Lets start with the not so pretty. This is a picture of the front panel cable management in its current form:
The cable mess... err.. management between the 5.25" bays. This is the best most invisible spot to hide cables in a mostly see through box. I will probably make a cover for this section out of modders mesh or something to obscure the view of the cables.
The following picture shows my best efforts with the front panel headers:
The routing of the front panel cables, this is about as neat as I can make it without using extremely long extension cables to route them down the front, across the base, up the motherboard brace, along the underside of the motherboard tray and up into position. You can also see one UV cathode and the routing of its power cables.
It was at this point that I flushed my radiators. I started with a boiled distilled water and white distilled vinegar solution and followed that with distilled water. It took a gallon and a bit per rad to get it perfectly clear. I then affixed some rad grills to the inside portion of the rads:
Installed 6 fan grills on the inside of the radiators. This may seem redundant (and frankly, it probably is), but my justification is protection. Both for the radator fins and my hands when working in the area near the rads (pumps, cables, tubing etc).
The next step was to mount the radiators:
The row of grills for the GPU rad are in place, just look at the length of those screws... totally insane!
Inserting the fans onto the screws and against the vibration dampening material. This was harder than it looks/sounds because the 15mm fan spacing doesn't leave enough space for the cables to go between the fans and this orientation has the cables coming out the sides
Showing the fan shrouds in place, this really brought home how massive the radiator assembly was going to be!
Look at the size of that assembly! It sticks out almost 5" into the case!
Both radiators installed (top is CPU, will be plumbed to the right hand reservoir, bottom is GPU and paired with the left reservoir).
Both installed rads from the inside. Notice the opposite orientation of each rad. This was deliberate for the purpose of minimizing tubing length.
A profile of the front with both rads installed. I like the look of the simple grills, also (rather surprisingly) I don't mind the silver screw heads.
This is how the radiator fans look like spinning. That red dot between two fans is where a screw is missing (the retailer only sent 23 of 24 screws :/ ), however this has since been rectified.
The obligatory night shot:
Anyhow, onto yesterdays progress!
I wanted to mount the pumps next because my EK tops came through:
As usual I am really impressed with the EK packaging, but not the product so much this time as there are some visible imperfections on the milled surface of the tops :/
The first task is obviously to take the stock top off the pump:
And then mount the new ones:
You may notice I flipped the orientation of the one of the pump bases, this was so the cables would be poking out of the sides between each pump. The reason for this will become apparent later.
I assembled the MCP35X heatsinks next:
And put the thermal pads on the bottom of the pumps:
.
And the final part of the pump assemblies was to mount the pumps to the heatsinks:
I had already drilled the holes necessary to mount the heatsinks in the bottom of the case:
After I fitted both pumps to the case:
While they were there, I wanted to see what they look like with the fittings I planned (the far pump was supposed to have 2x 45 degree pieces, but I still need to order the last few 45 degree pieces).
And to take it a step further, I couldn't resist popping the end of some tubing onto the far pump to make sure the tubing clears the SSD caddy and makes it to the drain port nicely:
The final picture I have for you guys currently is of components and tubing:
In this picture is my new Sabertooth P67 motherboard (I took this out of the box to see it for myself, and I can confirm, sexiest. motherboard. ever.), the i7-2600k (if anyone here keeps score here is its info: Batch number: 3110B473 Wafer: 1112, made in Costa Rica), an EK true backplate for 1155/1156 motherboards, 2 retail packs of 10' Primochill Primoflex Clear 1/2ID 3/4OD tubing, and some Indigo Extreme TIM (I was originally going to use my Shin-Etsu X23-7783D, but I thought why not go for the best!).
This now means the thread has caught up with the current build progress!
BONUS picture:
I couldn't resist... lol.
The cable mess... err.. management between the 5.25" bays. This is the best most invisible spot to hide cables in a mostly see through box. I will probably make a cover for this section out of modders mesh or something to obscure the view of the cables.
The following picture shows my best efforts with the front panel headers:
The routing of the front panel cables, this is about as neat as I can make it without using extremely long extension cables to route them down the front, across the base, up the motherboard brace, along the underside of the motherboard tray and up into position. You can also see one UV cathode and the routing of its power cables.
It was at this point that I flushed my radiators. I started with a boiled distilled water and white distilled vinegar solution and followed that with distilled water. It took a gallon and a bit per rad to get it perfectly clear. I then affixed some rad grills to the inside portion of the rads:
Installed 6 fan grills on the inside of the radiators. This may seem redundant (and frankly, it probably is), but my justification is protection. Both for the radator fins and my hands when working in the area near the rads (pumps, cables, tubing etc).
The next step was to mount the radiators:
The row of grills for the GPU rad are in place, just look at the length of those screws... totally insane!
Inserting the fans onto the screws and against the vibration dampening material. This was harder than it looks/sounds because the 15mm fan spacing doesn't leave enough space for the cables to go between the fans and this orientation has the cables coming out the sides
Showing the fan shrouds in place, this really brought home how massive the radiator assembly was going to be!
Look at the size of that assembly! It sticks out almost 5" into the case!
Both radiators installed (top is CPU, will be plumbed to the right hand reservoir, bottom is GPU and paired with the left reservoir).
Both installed rads from the inside. Notice the opposite orientation of each rad. This was deliberate for the purpose of minimizing tubing length.
A profile of the front with both rads installed. I like the look of the simple grills, also (rather surprisingly) I don't mind the silver screw heads.
This is how the radiator fans look like spinning. That red dot between two fans is where a screw is missing (the retailer only sent 23 of 24 screws :/ ), however this has since been rectified.
The obligatory night shot:
Anyhow, onto yesterdays progress!
I wanted to mount the pumps next because my EK tops came through:
As usual I am really impressed with the EK packaging, but not the product so much this time as there are some visible imperfections on the milled surface of the tops :/
The first task is obviously to take the stock top off the pump:
And then mount the new ones:
You may notice I flipped the orientation of the one of the pump bases, this was so the cables would be poking out of the sides between each pump. The reason for this will become apparent later.
I assembled the MCP35X heatsinks next:
And put the thermal pads on the bottom of the pumps:
And the final part of the pump assemblies was to mount the pumps to the heatsinks:
I had already drilled the holes necessary to mount the heatsinks in the bottom of the case:
After I fitted both pumps to the case:
While they were there, I wanted to see what they look like with the fittings I planned (the far pump was supposed to have 2x 45 degree pieces, but I still need to order the last few 45 degree pieces).
And to take it a step further, I couldn't resist popping the end of some tubing onto the far pump to make sure the tubing clears the SSD caddy and makes it to the drain port nicely:
The final picture I have for you guys currently is of components and tubing:
In this picture is my new Sabertooth P67 motherboard (I took this out of the box to see it for myself, and I can confirm, sexiest. motherboard. ever.), the i7-2600k (if anyone here keeps score here is its info: Batch number: 3110B473 Wafer: 1112, made in Costa Rica), an EK true backplate for 1155/1156 motherboards, 2 retail packs of 10' Primochill Primoflex Clear 1/2ID 3/4OD tubing, and some Indigo Extreme TIM (I was originally going to use my Shin-Etsu X23-7783D, but I thought why not go for the best!).
This now means the thread has caught up with the current build progress!
BONUS picture:
I couldn't resist... lol.
Last edited:
I ended up ordering:
) in preperation for GPU arrival (which will be tomorrow now because UPS claimed hurricane related delays 
).
