First Video Editing/Gaming Rig Build with Custom Watercooling Loop - Last desktop build done for Win XP! Custom water cooling loop

[WonderWoman]

Hello,

 

I am upgrading my building skills while recuperating from major spinal surgery.  I decided I needed a project and wanted to challenge and upgrade my building skills.  That being said I am building a video editing/gaming rig with a custom water cooling loop.  I am uploading my redacted receipts so my inventory can be understood and proper design suggestions can be made based on an accurate knowledge of the components involved.

 

I have already started the build as you will see from the pictures I am also uploading.  My question now becomes focused on the installation of the fittings and tubing I have in my purchased inventory.  I do realize that I will have to reorient the the direction the pump/reservoir is facing so that the two ports that are currently facing forward in the pictures will have to now face sideways because otherwise I will not be able to install the maintenance drainage valve because it will not fit.

 

I have not connected any of the electrical yet as I plan on doing that last.  I also have purchased an RGB strimer.  The build was not going to be based on any sort of overt performance or overclocking, the build intention is to be a combination of current high performance (not crazy high performance) and more of a visual esthetic of as close to a true "black light poster" look as possible. If nothing else this chick loves the 70s with the black light posters, the mirror balls, disco and bell bottoms.......In fact this crazy chick even had 2 motorized disco/mirror balls with track lighting containing mini halogens with colored lenses in my first apartment back between 1997-2002........Yes, I am cra-cra!

 

I am also looking for a Corsair Hydro X series XG5 (translucent version) Ventus version for my Zotac Gaming Trinity White GEForce RTX LHR 3080 GPU.  Since the current version is now at series 40 for cards and blocks the one I want is no longer available directly from Corsair and is pretty much sold out at their resellers.  I am thinking I will have to settle for my second choice which is a model XG7 which is the one that has the black backplate as opposed to the XG5 which is all translucent.  If anyone has any leads on the XG5 Ventus (has to be the Ventus due to my card - this is as per the Corsair chat support) I would appreciate a heads up on being able to get the XG5..........Thank you in advance.

 

Would appreciate all the input possible...........

MicroCenter Receipt With Images Prices Redacted.pdf Redacted Prices Lg Receipt - Micro Center.pdf

[WonderWoman]

Update…

 

I finally watched a few YouTube videos including one done by Jay-Z to since about eight years ago specifically on fittings. Now that I have more of an understanding of the fittings and their usage, I installed a couple of fittings including the valve. I now have questions about manipulating the soft tubing. my question becomes when it comes to putting the fittings on the CPU and GPU blocks will. I need to use angled fittings to have the tubing flow and lay out in a less awkward manner? I would like to have the tube that does the return to the pump/reservoir wind up, feeding to the top of the pump/reservoir port that has the feeder tube inside the reservoir . With the way this build is winding up laying out. I am feeling that the tubing is going to be kind of awkward and haphazard looking in short sloppy. I don’t want it to look sloppy like a first timer, even though that is exactly what I am. This is my first full custom water cooling loop build.

 

I am planning on taking the machine over to my local Micro Center store tomorrow night for some in person hands-on look see suggestions. I will be taking all of my fittings and tubing’s with me but I would love to get some opinions here first so if anybody has any suggestions I’d love to hear them because I really want to finally get this build farther along and closer to completion. 

[RandomNeedsHelp]

20 hours ago, WonderWoman said:

Update…

 

I finally watched a few YouTube videos including one done by Jay-Z to since about eight years ago specifically on fittings. Now that I have more of an understanding of the fittings and their usage, I installed a couple of fittings including the valve. I now have questions about manipulating the soft tubing. my question becomes when it comes to putting the fittings on the CPU and GPU blocks will. I need to use angled fittings to have the tubing flow and lay out in a less awkward manner? I would like to have the tube that does the return to the pump/reservoir wind up, feeding to the top of the pump/reservoir port that has the feeder tube inside the reservoir . With the way this build is winding up laying out. I am feeling that the tubing is going to be kind of awkward and haphazard looking in short sloppy. I don’t want it to look sloppy like a first timer, even though that is exactly what I am. This is my first full custom water cooling loop build.

 

I am planning on taking the machine over to my local Micro Center store tomorrow night for some in person hands-on look see suggestions. I will be taking all of my fittings and tubing’s with me but I would love to get some opinions here first so if anybody has any suggestions I’d love to hear them because I really want to finally get this build farther along and closer to completion. 

 

So basically the question is only cosmetic now, right?

 

I think: On the gpu block you wont be needing angled fittings. Soft tubing from the reservoir to the gpu and gpu to cpu should look fine without angled fittings.

I would take a 90° fitting on the cpu block that connects to the rad, to the gpu not necessary. On the rads also no angled fittings required. But you might think it looks weird to only have 1 angled fitting coming out of the cpu block, but i think thats fine.

Soft tubing never looks as cool as hard tubing, but in my taste it is important that the soft tubing does not overlap 3-dimensional and that it doesnt take any turns that are more than 90° (for example a 180 turn or basically 2 90° turns as you would need from cpu block to radiator)

 

Just hold the single tubes at the planned connections (or let them be hold by a friend and look at it. If they look good by themselves they will look fire all together).

 

I dont know if this helps, it was just what came to my mind.

[WonderWoman]

Sigh, no friends to help me........but that's my own sad story....

 

I went to Micro Center (where I purchased most of my parts) and they gave me some really good sugestions including that I can move the radiator to the back compartment where the PSU and wiring is and mount a third triple fan in the front compartment with the pump/reservoir on top of the fan......They said rearranging the radiator will give me better room for the MoBo wiring/connections.  I have a strimmer (I am a girl, I love my bling and RGB) but they feel I might not have enough room for it.  If I do not have enough room for it I will look at what I paid for it and maybe return it.  I also purchased some extra fittings because my build design changed from my original concept.  I never purchased any 45 degree fittings so they hooked me up with them.

 

They also gave me the following suggestions:

2 x 45 for Radiator

2 x 45 for CPU Block

1 x 45 for GPU Block

1 x Straight compression fitting for GPU Block

 

Directionality:

 

Pump to GPU then GPU to CPU then CPU to Radiator then Radiator to Pump

 

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[thrasher_565]

the rad on the other side will fit but how would you get the fittings over to the other side?

imo thow fans are crap and when diys the thing is junk. but you got it now so use it till it craps out i guess...

45 are usless most of the time.

im guessing soft tubing?

one 360 rad for 3080 and some cpu i dont think is enough imo for all the moeny spent.

Edited August 25, 2023 by thrasher_565

[WonderWoman]

Yes, soft tubing.  This being my first custom loop that is what many of the big names (and Micro Center) like Linus and JayZTwoCents and others suggest for first time custom loop builders to use. 

 

As for getting the fittings and tubing over, the case has openings where the radiator/fans get mounted so the fittings/tubing can pass through and over the forward facing/mounted triple fans.  I just did an approximate placement (see pic) of the 2 triple fans and it might be tight but I think I might work.  Thank you for catching that.....worse comes to worse I can always go back to the original placement and skip the third fan unit.  I think I also have the flexibility to mount the radiator on the top of the case with a fan over it and feed the tubing downward......I do have some options.  I do not like the option of the top mounted radiator because if there is ever a leak it would doom the PC but other people have installed radiators on the top like that so it is still an option that is available to use.

 

I don't plan on ever overclocking the unit.  I am not big into gaming (last games I played were on the Atari 2600 console (the original - I am 56) and I am not George Lucas nor Steven Spielberg.  When I purchase tech or build tech I always get overblown for the time because it lends itself toward longevity and gives the possibility of future upgrades.  That is how I purchased my first latpop 12 years ago.  I bought a really booted up HP Pavilion DV7 6b32US, paid good money for it but I was able to have flexibility to upgrade components and it is sitting next to me on my desk still running like a champion thoroghbread!

 

I would have stuck with HP to replace my 12 year old but they do not make a creator/gaming line of computers.  I purchased a booted up MSI Katana GF66 and I already after 1.5 years had to send it in for extended warranty treatment to replace the fan and keyboard.  This is why I pick top of the line parts when building.

[thrasher_565]

9 hours ago, WonderWoman said:

Yes, soft tubing.  This being my first custom loop that is what many of the big names (and Micro Center) like Linus and JayZTwoCents and others suggest for first time custom loop builders to use. 

 

As for getting the fittings and tubing over, the case has openings where the radiator/fans get mounted so the fittings/tubing can pass through and over the forward facing/mounted triple fans.  I just did an approximate placement (see pic) of the 2 triple fans and it might be tight but I think I might work.  Thank you for catching that.....worse comes to worse I can always go back to the original placement and skip the third fan unit.  I think I also have the flexibility to mount the radiator on the top of the case with a fan over it and feed the tubing downward......I do have some options.  I do not like the option of the top mounted radiator because if there is ever a leak it would doom the PC but other people have installed radiators on the top like that so it is still an option that is available to use.

 

I don't plan on ever overclocking the unit.  I am not big into gaming (last games I played were on the Atari 2600 console (the original - I am 56) and I am not George Lucas nor Steven Spielberg.  When I purchase tech or build tech I always get overblown for the time because it lends itself toward longevity and gives the possibility of future upgrades.  That is how I purchased my first latpop 12 years ago.  I bought a really booted up HP Pavilion DV7 6b32US, paid good money for it but I was able to have flexibility to upgrade components and it is sitting next to me on my desk still running like a champion thoroghbread!

 

I would have stuck with HP to replace my 12 year old but they do not make a creator/gaming line of computers.  I purchased a booted up MSI Katana GF66 and I already after 1.5 years had to send it in for extended warranty treatment to replace the fan and keyboard.  This is why I pick top of the line parts when building.

use the quote button if you want the person to respond. 

 

ya it might fit. ya way over kill build for not gaming... but hey why not. my pc is also WAY over kill too. 5x 560x rads, 3090, and i play diablo 2 and mindcraft...

 

i had a Atari 2600 but sold it as all i had was the joystics controllers and not the pattle. there a hacky sack game not there prity fun. 

 

i grue up with a nes and later on a snes. then much latter on a n64 then a family pc first game was duke nukem... then i spent $800 for my first pc a p4.

then got my dads hamydowns all the way to x58 i7-920 and last gpu was gtx 580. thats when we both got in to water cooling for $150. but you can over clock for 2.66 to 4.0 the good days of free preformace...

 

anyway gl with the build