Project GreenGasm

crinkleshoes · 8 Jun 2016 at 12:38

Not so green anymore!

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IMG_0003 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

IMG_0011 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

IMG_0012 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

Boo!

Time for a new project for me...

It's in its early stages and I'm going to take this one a bit slower than my last one.

Everything is ordered, I'm just waiting for it all to arrive.

After deliberation, I'm sticking with the green theme - but going with gunmetal grey for the case. I've also changed the case again, this time to a Caselabs SMA8.

Bits on their way, including hardware spec (some of which is already here):

Intel 6950X
Asus Rampage Edition 10
32GB Corsair 3600 15-15-15-36-2T memory (although running at 3400 13-13-13-34-1T)
2x Titan X Pascal
Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe
Samsung 850 Evo 2TB
2x Intel 730 0.5TB
2x Sandisk 1TB
Corsair RX1000i

Caselabs SMA8 Gunmetal Grey
1x Hardware Labs Black Ice SR2 Xtreme+ in white (for front of case)
1x XSPC RX480 in white (for top of case)
1x Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis 560 in black (for one side of basement)
1x Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis 280 in black (for PSU side of basement)
2x EK TPX waterblocks
2x Monsoon MMRS 250mm reservoirs in clear with black end caps, white side supports, white mounts, white plugs and mounted UV cathodes
1x EK EK-XTOP Revo Dual D5 pump (2x D5 in a single unit)
4x Corsair ML120 Pro with white LEDs
7x Corsair ML140 Pro with white LEDs (for front of case and 560 rad to shine light through grills)
4x Corsair ML140 Pro without LEDs (for PSU-side rad, likely over-ordered but it's nice to have spares as i think i'll only need 2)
Primochill clear flex tubing (for basement)
Mayhems UV Green coolant
EK fittings in black nickel
EK passthroughs for tubing pass through case walls.floor in black nickel
Bitspower fittings in carbon black (for bends etc)
Bitspower crystal link tubing

Various other bits for filling/draining and other stuff.

Haven't ordered yet, still considering... extra LED strips to be powered off motherboard Aura header... not sure if I've missed anything else other than backplates for GPUs which aren't available yet.

crinkleshoes · 9 Jun 2016 at 20:03

Yeah, I'm thinking about adding a bit of flexible hosing at the bottom behind the motherboard tray with a drain plug/connector thing to do just that

crinkleshoes · 10 Jun 2016 at 11:03

Ah ok, thanks for the tip

crinkleshoes · 10 Jun 2016 at 11:08

Has anyone tried creating much of a swirl with piping? I imagine it will be a bit of a pain to create and I might need to make a jig in the right size and shape to get it smooth and at an even angle.

I'd like to do a couple of turns if possible then drop the return back down through the middle of it.

Kinda like this...

crinkleshoes · 10 Jun 2016 at 18:21

Cool

Yeah - that's similar to what I'm interested in - thanks for the link.

I imagine it'll be a bit awkward to construct, but if I buy some extra tubing I can always practice and then give up if it's too much of a pain

crinkleshoes · 6 Aug 2016 at 04:01

This project is starting to move along again.

I have made some changes to my idea, but going to keep with the green theme... but make it fluorescent green & matte white.

Changing the case to a Parvum L1.0

I've just made an enquiry to get a custom reservoir along the lines of one of these:

I'd really like to add one if it's not absurdly expensive as I think they look great.

System spec has changed a little, but only really upgraded the GPUs to Titan PX. I've been thinking about sticking with one GPU... but will probably end up with SLI. Wondering whether to do it now to save on rebuilding loop and hard tubing when/if I want to upgrade.

I'm unsure at the moment as it seems one overclocked Titan PX under water will be more than enough, even at 4k.

crinkleshoes · 15 Aug 2016 at 16:17

So... the water blocks and some EK fittings arrived this morning... but they've sent GTX1080 blocks instead of Titan PX blocks

Oh well... the other stuff isn't here yet.

crinkleshoes · 15 Aug 2016 at 18:06

Just ordered a Black Ice SR2 Xtreme 280mm rad as it looks like I will not be able to fit a 420mm in the front + 480mm on top + 560 in bottom due to interference.

After checking, a 280 will work well with a 480 at the top and a 560 at the bottom.

crinkleshoes · 15 Aug 2016 at 23:01

I'm really looking forward to this project... itching for all the parts to arrive

crinkleshoes · 15 Aug 2016 at 23:29

Just realised that I updated my choices in another thread but not this one.

Everything is ordered, I'm just waiting for it all to arrive.

After deliberation, I'm sticking with the green theme - but going with gunmetal grey for the case. I've also changed the case again, this time to a Caselabs SMA8.

Bits on their way, including hardware spec (some of which is already here):

Intel 6950X
Asus Rampage Edition 10
32GB Corsair 3600 15-15-15-36-2T memory (although running at 3400 13-13-13-34-1T)
2x Titan X Pascal
Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe
Samsung 850 Evo 2TB
2x Intel 730 0.5TB
2x Sandisk 1TB
Corsair RX1000i

Caselabs SMA8 Gunmetal Grey
1x Hardware Labs Black Ice SR2 Xtreme+ in white (for front of case)
1x XSPC RX480 in white (for top of case)
1x Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis 560 in black (for one side of basement)
1x Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis 280 in black (for PSU side of basement)
2x EK TPX waterblocks
2x Monsoon MMRS 250mm reservoirs in clear with black end caps, white side supports, white mounts, white plugs and mounted UV cathodes
1x EK EK-XTOP Revo Dual D5 pump (2x D5 in a single unit)
4x Corsair ML120 Pro with white LEDs
7x Corsair ML140 Pro with white LEDs (for front of case and 560 rad to shine light through grills)
4x Corsair ML140 Pro without LEDs (for PSU-side rad, likely over-ordered but it's nice to have spares as i think i'll only need 2)
Primochill clear flex tubing (for basement)
Mayhems UV Green coolant
EK fittings in black nickel
EK passthroughs for tubing pass through case walls.floor in black nickel
Bitspower fittings in carbon black (for bends etc)
Bitspower crystal link tubing

Various other bits for filling/draining and other stuff.

Haven't ordered yet, still considering... extra LED strips to be powered off motherboard Aura header... not sure if I've missed anything else other than backplates for GPUs which aren't available yet.

crinkleshoes · 16 Aug 2016 at 19:14

Some more bits and bobs added...

2 meter Phanteks RGB LED strip + adapter for Asus Aura header so I can like it to the motherboard's RGBs

4x 30cm UV cold cathodes... may only use 2 but i'm going to see what difference it makes
Akasa USB3 & card reader for the 3.5" bay

New keyboard too... QPAD MK-85 with blue switches

The case was delivered today... itching to get started!

crinkleshoes · 16 Aug 2016 at 22:29

Case arrived this morning and I just assembled it

Very high quality piece of kit... I've had quite a few enthusiast grade cases, but none even come close to this thing for build quality... I can see this lasting me many years. I even slipped the screw driver when doing one of the screws and scraped it along the paint a little... on ANY other case I've ever had, there would have been a noticeable scratch. Absolutely no mark at all

_H5A6775 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A6771 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

crinkleshoes · 17 Aug 2016 at 21:33

First build... fancied having a fiddle today rather than waiting for all the bits to arrive.

_H5A6807 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A6822 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

crinkleshoes · 18 Aug 2016 at 00:25

Nope, doesn't come with any dust filters.

crinkleshoes · 18 Aug 2016 at 14:29

Doesn't bother me... just give it a hoover once in a blue moon

Dust filters restrict airflow quite noticeably, reducing cooling performance.

crinkleshoes · 18 Aug 2016 at 16:13

Just got notification that the last of the WC parts have shipped today, so I will have everything by Monday to get started

Itching to play.

crinkleshoes · 18 Aug 2016 at 21:23

lol... ummm... quite a lot.

OcUK order for WC bits including 1 rad, 2 res, various fittings and other things = £1000
Case = £650
Motherboard = £500
CPU = £1400
RAM = £200
GPUs = £2200
SSDs = £1000 (on top of the ~£800 of SSDs I already have that are going in it)
HDD = £300
EK waterblocks and fittings = £450
Extra rads = £300
Fans = £200
PSU = £150
Coolant = £50

So about £9200 total and that doesn't include peripherals & monitors that I already had which are worth about another £1700.

crinkleshoes · 18 Aug 2016 at 21:57

Especially as the game I'm mostly playing at the moment is Tower Wars which would likely run perfectly fine on a dual core cpu with iGPU... yeah... overkill.

But once in a blue moon I like to power up a new game at top settings and reliably hit 144Hz @ 2560x1440 or 4k 60Hz... or use lightroom/premier pro... it certainly makes a difference there

I also happen to spend wayyyy too much time in front of my PC... and I'm very sensitive to speed improvements as even an overclocked top of the line PC with the fastest SSD is slower than me... every bit of improvement makes my experience more pleasurable.

Plus I just like the project. This is the first time I've really had the chance to make a no-compromises build. The reason it has "only" 2 gpus is because I don't see the benefit of 3 or 4 way SLI and I'm very sensitive to micro-stutter... so usually even prefer single GPU usage if it's powerful enough. Thankfully the HB bridge or dual-flex combos on the Pascal series have made a big improvement to micro-stutter. It's the first SLI setup since the GTX690 with minimal micro-stutter... in fact, of everything I've played since getting them, I have been unable to detect micro-stutter.

The only card that did that previous was the GTX690... perhaps because it had something similar to the HB bridge built onto the board.

crinkleshoes · 20 Aug 2016 at 00:44

Hehehe...

A lot of the parts arrived today... unfortunately the 480 rad was severely damaged. Thankfully OcUK are advance-shipping me a new one. The UV cathodes for the reservoirs were also both shattered internally, so they are being replaced and some numpty in the warehouse managed to send me 16/10 flex tubing instead of 13/10 flex... argh... oh well, still managed to get it leak free as it's a tight fit and cable tied haha.

I only built it as a bit of a bodge to test bending hard tubing.

For a first try, I'm quite happy with it... I made a mistake or two but was able to sort it well. It's not perfect... I'll spend more time on the full thing to get it right as I could have made some simple adjustments to tube length to get it right but didn't need to for the test build.

Loop is CPU-only at the moment with a single Hardware Labs Black Ice SR2 Xtreme+ with 4x 140mm ML Corsair fans in push pull and I am already very impressed with this radiator alone.

The 560 and 280 for the basement are black ice nemesis gtx which are supposed to have even better cooling capacity... this is going to be a very quiet very fast system

I'm glad I swapped the 420 rad to a 280 for the front as a 420 this width would have interfered with a top 480 and I think a top 480 with 280 will look better than a top 360 with front 420.

I've set up a quiet fan profile at the moment that only ramps up above 30% fan speed and 50% pump speed at 60C.

At idle, the CPU sits at 23-24C and under full load it just peeps over the speed-up profile... so sits at a pretty even 60C under extended aida64 testing.

That's with a 4.2GHz overclock... so I'm easily going to be able to use 4.4GHz 24/7... possibly 4.5 or 4.6... I know I can achieve a bootable 4.6GHz - but don't know if I can get it stable. 4.5GHz is bench-stable, but ran rather hot with the Corsair AIO cooler.

The upgrade from Corsair AIO to this relatively small loop (rad wise, the same size - only a bit thicker) is MASSIVE.

Also looks quite nice... I'm happy with the colour combo and the res mounted UV cathodes are really going to make it sparkle

I want to use one of the reservoirs as top entry though... so I need to get one of those extension tubes as I'm getting quite the cyclone in there on a higher pump speed. Plus the trickle is marginally annoying - although not unpleasant.

Please excuse the poor quality phone pics... I'll take proper ones when the system is fully built.

IMG_0322 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

IMG_0316 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

IMG_0311 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

crinkleshoes · 20 Aug 2016 at 01:26

Combat Fighter said:
So am I correct you have 3x 140mm fans mounted on the front?

I thought you could only mount 120mm fans in the front.

One thing I find frustrating about this case is configuring it and knowing what parts to select!

That's correct... you just have to buy the correct mounting option.

Both case labs direct and their european supplier offer it. Just select the 420mm front-radiator mount.

For the eurpean supplier, they don't have it as one of the drop-down box options - but it's available in the accessories section of the site.

It's only the top that's limited to 120mm fans... a bit of a shame as there is plenty of space for 4x140mm fans up there if they had only made the holes bigger.

But no big deal... I won't be running out of cooling performance and I'll just keep the 120mm fans running a bit slower to keep the noise levels down.