Project: ケイ - Watercooled Threadripper

[Kei]

I have been running this system since 2009, most recent changes were the CM690 case, an HD6950 and a xonar essence ST which were done in november 2011.

My system Specs are,

Case: Coolermaster CM-690 II Lite

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE C2, Overclocked to 3.7GHz

Ram: 12GB Corsair Dominator 1600MHz / Kingston HyperX Genesis 1600MHz

Graphics card: Sapphire HD6950 Toxic

Soundcard: Asus Xonar Essence ST Deluxe

PSU: Corsair TX650V2

SSD / HDD's: 128GB Crucial M4, 640GB WD Blue, 500GB Seagate barracuda, 250GB WD, 200GB Samsung, 80GB WD, 74GB WD Raptor

CPU cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems + Scythe S-Flex 1600rpm

Other Bits: Enermax 2x2 fan controller, LG BD-RW, 2xs coolermaster 120mm fans, 120mm akasa amber fan, 120mm deepcool fan, 140mm BeQuiet Silentwings

Sealed up

Inside

I've always run all of my systems on air cooling for the last 15 years, swapping both gpu and cpu coolers out for zalman & thermalright. For a change i left the standard gpu cooler in place as things like the accelero and MK-26 were getting quite expensive and extremely big. These are the temperatures i have been enduring.

Idle

Load

Apart from it running very warm, it's also quite noisy, particularly the gpu cooler. The watercooling plan aims to reduce the temperatures significantly whilst also making the system much quieter. Future plan will be to add a single radiator or two where i can squeeze them in.

I've cobbled together a parts list ready to buy this weekend. Sadly due to budgetary constraints, fancy compression fittings and angle adaptors are out. (much as i'd like them)

YOUR BASKET
1 x XSPC D5 Vario (Body + Screwring) £56.99
1 x EK-Supremacy - CPU Waterblock - Copper Plexi £51.98
1 x **B Grade** Aqua Computer AquaGrATIx - HD 6970 Typ2 Water Block £49.98
1 x XSPC EX240 120mm Radiator - Black £41.99
1 x XSPC Acrylic Tank Reservoir for Laing D5 £28.98
1 x XSPC HighFlex Hose 7/16" ID, 5/8" OD, 15.9/11.1mm, 2m, Clear/UV £5.99
8 x OcUK 1/2" G1/4 - FatBoy Style - Shiny Silver - Barb Fitting £1.69 (£13.52)
Total : £249.44 (includes shipping : FREE).



This is the loop design. I've not shown fans and air direction on it but it should be obvious. Once it arrives on tuesday (hopefully) i can make a start on rebuilding the system and updating this thread with some more pictures.

 

[Kei]

I intend to get a 120mm radiator added to the loop either at the back or the base. (Or if it's possible, 120mm rads in both places) Having 6 hard disks + an ssd means i cant easily loose 4 of the drive bays in order to fit another 240mm radiator. I've considered getting an icybox backplane but I'd have to lose the fan controller to fit more than 3 drives. I will also be replacing the fans for scythe gentle typhoons around the start of april depending on how things go with my current fans.

 

[Kei]

I've got no idea why most custom loops go in an odd order, but they always seem to work. My guess is that the water gets to an equilibrium temperature as it cycles through the loop. The flow rate will have a certain effect on the loop temperature as will the number of radiators.

The original loop design I made back in 2011 went:
Pump > GPU > 240mm rad > cpu > 120mm rad > res

But having looked at a lot of custom made loops, they all seem to go straight from the pump to the radiator first. Many of them did have a second radiator at the end of the loop just before the reservoir. I imagine there will be some need for experimentation to get the best out of it.

Temperature wise, both are too high. Tcase max on a phenom II X4 is 62C. (not sure how core temp relates to case temp but it's too close for my liking)

 

[Kei]

From all my measurements, I think it will be possible to fit two 120mm single radiators in along with the 240mm dual in the roof. Routing the tubing might be awkward along with bleeding the system though. Just a rough sketch of the idea of using 3 rads:

I've decided to switch the cpu block to a koolance CPU-380A rather than the EK supremacy or XSPC raystorm. Best performance with a very sturdy mount for an extra £8 makes sense. (plus i prefer the looks vs the other two, particularly the EK) Roll on tuesday!

 

[Kei]

I get the feeling that rad 2 isn't going to be possible in that location as the screw holes for mounting it are about 3mm from the drive bay. It is possible to mount a 120mm fan to the drive bay facing towards the psu, so it may be another possibility provided it fits under the gpu. (dimensions seems to be ok) I'll be getting a 120mm rad to go in rad 1 position and will trial fit it in the bottom to see if it is possible. Pipe routing is going to be fun enough with just the one rad, not to mention the joys of filling and bleeding.

I've got my doubts about it arriving tomorrow as my order status still claims to be "Printed in our warehouse". I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

 

[Kei]

Hadn't really thought about it. In theory it should be possible to put a fitting and a short length of pipe on to the reservoir fill point.

I'm guessing backflow through the pump when its off will stop me from filling the res then running the pump for a moment then topping it up and repeating this?

Just received my shipping email so I think it'll be arriving tomorrow.

 

[Kei]

All of the kit is now here. B grade GPU cooler is unopened and nothing is missing as far as i can tell. I'll post up some better individual product shots later.

Full kit.

Unpacked bits.

 

[Kei]

Out of interest, which thermal paste would you guys use?

I've got:
Prolimatech stuff (pre PK-1, came with my megahalems)
Arctic silver 5
Thermalright white stuff (came with HR-03)
Koolance stuff thats just come with the 380 block

 

[Kei]

Some progress shots.

The cable stash that you can't see.

The fans in the roof. - not using the amber fan on the radiator

Old contact patch from the megahalems

Barb thread treated with PTFE tape

Pump assembled and barbs fitted to rad, pump and res.

 

[Kei]

One sapphire toxic 6950

Stripped ready for cleaning and new pads/TIM

Koolance CPU-380A and Aquacomputer 6970 II waterblocks prepped (gloves used to avoid acid issues and finger marks)

Koolance bracket fitted ready for the TIM and block

Koolance block fitted

 

[Kei]

GPU block now fitted

Had a good look at radiator mounting options. Looks like a 280mm rad will fit in the roof ok but will take up some of the upper 5.25" bay. It is also possible to mount a slim rad vertically against the 3.5" bays, but fitting fans is an issue. A 120mm rad will fit ok with a fan though pump/res space will shrink fast so a bay res might be better suited for that application.

After faffing about with potential rad locations I mounted it in the roof with the scythe s-flex and deep cool fans pulling air through. I've put the pump in the best location for running the tubing to minimise tight turns. Just got to sort the tubing out and then do the hard bit with filling, leak testing and bleeding.

 

[Kei]

Tubing now complete. Not the best as some lengths aren't quite perfect but perfectly functional and zero kinks. I'm about 2 hours into leak testing and bleeding. Zero leaks so far and I think all the large air bubbles have been dealt with. Just the little bubbles to jiggle out now. The tube in the res that feeds the pump doesn't help with bleeding even if it does allow the pump to flow better.

 

[Kei]

Cheers, hadn't noticed that. Seems to have run out of bubbles to bleed so I think it's pretty much there and anything left will slowly make it's way back to the res with some use. Still no leaks, so I'm guessing it's watertight.

What do people run their D5 pumps at? (on the 1-5 scale) I've got mine set at 4 IIRC. Been running it for half hour and i can say that it definitely needs more radiators as it is hotter on the cpu than it was before, GPU is massively improved. Noise levels aren't much different and the heat it's pumping out the top is incredible. CPU temperatures are a little worrying, so i may need to check that the block has seated correctly.

 

[Kei]

Is the flow traveling in correct direction into and out of CPU block?

Yes I believe so. Water flows from the radiator into the top barb on the cpu block and out of the lower barb to the GPU then back to the res. The film on the cpu block was removed on fitting. I did flush the radiator out before fitting it too, not that anything but water came back out. Coolant is 525ml distilled water and 75ml antifreeze. (72:1 if i've got my maths right) Radiator is warm throughout with no cold patches so there isn't likely to be any air in there and the airflow through the rad seems to be quite good.

 

[Kei]

Temperatures whilst gaming seem to be both cpu & gpu hover around in the mid 50's. I've tightened up the koolance block a few more turns to see if it makes a difference. I'll keep an eye on it and see how it goes over the next couple of days. Quite liking the look of the res with the LED fitted. Need to dig out my UV stuff from the loft so the tubing can glow. Definitely need those gentle typhoons and figure out a way of stopping the fan speed alarm on this enermax controller. (the beeper kicks off at 1000rpm which is near the normal operating speed of most of my fans it seems)

 

[Kei]

Temperatures seem to have settled down now. I tightened the mounts on the cpu block slightly and adjusted some of the case fans and it seems to have done the trick. Room temp is 25C, case ambient temp is 32C and the air coming out the rad is 37C. (not bothered measuring water temp) Pump speed is set at 4. (3800rpm)

I wonder how much the temperatures will fall by when i change to GT 1850's and add a thick 120 rad.

I also added some UV tubes onto the side panel, but without a window it's hard to get a good picture of them.

 

[Kei]

Some better pictures, since we all like pics.

Temperatures now seem to have settled down completely. I'm wondering how much of an improvement a thick 120 rad and some scythe AP15's will make.

 

[Kei]

Is your 955 a C3 stepping chip? My C2 has always needed a lot of volts to keep it stable and i've never managed to get it stable above 3.7GHz. I agree with you that the temperatures do seem on the high side, but it's performing the same as it was with the high end air cooling. It doesn't help that the ambient temperature in my room is usually around 24C. I also haven't got cool 'n' quiet enabled which may explain the higher than normal idle temperatures. The GPU temperatures have improved massively and it's probably the two together causing the high temperatures. Whilst gaming it seems to hover around the 55C mark.

I'm hoping that adding a thicker radiator into the loop and some better fans will make a nice improvement. (somewhere between 5-10C)

 

[Kei]

Might try and weasel my brothers C3 965 off him as he's running it at stock with the bundled hsf. Really wanted an X6 but they don't seem to come up for sale all that often and seem to fetch a fair sum when they do.

I will probably stick it out with the 955 until steamroller comes out which will hopefully be a nice step up from piledriver. (which from what i've read is supposed to be a fairly big upgrade from a phenom II)

 

[Kei]

Never really got on with intel. Last intel cpu i had was a socket 7 P166 without MMX. I've umm'd and ah'd about it for a few years, same story with moving from ati to nvidia. I never manage it, although i came very close to getting a GTX570 in 2011 which would have been my first non ati card since my 3dfx voodoo 3.