Rig 2.0, Ryzing to the top with ample of RGB (Coimpleted!)

Carde · June 2, 2017

Rig 2.0

Ryzing to the top, (leg)lit RGB style and keeping cool under water.

Rig 1.4 is well 5 years old on it's core components and I am sorry to say she is annoying the living hell out of me because she is based on rig 1.0 and well with that a certain lack of experience. So naturally we are going to build a new rig and do some serious water cooling which I don't have much experience which (really a pre assembled kit is where it ends). With Ryzen out there and me not willing to wait for VEGA to start this build, we are well starting it and leaving the GPU for later unless we can find a good deal on one somewhere throughout this build.

So before we go into detail let's just look at the specs of rig 1.4 and rig 2.0:

Rig 1.4:

Case: Corsair Obsidian 800D (Currently in poor state)
MB: ASUS Z77 Sabertooth
CPU: Intel I7 3770K OC to 4.5Ghz
CPU cooling: Alphacool kit with a 360 rad
RAM: G.Skill ARES 1866Mhz CL10
GPU: EVGA GTX 980 Reference
PSU: Corsair AX860W
SSD 1: Samsung 830 256GB
SSD 2: Samsung 840 pro 512GB
HD: WD Green 1TB
OS: Windows 10 PRO 64Bit

Rig 2.0:

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX TG Black
MB: Asus Crosshair VI Hero
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
CPU cooling: Phanteks Glacier C350a CPU block (if they become available in time)
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3000Mhz CL15 32GB (4x8) (Brought 32 GB because 4 dims look better than 2:P)
GPU: GTX 1070 MSI SEA hawk (pre installed EK waterblock, dending on VEGA it will stay or be switched out, sadly no RGB, but it was that or speed over a 100EUR more for RGB)
PSU: Corsair AX860W (Good PSU, changed out once so this one is still under warranty)
SSD 1: Samsung 830 256GB
SSD 2: Samsung 840 pro 512GB
Pump+Res: EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM
RADs: 2x The Black Ice Nemesis 360GTS (If I can make it fit :P)
Coolant: Mayhems X1 Clear
Tubing: EK-DuraClear 3/8 ID - 1/2 OD - 9,5/12,7mm 3M RETAIL
Fittings: Alphacool HF Screw connector, lots of 90s needed and some 45 and really I gotta keep the price in check somewhat as a result hence going for Alphacool here (The other options where either not black or black and more than two times as expensive)
Fans: Noctua NF-F12 industrial PPC-2000 PWM - 2000RPM (Can't go wrong with noctua fans)
OS: Windows 10 pro 64bit

The purpose of rig 2.0 (I am open to suggestions for better names) will be gaming, streaming, recording and some editing work. Now building new rigs is not a cheap thing and specially if you go full on custom water cooling and hence you will notice a bit of salvaging from RIG 1.4, what is not salvaged I will simply sell off with the exception of the HD. The real challenge is going to be the whole water cooling setup, as said I do not have much experience with it hence I am ordering things in bits to see what I can make work and what I can't I will simply return. Now I am not sure if I am going soft or hard tubing, the former seems a lot easier, but the later is likely going to end up looking better. GPU block wise ideally I hope that Phanteks also releases a block for the VEGA cards that way I have RGB ram, RGB CPU block and RGB GPU block. I specially do not want to add to much if any other lighting to the case, cause this way in the black interior these few components will become a real stand out.

So that is the plan, now let's see how the execution will go. Now I do apologize the first pictures are a bit dark (phone in the wrong setting) last one I fixed that issue with, but only figured it out when I arrived at that stage.

Picture time!

There we have our first delivery arrived at the timely hour of 2130 today (for reference it is now 0040 the next day). Removed the ugly brown box from the Phanteks case (nice to have though additional protection is always good. That said stop using Styrofoam already it sucks). So yeah the hearth and casing of my new system has arrived, now for some more box shots:

I been eying this case for quite some time, it is just a stunning looking case, much better than my 800D that is for sure

Yeah I brought you 2 days before the cut the price, if the prices drop I likely contact the webstore to get a partial refund (Cause I have 14 days to return it without reason anyway), this stuff is expensive enough as is. Also I know the 1700X would be cheaper, but where is the fun in that?

An other ASUS board and an other one people say is to expensive for what it offers. What can I say my sabertooth been amazing to me and I like this board so I got it

You know originally I was going to buy some Corsair Vengeance memory, just 16GB no RGB, just like we would have no custom water cooling and all that. So here we are spending twice what I had planned on memory and lords knows how much more on the cooling.

Many shiny new boxes and this time I get to keep them all, no parents anymore who force one to discard all these amazing boxes. So despite the late hour the build began mostly so that I could get some idea of my flexibility for the water cooling settup. So let's see how this stunning case was looking just an hour later:

Not much left of it is there? I will say this case is a joy to work with, just being able to move it around without breaking my back (800D is heavy as all hell) is great and much of it is screwed in place. But yeah here we have the case with the MB and RAM inside, but the side, top and front panel removed as well as the radiator bracket and one of it's slides seeing it is rather space inefficient it might not return. All those lovely 140mm fans are resting on the side, guess I will sell those on as I have no need for them. Do love the small screw box from Phanteks, but a few items ended up in bags just so I know where they belong to.

So that is where we will end episode one, my first build log and what is to be my first real custom water cooled PC. I hope to complete the build over the course of the next week. Any feedback you have is welcome (will try to shoot the pictures in daylight following this post hopefully they come out a bit better, sorry for that just limited to my OPO for that. As for the parts see above anything in green is still up for debate so I am open to suggestions regarding that as well (specially tubing/piping/fittings).

Carde signing off.

IAmOctonaut · June 5, 2017

I got the 1600 and now wishing I had went with the 1700. Thinking about swapping for a 6700k tbh. Have you done any testing with yours yet?

Carde · June 7, 2017

On 5-6-2017 at 9:08 PM, IAmOctonaut said:

I got the 1600 and now wishing I had went with the 1700. Thinking about swapping for a 6700k tbh. Have you done any testing with yours yet?

Have not, still in the build process.

Speaking of which new goodies came in just minutes ago:

5L of coolant (better to much than to little and 1L did not seem like it was going to cut it and than the 5L quickly starts to become more appealing in price. At least I can get a min of two fill ups for the system out of it so yay

Also my love EK res+pump combo unit and the main part, 2 Lovely 360 radiators from hardware labs. The last where a bit of a concern regarding if they would fit, but I have taken a peak and unless I am terribly mistake they fit into the case without the need for any modifications!!!!! So that makes me a really happy camper and saves me from spending on a Dremmel kit

I really like how these rads look, just great and understated just the way I like it.

Anyhow with this in place I got to check out my locations for stuff and order the final things. Decided to mount the pump onto the rad using a bracked because that was the only clean way to do it. So tubing, fans, CPU block, fittings all ordered and decided to go for an MSI GTX 1070 Seahawk for now, at 499 EUR including the pre installed EK waterblock it is just a really good deal (a normal 1070 gaming comes in at 450 EUR). Depending on how good or bad Vega will be will decide if it stays or moves, I hope Vega will be nice want to go back to AMD cards they just have been giving me less trouble

Also may I say that water cooling is expensive as all hell? The cooling for this system comes in at 665 EUR! Granted I did not cheap out (Well maybe the fittings, but I cannot believe that a 8 EUR fitting is that much worse than a 20 EUR fitting), but still that is more than I had in mind at first. Also note this is not including a GPU block because that comes with the card

Carde · June 22, 2017

Well it has been a while and mainly because some parts ended up on a backorder and then the transport company decided to say fuck it all and delay the shipment by 5 days

Sorry to say I did not make a bunch more pictures as I went because really the final assembly was rather easy, so take a look here and below I will talk through what I had to do and the silly mistakes I made

Well there she is in all her glory doing something people said was not possible: Putting 2 360 rads in this case without any modifications! Now don't get me wrong it is not an easy fit and I had to loosen some screws to get the top one to slide in and force it all back to screw them back into place, now I think I could have avoided that by removing 2 more screws from the top rad which would allow it to slide just that tiny bit more towards the back. Either way it fits and I am a happy camper about that

The pump was the next brain cracker as the backside of the case is not really suitable for mounting it due to all the holes and cut outs for the drive cadies that can be placed there. So I went with the idea to just mount it to the rad using a 120mm bracket, of course I had to pick the pump with a res that was to large so that would not fit either. But fitting it with just 2 screws instead of 4 to the bracket gave me just enough clearance to make it fit and really it is more than solid enough for moving it abouts in the house, but I would not advise it at all for transportation!

I routed the tubing best I could wanting to keep the lengths as short as possible and I think I could have cut a 5mm of the tubes here and there, but I think that is a project for when I need to change the coolant out. I am really glad I went with soft tubing though as it was hard enough to get everything inside this case without having to worry about sollid tubing, that would have turned this from a day build to a week build no doubt.

Overall I am really happy with how it turned out, keep in mind the picture is a tad bright, with the glass on things look really clean and you just get this lovely ice blue lighting shining through. Will have to see if I can turn off the lights at night and make a picture like that with the glass on.

Of course I am still dealing with an SSD that is acting up and only thanks to the folks here I managed to find a bios that allows the system to remain quiet Cause these noctua fans are really quiet when running slowly, but they transform into a jet at full blast

Also here is the full desk:

Desk is an IKEA BEKANT 160cm with a standard frame which is just a great desk for not to much money (I work at an IKEA store doing product quality so me knows good and the bad from IKEA )

Going from left to right:

Headset: Sennheiser G4ME one black

Screen 1: BenQ Zowie XL2735 (Really got to adjust to the TN colours, they are so bad compared to IPS).

Keyboard: Logitech G 710+ (Just a reliable piece of kit)

Screen 2: Some ASUS 1080P60 IPS from my old rig. (Also thank you noctua for shipping your fans in strong boxes they make for an excellent monitor stand )

Mouse: EVGA Torq X5 (Quite a nice mouse, doesn't get nearly enough attention)

Microphone: Some basic broadcaster type mic, just a ton better than the heatset one.

Chair (Not seen): IKEA MARKUS (Still looking for an other chair, but finding one I like and that is high enough is tricky)

Anyhow not a bad build considering this is the third PC I ever build. First was rig 1.0, second was a really basic cheap AMD system for my dad and now this one which really still needs a cool name . Also keeps really cool, it is idling 4-5C above ambient and when pushed hard hits about 25-30C above ambient.

So that makes my little build complete and gives me a new rig to last me some years with only an GPU upgrade in future and perhaps an M.2 SSD when the budget allows. For now my money is gone this whole project ended up costing me around 3000 EUR with the PC, second screen and desk included and would have gone well north of that if I could not salvage some bits from the old setup. No regrets through it is my hobby and it may cost me some money