Paulsterio's HAF X Build Log - 360mm + 240mm Radiator

[paulsterio]

I've just caught the PC modding bug and I've decided to build my first watercooling loop. Natively, the HAF X only supports one 360mm radiator on the top, but I've seen many people install another 240mm radiator by removing the hard drive cage. I'm not quite up to the task of doing that yet, so here's my creative way of mounting 500mm of radiator space in a Coolermaster HAF X. 

 

First up, my components:

- ASRock Z77 OC Formula

- Intel Core i5 3570K

- 4 x 4GB DDR3-1333 Patriot Signature RAM 

- ASUS GTX660

- 120GB Intel 520 SSD

- 500GB HGST 2.5" 7200RPM HDD

- Corsair TX650 PSU

- Coolermaster HAF X

 

Prior to my watercooling loop, my system was cooled by a Noctua NH-D14, which cost me $84 (I'm from Australia). This whole watercooling loop ended up costing around $350. One of the things I'll be talking about too is whether it's all worth that extra money. 

 

Anyway, here goes, sorry about the bad quality, I don't have a camera, so just using my Nexus 4. 

 

Firstly, this is my old system, which is now a dedicated file server, it's a Sandy Bridge, these days it has 4 x 2TB HDDs in RAID 10, with a dedicated 1TB torrent disk, 120GB SSD boot drive and an optical drive, which I sometimes use to burn CDs for my car or read the odd disk here or there. 

 

 

Anyway, so I removed my Noctua NH-D14 and went back to stock speeds whilst I was waiting for my new parts to arrive. I decided to use my old graphics card for the time being as well. So this was how my HAF X looked at the time. 

 

 

It was stripped bare, so I took off the top, the front as well as all the large 200mm fans that were cooling it. At this point in time, I also had a dilemma, I wanted to get rid of my SSD and 1TB HDD which used to live in the HDD bays, so I needed a smart way to mount them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to mount that 3.5" drive, so it had to be replaced with a 500GB 2.5" drive. I ended up mounting them on the back of my optical drive like this, so managed to get a secure mount and they're out of the way. It's also easy to run the cables up there. This is how the back looks now:

 

 

I also should explain how my cabling works. My PSU is non-modular, so I have to use sleeved extensions to give it that sharp look without voiding my PSU warranty. I went with BitFenix ones, which have been great. So what I have is simply the 24 pin ATX connected to an extension, wired in through a grommet, the 8 pin EPS connected to an extension and wired in through the hole in the top left of the case as well as one single 4 x Molex powering everything else. I used a 3 way molex splitting cable to turn that into a 7 x Molex power cable. They'll almost all be used up:

 

- 1. Fan splitter - 6 x fans

- 2. Fan splitter - 3 x fans

- 3. Molex to 2 x SATA for SSD + HDD

- 4. Inverter for Cold Cathodes

- 5. Watercooling pump

- 6. (free for now)

- 7. (free for now)

 

Anyway, I didn't take any pictures during the assembly process, but I have a 360mm XSPC radiator up the top, in push-pull, pulling air INTO the case (so they also act as intakes). The 140mm fan at the back is the exhaust. So this is how it looks with just natural lighting. 

 

 

And here are a few more shots with some comments

 

Here's the 360 rad in the top with the XSPC fans as well as the 240 rad in the front, which is just in push (it has fans at the front pushing air into the case). 

 

 

The blue cold cathode on the top. 

 

 

CPU block and a bit of the graphics card. 

 

 

Pump down the bottom, that power cable to the pump is so ugly, so I probably should sleeve that when I have a bit of time. 

 

 

240mm radiator from the back (inside of the case). 

 

 

240mm radiator from the front, it only has one 120mm fan on it at the moment, I'm still figuring out how to dremel the case to fit in another 120mm fan on it, everything's planned out, just have to get it done. 

 

 

And just a few more shots. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overclocking Time! 

 

What's the point of that watercooling loop if I don't overclock? At the moment, I can get stable up to 5.40 GHz, but I've decided to tone it back down to 5.10 GHz to get better temperatures and just lower voltages. 

 

 

 

And just a few benchmarks for good measure. 

 

Super PI: 7.251s

 

 

Cinebench 11: 8.10 (5.10 GHz), 7.97 (4.90 GHz)

 

 

And just a temperature test with Prime 95:

 

 

Anyway, so that's all from me today, my aim was just to show how I managed to fit a 360 + 240 radiator into a HAF X. If I wanted to, I could have also added a 140mm or 120mm radiator at the back exhaust, but it would have been just too much radiator space for just a CPU loop. I have great temperatures and an amazing overclock with this loop and that's good enough for me. 

 

Now I just have to work out how to get that 2nd 120mm fan on the front radiator and mod that front panel. 

 

Cheers for reading guys, hopefully I'll be able to update you all soon

 

[Excon]

Wow, 5.4 is impressive. The only I would have done differently was get a 200mm rad for the front instead of the 240mm so you could keep the 5.25 bays for mounting drives.

[paulsterio]

Wow, 5.4 is impressive. The only I would have done differently was get a 200mm rad for the front instead of the 240mm so you could keep the 5.25 bays for mounting drives.

 

Thanks! I'm not confident running it at 5.40 GHz 24/7 though, voltages are just too high and it gets too hot, so I just sit on 5.10 GHz for daily use. 

 

Yeah, a 200mm rad for the front would have worked, but they're a bit hard to find. I don't really use the 5.25" bays for anything anyway, as all my drives go in my file server. 

[Focux]

sweet ass overclock on ur 3570K..amb temp?

[paulsterio]

sweet ass overclock on ur 3570K..amb temp?

 

I would have no idea, as I don't have a temperature sensor or IR gun, but I'm assuming it'd be just below 20 degrees. 

[Hikaru12]

You won the lottery with that chip man. Congratz.

[TicTac]

Nice upgrade