Caselabs Merlin SM8 migration

[MooseCheese]

Hi all

 

It's been a while since my last build, but I'm excited to have just completed a (sort of) new one.  I'd been in my trusty Corsair Obsidian 350D since 2014 and it certainly served me well. Having started out accommodating just an open CPU watercooling loop with a single 240mm radiator and bay pump reservoir combo, I progressively shoehorned in a second radiator, GPU block, tube reservoir and a Laing D5.  For an mATX case of its era to hold all of this without modding, I think is rather good.

 

Nevertheless, my Haswell CPU is getting rather long in the tooth and with Ryzen 3000 on the way, I'm looking forward to a performance upgrade.  Unfortunately it seems mATX options are to be almost entirely absent from the lineup of X570 motherboards however.  Though since seeing the 14+2 phase VRM on the X570 Aorus Extreme, I'm not sure I'd want one anyway. 

 

The other catalyst for this upgrade was the sad demise of Caselabs last year.  I've loved their cases since their inception, but within just a few months of me having the money to actually pull the trigger and buy one, the option to do so disappeared.  To this end, I've been keeping a keen eye on eBay and was finally able to get my hands on a Merlin SM8 in my desired spec last month.  Suffice to say, the build quality and versatility is unlike any case I've seen before.

 

For this build, the core components remained the same therefore, as I'm waiting for the launch of the Ryzen R9 3950X.  With that said, it's still by far my most ambitious project owing to the complexity of the watercooling loop and small amount of modding involved in bringing it to fruition.  Below are the specs and some pictures of the finished project.

 

Specs

 

CPU Intel i5 4670k @ 4.4GHz / 1.37 volts

Motherboard Asus Z87 Gryphon

RAM 16GB G.Skill Trident X DDR3 2400MHz 10-12-12-31

Graphics Card MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X @ 2115MHz core / 5525MHz memory / 107% power target

PSU Corsair RM750 (with custom cables built from the ground up by myself with MDPC-X supplies)

SSDs Intel 730 series x2 in RAID 0

HDD Seagate Barracuda 4TB

 

Watercooling components

Top radiator HardwareLabs Black Ice SR1 480

Front radiator HardwareLabs Black Ice Nemesis GTR 360

Pump Alphacool VPP655 vario

Pump/Reservoir combo Bitspower D5 mod kit and mod top with 200mm upgrade kit and triple opening top

Reservoir mount Singularity Computers Core single (silver)

CPU block EK Supremacy EVO full nickel

GPU block/backplate EK FC1080 GTX TF6 nickel/plexi

RAM block/heatsinks EK Monarch X4 nickel with Monarch Modules nickel

Fans Noctua NF-F12 PPC PWM 2000RPM

Fittings Bitspower Black Sparkle

 

Photos

 

 

[jiyeon]

I love the highly meticulous hard tubing runs! Very geometric, looks nice!

 

Your rear cable management is also a thing of dreams, so very clean.

[MooseCheese]

13 hours ago, seoz said:

I love the highly meticulous hard tubing runs! Very geometric, looks nice!

 

Your rear cable management is also a thing of dreams, so very clean.

 

Thanks Seoz, it’s kind of you to say.  I think the key to the cable management is building the cables to length, with a specific run in mind.  Then, so long as you lay them in a sensible order, they pretty much manage themselves.

 

The loop layout was a sort of lazy alternative to a distro plate.  The only complication was running the high resistance CPU block and low resistance RAM block in parallel.  To ensure enough flow through the CPU block, there’s a silicon ball bearing with a 1.5mm hole drilled into it inserted into the 90 degree fitting coming out of the memory.  This restricts flow through the memory and increases it through the CPU.

 

Nice to see another forum member in Scotland too :)

[Zandvliet]

Why did you decide to do the loop the way it is at the CPU and RAM? It looks like the flow will not go smoothly at all through those Y-splitters. You should flip either the top or the lower one 180 degrees so that the single input of both Y-splitters are facing the same direction.

[MooseCheese]

3 hours ago, Zandvliet said:

Why did you decide to do the loop the way it is at the CPU and RAM? It looks like the flow will not go smoothly at all through those Y-splitters. You should flip either the top or the lower one 180 degrees so that the single input of both Y-splitters are facing the same direction.

I had my concerns about this too, but tested several configurations, both series and parallel using soft tubing.  The memory block was added only for aesthetics, so to maximise flow through the CPU, I’ve inserted a silicone ball through which I’ve drilled a 1.5mm hole into the 90 degree single rotary exiting the memory block.  After doing this, I found no meaningful difference in CPU temps regardless of configuration and this way looked the best to my eyes.

[Mnpctech]

Great build! Love the layout and detailing.

[wam648]

Where did you buy the front radiator mount? I live in the United States and I can't find a place to buy it anywhere. 

[MooseCheese]

19 hours ago, wam648 said:

Where did you buy the front radiator mount? I live in the United States and I can't find a place to buy it anywhere. 

I bought the case second hand off a bloke in East London.  It came with a bunch of accessories including the 360mm flex bay radiator mount. 

 

Whilst all things CaseLabs are out of production now, bestcases.eu still have that particular mount in stock (https://www.bestcases.eu/flex-bay-120-3-360-fan-radiator-mount).  I'm sure shipping across the pond will be both expensive and slow, but it might be your best bet.  Alternatively you could try the 'Caselabs Modders and Builders' FB group, which is quite active and has plenty of people swapping and selling various Caselabs parts.  You might be more likely to find something already in the USA there too.  Finally, the Hardware Swap subreddit might be worth a try.

 

Hope this helps.

[wam648]

Awesome. Thank you for all the time you put into making this detailed reply. I never thought about using a facebook group. That will probably be the best option for me.