Associate
To start, just a quick thanks to the people who responded in my thread a few months back asking for advice regarding watercooling. Also, thanks to the ideas and inspiration of other 600T based projects out there!
Well after mooching around for the past 12 months with an itch to upgrade from my trusty i7 920 and HD5850, it got to the point where in needed scratching.
So Haswell came out and I thought this seems like a good time. I've always looked at some of the builds on here and been in awe, especially when watercooling has been involved. So, lets watercool the sucker
Here's the plan I came up with after being inspired by some of the builds and mods on here, particularly the 600T based ones. I bought a dremmel about 6 months back when it was on offer but it hadn't had much use, so this was the perfect excuse: Cue a 360mm rad in the top and a 240mm in the front which would require a bit of case dremmeling
The final spec:
Processor: 4770K
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z87X-OC
Ram: Kingston HyperX Beast 2133 16GB
GPU: New Gen AMD (now known as 290X)
PSU: Corsair HX750 (from my last build)
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB
And for the water:
CPU Block: XSPC Raystorm
Res: EK Res-X3 150
Pump: XSPC D5 Vario with EK Top
Top Rad: XSPC EX360
Front Rad: Black Ice SR1 240mm
Fittings: Various Bitspower Black Matte
Drain port: XSPC T-fitting with Temperture fitting plug
Pump Mount: Shoggy Sponge
Tubing: XSPC 7/16 Orange
Fluid: Mayhems X1 Clear
Fans: 5 x Scythe Gentle Typhoon, 1 Enermax Cluster
GPU: EK 290X Copper Acetal Block (on pre-order)
I staggered the orders to arrive when needed/when they were on offer. This is batch 1. In particular, I ordered the rads so I could get the case cut correctly:
I started this build in early/mid September. The motherboard, processor, K2 and the initial Team ram were bought as part of a 4.5GHz OcUK bundle. To begin with, I just ran it all on top of my case box!
So after I had something up and running, I set about disassembling the 600T by removing all of the white plastic outer to be left with a metal chassis. I then used masking tape and marked up all of the cut lines on the front (and a bit of the 5.25" drive bay) and top:
Using the special metal cutting dremmel disks and a bit of perseverance here is the end product:
I bought some 'blow hole trim' to mask most of the sharp bits which made quite a nice finish.
A quick fit check!!!
So at about this point more goodies arrived:
Mmmm bitspower
So, with the pump now arrived (I cheated and got the OcUK Tech labs variant, ta OcUK ) I could get on with positioning it and the shoggy mount:
I positioned the shoggy so that the pump inlet was in line with the res outlet which would be above but about 3 inches forward to allow for pipe bend radius. After drilling four holes in the bottom of the case and two more for the EK res fixing, I affixed the shoggy bottom with the supplied bolts and then the sponge. I fixed the pump to the top of the shoggy and hey presto!
The res in place with some of the bitspower fittings on so I could try to test some pipe routing:
A cheeky close up:
So, with the rads, res and pump now in place it was time to fit the tubing!!! I began with the res->pump, a bit of a tight 90deg bend then out of the pump up to the top 360mm rad.
I wasn't particularly happy with the res to pump tubing so decided to add a 45deg fitting to end up with this:
Hopefully this will be less prone to kinking. Then I plumbed in the top rad to the cpu block. This is where it gets a bit ghetto.
Basically, as this would be my first time watercooling, I wanted to play it safe and build & test the rig without any of my PC hardware in there. So, this is what it end up looking like:
That is masking tape (quite a bit) holding the cpu block in the approximate position of the processor. Behind the pump is a drain port comprised of a t fitting and a plug. Instead of a normal plug, I decided to use one with a sensor so I could measure the temp of the water after passing the CPU and GPU.
So, the time came to fill the loop. I had already used deionised water to wash out the rads, pump and reservoir. In goes the X1 and on with the pump:
I ran it for about 4 hours and all was fine I then set about putting the motherboard and processor in and attaching the waterblock. The XSPC raystorm is a bit of a pain to fit, being particularly fiddly trying to get the pins into the backplate. Once in (make sure your careful not to cross thread!) its relatively easy to tighten up. I also bought the black aluminium bracket to replace the plastic one to give a bit more strength and aesthetics!
Anyway, that's all for now. I'll post another update soon!
Well after mooching around for the past 12 months with an itch to upgrade from my trusty i7 920 and HD5850, it got to the point where in needed scratching.
So Haswell came out and I thought this seems like a good time. I've always looked at some of the builds on here and been in awe, especially when watercooling has been involved. So, lets watercool the sucker
Here's the plan I came up with after being inspired by some of the builds and mods on here, particularly the 600T based ones. I bought a dremmel about 6 months back when it was on offer but it hadn't had much use, so this was the perfect excuse: Cue a 360mm rad in the top and a 240mm in the front which would require a bit of case dremmeling
The final spec:
Processor: 4770K
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z87X-OC
Ram: Kingston HyperX Beast 2133 16GB
GPU: New Gen AMD (now known as 290X
)PSU: Corsair HX750 (from my last build)
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB
And for the water:
CPU Block: XSPC Raystorm
Res: EK Res-X3 150
Pump: XSPC D5 Vario with EK Top
Top Rad: XSPC EX360
Front Rad: Black Ice SR1 240mm
Fittings: Various Bitspower Black Matte
Drain port: XSPC T-fitting with Temperture fitting plug
Pump Mount: Shoggy Sponge
Tubing: XSPC 7/16 Orange
Fluid: Mayhems X1 Clear
Fans: 5 x Scythe Gentle Typhoon, 1 Enermax Cluster
GPU: EK 290X Copper Acetal Block (on pre-order)
I staggered the orders to arrive when needed/when they were on offer. This is batch 1. In particular, I ordered the rads so I could get the case cut correctly:
I started this build in early/mid September. The motherboard, processor, K2 and the initial Team ram were bought as part of a 4.5GHz OcUK bundle. To begin with, I just ran it all on top of my case box!
So after I had something up and running, I set about disassembling the 600T by removing all of the white plastic outer to be left with a metal chassis. I then used masking tape and marked up all of the cut lines on the front (and a bit of the 5.25" drive bay) and top:
Using the special metal cutting dremmel disks and a bit of perseverance here is the end product:
I bought some 'blow hole trim' to mask most of the sharp bits which made quite a nice finish.
A quick fit check!!!
So at about this point more goodies arrived:
Mmmm bitspower
So, with the pump now arrived (I cheated and got the OcUK Tech labs variant, ta OcUK
) I could get on with positioning it and the shoggy mount:
I positioned the shoggy so that the pump inlet was in line with the res outlet which would be above but about 3 inches forward to allow for pipe bend radius. After drilling four holes in the bottom of the case and two more for the EK res fixing, I affixed the shoggy bottom with the supplied bolts and then the sponge. I fixed the pump to the top of the shoggy and hey presto!
The res in place with some of the bitspower fittings on so I could try to test some pipe routing:
A cheeky close up:
So, with the rads, res and pump now in place it was time to fit the tubing!!! I began with the res->pump, a bit of a tight 90deg bend then out of the pump up to the top 360mm rad.
I wasn't particularly happy with the res to pump tubing so decided to add a 45deg fitting to end up with this:
Hopefully this will be less prone to kinking. Then I plumbed in the top rad to the cpu block. This is where it gets a bit ghetto.
Basically, as this would be my first time watercooling, I wanted to play it safe and build & test the rig without any of my PC hardware in there. So, this is what it end up looking like:
That is masking tape (quite a bit) holding the cpu block in the approximate position of the processor
. Behind the pump is a drain port comprised of a t fitting and a plug. Instead of a normal plug, I decided to use one with a sensor so I could measure the temp of the water after passing the CPU and GPU.
So, the time came to fill the loop. I had already used deionised water to wash out the rads, pump and reservoir. In goes the X1 and on with the pump:
I ran it for about 4 hours and all was fine
I then set about putting the motherboard and processor in and attaching the waterblock. The XSPC raystorm is a bit of a pain to fit, being particularly fiddly trying to get the pins into the backplate. Once in (make sure your careful not to cross thread!) its relatively easy to tighten up. I also bought the black aluminium bracket to replace the plastic one to give a bit more strength and aesthetics!
Anyway, that's all for now. I'll post another update soon!
)
