Project Evolution

[johnnyrotten665]

Just with the fittings and the new sli bridge, no tubing yet.

Now with tubing...

Now I'll cheerfully admit its not the best tubing job in the world, but I don't think its bad for my first ever attempt at watercooling...

There would have been a further 3 runs but I suffered a catastrophic silicone insert failure (its now in 3 pieces and none of them are long enough) so I'm having to wait for the replacement to arrive tomorrow.

 

[johnnyrotten665]

More pics tomorrow. Only 1 run left waiting for the glue to dry then it will be flush and leak test time.

 

[johnnyrotten665]

Final tubing pics have arrived.

The loop as it stands. Pics taken while flushing the system with DI water.

The run at the back of the system during the flush. This run was a royal pain to bend correctly.

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And finally a shot of the loop with the final coolant in (I went for red aurora 2 because its pretty). Its just sitting in place for now until all the air is out and I'm 100% happy that the loop is leak free.

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Once the loops all air/leak free I'll install the final hard drive from my current rig, install windows and get some glamour(ish) shots with the lighting running and the sides on.

Overclocking info and benchmarks will then follow as and when I have time to sort them out.

 

[johnnyrotten665]

Apologies for the further delay, had to rush my daughter into hospital with pneumonia over the weekend so further pics will appear once I have time to sort them out. Overclock details and benchmarks will probably appear at about the same time.

<edit>The loop ran happily without leaking for 12 hours and is pretty much free of air. Im quite happy with that...</edit>

 

[johnnyrotten665]

OK then!
As promised some more pics of the (now) completed system. They may be a bit naff... I may have continued my habit of using my phone to take them. I don't really care, I'm too busy playing with my new toy...

First up, the pics:

Acouple of exterior shots (sorry about the flash).

Some close ups.

And a few shots with the side open.

And now, for my next trick... The overclock and benchmarking details!

I decided to leave the ram at xmp and I managed to get a respectable 3.7Ghz out of the cpu at 1.355v, I reckon I could have got 3.8 but I was pushing the voltage a bit too high to be comfortable during stability testing.

I also managed to coax an extra 230Mhz out of the gpus but I couldn't get them to budge on memory speed at all.

CPU-Z

HWMonitor

Afterburner

And now, some benchmarks:

Cinebench R15 (cpu & opengl)

Valley Benchmark

3DMark:
Firestrike

Firestrike Extreme

Firestrike Ultra

And Finally, just because I felt like it, a brief video lookaround of the finished system (assuming I can make youtube work).

 

[johnnyrotten665]

These new boards look so sexy, but unfortunately this is not a reason for me to upgrade ;/ Especially with water cooling looks amazing. Outstanding build!

Thanks. Not bad for a first time watercooler I feel.

What could be the reason for consistently lower physics scores after OC?
Never done direct before/after comparisons before so that was one thing that surprised me.

No idea, last time I overclocked anything, I moved jumpers around on the mainboard, so this is relatively new territory to me.