RAB WC 800d build

Adsta · 13 Nov 2011 at 19:57

Hey all so going to be noting down my current build which I have called RAB. Name is quite simply Red and Black

In this project I will have 2 loops. One for the CPU (i5 2500k) which will be on a XSPC EX 120 with a Raystorm block. This loop will have Mayhems oil black fluid in. The second loop will be for the 3x 480GTX's which will be on a XSPC EX 360 with EK waterblocks and backplates on. This loop will have Mayhems Red fluid in.
I am using a Koolance dual bay res/pump for DDC pumps.

So lets get started. First job was the fans I bought some Scythe GTs which seemed quite popular. However straight away the colour put me off I don't want no grey it my case ! So they needed a paint job. After a bit of a search on internet I found out how to take them apart so heres a few pics of me taking them apart and painting them black.
Sticker off

I had 4 fans heres the clips for all four fans kept safely in a little plastic bag. Tiny things !

Next tape up the back of the fan don't want any paint getting to the magnet or the centre pole.

After all four fans were taped up its time to paint !

I did a couple of coats. Heres the end result after they dried.

So thats the messy bit out of the way next PC build time. ! So I brought all my gear down into the kitchen ready to build away. Heres some pics of all my stuff !

Once it did a bit of a clear up and organisation. I decided to start by putting my CPU and Raystorm block onto the Maximus IV Z board. So heres the bits on the table.

Backplate for 1155.

Heres my i5 2500k and Raystorm block now that the backplate is on.

Lastly pic of the mobo and Raystorm sitting happy in the 800d. Oh I also slotted my PSU in there at the bottom too.

oh yea and check out Cloud (my dog) lol he sat there looking at that PC case just thinking WHAT THE HELL !

Then I moved on to the rads. I got a XSPC EX 360 and a XSPC EX 120. My Scythe GTs to sit on top and nicely slotted in was some Faser shrouds.
I took this pic after I already done the 120..

Heres the end result.

The Feser shrouds also came with some 5mm red LED's which slot into the shroud so should look nice a pretty when on.
Rads inside the 800d

Next graphic cards ! I got 3x 480GTXs. All will have a EK waterblock and EK backplate on. So heres the one with its stock cooler on. Bit dusty from use in my old PC

Stock cooler off.

I had to resort to using my handy bosch electric screwdriver to get some of the screws out that held the stock cooler on. It really did not want to come off ! lol
Gave it a nice little clean

Put the thermal pads in place and the put on some paste and boom.

Heres a piccy with the backplate on.

So I now have 3x 480GTXs with waterblocks and backplates on. Guess there is nothing else to do with them but put them in the case too !

Onto the res, I got a Koolance bay res which I have to say just looks SO nice. Heres me taking the front off to put in the bleed pipe.

Time for the DDC pumps to lose their heads.

Then to slot them nicely into the Koolance res.

They had to lose their feet though also

So I put that res with pumps in situ into the case too !

TUBING TIME ! Heres the stuff. I got some Tygon tubing and some bitspowers compression fittings along with some nice cutters which I borrowed from work

I replaced all the green O-rings with Red O-rings.
So first loop in for the graphic cards

Second Loop for the CPU

Then I had some problems. My PSU decided to blow up

as I went to test the pumps it well basically popped and some smoke came out. Then when I tried to turn the power on again with just the bridging connector on it just lit up like a Xmas tree and more smoke came out. But I had a spare PSU from my previous rig so I decided to wack that on the pumps and make sure they worked. Low and behold after some messing about they were working fine

But sadly I now have to try and RMA this PSU (I bought it from MM) But as I am impatient I have bought another one which I hope will come in a day or two so I can test the whole system. If I do manage to get an RMA then I will prob just sell it on.

But heres some nice pics of the pumps and lush fluid running around.

I know there is no paper down. I did the leak test with kitchen roll all around it but I forgot to take a picture

.

Air bubbles...

It actually took an age to bleed that air out of the gfx loop....

Most of the air gone now and looking pretty groovy

The greenish looking fluid is meant to be "oil" black. It looks a lot darker when it has not got a huge light or flash on it.

So thats where I am at. I have stopped now for today. I left the pumps running for a while and have now shifted the PC into my room as I am sure there are no leaks and stuff like installing the power cables, SSD and HDD I can do in my room and not leave the kitchen a mess !

Adsta · 13 Nov 2011 at 19:57

Updated pictures:
Ram that is going to be used

Ram in place along with nice shot of the Raystorm

New psu installed (after testing....) cables in place too or at least thread through to the back. You have no idea how hard it was to get all them cables through that tiny hole because I failed and my CPU rad was covering the second exit hole lol

Nice shot of the SLI link in place along with the series fittings to connect the watercooling on the graphics

It is all go here ! nice shiny red lights on the raystorm

Full system up and running, hard to get a decent shot of this at night

the flash just negates the red LED light.

Like so

Nice side shot

Front shot. That fan controller shows temps and fan speeds but for some reason the flash on this camera decided to outshine the LED display

Final shots of my place of gaming

I will be doing benchmarks at the weekend as I really dont have the time at the moment to tinker too much. So stay tuned for that !

ThePengu1n · 13 Nov 2011 at 21:03

Looks good

Cleeecooo · 13 Nov 2011 at 22:41

Looks beautiful adsta!!

Jamiman · 14 Nov 2011 at 01:13

Looking gorgeous!

Looking forward to seeing the bench results for this when you get your PSU sorted

lrlcr · 14 Nov 2011 at 18:37

How loud is the res/pump combo

Adsta · 14 Nov 2011 at 19:05

Tbh I didn't find it that loud at all. Obviously I havnt had the whole system running yet. But just the pumps on I didn't find it too bad. However this was with the side panels off and the whole thing exposed so my guess is it would be quieter when fully enclosed.

Will let you know more 2moz or Wednesday though. OCUK have confirmed my new psu shipped so I should see that tomorrow (free next day dpd

) so as long as I don't get stuck at work to late tomorrow I should be able to get the system up and running. Since most of the time consuming parts are over.... And ofc is the new psu I get doesn't blow up too lol

Sgt Tackleberry · 14 Nov 2011 at 19:16

Looks gr8...

Any benchmarks yet?.

Adsta · 15 Nov 2011 at 16:26

Hoping to benchmarks up in the next couple of days. I got my PSU from OCUK today

Gave it a test and it worked

So I'm just getting in the cabling now taking a couple pics as I go along.

The system should all be up and running by the end of today. So providing no other problems I should be able to give pics of the completed product soon

Wish me luck !

samuelc · 16 Nov 2011 at 20:36

Would love to see this finished!

Adsta · 16 Nov 2011 at 22:05

As an update I finally got it all up and running

I have to say it is looking rather awesome to say the least. I have to say I am really happy with it. I have just got windows installed and I am just getting some programs installed.

I'm hoping to get a chance to overclocking the CPU tomorrow or most likely friday as work is rather hectic at the moment. I did crank up the 480GTX's though

I currently have all 3 set at 800mhz core clock 1600mhz shader with 1900mhz mem at 1088mV (set through MSI Afterburner) Min temps sitting at ~36c I had Kombuster on for about 20mins and the highest it got to was 46c and it sat at 46c for about the last 10mins

Obviously will need to do some proper testing but so far it is looking good.

CPU I havnt had much look at yet as I don't want to rush the OC and screw it up

I will post the final pictures tomorrow evening

Adsta · 17 Nov 2011 at 18:11

Updated pictures

I really have not much time on my hands at the moment. So benchmarks and such I will try do at the weekend.

samuelc · 19 Nov 2011 at 19:33

Nicely done Adsta. Would be really interested in your temps. Is the cooling sufficient?

ta,
Sam

alex2k10 · 20 Nov 2011 at 20:21

Thats almost identical to what i have planned for my 800d nice to see a few things work.

How are you finding the 800d as a w/c case.

Daze · 21 Nov 2011 at 00:07

Good job man, serious amount of money that must have cost you!

Adsta · 21 Nov 2011 at 14:39

Thanks

Sadly really didn't have the time to get around to doing some proper benchmarks

The cooling seems really good though. Sunday (prob when I should have been doing benchmarks lol) I was playing Skyrim for a good few hours my GPU temps never even got to 50c that was with a 820mhz oc on each gpu. Keeping in mind that I have 3 GTX 480s which are notorious for being hot cards. The CPU oced to 4.5ghz only peaked at 42c after that play through. So personally I think that is good enough and am really happy with them temps tbh.

I might try push the gfx cards a bit more as well as the CPU when time permits.

The 800d is an amazing case to be honest plenty of space just plan accordingly. My slight bump was sticking the 120 where I did as it covered up the second hole for my PSU cables. I got them through the one hole as you can see in the pictures but it was extremely tight on space and took much longer than it should have. I was planning to take out the bottom HDD bay but I honestly didn't feel to comfortable ripping it out and cutting the case.
My only slight problem with the case is the rear of the mobo side. Theres plenty of room for hiding your cables but hardly any depth at all. Meaning if you have any cables overlapping or like for me a small bump where all my cables come through the one hole its a struggle to get the side panel back on. Another thing because it has hardly any depth to it you can't even put in something like bunny clips to guide the cables because the clips are too high and again you cannot get the panel on. Other than that great case though

As for cost

yea it set me back a fair bit, but I have to say I am extremely happy with it. Well worth the money.

ChrisLandin · 26 Nov 2011 at 23:17

Glad you put my 480's to good use pal!! You have done a good job with the build, that was my old case the 800d, its awesome for watercooling, I thought 2 480's was overkill so 3 are gonna be like wow.

d4ns · 27 Nov 2011 at 20:24

Very nicely done.

If you were use the reservoir with 1 loop and joined the 2 reservoirs as 1, is it much of a restriction?

RJC · 27 Nov 2011 at 20:31

Nice build

Adsta · 29 Nov 2011 at 14:44

hehe yea cheers chris they are running extremely nicely

tbh my orginal plan was to only buy one extra 480 because I already owned a 480 GTX. But when I saw you selling two I just thought sod it might as well have 3 lol

As for the res, I dont think there will be my restriction. You see that silver tube on the right side part of the res that basically comes out and you leave a gap so rather than two seperated res you have one big one. That said I havn't tried it out so I'm not 100% sure. But it sure does look nice

I still really need to get around to doing god damm benchmarks but I have been so swamped with work I just get home and cant be bothered to do anything that remotely involves brain power.

I will post when I get around to it. "it will be ready when its ready" !