S A N D W A S P [ HEDT | Soft Tube | PC-O11D XL ]

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27 minutes ago, For Science! said:

Could you make the GPU power cables run between the GPU tubing? It’s currently the only line that goes against the lines from the soft tubing.

Good idea, hadn't thought of that. I'll have to run them from the cutout above and down, but nothing is plugged in at the back so should be easy enough to try. 

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On 10/5/2020 at 7:52 AM, For Science! said:

Could you make the GPU power cables run between the GPU tubing? It’s currently the only line that goes against the lines from the soft tubing.

I did give this a try but wasn't really happy with how it looked unfortunately, so think I'll just have to have a bit of a play with the angles on the GPU cables to get something with a decent flow.

 

Still not had much time to progress further but made up my drain run, and started doing some cable tidying. Ran out of big cable ties so the rest will have to wait until I've got some.

 

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Cable tidying mostly done. I'm going to cut and spray a couple of pieces of acrylic to cover the area under the PSU and blank the gap under the distro plate so the RGB strip wire is invisible from the front.

 

 

Hoping to test fill this weekend.

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Filling time!

 

 

 

It's been about 2 hours and no signs of any leaks. Worst of the air bubbles subsided too.

 

-Edit

 

And we have life!

 

 

 

I need to some tidying up and tweak the lighting but I'm very happy with how it's looking initially.

[XGoodGuyFitz]

Bro that is literally the coolest pc i have EVER SEEN!!! The purple, yellow, and black are just...MMMMMMMMMMM

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13 hours ago, xXFitzXx said:

Bro that is literally the coolest pc i have EVER SEEN!!! The purple, yellow, and black are just...MMMMMMMMMMM

The purple was just the colour it happened to be showing when cycling at that particular point in time  though I don't dislike it.

 

 

Currently got most things set to yellow but the colouration between the diffused RAM and the non-diffused RGB strips isn't very close so I'll probably need to tweak it. Still got a couple of little cover panels to make for the top and bottom of the distro to hide a few straggly wires, and I need do some more high speed pump running to get the last bits of air out of the loop, but I'm pretty happy.

 

I've got fan curves set to 800rpm at idle, climbing up to a maximum of 1200rpm when under heavy load.

Pump I found has to be run at ~60% to ensure enough flow, but it's a fairly restrictive loop.

 

 

CPU temps at idle are ~33°C package with individual cores between about 26°C and 32°C.

GPU idles at ~29°C

 

Under a sustained non-AVX load the CPU will stabilise mid 60s at 4.2GHz/1.265v. AVX2 via IntelBurnTest climbs to mid-70s. Gaming temps seem to be high 40s low 50s.

After an hour of looping benchmarks the GPU hit 52°C which was enough to throttle back from 2055MHz core to 2040, but it didn't drop lower than that.

 

 

Given the combination of quietness and cooling performance, I'm rather happy.

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So about 9 months on and I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by SANDWASP.

 

Distro Plate

Not sure what's caused it, but my distro plate has experienced some cracking and spidering in a few places. Current working theory is that the affected points are just too close to other CNC cuts and the acrylic between these points (which are pockets cut for screw heads) isn't strong enough to withstand long-term expansion and contraction. Most are minor but a couple are adjacent to screw channels or ports so will have to keep an eye out for leaks.

 

System Stability and Performance

During our recent heatwave I've had problems with system stability, notably as a result of CPU temperatures. The 6900K has performed pretty well over the last couple of years I've had it but it's now a pretty old and rather inefficient processor and definitely not competitive with newer hardware. The 2080 is still soldiering on just fine though.

 

Office Move

We're currently in the process of having a 3.5mx3.5m home office built in our garden, wired for CAT6 and power. I'll be moving my current office space into here complete with a 220cm sit/stand desk and second monitor to allow for home working which I'll continue doing 3-4 days a week. 

 

 

Basically, I'm in a bit of a quandary at the moment. Do I:

1. Rebuild with a front distro and X570S/5900X in the same O11D-XL case
2. Move to an O11D Mini system- this will have to be ITX given the lack of decent M-ATX X570 boards
3. Something else entirely?

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Okay, decisions are made and starting to order new parts.

I'll be reusing:

• Case
• GPU (for now)
• PSU (for now)
• RAM
• Fans
• Radiators
• Pump
• Various custom or tweaked parts like the GPU bracket and motherboard tray cover

I'll be replacing:

• CPU (5900X)
• Motherboard (Gigabyte Aorus X570S Pro or Master, depending on availability)
• Distro plate (EK-Quantum Reflection PC-O11D XL)
• Fittings (EK-Torque satin titanium)
• Tubing (Corsair 14mm Satin Transparent)

I've got some interesting ideas for other tweaks, which may include glass etching, custom lightboxes, water cooling pass-throughs and refinishing certain case components.

Once things get going I'll be kicking off a new build thread.