Linus inspired RGB madness!

[n0xlf]

I've built lots of machines over the years, but this is my first custom loop!

 

Parts:
 

• Thermaltake The Tower 900 case
• Asus ROG Rampage VI Extreme Omega
• Intel i9-9980XE Extreme CPU (running all 18 cores at 4.3GHz sync'd)
• 128GB G.Skill F4-3200C15Q2-128GTZ
• Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080Ti OC
• Asus Hyper M.2 X16 v2 card with 4x1TB Intel 760p SSDs running VROC RAID-0
• Seasonic Prime Titanium 1000W PS
• Asus PA32U ProArt HDR monitor
• 2x Thermaltake CL480 480mm radiators
• 18x Thermaltake RGB water fittings
• Tons of liquid cooling goodness (mostly Barrow/Bykski water blocks/fittings/etc) from FormulaMod
• 8x Thermaltake Riing Plus 12 RGB fans (back radiators)
• 3x Thermaltake Riing Plus 14 RGB fans (back/top front)
• Noctua NF-P14s 140mm fan (back top)
• Lots of acrylic tubing (yes, I did it the hard way!)

 

 

 

 

Partially inspired by Linus' RGB build in the Thermaltake 900 case, I went all the way with RGB with controllers that run other controllers (this isn't even all of them, but gives you an idea):

 

 

Here's the VROC RAID:

 

 

Side fans (another 4 on the other side with the other radiator):

 

 

Funny as it may seem, a tin foil mockup!  It's really hard to visualize this much plumbing in three dimensions otherwise (there are some changes between the mockup and final so it was very useful):

 

 

Here's a combination of both learning how to bend and some surplus from cuts:

 

 

There are tons of possible combinations of color since I can control everything, but here are a few:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I 3D printed the bezel for the little screen in the middle (it's on the back side) and cut out the part that would normally house 2 extra HDDs.  Also replaced quite a few of the stock rivets with stainless hex head cap screws and added wheels on the bottom.

 

It's by far the slowest booting computer I've ever built!  This is a function of the motherboard itself and the very long time it takes the VROC RAID to initialize.  Having that many SSDs in RAID-0 also kills 4K Q1T1 but that's to be expected:

 

 

Overall I'm pretty darn happy with it!  Battlefield V and others with ray tracing and HDR are simply incredible to play (I get killed a lot just staring at the scenery).

[Guest]

I have to say, this is the first Tower 900 build I've actually liked!

Really nice job on this!

[Derrk]

this is beautiful

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

you have so well that we have to be picky as well.

Why is the tube at cpu positioned diagonal instead of L shape?? 

[n0xlf]

2 minutes ago, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

you have so well that we have to be picky as well.

Why is the tube at cpu positioned diagonal instead of L shape?? 

As I recall my thinking at the time was that the clearance between it and the GPU tube was pretty close but looking at it now it could be done.  I'll save that for the next distilled flush...

[Skiiwee29]

I think my heart skipped a beat or 2 looking at this. 

[TheBean]

holy shit thats amazing. 

 

Edit: hold up.... are you building your pc ON CARPET?

[thrasher_565]

looks nice. ya you may think that rgb controller bundle is a lot...but ill have something that will pass that.... it will be insanity. you got me beat on rgb fittings thow...

[n0xlf]

4 minutes ago, Saksham said:

holy shit thats amazing. 

 

Edit: hold up.... are you building your pc ON CARPET?

Doesn't everyone?

 

No - most of the assembly was on concrete and I was very static aware.  It did end up back on carpet for part of the initial fill when I had to tip it in all directions to get the air out but I only had the pump running.

[n0xlf]

6 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

looks nice. ya you may think that rgb controller bundle is a lot...but ill have something that will pass that.... it will be insanity. you got me beat on rgb fittings thow...

You may be interested in this unless you have something else going on:

https://www.formulamod.com/Barrow-DK301-16-16-way-Controllers-Full-Function-LRC20-5V-RGB-Controller-Can-Synchronization-5V-RGB-Motherboard-p1831967.html

 

I didn't use any of its internal functions since I Aura sync'd everything, but they are pretty awesome (and multi-functional) for the price.

[thrasher_565]

7 minutes ago, n0xlf said:

You may be interested in this unless you have something else going on:

https://www.formulamod.com/Barrow-DK301-16-16-way-Controllers-Full-Function-LRC20-5V-RGB-Controller-Can-Synchronization-5V-RGB-Motherboard-p1831967.html

 

I didn't use any of its internal functions since I Aura sync'd everything, but they are pretty awesome (and multi-functional) for the price.

ya i got the corsair controllers and fans but ill have to hook, bykski, barrow, lian li, and posably ezdiyfab all together to the corsair controllers. should be fun....said no one. but ill put out a guide when im done. then there's the problem of controlling so so many fans... i did get a aquacpmputer controller on the way so that should work.

Edited September 23, 2019 by thrasher_565

[n0xlf]

A few other things while I'm thinking of it.  I tried white Thermaltake P1000 coolant thinking that it would really make it pop, but I really didn't like the look.  Without the RGB fittings on it looked awesome (I should have taken pics!) but once illuminated it looked very splotchy and cloudy instead of a nice consistent illuminated white tube.  Linus' build shows this in certain parts but it's hard to get a feel for what it looked like.

It may be a blessing that it didn't work out for me though as distilled is way easier to maintain and doesn't come with the potential problems of gunking up/fading/etc.

 

Contrary to what the pics show, the right tank is the cold side and the left is hot.  It takes a while when first turned on to get everything mixed and showing that, but eventually the left tank will show a few C hotter.  Two 480mm radiators in a single loop is definitely overkill as even with 100% load on all cores and the GPU my water temp stays very low.  Low 30s is as high as I've seen it.  The benefit of that kind of overkill is that it runs virtually silent with very conservative fan curves.

[thrasher_565]

8 hours ago, n0xlf said:

A few other things while I'm thinking of it.  I tried white Thermaltake P1000 coolant thinking that it would really make it pop, but I really didn't like the look.  Without the RGB fittings on it looked awesome (I should have taken pics!) but once illuminated it looked very splotchy and cloudy instead of a nice consistent illuminated white tube.  Linus' build shows this in certain parts but it's hard to get a feel for what it looked like.

It may be a blessing that it didn't work out for me though as distilled is way easier to maintain and doesn't come with the potential problems of gunking up/fading/etc.

 

Contrary to what the pics show, the right tank is the cold side and the left is hot.  It takes a while when first turned on to get everything mixed and showing that, but eventually the left tank will show a few C hotter.  Two 480mm radiators in a single loop is definitely overkill as even with 100% load on all cores and the GPU my water temp stays very low.  Low 30s is as high as I've seen it.  The benefit of that kind of overkill is that it runs virtually silent with very conservative fan curves.

ya distilled water the way to go imo w/e you did it looks really good.

[wafflehaus]

Gorgeous. Nice work!

[For Science!]

On 9/23/2019 at 6:07 PM, n0xlf said:

Contrary to what the pics show, the right tank is the cold side and the left is hot.  It takes a while when first turned on to get everything mixed and showing that, but eventually the left tank will show a few C hotter.  Two 480mm radiators in a single loop is definitely overkill as even with 100% load on all cores and the GPU my water temp stays very low.  Low 30s is as high as I've seen it.  The benefit of that kind of overkill is that it runs virtually silent with very conservative fan curves.

Very nice build, I was wondering since you have so many temp probes, if you could help the community by running a whole system stress test like RealBench until the system equilibriates and report back with the temperatures at each point in your loop?

[n0xlf]

Here's an 8 hour run at 100% CPU/GPU in the order of the loop from radiator out (cold tank) to radiator in (hot tank) - Ambient 68F:

 

Cold tank - 29.8 (bottom probe showing 28)
CPU - 30.7 (core 64)
GPU - 32.2 (core 41)
Hot tank - 33.1 (bottom probe showing 32)

Flow rate - 8 L/M