 2017 and 2018 I purchased a new new parts but never got to fitting them, new EK 250 res - with a top inlet, new fittings, new EK pipe - finally letting go of the Tygon! and some blue EK cryofluid. I also decided LED's were the way forward now, so the mini cathode tubes were for the bin and some 10cm white LED strips were also ordered.
November 2019
Finally decided, and found time, to fit the parts I'd bought and lastly thought an EKWB cpu block would go better with pretty much everything else being EK now. Took a while as X58 compatible parts 10 years on are scarce but finally found an Supremacy Evo block and LED kit for it. So, 10 years on I finally did a full rebuild on the water system and sorted the cables out again.
Covid lockdown has now also given me time to get the most professional pictures I can manage and decided a thread on here to celebrate was in order.
I know that an X58 system is now long in the tooth generally but it still does everything I need it to and more. However, and I7 Comet Lake, Z490 board and some DDR4 is very, very tempting. Modern but possibly already retro build in the 800D maybe?
Cheers!
Bit of a long one, hope it's worth the read
In November 2009 I set about building a brand new system from the ground up. Moving back to the Intel platform after years of using AMD kit and had the simple aim of making a beautiful rig after following the MDPC-X builds of that time. Bright electric blue was the colour scheme hence the 'aqua', and the Corsair Obsidian 800D was new on the market, hence 'sidian', and I was immediately sold on that as the base and was one of the early adopters of that case.
Project Aquasidian was born - original build log is here if you've never seen it before:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/project-aquasidian-corsair-800d.18073725/
I7 920, Asus board and graphics, Corsair ram and PSU, MDPC-x braided cables alng with Swiftech, EKWB and XPSC water components, all pretty standard fayre for 2009. Use of 10cm white cathodes rather than 30cm ones to keep the light directed where I wanted it worked really well.
I think it came out very well indeed:
Anyone remember the modified black stick?
August 2010
About six months later I'd made a couple of changes, the white led fans had been replaced with blue ones, and the ram cooler which I'd not liked the look of was also replaced. But at that point I thought it was done.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17169359&postcount=209
February 2012
Two years later I posted this thread and picture:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/project-aquasidian-2-0-corsair-800d.18373311/
I'd got itchy feet and found myself ordering a I7 980 Hex core and managed to find a Rampage 3 Black edition. I'd never been happy with the white, blue and red parts on the Rampage 2 board and this being all black was so much better.
I'd also swapped out the compression fittings after numerous leaks and not getting them to stay tightened up, so standard black barbs and tiny allen clips were fitted.
I'd promised to take some better photos and update the thread but as things go it never happened.
January 2016
So we fast forward another 4 years now, the ATI 5870 was getting long in the tooth and a Radeon Fury X was ordered along with EK full cover block and aqua backplate of course. The blue case fans has again been swapped for newer white Corsair ones, and of course cable combs were now the in thing!
I never posted the images, didn't seem that important really but they were taken:
February 2017
A year later and the Fury X had already given up! Even though 1 months out of warranty OCUK were actually brilliant and helped with a 70% refund and I upgraded again to an Asus 1070, again with matching EK block and aqua back plate - even though it says 1080, the fit was the same and I can't like and pretend it's a 1080!
The hard drives were also replaced around here I believe, the 64Gb OS drive became a 250Gb SSD and also a 250Gb SSD for Steam too. 2x 1TB WD Black drives are also in use for data storage.
One thing I'd always had an issue with since the RE3 Black Edition board was dropping level of a power on the 3.3, 5 and 12v lines. This had plauged me for a good few years and was eventually tracked to the PSU being faulty. A new HX1000i was purchased and has been rock solid ever since! I also bought the blue genuine cable set for this PSU and replaced the MDPC-x braiding at the same time on everything apart the sata cables which stayed black.
The Aquacomputer front panel fan controller had also one day just gone bang, so a small hidden fan controller now sits inside and just manages the fan speeds now.
Later this year I also decided I fancied a bit of a project and had seen this image posted by RSR which really stood out. Hard tube was of course the way now, but I finally decided against it and thought 90% of that could be achieved with standard tubing with the right layout and fittings
Over 2017 and 2018 I purchased a new new parts but never got to fitting them, new EK 250 res - with a top inlet, new fittings, new EK pipe - finally letting go of the Tygon! and some blue EK cryofluid. I also decided LED's were the way forward now, so the mini cathode tubes were for the bin and some 10cm white LED strips were also ordered.
November 2019
Finally decided, and found time, to fit the parts I'd bought and lastly thought an EKWB cpu block would go better with pretty much everything else being EK now. Took a while as X58 compatible parts 10 years on are scarce but finally found an Supremacy Evo block and LED kit for it. So, 10 years on I finally did a full rebuild on the water system and sorted the cables out again.
Covid lockdown has now also given me time to get the most professional pictures I can manage and decided a thread on here to celebrate was in order.
I know that an X58 system is now long in the tooth generally but it still does everything I need it to and more. However, and I7 Comet Lake, Z490 board and some DDR4 is very, very tempting. Modern but possibly already retro build in the 800D maybe?
Cheers!
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