Project Titan

crinkleshoes

crinkleshoes

crinkleshoes

Permabanned
Joined
9 Jun 2009
Posts
11,924
Location
London, McLaren or Radical
Hey,

My first time creating a thread in this forum... but my new project is worth it - so here goes.

In the past my builds have all been thrown together based upon whatever is the best combination of performance and value. This time, I felt like doing something special... something I would like sitting on a shelf on the wall behind/next to my workspace, rather that hiding under the desk.

Ever since I saw someone do an awesome watercooled build InWin 904 on this forum, I have been craving something similar - but in a larger case.

Thankfully, InWin released the 909 and so this has been the object of my desire for a while.

My current PC is more than adequate, it is hardly struggling for performance - but on the other hand, I'm rarely using the full capability of 6 cores and could notice/benefit from a higher single threaded performance.

So, I have decided to move forward with a custom watercooled Z170A Skylake build.

I'm in the middle of bringing all the parts together and it will take some time to put everything together. This is to be a second/project PC, and rather than rushing the build like I have with everything in the past - I want to take the time to do this thoroughly and properly.

I love the look of hard acrylic pipework, but given it's my first attempt - I have decided to stick with flexible tubing... the mandrell kits and bending look relatively straight forward, but I know flexi will be easier for a first timer... I may update this build in future with hard pipes.

I'm planning on keeping a silver/white/blue colour theme throughout the build.

The build garnered its name with the help of my wife... I started with the name "Titaniagasm", thanks to the titanium edition motherboard... but my wife though Titan might be better with links to ancient Greece and didn't know any Titan X graphics cards would be involved in the build.

So far, I have ordered and am waiting on:

Main hardware:
- 6700k
- MSI Z170A XPower Titanium Edition
- InWin 909 Silver
- Avexir Blitz Original Silver/White 4x4GB 3000MHz 15-15-15-30-1T
- Gigabyte Titan X (flashed with EVGA SC TX bios)
- Superflower Leadex Platinum 1200W
- 2x Samsung 950 Pro M2 NVME 512GB in Raid-0
- 2x Intel 730 480GB in Raid-0
- 2x Sandisk Ultra II 960GB in Raid-0

Watercooling bits:
- Aquatuning 45 & 90 degree connectors
- Masterkleer White/UV tubing
- EK CoolStream XE 360
- Alphacool NexXxoS ST30
- 3x NF12 Noctua fans
- 2x NF-A14 Noctua fans
- EK Titan X - Nickel waterblock
- EK Titan X - Nickel backplate
- EK XRes 140 Revo D5
- EK ACF fittings in black and white
- EK Ekoolant UV blue

Extras:
- EVGA Pro V2 SLi bridge (I'm not sure whether to add a second Titan X or buy 2x 980Ti)
- Revoltec cold cathode - white (i MUCH prefer cathodes to LEDs)
- BitFenix Alchemy 2pin I/O extensions - blue
- BitFenix Alchemy Internal Audio Extension - blue
- DimasTech thumbscrews - electric purple
- Blue cable combs in various sizes
- Akasa UV-blue S-ATA data cables
- Cablemod E-series cable kit - white
- 5mm twin LEDs in blue and UV

I'm really looking forward to this... I greatly enjoy projects without a time limitation and this is something I've been craving for a while.

I'll be sure to update with decent quality build log.

Please let me know if I've missed out anything glaringly obvious - I welcome any constructive criticism.

_H5A3900 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3879 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr
 
Last edited:
If I kept Titaniagasm... I would be forced to use white coolant... hehehe

Really looking forward to the parts arriving... although the CPU is still on back order :( I can keep waiting (it's a 6700k for £250, from an official distributor)... or I can pay the extra £70 and get one now. No rush... just itching to play.

2015-12-02_18-00-37 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

FB-MSI-Z170A-XPOWER-TE-Monoblock_fill1_1200(1) by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

maxresdefault by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

EKFC980-GTX-Ti-WF3_NP_fit_1200(1) by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

xres-revo-d5_pwm-140-_incl-pump_pwm_800_2 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

IMG_9950s by CosmicLogos, on Flickr
 
24231610266_c432be477b_o.jpg
 
8 Pack said:
This is a great case for water cooled building.
Click to expand...

Even since I saw the 904 build by someone on this forum, I loved the style of case... I just hoped they would release something a bit bigger to make life a little easier for someone like me to do the build with... then they came out with the 909 so - :D :D :D

Luggs said:
That is some lovely kit to put in a lovely case... I'd say titaniagasm is very appropriate!
Click to expand...

Maybe I should change the name back... ;)

cadmunkey said:
Case looks great, what rad space does it have?
Click to expand...

According to InWin... you can stick in it:
Front - 280x35
Middle - 120x35
Rear - 360x60 or 280x60
Bottom - 240x35

Given the cooling needs I'll have, even when overclocked... the front 280x35 + rear 360x60 should be more than enough for me :)

OJ46 said:
That's some top quality kit you've got there mate, especially loving the overkill of 2 x M.2's in RAID 0 :D
Click to expand...

Hehehe... I also have an Intel 750 400GB sitting in one of my neighbour's houses... was a silly extra impulse buy... going to try that and the 2x 950s as boot drives for a couple of weeks to see which I prefer.

I think I'll keep the other drives as JBOD, rather than raid them up... no need if they're just storage / game drives.

But the 950s... heck yeah... when I saw this motherboard could take two in raid-0... I couldn't resist :D
 
Hobbsie said:
is that a powerline adaptor i see? just as i was getting turned on :p
Click to expand...

Yup... for our new apartment... it's on the first floor and we have a storage room in the basement, the apartment and storage room are on the same electrical link and it's a 2014 build, so the wiring should be good enough for powerline networking.

It wouldn't be possible to run a cable and wireless would be horrible or simply not work.

They're pretty decent ones... rated at up to 1200mbit and with built in ac wireless hotspots.

I'll be happy if I get 200mbit... don't want the server + NASes in the apartment.
 
All up and running! Idling as 23-24C and under heavy CPU load, I've managed to get it to peak at 40C so far. No GPU load yet, though. Will try soon enough, get a good bit of testing done and then try some overclocking.

Had a bit of leakage at first from two of the Aquatuning angled connectors... those things are horrible to use and I had a feeling one or more were going to leak.

Ah well, I had some straight-fit EKs and they're soooooo much better :)

_H5A3900 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3808 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

This was the most nerve-wracking part for me...
_H5A3810 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3814 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3818 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

Pretty board... but the bios is absolutely abysmal... Asus have a MUCH better system. Seems like the bios for this specific MSI board is still in beta... I'm getting some really annoying issues like boot orders changing randomly... I then have to reset to optimised defaults and then load the profile again... I've tried various combinations of settings... but it keeps doing it. I also can't get windows to see the 950 Pros when they are in a raid-0 configuration (from the bios side). I could have installed onto them 950 raid no problem, but wanted to try the 750 as a boot drive first. Maybe the system is a little confused having 3 nvme drives connected or something :S Despite loading all drivers, I can only get the 950s to show up as single drives :(
_H5A3821 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3824 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3829 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

Prior to fiddling... I re-mounted the res so that it's 90 degrees flat
_H5A3833 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

Mini (behind the case)... was being particularly helpful
_H5A3839 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3840 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3846 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3850 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3853 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3862 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3878 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3890 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3893 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3918 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

_H5A3911 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

To update this build... I'm wishing I'd gone with clear tubing and UV cathodes instead of white. When the time comes to swap out the coolant, I'm going to replace the hoses and Aquatuning connectors.

Intel 750:
intel by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

These 950s don't seem to be running at full speed, either :(
s950 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

s950r0 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr



Crystal Disk Mark...
950 raid 0
cdm-950r0 by CosmicLogos, on Flickr

Intel 750
cdm-intel by CosmicLogos, on Flickr
 
Last edited:
Seems there are similar problems with their other Z170 boards... or at least have been... going by my searches :(

I haven't used MSI in a long time, I'm sure my last encounter with them was decent though.

Prior to my Asus X99 board, my last encounter with Asus was a bad one... back in the core 2 duo days... so I guess it's just a bit hit and miss.

I bought this board purely for the aesthetics... I saw what I wanted to do with it straight away and couldn't wait to get my hands on it :D
 
faheemrazzaq said:
the case is beautiful. You should have gone hardline really. may be the next step :)
Click to expand...

I did contemplate it, but given that it's my first attempt at watercooling in 10 years, I wanted to keep things simpler.

For flexi tubing, I'm happy with the relatively straight and decent curves I got out of the tubes :)

I could have done the rear rad -> rear gpu a bit better... but at that time, I was so feddup with the aquatuning angled connectors, I couldn't be bothered fiddling anymore.

Next step will probably be when Pascal is released.

When I go hard pipe, I want to do some funky design / spiral / curves with it.

Radox-0 said:
Very nice work. As already mentioned that motherboard water block is stunning. The blue fluid really stands out against the silver parts.
Click to expand...

:)

Next time... clear tubing :D
 
Did a bit of overclocking last night...

03rxyNN.png

I'm sure I can still get more out of it...

The CPU still can't quite compete with my 5820k in overall score, but it certainly feels faster.

I hit 4.9, but it was using too many volts for me to leave it or even bench with it. I was really hoping to make the 5.0GHz barrier... but I would have to de-lid to get to 4.9, let alone 5.0

There's still some headroom there though, I'm going to try getting to 4.85-4.87 with different BCLK and the GPU has more headroom too.

GPU peaked at 45C in the tests :D The CPU managed to hit 70C.
 
I've settled on 4.7GHz as a 24/7 voltage... with my custom water loop... even under gaming conditions and with my custom PWM settings, the fans don't need to go above 40% and the pump 30% in order to keep the CPU under 60C and the GPU at 40C under load (even when the GPU is overclocked to 1537MHz core and 8GHz memory :D

This makes it almost as quiet as the iMac at idle and the same noise under load :D :D :D Quite happy with that as the 5820k with Corsair H110i would be quite noisy under load.
 
harvey.l12 said:
Loving the look of this system
Click to expand...

TechMinerUK said:
Excellent system, I love the contrast between the blue coolant and the white/silver colour scheme. The hardware also looks great in the Inwin case which looks stunning. The fact the system can perform great as well as looking good just rounds the whole build off. :D

What are your thoughts on the 6700K vs 5820K as I know you said the 5820K had a higher score and the 6700K felt faster but how is the real world comparison such as in games and other tasks?
Click to expand...

Thanks both :)

I've only really played two games on this system, but they've both improved their frame rates.

BF4 has gone from 140-150FPS on the 5820k to a steady 200FPS... that includes a 100MHz overclock on the GPU, but that wouldn't account for the FPS jump by itself.

SW Battlefront has gone from 90-100FPS to a steady 120FPS.

I'm rather happy with that little jump... goes to show the improvement in single core processing capabilities, especially given the CPU is only running 100-200Mhz higher per core.

I haven't noticed the difference in processing time in Lightroom, but then I've only been doing 20-30 photos at a time... it would be more likely to show itself when doing 100x that. But the general navigation in lightroom and photoshop is a bit quicker.

Those are the best comparisons I have at the moment.
 
Thanks :)

Glass sided evolve... is that a case?

No - they're not selling extra LED strips yet :(

When they do, I'll be picking some up... apparently these control boxes can happilly operate 8 strips per channel... so I can use one channel for case operations... and have the other fed out the back of the case to light up the rear of my desk and have the software to control it :D
 
I really like it, generally... but there are some niggles... but then you can usually expect that when something is built for form over function (albeit reasonable function).

I dislike:
- The recessed IO panel is a pain to get to, I have to take the side panel off to access it and I don't have huge hands... I usually have to borrow the wife to plug something in - thankfully that's not too frequent.
- The front radiator mounting has next to no airflow, it's practically pointless... I wish I'd bought a 240 rad instead of a 280 so that I could have put it at the bottom of the case where the air intake is.
- The layout is not the easiest for the WC parts I wanted to use... with a rad at the front, I was forced to mount the pump and reservoir at the bottom and horiztontally which I didn't want to do, however getting the 240 rad instead of the 280 to mount at the bottom would have made that much easier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom