Nodes - A Concept (In drawings)

[nicon]

Frankly, I don't know if this should go in this section or in New Builds and Planning, but if need be, I am happy to have the moderators move this topic.

 

Nodes - A Concept (more like an idea)

 

I'm going to start this by saying I am probably not the person that is going to execute this build. Frankly, I do not have the funds or time to do this. If people like this idea, I would welcome sponsors and will try to find time to do this.

 

I am giving permission to anybody on this forum to give this build a shot, if they feel like it. If you do decide to build this, then I would appreciate if you gave me credit for the design.

 

I also want to apologize for my terrible drawing skills and my lack of scale. The fans might be completely incorrect in size. I also didn’t have a compass handy, so I couldn’t draw circles.

                                    

Ok, let’s get started. This build is basically a computer (super small) with an external radiator box, which carries the pumps, fan controller, radiators and power supply. The only cables running between the rad-box and the PC are the 6 quick disconnect tubes and the 48 pin + SATA + Molex power thing I came up with (it is a 24 pin + two 8 pin PCI + 8 pin CPU).  The rad box carries 1 560mm rad, 60mm thick, for the CPU + MB on one loop. I know it’s overkill.  There will also be two 280mm (60mm) thick rads for the GPUs on another. Water will go into one GPU, then into a 280mm then into the other GPU and then into another 280 before repeating the cycle. This means there is no “daisy chaining” of GPUs. I plan to run the fans at the lowest speed possible for quietness, hence the huge rads. I also plan to use a mITX board with a server-grade PCIe 16x to dual 8x splitter. Then I would use 2 riser cables to go to the GPUs. This will make more sense in the photos drawings below. 

 

The possible use applications for this would be:

     - LAN Parties

     - Desk use (rad box under desk)

     - HTPC (with only one rad, one gpu and a weaker cpu)

     - Showing off

 

Possible specs:

CPU - 4790k

Ram - High speed DDR3 (Dominator, etc)

SSD - 850 Pro ? 

Mobo - Maximus VII Impact

GPUs - 2x GTX 980 (Asus Strix, MSI)

PSU - Silverstone Strider S, Corsair

 

Water cooling stuff:

Alphacool NexXxos 280mm (x2)

Alphacool NexXxos 560mm

Some strong, variable pump (x3) (maybe a D5?)

Bitspower/Primochill Rigid Fittings

Koolance Quick Disconnects

EK Monarch Ram Block

Bitspower Summit / EK Supremacy

     or

EK / Bitspower full board block

Aquaero 6XT

Noctua NF-A14 iPPC 2000 IP67 x 8

Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 2000 IP67 x 4

Noctua NF-A8/9 x 2

Noctua NF-A6 x 4

Noctua NF-A4 x 2

 

P.S. The case would be a powder-coated grey

Here are the pics:

 

As you can see we have the fans (preferably Noctuas). The ram/cpu will be liquid cooled. I planned to have a Maximus VII Impact, so maybe I could have the full-board waterblock for that. You can also see the way I have the GPUs in this photo (I put the terminals on the wrong side though). The usb 3 ports would be covered by a sliding cover. You would slide the cover to the right and it would expose the usb ports.

 

Now you can see the way I have the GPUs positioned clearly. I planned to make the metal case cover the exposed pcb of the GPU, only showing the waterblock + fluid.

 

Here you can see the rear i/o. I might have to make the case longer because as you can see, everything was squished. You can also see the 6 quick disconnects and the 48 pin power + peripheral connector. I didn't label the i/o shield because I don't know what board I / you guys would use. 

 

Here you can see the 120mm Noctua I put in the front and the Aquaero 6xt. I guess I could put a dual-loop bay res here too. Sorry about the sideways photo, on my computer it was right side up and on the forum it isn't.

 

Here you can see where the PSU goes, what I do with the PSU cable and where one set of the 4 140mm fans go. I plan to use the bottom space to do tube/cable management and house the pumps/res. Sorry about the sideways photo!

 

Here you can see where the PSU intake, the power connectors, some exhaust fans and the quick disconnects are. Sorry about the sideways photo!

 

Again, thanks a lot for looking through this post. Please tag me (@nicon) if you have any questions/comments or send me a PM.

 

 

P.S. Does anybody know how to fix the photo rotation issue?

[Enderman]

Plenty of people have built PCs using an external radiator box.

Using 6 tubes is pointless. You can put all the GPUs/CPU in series, with the same number of radiators in series, and you will get exactly the same temps. No use dividing them up.

[Bussinateur]

You would probably need to make some professional renders to get sponsors for this possible build

 

Though grid paper is a start

[nicon]

Plenty of people have built PCs using an external radiator box.

Using 6 tubes is pointless. You can put all the GPUs/CPU in series, with the same number of radiators in series, and you will get exactly the same temps. No use dividing them up.

Won't the water continue to get hotter and hotter after each component? The last component would be "cooled" by hot water leaving the previous components. Why do you think that people put rads in the middle of their loop or two loops altogether? Also the key difference betwwen my idea and other people's builds is that my psu is in the completely seperate rad-box, allowing me to have a sleek, slim main PC.

 

True, maybe I could get away with four tubes, having the gpus in series, and the cpu all on one loop with rads in between.

[nicon]

You would probably need to make some professional renders to get sponsors for this possible build

 

Though grid paper is a start

True, but I have no idea how to use rendering software. I tried blender and I was able to make a cube, and then I gave up.  Sponsors are just a fantasy, if this ends up getting good community support, I might consider getting myself a good education in rendering or just hire somebody.

[Bussinateur]

True, but I have no idea how to use rendering software. I tried blender and I was able to make a cube, and then I gave up.  Sponsors are just a fantasy, if this ends up getting good community support, I might consider getting myself a good education in rendering or just hire somebody.

 

Sketchup is pretty user-friendly

 

Give it a try, it is much more rewarding to do it yourself! 

 

 

http://www.sketchup.com/

[Enderman]

Won't the water continue to get hotter and hotter after each component? The last component would be "cooled" by hot water leaving the previous components. Why do you think that people put rads in the middle of their loop or two loops altogether? Also the key difference betwwen my idea and other people's builds is that my psu is in the completely seperate rad-box, allowing me to have a sleek, slim main PC.

 

True, maybe I could get away with four tubes, having the gpus in series, and the cpu all on one loop with rads in between.

That's a myth. The temperature difference between each component is a fraction of a degree.

People putting radiators between their components are doing it for either aesthetic reasons or shorter tubing runs, or else they dont understand how watercooling works.

 

The fluid is moving so fast through the loop that it doesnt have time to heat up, so the temperature is normalized throughout the entire loop.

put two CPUs and 4 GPUs in a single loop and the fluid temperature before the components might be .2 or .5 degrees more than before the components.

 

if you see a video of someone filling a watercooling loop you will see how freaking fast the pump moves the water.

[KRImSIN]

Ooooh i like this it's unique.

[nicon]

Sketchup is pretty user-friendly

 

Give it a try, it is much more rewarding to do it yourself! 

 

 

http://www.sketchup.com/

I'll give it a shot.

[nicon]

Ooooh i like this it's unique.

Thanks!

[nicon]

2 980s but an itx motherboard? whaaa?

@BurnerMC Yep, since this build is relatively old, I'd probably use the Asrock X99 ITX board.

Anyways let me explain. Most (all) ITX mobos have a 16 lane slot (x16). There are very simple and readily-available splitters that will split this into two 8 lane (x8) slots. The ICs onboard the splitter allow the mobo to recognize two gpus.

Here is one of the splitters: http://www.compsource.com/ttechnote.asp?part_no=RSCR2UT2E8R&vid=428&src=F

P. S. They also have 4 way splitters that create x4 slots. This eans that you could run 28 cards (only useful for bitcoin mining or a gpu render-array) in a mobo like the Asus X99 WS or Z97 WS.

Check out http://amfeltec.com/products/gpu-oriented-cluster and also the rest of their website for some pretty cool pcie expansion stuff.

Edit: Technically you could have 16 x1 slots per x16 slot. So on the x99 WS you could technically have 88 cards running at x1 if you wanted.