Kurald Galain: A full custom watercooled x99 blackout build.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Some sick SLI pics (well they look better in person cause #htccamerasucksdick) 

 

I think I will buy a hue+ and some custom cables in a few weeks to "finish" out the build.

[Curufinwe_wins]

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You make me cry with this build. Just perfect! Congrats!

[/indent]

 

Thanks... I never uploaded pictures with the cable extensions I had to buy cause uhh idk if you can see it in the bottom picture but the 850 G2 doesn't come with 4x 8 pin but rather 2x 8 and 2x 8+6 so I snipped off the 6... leaving exposed live wires... it worked, but I needed to fix it.

 

 

I am thinking of buying a hue+ to get some sick lighting in here, and it really can't be considered a black out build anymore, but that's ok. 

 

Finally long term plans are to probably eventually custom watercool. Maybe over the summer I'll do it as a project.

[Curufinwe_wins]

@Lays @W-L @EK Luc

 

Huge updates coming in over the next week.

 

Kurald-Galain has gone full-custom watercooling! Here was the inventory (note 100% EK blocks and res)

 

I have all the parts outside of the tubing (eww go figure, performance-pcs.com said they were in stock but then they weren't and now it's been a week) and ek backplates (they are out of the black ones and I don't think the nickel ones look good with my black on black system.)

 

Anyways first things first, GPU porn taking apart my MSI 980tis...

Dem vram heatsinks... Very impressive.

GPU PRAWN!!!!

One is done.

Checkout all that thermal pads... More than go on the ek block even

Now there are two of them!!! (They are still coming through.... rofl)

Kurald Galain is gutted, man those fans are gross...

The aio rad isn't better...

Christmas morning! (last night...)

 

And then the sad parts.... (Outside of the stuff I haven't gotten yet), I made a super rookie mistake... EK includes three sizes of screws for some reason and doesn't label anything... Well there were 4 longer screws in my package, and since I don't know how long 4mm is, I made the assumption that the 4 were the 4 corners of the gpu standoffs. Well I broke a standoff in my stupidity. 

 

ehh... Well I couldn't get the standoff out, but I did manage to get a good bond with the bracket with gorilla super glue. That said, what started my tightening it down too much is this corner on this exact bracket must be too short or something because I measured and my ghetto attachment is the exact same height as the other 3 and yet some of my memory chips in the corner don't contact the plate (this was why I continued tightening down on the original standoff before it broke. I figured since EK makes these parts so perfect I must not be down enough...) I did check afterwards that this occurs with both 980ti's on this waterblock, but on neither with my other one...

 

So yea... The guide says to try the thicker pads if something like this happens, but there is no where near enough of it left over to cover three or so vram chips. (which make only partial contact with the block)

 

What do you guys think? Should it matter, do I need to try to find thicker pads, and if so what do you recommend (the default is .5 mm)?

 

Also I would have really appreciated if the default MSI backplate would have been made compatible with the waterblock... There was literally no reason not to do so (even the included screws on the backplate have the exact same thread length as the screws EK uses, but EK uses thicker ones outside of the core). 

 

Anyways, more pictures to come of the system, it is all put together outside of the tubing already and I have some tips/tricks with that as well.

[W-L]

-SNIP-

 

I would check with EK to see what they say first about the contact, but usually a good way of checking is to place the block down with the thermal pads in place but with the film still on one side and press lightly set the block down to see if they make an impression on the pads to ensure proper contact.

[Curufinwe_wins]

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I would check with EK to see what they say first about the contact, but usually a good way of checking is to place the block down with the thermal pads in place but with the film still on one side and press lightly set the block down to see if they make an impression on the pads to ensure proper contact.

[/indent]

 

Yea that's what I did (although only after fucking the one up.) I'll throw up a picture when I get home, but it doesn't quite contact them.

 

I really wish EK had a phone line, but I sent an email and hopefully @

EK Luc

will stop by.

 

UPDATE: After over 150 different attempts under every possible lighting condition, I must conclude that it is physically impossible for me to take a picture of the gaps with the cameras I have. It looks to be about .3mm or less (since when I tried to apply a second layer of .5mm pads, it more than filled it in, it prevented contact on the next vram over.

 

The vram chips with two pads on there are the ones I believe to be affected, although the closest one to the corner on the top side is the one I am most concerned about (as it looks like less than half is in contact).

 

 

 

 

[Curufinwe_wins]

While I understand without gpu's in there (or tubing) this may look rather boring... There are a few interesting things from this update!

 

No moduvents? No problem. Meet black foam board! A 4 dollar mod anyone can do.

 

 

Pictured (and barely visible anywhere else) is Alphacool Nexxxos ST30 420mm radiator.

 

It is connected by three HF-14 fans as seen below. These fans should have no issues pushing through the very thin rad, and besides they used to be my front intake and spending money is lame.

 

 

What you may notice in the above is the corner fan seems to have something funny... Well officially Fractal Design only lists compatability for a combined rad+fan thickness of 55mm for a 140x mm radiator. This is why. Now in my previous iteration, I had actually cut part of the corner off of my HP-14 fan (well part of the removable rubber). With this 1mm thicker rad, that was no longer an option and I instead opted to just forgo the corner all together. The fan is well secured on the other three corners, and it shouldn't be too much of a vibrational concern but as might be able to see if you squint I did put a sliver of foam board up in there to prop the fan against the rad in that corner just in case.

\

 

The above front shot shows a little bit of how I am still managing a back fan and going to be able to tighten my loop fittings. You can also see I put my previous radiator HP-14 fans here instead. The front radiator is an Alphacool Nexxxos XT45 280mm radiator. This one also is a bit weird as I have the fittings at the bottom to allow for an imho cooler looking loop, and the 5 fittings on this rad will allow for easy bleeding and a direct drain port out of the case without adding any extra lines (front bottom of the case, below any live pc parts that might get wet) a huge plus.

\

 

I guess that makes this the money shot. I kinda wish I went with black nickel fittings instead of true black because I think black nickel would have matched much better with the gorgeous Nickel EK x99 Supremacy Evo cpu waterblock. An amusing little tidbit... While the GPU blocks are true fingerprint magnets, this block has not been cleaned by me yet, and still looks just as good as the moment I took it out of its casing. Another little advice for EK if EK Luc is reading on, the springs on this block are way too tight. It was a two handed operation just to get the mounting mechanism down far enough to start threading it, an issue that just got worse with each subsequent thumb screw...

 

 

BONUS ROUND @EK Luc this has been going on this way for uhhh a few weeks now at least, but can you guys please fix your Customer Service page... I know you guys have a good rep in the business, and you make amazing products, but this can't send the right image...

 

https://shop.ekwb.com/customer-service

 

 

EDIT: I guess it's a dummy page that slipped through the cracks

[W-L]

-SNIP-

 

Bes to wait and see what they say about it since adding thicker pads might lift the contact on the GPU die making for a bad mount, one thing though why are your front fans mounted in exhaust, your entire case has no intake then?

[Curufinwe_wins]

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Bes to wait and see what they say about it since adding thicker pads might lift the contact on the GPU die making for a bad mount, one thing though why are your front fans mounted in exhaust, your entire case has no intake then?

[/indent]

 

OOPS, thanks for the catch, I wanted it to be intake... The fans are shown from the outside.

 

So two intakes, 4 exhausts... Not ideal but I don't want a single label showing on the inside.

 

I tried it, and the gpu die still had proper contact which makes sense given that the die screws are between the vram and the gpu die (one advantage to thermal paste haha), but it was too thick and caused a lack of contact on other ones (since I can't actually tighten down any screws surrounding the vram externally). I have some ideas that may work but I'm going to wait for EK to respond before trying anything else.

[W-L]

OOPS, thanks for the catch, I wanted it to be intake... The fans are shown from the outside.

So two intakes, 4 exhausts... Not ideal but I don't want a single label showing on the inside.

I tried it, and the gpu die still had proper contact which makes sense given that the die screws are between the vram and the gpu die (one advantage to thermal paste haha), but it was too thick and caused a lack of contact on other ones (since I can't actually tighten down any screws surrounding the vram externally). I have some ideas that may work but I'm going to wait for EK to respond before trying anything else.

 

You could try moving the rear to the bottom as an intake so it would approx be equal then leaving the rear empty. Possibly you used the wrong thickness of thermal pad or the ones given were too thin?

[Curufinwe_wins]

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You could try moving the rear to the bottom as an intake so it would approx be equal then leaving the rear empty. Possibly you used the wrong thickness of thermal pad or the ones given were too thin?

[/indent]

 

They all looked the right thickness, and it really isn't possible to use the wrong ones with the way ek packages the thermal pads. I did notice that the EK .5 mm pads have two distinct layers (when you peal the corner top piece off they always come apart that way), so my second thought was scavaging some of the pads in half then cutting them to custom fill the gaps without thickening the entire vram padding. Obviously the extra thermal padding isn't a concern for the components themselves (being such low wattage), its just important they contact the block in a sufficient fashion to cool the damn things.

 

As to the fan, I did move it to the bottom earlier, but I have to push it really tight against the psu to be able to secure it and even then I don't like the idea of having cables where they could fall/scrape into the fan (and cba buying a grill). I'm not super concerned about the negative pressure since really all the fans are going to be super slow and I had some pretty significant dust issues even with super positive pressure through the front filtered intake.

[EK Luc]

 

BONUS ROUND @EK Luc this has been going on this way for uhhh a few weeks now at least, but can you guys please fix your Customer Service page... I know you guys have a good rep in the business, and you make amazing products, but this can't send the right image...

 

https://shop.ekwb.com/customer-service

 

As far as I can tell, this is mostly latin, but some of it is total gibberish to me.

 

This page doesn't technically exist.  I don't even know where you were able to get that???

 

For your standoff issue, just open a ticket here : https://ekwb.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

[Curufinwe_wins]

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This page doesn't technically exist. I don't even know where you were able to get that???

For your standoff issue, just open a ticket here :

https://ekwb.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

[/indent]

 

Haha well that explains a lot. Google search "ek contact us" and it's the second result.

[EK Luc]

Haha well that explains a lot. Google search "ek contact us" and it's the second result.

 

Wow this is stupid from the guys who are managing the website.  I will let them know thanks

[D4V3_G]

Nice build, I love it!

[Curufinwe_wins]

Nearing the end guys. In fact, just waiting on backplates for these things, but I couldn't wait to do this build.

 

I got my tubing in, and man did I have a hellish time with my bends...

 

It probably didn't help that my EK-HD DIY kit 10mm sleeve was a good 1.5 mm wider than the 10mm ID Primochill PETG tubing. Seriously, even after a good three hours of sanding the sleeve the thing was still 10+ minutes of twisting per bend (with all sorts of lube) before I could get it in deep enough to do the bends I wanted (and had to abandon others due to this issue). 

 

When I was done my hands hurt so bad I couldn't go to sleep for a good hour and took off work today because they hurt so bad in the morning (imagine the worst workout cramps you've had after say a few months of not doing it and then think that you can't even rest properly without your fingers moving).

 

I'm sure some people here are like "whine whine whine, you got this amazing pc. Shut the f* up and enjoy it!" And I am, but man that's why it's 24 hours later and I'm just now writing this up...

 

 

The pain we go through for pleasure   :wub:  :wub:  :wub:

 

 

Without much further ado!

 

The bends aren't perfect, and I might redo the ones coming into/from the reservoir, but I feel like each one was pretty darn ambitious with the line connecting the two radiators being a personal favorite.

 

 

Money shot!

 

And let there be fluid. Even after bleeding the system (including rotating it in every possible direction) for 24 hours, I had some super intense gurgling and then I gave up and moved the PC back to my desk. Well about 3 minutes after I got the pc up and running for the first time, ALL of the bubbles came out at once... Like I was worried I blew a pipe or something because the air movement and noise was insane. But now the computer is well bled and all is good in the world hehehe.

 

Well except now I think my pump is running 100% all the time regardless of what I set my pwm controls on... Kinda scary...

 

Anyways, what are the results you might ask?

 

Well I have all fans set at right around 700 RPM (with all off fans when cpu temp is below 30 C) which is about 100 rpm below the point where any one becomes noticeable and I can't hear a difference between that and 400 RPM (about the bottom control for the Venturi Series).

 

This setting means no matter the load my pc is almost always inaudible (I have a 28-35 dBa ambient noise environment and the pc sits right at the 26-29 dBa range).

 

 

 

Ironically, the shared loop means my cpu idle temps are much worse than they were before (23-28 C now 33-37 C) and load is about the same (54-65 C now 56-62 C) with a much tighter range. I should note that before, my cpu radiator fans would ramp up to as high as 1100 rpm under 100% stressing load so noise is also improved.

 

GPU temps are the big victories. I did a run of Fire Strike Ultra at 1519/2001 pegged (same settings as under stock cooling but obviously no thermal throttle) hit max temps of 43C!

 

 

Also good enough for top 100 in world!!!!! WOOOT! Suck on that 68.5 / 70.4 percent ASICs!

 

 

Final self-aggrandizement, that score is also the 6th best dual GPU 5820k score in the world and top 10 for Haswell-E hexcores. 

[Clanscorpia]

Your build is just amazing. I'd paint the sticker on the back fans black so they are less noticable though

[Curufinwe_wins]

@Lays

 

Yea.... lower temperatures definitely are a straight-up boost to Maxwell overclocking as for the first time ever I was able to run 1519/2001 for all Extreme/Ultra/Reg.

 

Never gotten either core or memory that high stably in reg and extreme before (even with one GPU).

 

Overall scores aren't amazing because I was lolzing and left tons of background shit up (including my ram cache) so my physics scores are worse, but 1-3% improvements to graphics performance in each test.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Your build is just amazing. I'd paint the sticker on the back fans black so they are less noticable though

Just one back fan, and I don't look at the back end of my computer very often (only my oldest config had the rear fan sitting as intake so now only black on black is visible from the side) so I'll probably leave it. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

So, probably the last or second to last (hopefully!) major update to this build log:

 

First things first, huge shootout to performance-pcs.com for being a huge help during the ordering process, even going so far as to combine orders for me to save me shipping costs after the fact when I forgot a part. Their personnel were always professional, knowledgeable, and very prompt.

 

Backplates along with Mayhem X-1 Coolant came in on Friday, and I got the PC up and running like a dream. In the interm, after discovering fluid incompatibility (reminder to everyone not to mix Ethylene Glycol coolants with PETG), I had drained my loop, and flushed it with distilled water. I can't say I see any temperature differences between the two fluids, although that is to be expected given both being basically DI water plus a little bit of extra chemical magic.

 

I hadn't taken any pictures from just that, because I got a notification earlier in the week that the NZXT Hue+ I had ordered back before Christmas from Amazon was finally shipping.

 

And it came in today. I didn't take any pictures of the device itself, since so many internet phenoms did reviews of it, but the quality did surprise me. I also acted on a hunch that I could mount the Hue+ on those nice Define S predrilled reservoir grills. Well lo and behold, it worked perfectly! The spacing between 4 slots is exactly the same width as the spacing of a 2.5 inch drive (which would be BA idea with front SSD storage mounting in an air-cooled rig).

 

Sorry about the flash, my phone's camera is truly abysmal in low light situations...

 

So yea what are the results of these updates?

 

Computer on my normal workstation (AKA walmart plastic folding table) with the amazing (even if not all that fitting to this build) spectrum color set.

PC in the darkness so you can see the whole thing without a monitor in the way.

 

It's naked!

 

This is the fixed illumination color I ended up going with. It may look odd in due to my "amazing" camera, but in real life it is a grey-silver tinged with a tiny bit of yellow. Naturally ofc that is nothing like the color CAM was trying to produce when I found it... RGB 97/89/42 Although I must give NZXT huge props in that their high saturation colors look amazing, it is just that LED strips seem incapable of really hitting the darks and greys properly.

 

 

And now with a final flash image just to mess with the world (and give the closest impression to what this actually looks like powered off.)

 

 

A few tidbits:

I decided not to redo any of my lines, it just felt off, and with the illumination I actually really like the runs. I would like to see about getting some custom sleeve cables (I only have extensions for the GPUs), and I really NEED to get a PMMA replacement for the stock side panel. Not only does it scratch even with paper towel, but it is partially polarizing and leaving rainbow reflections from my monitor. Not cool.

 

EK backplates really do look so much better in person, but I do wish they would have made my original backplates compatible.

[Curufinwe_wins]

@Lays 

 

So I got this amazing gaming rig right? What haven't I done with it since doing full watercooling? Hardball overclocking...

 

Hardball GPU Overclocking...

 

I started from my basic +152/+499 OC I got on air (1519/2001) and worked my way up from there. And kept working up... And kept working up... It was going so well, I ended up telling myself, I will stop at the first crash and continue this later on...  Because I successfully hit not only 8200+ Memory clock (really really good for non-Samsung ICs) but I also hit 1534 core clock! Aka I went from +152/+499 to +167/+700.

 

68.5 and 70.1 ASICs say what? I crashed on +167/+800 on the combined test, so I'll mess around with that a bit later. Also, I naturally threw my cpu clock up from my 24/7 OC 4500 MHz to 4700 MHz

 

Anyways you guys want the results right?

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7330039

 

 

As of right now (1/25/2016  00:00 CDT), I own the WORLD's BEST 5820k 980ti SLI SCORE! The SECOND BEST 5820k dual gpu Firestrike Ultra score IN THE WORLD! And 6th for Haswell-E Hexcores!

[Lays]

Nice job

 

Not a lot of people run FS Ultra though, on HWBOT it doesn't give any points, so not nearly as many submissions & people taking it seriously like on FSE/FS normal

[Curufinwe_wins]

Nice job

Not a lot of people run FS Ultra though, on HWBOT it doesn't give any points, so not nearly as many submissions & people taking it seriously like on FSE/FS normal

Yer I know, unfortunately I've already seen the oc is much less stable on FS standard (so less stable it isn't even capable of doing 1519/8008).

[Curufinwe_wins]

Dat sli bridge stick out

It does, I did that for a few reasons.

 

A. I wanted to give credit to MSI for the amazing graphics cards.

B. The thing looks absolutely gorgeous under the silver light I currently use (which literally cannot be properly captured by my phone ATM).

C. I already had it, and the only SLI bridge on the market I like/am willing to use (I wasn't going to put an EVGA bridge on a build without any EVGA parts, and I refuse to put anything ROG branded, while I also personally don't like the Nvidia one.)

 

Perhaps I might end up painting it silver or something, but I think that is unlikely. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

Little dinky updates...

 

My Deskstar NAS drive has been moved out of Kurald Galain (which is now Solid State ONLY!) 

 

I did add a Wireless AC (and Bluetooth) PCIe card in between my two GPUs. You can't even see it so that's sick. I definitely like one less wire coming out of my pc, and my speed/latency isn't any different (I am less than 20 feet from my router and my ISP blows anyways).

 

Where did that NAS drive go? Why did I move to wireless? Because I just finished a full DYI FreeNas Build! Meet Ainulindale! Really happy with it thus far, and it will have me set for years to come (with 12 SATA ports native).

 

Also, I took out the stupid ass PETG window (which is insanely soft... Blowing dust off with a can of air was scratching it) and I cut/replaced it with a panel of plain window glass. 

 

While the mod was inspired by 

 

 

I definitely did an easier mod. I filed off each of the metal tabs that held on the old window, repainted some bare metal spots with the same black paint I used months ago to make my nice black faux powder-coat PCIe covers, bought a 15x17 inch cut glass pane, and mounted it using black RV silicon to the panel. Works great, looks great, and no more scratches (also none of that odd polarized light rain-bowing).

Total cost of the mod was about 20 USD. Totally a good way to go, and honestly with only silicon attaching the glass panel, if something hits the side hard enough to break the panel, you will be way more concerned about the components inside you case being damaged by the incoming object.

 

I may post an image of it later, but honestly you would never know the difference unless you owned the original case.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Here are some images of the side panel, along with them on Kurald Galain:

 

http://imgur.com/a/UZTEL