Black & Plexi Custom WC RTX3080 & Ryzen5800X + Change to 6900XT

[HotdropHeinz]

Hello guys and gals,

 

Motivation:

Spoiler

For a long time now I've wanted to treat myself to not only a high end system but also watercool it. Now the time has come where I have the budget and also the support of my wife to go ahead and spend a bunch of money on PC parts. What's in for her you might ask? Well, she will get my "old" parts which will be a nice upgrade for her. She has a part time photography job and also likes to game.

I don't really NEED the upgrade but you all know how it is... All I do with my machine is game, mostly Apex Legends and the occasional RPG.

My main monitor is a 120Hz Acer 3440x1440 ultrawide. With my current PC I'm not always getting 120fps locked so an upgrade doesn't hurt

My wife's main monitor is an Asus 1440p 60Hz with pretty accurate colors. She mainly needs this for editing. You can imagine that her GTX 960 3GB is a bit weak when running games like GTA5 on high settings.

 

Recently i looked through this "Build Log" subforum when i found this post. This already comes very close to what i will be doing in terms of case, tubing runs and colors (only a bit). This post also was kind of the final push for me to just start this adventure now or never.

I will not be using copper tubing but rather go for clear tubes with uncolored liquid. But more on that later...

 

 

The plan is to upgrade my system with a Ryzen 5800x and an RTX 3080 TUF (when they are available) and beef up my wife's PC with my Ryzen 2700 and RTX 2080super.

 

In this post I want to log (hopefully everything) that's going on concerning planning, aquiring the parts and rebuilding the two systems. Depending on parts availability and my personal time table this whole project might take some months but we will get there at the latest by the end of this year (I hope...).

 

Currently our systems look like this:

My system:

Spoiler

Ryzen 2700 with 280mm AIO

Asus B450-F Gaming

Corsair Vengeance 16GB @ 3200MHZ

RTX 2080 super

Some SSDs

Corsair RM550W

Fractal Design Define R5

My wife's system:

Spoiler

Ryzen 2600 with stock cooler

Asrock B450

16GB RAM @ 3200MHz

GTX 960 3GB

A bunch of HDDs and boot/work SSD

 

The next post will contain some of my plans in the current state with more pictures.

 

Cheers!

[jaslion]

When you pass on the system do move the rad at the top of the case or remove the 5.25 inch slots and mount it there. That position it is in now is pretty bad for the pump and well cooling in general.

[HotdropHeinz]

Hello again,

as promised I want to show you some sketches I did for loop planning and what my plans for reusing and buying hardware are.

 

As you can see in the first post, I'm able to reuse some of the components in my current system:

case, motherboard, RAM, storage and two of my Noctua fans.

 

Obviously I then still need to shop for the new Ryzen 5800x, RTX3080, a more powerful PSU (Thanks Nvidia), fans and all the watercooling gear.

The CPU will only be available after 5th of november (hopefully) and the GPU... well... let's just say I hope to be able to get one before the year ends. Graphics card availability will probably be the limiting factor in this project.

 

In the following chart you can see it in more detail. Sorry for a bunch of German in there but I'm sure you will get what I mean.

As of now I have purchased only the small rad and three fans used off ebay. Hopefully I can get some more parts used to save some money. Currently I'm bidding for a pump-res-combo from ekwb.

The parts with zero cost I already have so I don't count them to the total of this project.

Spoiler

 

 

46 minutes ago, jaslion said:

move the rad at the top of the case or remove the 5.25 inch slots and mount it there. That position it is in now is pretty for the pump and well cooling in general.

My plan is to have a 280mm radiator in the front and a 420mm in the top. To make that fit I will remove my bluray player and the card reader which currently are located in the top front bays. the pump-res-combo will mount directly onto the front radiator with a bracket.

In the next picture you will see how the loop layout will be.

 

Concerning the actual tubing runs I'm still a bit conflicted how to run the tubes that are connected to the GPU. Depending on how much space I will have left I will choose one over the other.

Please let me know how you would do it and which configuration looks better in your eyes.

Spoiler

 

I think that's it for now. I'll keep you updated when there is some more progress made. Thank you for reading

Cheers!

[101m4n]

1 hour ago, HotdropHeinz said:

Please let me know how you would do it and which configuration looks better in your eyes.

  Hide contents

 

I'd use the first one as it keeps the slots below the GPU free for other expansion cards. I actually did a build with this exact layout a few years ago. It worked out pretty well (aesthetically speaking). Performance wise, it's probably better to do pump -> cpu -> gpu -> 420 -> 280 -> pump. IE: heat source -> exhaust radiator -> intake radiator. With your hardware though, these radiators should be plenty for your system regardless of the loop order .

 

Also, are you planning on using hard or soft tubing? In either case I'd advise avoiding rotary fittings wherever possible, but especially so with flexible tubing. Reason being if anything puts tension on the fitting it will eventually cause it to leak as one side of the internal o-ring is compressed. Also if you are going with soft tubing you can definitely skip the right angle fittings on the CPU block. Just connect the compression fittings directly to the block

As far as tube choices go, thicker tubes look nicer if you ask me. That being said, there is no appreciable performance loss with thinner tubes and thinner ones are much easier to work with. With thinner tubing for example, you shouldn't need the right angle fittings on the GPU block either.

 

Lastly, your board actually has a 2 pin temperature sensor header. Which means you can get a g1/4 temperature sensor and set up your fans to ramp with coolant temperature rather than CPU temperature, which is very nice  (especially with a GPU and CPU in the loop). Mine is a gradual ramp (20 to 40%) from 20 to 30 degrees, then an aggressive ramp from (40% to 100%) from 30 to 40. This would be noisy and annoying for a CPU cooler but it's great for a water cooling loop as the specific heat capacity of water is very high (it takes 4200 watts to raise the temperature of 1 litre of water by 1 degree in 1 second), and you don't really want your coolant getting that hot anyway.

 

Now, I should probably get back to my work!
Best of luck with the build

[HotdropHeinz]

@101m4n Thanks for replying!

I don't know if you noticed but I actually quoted your build log from a few years ago (the one with the copper tubing) in my first post at the top. That build looks just awesome dude!

Since you used the same case there and the mostly black asthetic that really was the thing that finally convinced me to go the custo route

 

9 minutes ago, 101m4n said:

I'd use the first one as it keeps the slots below the GPU free for other expansion cards. I actually did a build with this exact layout a few years ago.

That was one of my thoughts too. On the other hand the case looks a bit more "filled" with the GPU run going underneath. But that said your build is the inspiration for mine anyway soooo

 

9 minutes ago, 101m4n said:

Also, are you planning on using hard or soft tubing?

I will use clear hardline tubing  

 

9 minutes ago, 101m4n said:

Lastly, your board actually has a 2 pin temperature sensor header. Which means you can get a g1/4 temperature sensor and set up your fans to ramp with coolant temperature rather than CPU temperature, which is very nice

This is something I had on my mind aswell. The sensor just isn't on the hardware list yet. I will probably screw it into one of the unused ports in one of the radiators.

 

Again thanks for your feedback!

[101m4n]

23 minutes ago, HotdropHeinz said:

I don't know if you noticed but I actually quoted your build log from a few years ago (the one with the copper tubing) in my first post at the top. That build looks just awesome dude!

Thanks! I'm afraid I was skimming and didn't notice the link. Welcome to the money-pit that is custom watercooling .

 

21 minutes ago, HotdropHeinz said:

I will use clear hardline tubing  

 

In that case, the right angle fittings should be fine. Just make sure they aren't under tension when the tubes are installed and you'll be set .

 

In the case of hardline, one thing I will suggest is to avoid tubes with more than one bend in them wherever you can. Like the one from your pump/res to the GPU in image 1, or the one from the GPU to the top radiator in image 2. In the case of image 1, If you rotate the fitting on the pump/res so that it goes straight up instead of off to the left, that bend will be a lot easier. Single right angle bends are easy, just bend and trim to match the fittings. Multiple bend runs are a nightmare, as it's very hard to control the distance between the two bends. You may be able to do this if you measure very carefully and use a jig of some sort to ensure a fixed bend radius, but if you are bending by eye it will be very difficult. I'm guessing you are planning on using spacers to connect the right angle fittings on the CPU to the top radiator? If so, that will save you a lot of time and effort.

 

Another thing you can see in this picture is that we used a couple of rotary fittings to give ourselves some wiggle-room on the radiator -> CPU bend. So that's another tool you can use to make the tough bends easier.

 

Lastly, wait for big navi  (if you can). Even if it's not as good as nvidias offerings, if it's even a little competitive it could prompt nvidia to lower their prices a bit.

[HotdropHeinz]

16 hours ago, 101m4n said:

Welcome to the money-pit that is custom watercooling

Haha thanks ^^

 

16 hours ago, 101m4n said:

In the case of hardline, one thing I will suggest is to avoid tubes with more than one bend in them wherever you can. Like the one from your pump/res to the GPU in image 1, or the one from the GPU to the top radiator in image 2. In the case of image 1, If you rotate the fitting on the pump/res so that it goes straight up instead of off to the left, that bend will be a lot easier. Single right angle bends are easy, just bend and trim to match the fittings. Multiple bend runs are a nightmare, as it's very hard to control the distance between the two bends. You may be able to do this if you measure very carefully and use a jig of some sort to ensure a fixed bend radius, but if you are bending by eye it will be very difficult. I'm guessing you are planning on using spacers to connect the right angle fittings on the CPU to the top radiator? If so, that will save you a lot of time and effort.

Those are some valuable tips, thank you very much! I probably will do the bening part together with a friend who already has experience with bending tubing. He also told me about the 'avoiding multiple bend runs' thing . I will make sure to buy some extra rotary fittings too.

 

16 hours ago, 101m4n said:

Lastly, wait for big navi  (if you can). Even if it's not as good as nvidias offerings, if it's even a little competitive it could prompt nvidia to lower their prices a bit.

Yes, I will do that. As RTX3000 cards aren't in stock anyway and aren't even close to it either, that will not be a problem. I actually read that some distributors ordered f.e ~2000 Asus TUF cards, got ~1000 customer orders but actually only got like 30 cards shipped from Asus. That seems to be the same for all store chains and also vendors. Supply is just nowhere near the demand right now...

Basically if i ordered a 3080 now I would get in line behind a thousand people getting a card before me... 

[HotdropHeinz]

16 hours ago, 101m4n said:

 I'm guessing you are planning on using spacers to connect the right angle fittings on the CPU to the top radiator? If so, that will save you a lot of time and effort.

What do you mean with spacers? Do you mean a rigid offset fitting that brings the beginning of the tube higher off of the CPU block?

[101m4n]

2 hours ago, HotdropHeinz said:

What do you mean with spacers? Do you mean a rigid offset fitting that brings the beginning of the tube higher off of the CPU block?

I mean like one of these:

[HotdropHeinz]

3 hours ago, 101m4n said:

I mean like one of these

Thanks, I will look into it

[HotdropHeinz]

Sooo. There is some progress I wanted to show and some thoughts I wanted to share.

 

In the last few weeks I have aquired some more parts for the loop on Ebay. I think I got some pretty good deals on the parts considering everything is so lightly used it could just aswell be brand new. Just the PSU needs a bit of cleaning and some minor repairs on a few cable sleeves. Nothing that can't be done with a bit of patience and heatshrink.

All in all I'm very happy with the parts so far. Here is the updated parts list:

Spoiler

 

On another note, yesterdays Radeon 6000 launch event got me to think. Maybe I should go with a new AMD card. Especially if the pricing and availability turns out right. Of course we cannot be sure about the performance before independent reviews but the 6800XT looks promising to be equivalent to the RTX3080.

 

Only one problem:

My main monitor has a G-Sync module without any Freesync capability and I will not buy a new monitor.

The questions are now:

How expensive/available is Radeon 6000 actually gonna be?

If it is cheaper would it make up for effectively loosing G-Sync?

Would this be a concern at all considering I would get 120+fps anyway?

If the RTX3080 becomes available and changes price should I go for team green even if it still remains more expensive just to keep my G-Sync functionality?

 

What do you think?

And yes I know i have to wait for reviews and the actual release first to see pricing and availability. Nonetheless I think I should think this through beforehand as this upgrade will not be a cheap affair...

 

Cheers!  

[HotdropHeinz]

So it's update time again.

Some time has passed and more parts have been bought and arrived. I'm now at the point where I'm only waiting for some small stuff to arrive (excluding a GPU here).

SInce the last update I have decided to also buy a new motherboard an faster RAM. I got both used from ebay for insanely good prices. The mobo (Gigabyte B550 Pro) was around 110€ and the RAM (2 Kits of  2x8GB FlareX Samsung b-Die) for 100€ total. NOt sure yet if I will sell one of the RAM kits again or if I will just keep the whole 32GB. The previously mentioned Asus B450 mobo will be sold after the build is complete.

A few days ago I sold my 2080 Super for a good price and now I#m waiting for a used 1070 to hold me over until RTX 3080 pricing normalizes. My wife will later get that 1070.

 

now, enough reading, here is the old rig and the current progress:

First I had to tear everything down. then build it up again...

 

 

[HotdropHeinz]

 

[HotdropHeinz]

[HotdropHeinz]

That's it for now. Will keep you updated with more pictures when there's more progress.

Cheers!

 

[HotdropHeinz]

Finally after a looong time i finished my current build. Almost a year has passed since then but i thought I'd share a few pictures now. Better late than never.

 Because at the time i was unable to find a decently priced 3080 I sold my GPU block again and went team red this time. I don't really care about raytracing so the 6900XT is a perfect fit for me.

And now enjoy the hardware porn

[HotdropHeinz]

All in all I'm very happy with the build. It runs fast (though not OC'ed) and silent while looking good imo. Additionally i managed to keep the price for all parts under 2000€ because i sold some old stuff and i got all parts used except the CPU and GPU.

 

Also my wife now uses my old Ryzen 2700 and my old old GTX 1070. She is happy with the performance though, so what could you want more...?

 

What do you guys think about my build?

What would you have done differently?