TROOPER | PC Build Log - Mar 7 - New photos

[AZAZEL]

 

I tried doing this before with a project I cleverly dubbed "Dedicated Obsession", but I wasn't obsessed, and certainly not dedicated enough to merit sharing a proper build log with the internets. This was three years ago I think, and it's the system I'm on now, so it's more than ripe for rejuvenation (it's actually not, it's still working very well for the vast majority of the games I play, but humor me).

 

I've always played with the idea of doing a water cooled system, but I never really got past the planning stages, so now I'm going all out on LPH, FPI, PSI and all the others. Here's a quick summation of the key points in this build:

 

 

(Most of) the stuff I'll be putting in it (always wanted to do one of these ):

 

 

COMPLETE SPECS

 

[table]

PROCESSORIntel® Core i7-5820K

 

MOTHERBOARDAsus X99-S

 

GRAPHICSEVGA GTX 980 Superclocked ACX 2.0

 

MEMORYCORSAIR Dominator® Platinum Series 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 2666MHz

 

POWER SUPPLYCORSAIR HX850i

 

STORAGE #1SAMSUNG SSD EVO 840 120GB

 

STORAGE #2SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200RPM 1TB[/table]

[yoječ]

Good luck with the build

[Andreas]

I just had to look up all those system parts as I was curious how much they cost in Euro. It's roughly €1900 according to geizhals.at - and that doesn't include any HDDs, SSDs, and optical drives, let alone the water cooling.

 

I was thinking of doing something similar myself when and if I can afford it at some point in the future.

 

Nice project and good luck!

Edited November 1, 2014 by Andreas

[Vanto]

That looks awesome, and it's just the boxes. I'd like to see the finished product

[AZAZEL]

I just had to look up all those system parts as I was curious how much they cost in Euro. It's roughly €1900 according to geizhals.at - and that doesn't include any HDDs, SSDs, and optical drives, let alone the water cooling.

 

I was thinking of doing something similar myself when and if I can afford it at some point in the future.

 

Nice project and good luck!

I've tried not doing any sums (I try not to think about it), but that's probably about right.

 

Here's a few shots of my progress so far. I'm still in the mock-up stage, lining everything up and making adjustments as I go.

 

 

 

 

[AZAZEL]

PUMP

 

So, when I received my EK-DDC 3.2 PWM pump with all the trimmings, I pulled it apart to fit the heat sink housing I bought for it (DDC pumps tend to run a little hot), only to find that it had been assembled by OPC (other people's children), knackering the 12V wire (yellow), almost cutting all the way through the insulation:

 

 

I've never soldered anything worthwhile before, and never on a PCB, but I figured that I might as well practice on this €90 pump.

 

 

Could've been worse. Joints ended up a bit cold/dry, and the PCB was burnt a tiny bit, but should be solid. I went with AWG18 for the power, and 26 for the PWM cable, black of course. New wires equals new connectors, so I got to work crimpin' those suckers.

 

 

End result:

 

 

And it WORKS.

 

[Rebel]

Amazing rig Az. One thing though, why on earth do you have 166GB worth of RAM?

Edited November 3, 2014 by Rebel

[AZAZEL]

Amazing rig Az. One thing though, why on earth do you have 166GB worth of RAM?

It's just 16GB, but the G looks like a 6. If that's what you meant. But I guess that would make it 166 bytes?

[Rebel]

Haha now you mention it, they are very similar. How long do you think its gonna take you?

[AZAZEL]

How long do you think its gonna take you?

A few weeks from this point, I reckon. I can only really get any work done in the weekends, and I'm busy in the next one. I haven't really done anything like this before though, so it's difficult to say.

 

RAM

 

Drooled over these for a bit. Fitted the light bar upgrade, where you switch out the top of the module for one with slits in it, so the built in light bar shines through more.

 

 

 

 

Tiny screws and fiddly work. Anti static underlay just to be safe.

 

 

[iddqdvie]

i dont understand watercooling systems. are they for better cooling or for less noise? because they are noisy.

 

but than again i never have ahigh end card and i like passive cooled graphic cards (HD6850 currently, fast passive graphic cards are nearly non existent) with a manual installed fan that is running on half the voltage so my computer is always extremly quiet and cool no matter what comes.

 

all of my fans are speedreduced (even the powersupply)

all have fixed speeds

the tricky part about it is how u direct the air through the pc, and wether or not u close useless gaps. i have one big input fan in the bottom front and one smaller output fan and 2 fans inside (creating the airflow for the graphiccard, and i am talking about 12-15€ fans) + the cpu fan&cooler (25€). fans are cheap.
the powersupply's airflow is seperated from the rest. it just goes through the supply and out again, not through the pc case.

 

 

i bet i can do that with a high end card aswell, just buy a passive kit and create an airflow with lowspeed fans that are also speedreduced. high end gaming with basically no noise and fixed fanspeeds is possible!

 

so whats the deal with watercooling? i always hear of problems related to it. one guy even had a leak and water came out...

Edited November 4, 2014 by iddqdvie

[Finn 7 five 11]

i bet i can do that with a high end card aswell, just buy a passive kit and create an airflow with lowspeed fans that are also speedreduced. high end gaming with basically no noise and fixed fanspeeds is possible!

 

so whats the deal with watercooling? i always hear of problems related to it. one guy even had a leak and water came out...

You just said yourself you haven't had a high end card so how do you know your plan would work?

Water cooling is:

-Much quieter

-less dust attraction, you can use fan filters as well because you don't need nearly as much airflow.

-Components will always be cooler with a good, watercooled system.

-They are fun and challenging to set up, many people like creating things and building stuff.

-They look pretty awesome if you have them all lit up.

-Cooler temperatures means your equipment lasts longer.

 

Leaks can happen, but not if you're careful and triple check your work, it'll be okay.

--

 

I'm impressed that you went an soldered the cables and fixed them up.

Are you going to to play with sub-ambient temperatures? If so, What's your plan for condensation? If you live somewhere with low humidity, it'll be much easier.

Edited November 4, 2014 by •¿F¡ññ4L¡ƒ£?•

[sivispacem]

Custom water loops are vastly higher performance than air cooling or AIO water. Basically you get a great deal of headroom for overclocking. Though a well designed water loop will be quieter than most large air coolers.

[El Dildo]

looks awesome.

just always seemed like such overkill to me.

 

are you a professional graphics designer rendering massive scenes for 30 hours at a time?

just curious. that's a pretty serious build for what, the casual gamer?

 

I guess your hobby is your hobby.

people tell me I spend too much money on my car but it goes fast and looks great so

Edited November 4, 2014 by El_Diablo

[AZAZEL]

Basically you get a great deal of headroom for overclocking. Though a well designed water loop will be quieter than most large air coolers.

 

That was the main pull, yeah. The 5820K has been proven very overclocking friendly, so I'll definitely be tapping into that. Hopefully it'll be quiet, but I was kinda relying on my PWM pump actually being PWM controllable via the Aquaero, so I could program it to regulate the pulses and thus the speed of the pump depending on the temperature and load of the system, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I got a long explanation from the guys at Aqua Computer, and the solution might require more soldering. Oh joy.

 

looks awesome.

just always seemed like such overkill to me.

 

are you a professional graphics designer rendering massive scenes for 30 hours at a time?

just curious. that's a pretty serious build for what, the casual gamer?

 

I guess your hobby is your hobby.

people tell me I spend too much money on my car but it goes fast and looks great so

 

Oh, it's completely overkill. I doubt I'll ever need the full 16GB of RAM, as I am indeed, maybe not casual, but a gamer indeed without any plans of rendering anything other than some fab graphics in V when it's released for PC. Hell, one of my reasons for going 16 gig, was because I thought it looked sad with just two little sticks of RAM in there, and the Dominators weren't available in any other configurations. Purely aesthetics, and pure hobby.

 

A few shots of the Aqua Computer Aquaero 5 PRO which is basically an over complicated fan controller, complete with a huge software package, programmable everything, huge capacity for running fans and all sorts of temperature and flow sensors, leds and what not, it even has a remote.

 

 

 

[Finn 7 five 11]

 

I guess your hobby is your hobby.

people tell me I spend too much money on my car but it goes fast and looks great so

Exactly, I mean we could all probably get around in a 90's corolla, or a prius *chuckles* but sometimes it's nice to have nice things for no little, to no functional purpose.

[AZAZEL]

IT LIVES.

 

So, I did a quick assembly of all the important components, and everything seems to be functioning flawlessly. Hopefully it will stay that way as I disassemble the mobo and graphics card to fit the cooling blocks. More on this this coming weekend. Here's a shot of the assembly, and a few random ones:

 

 

Really is a sexy looking cooler, but it's coming off.

 

DangerDen delrin fill port, with a white Bitspower plug.

 

Random shot. Need to clean my windows.

[El Dildo]

well now I'm just interested in that sweet piece of wood that looks like it would be perfect for clubbing someone to death with.

it looks like the business end of a freakin' wooden mace. what is that thing?

Edited November 13, 2014 by El_Diablo

[AZAZEL]

It's a lizard carved out of a branch, from Malaysia. I haven't tried clubbing anyone with it (yet).

[AZAZEL]

Just a few pictures of the EK Supremacy EVO fitted with PrimoChill Revolver compression fittings. The block is from Slovenia, and the fittings from New Mexico, multiculturalism much? Speaking of, the components I'm using have been purchased in the following regions: Denmark, Norway, Germany, UK, Slovenia, Austria and the Netherlands.

 

Anyways, pics:

[El Dildo]

ok now I don't even know what I'm looking at.

laymans terms, Poindexter.

 

is that part of the water flow??

[sivispacem]

It's the water block for cooling the CPU.

[AZAZEL]

FITTING THE MOSFET BLOCK

 

Before anyone asks, no, it isn't necessary to water cool the MOSFET/VRMs on any newer motherboard. Hell, most of them don't even need heatsinks or any sort of cooling, running as cool as they do. So it's mostly aesthetics, meriting a few more loops of tubing so it doesn't end up looking too dull.

 

 

 

 

This is the bad boy we're replacing. As you may notice, the two heatsinks are connected by a heat pipe. We'll only be replacing the top one, but I'd like to keep the other one in place. Quite the pickle.

 

 

The replacement. At first, EK sent me a wrong one in black acetal, but before I got around to emailing them, they got in touch with me in stead, as the blocks they sent out had wrong spacers fitted, which could result in shorting the mobo. The new one I received was the correct clear plexi and nickel, so all is well.

 

 

Cut some thermal pads to cover the chips, making sure there was no contact between the block and the mobo, and voila. I wanted to do a shot with the fittings screwed in, and the CPU block mounted, to give you an idea of how the loop is going to look, but I ran out of daylight. On the morrow.

 

Then there was that pickle I was in, wanting to keep one half of the MOSFET heatsink I had removed. Considering the success I had with resoldering that €90 pump, I thought I might as well take a hacksaw to a €300 motherboard. But they probably won't notice if I have to return it.

 

[AZAZEL]

I wanted to do a shot with the fittings screwed in, and the CPU block mounted, to give you an idea of how the loop is going to look, but I ran out of daylight. On the morrow.

 

[AZAZEL]

GPU BLOCK SASSINESS

Today I'll be fitting the EK water block and the accompanying back plate to the 980.









Screws removed. Gently removing the stock cooler, carefully unplugging the connectors for the fans and the LEDs.





Scraped off most of the thermal paste with a small plastic spoon, and applied some denatured alcohol to remove the rest of the paste.



Polished to a shine.





Added the thermal pads to the backplate.





Finished product. It really has got some weight to it, I hope it won't put too much stress on the board.



Installed. So now I can really start planning the last details for the loop, and start bending the tubing.

[El Dildo]

weight on the mobo is one thing.

but how heavy is this entire case gonna' be once it's finished with the water works turned on?

[AZAZEL]

weight on the mobo is one thing.

but how heavy is this entire case gonna' be once it's finished with the water works turned on?

Not quite sure, but it's about 20-25 KG right now I reckon (about 50 lbs), so pretty darn heavy, and a few litres of coolant and additional fans and whatnot is not going to make it any better.

 

This is how my desk looked this morning, after a productive session of messing with fittings and replacing all (30'ish) UV green o-rings with UV blue or plain black ones. Sore fingers!

 

 

 

 

 

ACRYLIC PIPE BENDING, BITCHES

 

I've chosen to connect my water cooling components by rigid acrylic tubing, in stead of the regular soft tubing. It's a lot less forgiving to work with, but it lets you create much straighter lines, and it's been a big deal in the water cooling community for the past year or so, so there's loads guides and peripherals available, and a lot of people who have f*cked up badly, so I don't have to.

 

I'm doing the pipe that connects the two radiators. It will go behind the motherboard tray, so it won't be visible, but I'd still like to get some clean bends in there.

 

 

Ready to bend some sh*t. Basically you insert a heat resistant rubber cord, neoprene or the like, into the tubing to keep it from kinking, and then heat the tube until it starts soften up, but not enough to make it bubble/melt, and then you do your bend and keep it there until it cools off. I'm using the PrimoChill RBEND, which is really useful for getting all the angles right, and keeping everything in place while the pipe's cooling off.

 

You can see a few 90 degree test bends I did, that didn't go so well. One melted and one I used a rubber cord that didn't fit snugly enough, so the bend was a mess.

 

 

I didn't get a photo of the first 90 degree bend you can see there on the left, but I used the case to be sure I got the distance right, and that the pipe had the right angle (90 degrees to the second bend).

 

 

I had to turn the case upside down, so I could properly secure the end going into the top radiator. The fittings are Bitspower C47 push-ins, which has two o-rings inside, and it's very important that the pipe is pushed beyond both, to ensure there's no leaking. Hope it's all the way in there.

 

 

And the other end, in the bottom of the case, coming from the front rad.

 

 

Really happy with how it turned out. The angles ended up pretty darn spot on, after a lot of sanding and test fittings. I'm still a bit worried that the cables from the power supply will be pressing down on the pipe, so I might have to secure it somehow, but I'll figure that out later. I'll snap a better picture of it tomorrow.

 

 

[AZAZEL]

Time for an update, I think.

 

Been busy, but I managed to get the tubes connecting the top radiator to the CPU block, and the one connecting the CPU block to the MOSFET block done.

 

 

 

And I did these in ONE try. How about that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nah, I f*cked up, a lot. This stuff is a bitch to work with, as you can see below. This also means that I only have enough tube left to doe the one connecting the MOSFET block to the GPU, if I don't f*ck up more, that is.

 

So yeah, I'll hopefully get that done in the weekend, and then wait for another shipment from Germany. Also need to get some cable management tidbits.

 

[GG14876]

I've been waiting for this update... Good job, nice to see everything came out well (well, mostly)...

 

The only thing that has me wondering is what the flow/progression is going to be... It looks like: Top Radiator > CPU > MOSFET > Video Card > ....Front Radiator? > Reservoir? > Top Radiator?

But... I don't know, I'm not into water cooling (yet)... This is just an awesome project. Makes me think how more common this would be, if 3D printing/scanning gets to the point that the pipes (at least) and water blocks can be custom made/downloaded at home. I know once that becomes possible, I'm going to try it out...

 

Also, when you were planning this out, did you think about including an active cooler? Not in the "I'm going to run several feet of tubing through an old freezer" line of thought, but with a thermoelectric cooler?

 

Anyway, awesome job. Can't wait for the next update.

[AZAZEL]

The only thing that has me wondering is what the flow/progression is going to be... It looks like: Top Radiator > CPU > MOSFET > Video Card > ....Front Radiator? > Reservoir? > Top Radiator?

But... I don't know, I'm not into water cooling (yet)...

Well, if we start with the pump, which is at the very bottom of the loop, it goes:

 

RESERVOIR > PUMP > FRONT RAD > TOP RAD > CPU > MOSFET > GPU > RESERVOIR. In a closed loop with good enough flow, it shouldn't matter much which order the components are in, as long as the pump is below the reservoir. Should be fine.

 

 

Also, when you were planning this out, did you think about including an active cooler? Not in the "I'm going to run several feet of tubing through an old freezer" line of thought, but with a thermoelectric cooler?

 

Anyway, awesome job. Can't wait for the next update.

Wouldn't a Peltier element create a lot of condensation, though? Too much of the good stuff I think. I didn't actually plan on using two radiators, but I decided it was better to be on the safe side, and I don't think that one front rad would have given me proper temps, especially when overclocking. Hopefully these two will do fine, considering the low TDP of the GTX 980.

 

Thanks for the kind words, glad to know that you're enjoying the build.