Stealth - Corsair Obsidian 350D mATX Watercooled Build with 600mm of Radiator

[Chiumanfu]

Hey guys. Long time lurker, first time poster.

 

The purpose of this build is to replace my aging Athlon 64 X2 5000+ system with something a little more current. I do a lot of photo and video work. Not much gaming right now but I am very much looking forward to StarCitizen. I needed a smaller form factor to fit beside my desk and sound output is extremely important. I wanted to build in enough cooling so that I could throw in a couple R9-290x's (or whatever the latest and greatest card is when StarCitizen is finally released) in crossfire and not be worried about needing cooling upgrades. I managed to shoe horn 3 rads into the 350D for a total of 600mm of radiator area. I will update this build log when I decide on what GPU will fill the void. I bought most of the parts from NCIX and Dazmode and the radiators from FrozenCPU. All three companies were a pleasure to deal with.

 

Parts List

1 x Intel Core i7 4770K Unlocked Quad Core 3.5GHZ Processor LGA1150 Haswell 8MB Cache Retail

1 x ASUS Gryphon Z87 mATX LGA1150 Z87 DDR3 3PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 SLI SATA3 USB3.0 HDMI Motherboard

1 x ASUS Gryphon Thermal Armor AIRFLOW-BOOSTING Dust Repel Armor Kit

1 x Corsair AX860 860W ATX 12V V2.31 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply Active PFC 120mm Fan

1 x G.SKILL Sniper F3-1866C9D-16GSR 16GB 2X8GB DDR3-1866 CL9 240PIN 1.5V Dual Channel Memory Kit

1 x Corsair Obsidian 350D mATX Black Window Gaming Case 2X5.25 2X3.5 2X2.5 Front USB3.0 Audio No PSU

1 x Samsung 840 Evo Series MZ-7TE250BW 250GB 2.5in SATA III Internal SSD Single Unit Version

5 x Corsair Air Series SP120 120MM 2350RPM 62.74CFM 35DBA High Static Pressure Fan

2 x Bitfenix Alchemy Multisleeve 3-pin to 3 x 3-Pin Y Cable Splitter - 60cm Black

4 x DarkSide Dimmable 20cm LED - Cold White - Jet Black Sleeved w/ 3-pin Fan Connector

4 x DarkSide 3-pin Fan to 4 pin Molex Adapter

 

1 x Koolance RP-1005BK 1kW Series Reservoir and Pump in 5.25" bay - Black

1 x Koolance Temperature Sensor 10K ohm

12 x Swiftech 3/8IN X 5/8IN LOK-SEAL Compression Fitting G1/4 - Black

1 x Swiftech MCRES-MICRO-R2 Clear HI-FLOW Water Cooling Reservoir 3/8IN & 1/2IN Barb Fittings

1 x IandH Silver Kill Coil - Antimicrobial .999 Fine Silver Tubing/Reservoir Strip

1 x PrimoChill PRIMOFLEX™ Advanced LRT™ Crystal Clear 3/8 ID 5/8 OD Tubing (10FT)

1 x Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper Slim Profile Dual 120mm Radiator

1 x Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper Slim Profile Single 120mm Radiator

1 x Alphacool NexXxoS UT60 Full Copper Dual 120mm Radiator

2 x XSPC 120mm Dual Radiator Gasket

2 x XSPC 120mm Single Radiator Gasket

1 x EK Supremacy CPU Water Block - Plexi Copper

1 x EK Supremacy Precise Mount Add-On Naked Ivy CPU Block Adapter Hardware

1 x XSPC Sleeved 3mm Dual LED Module - White

1 x EK DDC X-TOP CSQ - Acetal

1 x XSPC Laing DDC Stand Black Plexi

3 x BitsPower 90 Degree Double Rotary Adapter M/F G1/4 Black BP-MB90R2

1 x BitsPower 60 Degree Rotary Adapter M/F G1/4 Black BP-MB60R

1 x BitsPower 120 Degree Double Rotary Adapter M/F G1/4 - Black BP-MB120R2

2 x BitsPower 8mm Spacer Extender Adapter - G1/4 Male/Female - Matt Black

1 x BitsPower 25mm Spacer Adapter Male/Female - Matt Black

 

 

I delidded the CPU which lowered me about 10 degrees C on average. I used the hairdryer method...

which is a lot less crazy than the hammer method. I didn't even need to use the hairdryer. Just place the CPU correctly and squeeze the IHS off. It works perfectly and unlike the hammer method, there is a lot less oppportunity for disaster. The very first guy to take a hammer to his brand new 4770K must have had more balls than brains.

 

After the obligatory air cooled burn in, I started cramming all the water cooling into the case. I didn't take any pictures of the build phase, sorry. This is the completed build. One ST30 240mm rad in the top with two fans in push exhausting air. One ST30 120mm in the back with a a fan in pull as the intake. One UT60 240mm in the front with two fans in push intaking through the front panel.

 

EK Supremacy water block is mounted with the Naked Ivy mounting kit. This lowers the mounting point to account for delidded CPUs. 

 

Swiftech MicroRes is mounted to the side of the radiator with industrial strength velcro tape. The inlet tube bend is tight but no where near kinking. The PrimoFlex tubing has awesome bending characteristics but I might end up replacing it as I can already see some plasticizer fogginess. Temperature probe is plugged into the bottom port and fed to the fan/pump controller. You can see the hacked controller at the top of the pic. 

 

Just love the look of the Obsidian series cases.

 

Theres two 3mm LEDs in the water block and four 20cm LED light strips from Dazmode to light up the case.

 

The Koolance RP-1005BK res/pump/controller unit was a major dissappointment. Firstly it didn't fit. It is about 5cm too long and hits the motherboard long before it is fully inserted. Also, it is almost impossible to bleed. The pump will only burp it's air if you tilt the whole case to the front and towards you. Ofcourse when you tilt it, the water will leak from the fill port so you have to plug it. Fill the res, close the fill port, tilt the case, run the pump, lower the case, open the fill port, fill the res, close the fill port, tilt the case....It is a crazy ridiculous process to bleed the system. I do love the fan/pump controller though so I chopped off the entire back half of the unit, dumped the res, moved the pump and just kept the electronics. This image is pre-hack with the lid opened up.

 

The Alphacool UT60 radiator has a hole at the bottom as a drain port. I figured I can make use of it so I broke out the dremel and cut a opening in the bottom so I can easily drain the loop at the lowest point.

 

The back plane has lots of cables to manage. Short of creating a custom length wiring harness, I think I did a pretty decent job. I guess the only thing that really matters is that the back panel closes without squishing anything. The fans are connected using three-way splitters. The two fans in the front go to channel 1 on the fan controller. The two fans in the top and the single fan in the back go to channel 2. I clipped the RPM lead on all but one fan in each group. I used the voltage limiter included with the SP-120 fans to lower the sound signature.

 

The clearance on the upper rear corner is tight. The top rad bolt is touching the 8 pin connector locking tab. The back rad hose is touching the fan. It definitely all has to go together in a very particular order.

 

This shot is of the top front of the case. The top ST30 radiator's ports exit inside the top drive bay so space is tight and it's pretty difficult to work in there. I had a 180 degree snake fitting but I found that the 60 degree + 120 degree placed the compression fitting in the perfect place so the tube is perfectly horizontal across the top. On the outlet side, I had to dremel out some of the drive bay to get a hose between the top rad and the res. Not the cleanest cuts but it will never be seen anyways.

 

I used one of the tooless trays that came with the 350D to mount the HDD to the floor with double sided tape. The SSD is just stuck to the HDD with more double sided foam tape. I tried getting both drives in the empty 5.25" slot up top but they just would not fit no matter how I tried.

 

Air to water yielded more than 20 degree C drop in CPU temp under Prime95 stress. The Air temp probably would have been a lot higher if I left it to bake for a while. I only left the test run for a couple minutes. Ambient was 21.5 degrees C for both tests.

 

Air

 

Water

 

When I overclocked but I always lean more towards stability than squeezing out every last MHz. Also, the silicon lottery gave me somewhat of a lemon and no matter what I did, I could not find 12 hour Prime95 AVX stability at a x44 mulitplier even with all other clocks turned down and voltages turned up. If I just go by Aida64 or XTU, I could get up to x45 on the cPU and x41 on the cache but I do not consider that 100% stable.

 

My final settings ended up being:

CPU Mulitplier = x43

CPU Voltage = 1.200V

Cache Multiplier = x41

Cache Voltage = 1.195V

VIN = 1.8V

DRAM = 1866

DRAM Voltage = 1.5125V

XMP timings

All other default or Auto

 

 

To-Do List

1) GPU. R9-290 with water block probably.

2) Fill hole in front of fan/pump controller

3) Try new fans. Not super impressed with the Corsair Fans. I think I'll try to get my hands on some Gentle Typhoons.

4) AX860 has some coil whine. I can hear it from about 2 feet from the case. Not sure if it's worth starting an RMA to get it replaced. Anyone else have coil whine issues with the AX860?

5) Swap hoses if plasticizer issue get worse.

[Andrew0472]

looks so nice man good job!

[Skeletonfish]

no gpu? very nice build tho 

[Chatzev]

Very nice build. Well done on the tubing/wiring, it looks very clean.

[hiyayhi]

Looks increadible! No GPU though?

[CyBaNeTiiKz]

He's getting GPU's later. Very nice build, Looks very clean! Love it!

[ltguy]

He's getting GPU's later. Very nice build, Looks very clean! Love it!

Yeah, buts its not gonna fit with that hose to the pump in the way.

[Chiumanfu]

Yeah, buts its not gonna fit with that hose to the pump in the way.

The hose routing will change when I decide on what GPU to get. I will probably re-arrange the loop res-->pump-->GPU-->CPU-->rad-->rad-->rad-->res. Not ideal, but I can't see it happening any other way. There is room for SLI/Crossfire too if I put a 90 right after the pump...again, not ideal but it will work.

 

Just waiting for the dust to settle in the AMD/Nvidia battle to see what the best buy is gonna be this Christmas.

[ltguy]

The hose routing will change when I decide on what GPU to get. I will probably re-arrange the loop res-->pump-->GPU-->CPU-->rad-->rad-->rad-->res. Not ideal, but I can't see it happening any other way. There is room for SLI/Crossfire too if I put a 90 right after the pump...again, not ideal but it will work.

I'm dumb. Forgot about including the card in the loop. 

[Carter]

Awesome, love the case I wanna do a build just like it! I even thought of the same rad configuration soo jealous lol

[enRodjavel]

good looking =D

[atomicmonkey101]

Where is your GPU!?!?!? That has to be in every build, it goes without saying! jk, you may not need it.

[AMICLG]

Wow that's sexy but the fan controller looks odd b/c the new obsidian case have that extended 5.25 bay cover also do you have a GPU on the way or is this a workstation that doesn't need anything more than integrated graphics.

[Chiumanfu]

Wow that's sexy but the fan controller looks odd b/c the new obsidian case have that extended 5.25 bay cover also do you have a GPU on the way or is this a workstation that doesn't need anything more than integrated graphics.

I agree. I contemplated mounting the controller to the top of the case but it ended up being too much work. 

 

I decided I won't be adding a GPU anytime soon. I don't really play games right now and probably won't be until Star Citizen is released. It's a shame X3 Rebirth is such a dud. Right now this PCs main use is Lightroom, Photoshop, Premier and After Effects.

[godsarmy]

Very nice man!

[Analog]

Your build is insane man. I love it!