Darkmatter35

My recently completed workstation project  This is a dual Xeon, 44-core rig with GTX 1080's in SLI and 256 G's of RAM. All EK loop.
 

 
More pictures:
 
Here it is on my desk 
 

 

Not much to look at, but here are some in-development pictures of my build. i7-7700k and a Titan XP in the loop, all inside of a Node 202 case. At first the thermal results were a little disappointing. I switched the fans to be between the GPU and the radiator pushing air out the bottom of the case and now it works great. It fits with all of the exterior shell of the case being unmodified. Pretty happy with the results. 

So I thought this was going to be a lot harder and painstaking than it was! I really enjoyed building this rig as it is the first time I have ever attempted something like this and I even managed to achieve a stable overclock at 4.8ghz @ 1.26volts. After stress testing overnight, temperatures never increased more than 52C on the CPU and having everything cranked up on heaven benchmark, the GPU peaked at 67C. 
 
Please excuse the cable management, it was the best I could do first time around!
 
I changed all the case fans to Corsair's ML fans, 2 140's at the front, 1 140 at the top and 1 120 at the back of the S340 Elite. The red and black theme I was going for works well and I am really happy with the results.
 
If there are any improvements anyone can suggest it would be great so I know what things to tweak / change.
 
Full Part List: 
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel - Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£298.98 @ Aria PC) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H115i 104.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£122.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: MSI - Z270 GAMING M7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£213.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (£274.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£281.00 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Western Digital - BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£68.98 @ CCL Computers) 
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GAMING X Video Card  (£735.09 @ BT Shop) 
Case: NZXT - S340 Elite (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£76.80 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 (EU) 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£114.31 @ Amazon UK) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  (£82.20 @ Aria PC) 
Case Fan: Corsair - ML120 Pro 75.0 CFM  120mm Fan  (£15.29 @ Aria PC) 
Case Fan: Corsair - ML140 97.0 CFM  140mm Fans  (£23.99 @ Aria PC) 
Keyboard: Corsair - K70 LUX RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard  (£145.47 @ Amazon UK) 
Mouse: Corsair - M65 PRO RGB FPS Wired Optical Mouse  (£49.98 @ PC World Business) 
Total: £2503.98
 

Since roughly the start of 2016 I've been contemplating a new watercooling project, but wasn't sure what to do as I was happy with my main rig already. Then my thoughts turned to upgrading my HTPC so it could play games as well as serve media (with the aim to dust off my racing seat/wheel and play on the htpc. I spent some time thinking about how to approach this and then @red773 made a thread about how he'd watercooled a node202 which really kicked off my interest in making this a reality - although I wanted to go hardline and also wanted it to look completely stock from the outside (so no chopping the top of the case up to let tubes fit etc...).
 
Fast forward a few weeks and I had pretty much everything I needed apart from the pump/res (more on that in a later post) and the final list of fittings.

 
For anyone who wants a complete parts list you can see the pcpp link in the spoiler..
 
Before I even consider putting any of the watercooling parts together, I had to fix a huge issue..... The motherboard and RAM are red and black - which I absolutely detest (sorry to the millions out there who love it). I stripped off everything with red paint on it and already thought the bare components looked a lot better...

 
For the heatsinks, I simply masked off all the black areas leaving the red paint exposed before giving it a light sand. The RAM accents were just sanded and the chipset heatsink had a combination of masking and being attacked with a sharp blade to remove the plastic covering it came with to expose the red paint.

 
As I live in a high rise apartment, I don't have access to large areas to put together a spray booth so I had to go ghetto on it in my living room!


 
A few coats later and it looked a bit like this

 
 
That's it for now but plenty of updates and pics to follow (I'll add spoilers to the first post for late comers).
 
UPDATE 1:
 
UPDATE 2:
 
UPDATE 3:
 
UPDATE 4:
 

If things get that bad, I'm sure we will
 
As for progress, we have spray-painted the IO shields to fit with our intended black/copper theme:
 

So this is not a continuous build log but rather most of my build crammed in one, as I've been too busy to be posting all steps individually or even taking pictures of all of it. But I'd like to share my build and the process nevertheless. 
 
As with my previous builds I have reused most of the components and only added a new case (the primochill praxis wet bench) and a few bits and bobs needed to make it into a dual loop system.
 
Originally I had my eyes on the Open bench table but I wanted the base tray to be angled to better show of the hardware which the Open Bench Table wouldn't do unless I did some significant mods to it (most likely out of my skill level anyways) and bought a SFF PSU. Instead I've used the PrimoChill Praxis Wet Bench and ghetto modded and additional 360 rad to the front of it. If anyone from praxis is watching... there is plenty of room for you guys to perhaps add it to the middle tray. But instead of boring you lets get on with the pictures.
 
First things first... draining the old system

 
Building the new case

 
I did a lot of test fitting an measuring.. tedious task but important ones.

 
Another "mod" I did to the case was bolting a 2.5 HDD cage from a Corsair Air 240 next to the PSU. Saved me the trouble of getting more custom sleeved cables and makes access to the drivers a lot easier. After the front rad has been mounted access to anything on the bottom and was not easy.


 
Also found a spot for my Aquareo 5 LT fan controller. Turns out the somebody tailor made the distance between the cutouts above where the PSU will sit perfect. Couple of washers and MB screws and voila!

 
Front rad Ghetto Mounted:


It is by no means pretty - but it is on solid and doesn't botch
 
More pics of fitting the pump/res unti and pass throughs













 
Repainted a rad black again after I painted it white for a previous build


 
Redid my radbox as I had extra fittings available this time
Before

After

 
Flushing the ZMT tubing from EK.. Forgot that the very first time I used it... required me to take everything apart to clean all blocks and tubes... won't forget that again... (It is even clearly written on the front of the box it comes in... erhm @EK Luc Can you guys put stickers on the tubing itself with that info in the future so us numb nuts also get it?  )

 
Ready for final assembly

 
Bleeding

 
Final shots





 
Ended up being by far the most extensive modding I've been doing to a case.. well if I can call drilling holes modding...
 
Hope you guys enjoyed it.. I know I did
 
 
 

Finally finished the Hard Tubing...  Still bleeding the air out though.  Also an after thought I have only used bay reservoirs up till now so this is my first internal reservoir so the first change I am making is to add a Flow meter.  If I had piped the return flow into the top of the res probably would have seen some water motion but with this setup you can't really tell its running other than the temps.  Oh second after thought when I add the flow meter also add a bleed valve at the top of the loop currently this thing is impossible to drain. 
 
Ryzen 1800X at Stock.
2 x 1080ti Founders Editiion Video Cards with EK (Titan X Blocks) running at up to 2037 Mhz.
ASUS Crosshair 6 Hero Motherboard with the EK Crosshair 6 Mono Block, Beta Bios 9945.
2 x 16 Gig Corsair LPX 3200 running at 2933 MHz (needs Work).
Storage Samsung 850 EVO M.2 500 GB and a WD Black 2 TB.
Power Supply EVGA 1000 Watt G2. 
Bitspower Res and D5 Pump.
Monsoon Fittings.
Corsair 750D case.
 
Superposition Score at 1080p Extreme 11,864.   GPU Temp 56 Degrees
Superposition Score at 4K Optimised 17,930.   GPU Temp 54 Degrees
 
 
 
 
 

Parts list:
 
Loop components:
 
CPU Mark with all 44 cores. I guess it's safe to say that this is one of the most powerful mid-towers out there? 
 
Some photos of the mostly finished loop:
 
Update: Loop completed and tested! Here's a shot of the entire build...
 

 
 
More Photos:
 
 
 

Today I received my AudioGD NFB-11.28 through DHL.
Imgur Album: Unboxing the AudioGD NFB-11.28
Sound review coming soon!
 

awe shucks you got me

Hey.
 
Its more then enough but its more fun to have 4 pumps
 
I've finished this project the last days.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Thanks for following.

Update #3 – Component Photos
 
Update #3 – Component Photos
 
I got around to editing the photos I took, enjoy!
 
6800k. Processors are really frickin hard to photograph.


 
G. Skill Ripjaws 32gb kit. The heatspreaders are really nice on these, the photos certainly don’t do them justice. Too bad I’ll be replacing them with Monarch modules.


 
Samsung 960 EVO 250gb. The plan is for this drive to handle the OS and Main Applications.


 
Intel 750 Series 400gb. I don’t have a big storage library, so this will do for bulk storage. It’s mostly going to be for show anyway. I also have two 850 EVO 250gb drives going in the build, those will be used as a RAID 0 scratch disk for the little PS and Premiere that I do. 


 
GTX 1080. I’m sure most of you have probably seen a million and two of these on the forums, this will be more than sufficient for my needs.

10/10 Unboxing experience.

The founders coolers are really nice.

 
X99-M WS. Even after the X299 Announcement, this is still the best mAtx Board on the market IMO.
 



 
On to some water cooling gear! Let’s start with EK:

Supremacy X99. 

Intel 750 Series SSD Block. The plan is to flat-out steal L3P’s idea and make an acrylic top for this so that it matches the rest of the components.
 

EK-FC 1080 GTX. I’m on the fence regarding whether to polish these blocks, we’ll see a little later on down the road.


 
Singularity Computers Protium. Everything about this reservoir is great, the quality and aesthetics are so understated that they will literally fit in any build, can’t wait to use it. 


 
Aquacomputer Aquaero 6 PRO and Flow Sensor. Again, super high quality parts, worth every penny. 
 
 
 
And finally, the case. Unfortunately my setup is not large enough to properly capture this, so I will leave a single photo below and figure something out before I need to shoot the final photos.

 
In the meantime, I received my aluminum panels, and upon opening the package realized that I completely forgot to measure and order one piece, so that will put the project on hold for a day or two (which isn’t awful considering finals and work will hold it up as well).
Thanks for looking!

Oh cool. I find that 25in 1440p is much easier to look at than 27in

Not exactly the aforementioned night, but here are some final pictures. It's done now (and yes my desk is a mess atm). Some tubes are not perfectly as straight as I would like them to be, but I cannot fix that without wasting tons of tubing. Overall I think it turned out to be a pretty nice loop. Only the lighting is a little too bright maybe. I'm thinking of adding something to make it more diffuse.

Update #2 – Cutting some holes
Over the past couple of days I’ve been able to get some preliminary work done for the mods, as well as take some photos of the components, though I haven’t been able to rummage through and edit them yet. I was also able to test everything on my super sick test bench:
 

 
Now, on to the mods. The first thing on the to-do list was to disassemble the case.
 

 

 
From here, I reversed the top panel so that the radiator mount offset carries over to the inverted layout. Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of this. After that, I masked and cut out a large portion of the rear panel, which will be replaced with 2mm aluminum, along with the motherboard tray.
 

 

 
Rough Cut:
 

 
All filed up. This was done with a Dremel.
 

 
After this, I took measurements and ordered (hopefully) all the aluminum needed, I also picked up some screws and standoffs as well as some other bits and pieces from McMaster. That’s all for now, thanks for looking!
 

Possibly the last intel platform enthusiasts will buy. I wanted to move toward your cpu/mobo setup but now I might opt for amd 

Hey Everyone! My name is Dawson and thanks so much for checking out my build log! This will be my fourth build, second time liquid cooling, and first time using a form factor other than ATX. The goal of this build is to find a case that has excellent craftsmanship and subtle aesthetics (and will therefore need no exterior modification) and modify the interior to create a unique but clean look. That being said, let’s get on with the specs:
 
Core Components:
CPU – 6800k
GPU – Gtx 1080
RAM – 32gb G.skill Ripjaws 4 2666mhz
Mobo – Asus X99-M WS
PSU – Corsair RM1000i
Storage – Samsung 960 Evo 250gb, Intel 750 Series 400gb PCIE, 2x Samsung 850 EVO 250gb in RAID 0
Case – Phanteks Evolv Micro ATX Glass, Anthracite Grey
 
Liquid Cooling:
Blocks – EK Nickel Plexi for CPU, GPU, Intel SSD
Pump – Alphacool VPP755 with EK X-Top Revo Plexi
Radiators – EK SE240 and EK SE360
Fans – 5x Noiseblocker BlackSilent Pro
Reservoir – Singularity Computers Protium Medium – Polished Acrylic with Black rings
Fittings – TBD, Bitspower 16mm of some colour most likely
Fluid – TBD, leaning towards Mayhems X-1 Purple at this point
 
Miscellaneous:
Cables – Scratch-Built using Mainframe Customs Black Sleeving and Gosumodz Alliance Combs
Lighting – TBD
Control – Aquaero 6 PRO with Flow and Temp Sensors
Nanoxia CoolForce Cable Combs
 
Modification list:
 
Create a custom, inverted motherboard tray from aluminum
Create a custom rear case panel to clean up the aesthetics
Modify the GPU bracket (for what I won’t say yet…) ;P
Powder coat all interior parts matte black
 
That’s all for now, but I’ll just leave the obligatory group photo below for now:
 

 
Thanks for looking!

I've made a fair bit of progress since last.

A lot of sawing,

filing

and the edges sanded smooth.




Drilled perforation holes for the PSU to breathe.


Made a basement wall as well as a bottom panel.

Painting is up next.

Soooo... My first ever attempt at a water cooling loop...
 
I'm dubbing it 'The Communist'... Its a lot of red. 
 
Utterly pointless as my cpu isn't unlocked, but a great learning experience!
 
i54570
gtx Titan
Generic Asus mobo 
Generic RAM
Cheap pump/block/ reservoir/radiator/fans I got from Chinese EBay (taobao)
 
Built in my Core V21
 

Im done still waiting for a vinyl sticker for the sli bridge to support my favorite computer shop. So far the rig is complete.
 

I tried my best but managing 12 fan cables with custom extension. The hard part was the gpu and mobo cables. It used 16awg wires which is very thick and incredible difficult to get it organized since i gave all the cables extra length since its was my first time to sleeve and make own custom cables. The sata cables was also troublesome due to one sata cables is longer then the other.
 

 

 












 

im fine dude 

I problem with ultrawides is I just think they might be too big. I love my 27" monitors but I don't like how close they are to television size.
 
Considering getting the Dell UP2516D and the Dell U2415
 
Doing ultrawide research now  

Just some of the builds I did recently

I'm thinking of doing a dual-system, with two independent loops, in a Phanteks Enthoo Elite when/if it releases. Although, the In Win 909 and Mudrerbox MKII are both very eye-catching cases to me at the moment as well. I'm also considering something a little bit different, like glass tubing, chrome/nickel tubing, or steel-braided tubing.

NCase M1 Build

Phanteks Evolv Glass Build

Current Build, on the recently reviewed OpenTestBench. No fancy pictures of it at the moment, just crappy phone pictures
 
 

I totally forgot to post my Build here o.0 Oh well, better late than never ^^
 

 

 

 
 

Okay thanks everyone! god I really wish SLI wasn't so nonsensical sometimes. Waiting for the 1080ti for my single card upgrade