CC - Project North

[crispy.ltt]

Hello all!

Finally! I'm very excited to announce a project I'm working on. In this build I'll be implementing a custom liquid cooling loop in my Fractal Design North. This build will feature a set of liquid cooling parts from EK, a vertically mounted GPU, sleeved cables and a bunch more goodies. A lot of planning and tinkering has led me to this project and I think it's going to end up really neat.

I'll be sharing a much more detailed log on my website where I can present the information in a more suitable format (link in bio). Early announcements will be posted on Instagram.
I'll stop talking and let you enjoy some specs and visualizations instead!

CHASSIS Fractal Design North
CPU AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D
GPU ASUS RTX 4080 TUF Gaming
RAM Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB
PSU Corsair SF750 80+ Platinum
MOTHERBOARD ASUS ROG Strix X570-I Gaming
STORAGE 1  Kingston Fury Renegade 2TB Gen. 4 M2
STORAGE 2 Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB Gen. 3 M.2
CONTROL UNIT Corsair iCUE Commander Core XT

CPU BLOCK EK-Quantum Velocity D-RGB
GPU BLOCK EK-Quantum Vector2 RTX 4080 D-RGB
RADIATOR EK Quantum-Surface X360M
TUBING EK-Tube ZMT Matte Black 10/16
INTAKE FANS Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM Chromax Black (3x)
EXHAUST FANS Noctua NF-A14 PWM Chromax Black (2x)
RESERVOIR EK-Quantum Kinetic FLT120 D5/DDC Body D-RGB
PUMP Alphacool Laing DDC310 - Single Edition
FITTINGS EK-Quantum Torque STC-10/16 (20x)
FITTINGS EK-Quantum Torque Rotary 90 (13x)
FITTINGS EK-AF Pass-Through (6x)
FITTINGS EK-Quantum Torque Drain Valve (2x)
FITTINGS EK-Quantum Torque Extender Static MF 7 (2x)
FITTINGS EK-Quantum Torque Rotary T
FITTINGS EK-Quantum Torque Extender Rotary MM 14
FITTINGS EK-Quantum Torque Splitter 3F T
COOLANT Alphacool Ultra Pure
M.2 COOLING EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink

 

[venomtail]

I wonder how you'll tackle cable management. The back panel is fairly shallow and I'm struggling to keep everything flat enough to close it. Gonna have to need a 3rd go at it.

 

Interested to see what you'll come up with.

[crispy.ltt]

21 minutes ago, venomtail said:

I wonder how you'll tackle cable management. The back panel is fairly shallow and I'm struggling to keep everything flat enough to close it. Gonna have to need a 3rd go at it.

 

Interested to see what you'll come up with.

I'm currently cooking up what I believe could be a really neat solution. Thanks to the abundance of 2.5" or 3.5" drives in this build, I'm saving quite a few cables which make my life significantly easier.  

 I'll share more on this later on, happy to see you taking interest in the project!

[crispy.ltt]

Hey,

I've recently received the last shipment of components for this build, which means I've unplugged my PC and can start working on the new setup! I'll have to rely on my Dell XPS laptop meanwhile. As specified in above post, there are a lot of exciting stuff going into this build, and I can't wait to start fitting and experimenting with the liquid cooling loop. I have a few modifications that I need to make to the chassis to get everything in place, and there'll be a lot of custom 3d-printed parts to help me manage the cables, tubing etc. 

I wanted to share some good shots of the components before I start assembling and test fitting so here they are. Again, the build log on my website contains a much more detailed breakdown of the components used in this build including my thoughts and the reasoning behind each choice!

Until next time!
/ Nik



Fractal Design North An excellent looking ATX chassis, might I say, one of if not the best looking ATX chassis on the market. Big fan of the mesh panels in combination with the smooth white/black and ribbed live oak front. Blends right into my home office! This chassis is roughly 45 litres in volume, a huge reduction from my previous Corsair Carbide Air 540 (63L)



AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D A very affordable CPU for gaming, and an upgrade from my previous AMD Ryzen 9 3900X. This will run cooler thanks to the lower TDP and perform better, particularly in gaming. Since I'm not swapping my motherboard and RAM, I am tied to the AM4 platform. 



ASUS RTX 4080 TUF Big upgrade from my previous RTX 2080 Ti (which broke due to bad memory chips unfortunately). I went for the 4080 due to the availability and sizing of water blocks from EK. The 4090 has an ludicrously high price tag, and the TUF variant water block is the smallest one EK makes apart from the founders edition card. 



ASUS ROG Strix X570-I Gaming An excellent ITX motherboard for the AM4 platform that has two M.2 slots and great positioning of its connectors. I think this is about as good as it can get given the scarcity of ITX motherboard options on the market. 



Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB Chosen purely for aesthetic reasons. I've always been a fan of Corsairs dominator series of RAM, and previously owned a kit of the DDR3 memory (which I think looks better/cleaner to be completely honest). The integrated RGB on this looks stunning and will most likely sit on static white for the most part. 

 

Corsair SF750 80+ Platinum The prior top-dog of the SFX power supply space. Due to space limitations imposed by my loop design, I am restricted to using an SFX power supply. The 750 Watt capacity should be just fine for this setup. Maybe I'll opt for something like the 1000W model in the future (which wasn't available when I bought this).

Kingston Fury Renegade 2TB A late addition to the build, supplementing my existing Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB with some much needed storage capacity. This is installed into the front M.2 slot since the rear slot on the motherboard only support Gen. 3 speeds. Affordable in Sweden and reliable judging by the 2000TBW lifespan.



EK-Quantum CPU & GPU blocks Two crown jewels of the build. The EK-Quantum Velocity and Vector water blocks in acetate black finish. They look stunning and the quality is no joke. These will surely take the center stage in the build, especially the GPU paired with the vertical Flex 2 bracket from Fractal Design.



EK-Quantum Surface X360M This great looking behemoth of a radiator will be fitted at the front of the chassis, which does require some modifications to the chassis. More on this later. 



EK-Quantum Kinetc FLT120 D5/DDC Body + Alphacool Laing DDC310 One of my favorite components in this build! I love these flat-style reservoirs from EK and I'd love to do an SFF build in the future with one of these, or even the smaller 80mm variant. I've opted for an Alphacool DDC pump as I've heard the quality of these are rock-solid. 



Noctua NF-A12x25 & NF-A14 Chromax The G.O.A.T. of cooling fans. Not much to say here...these perform incredibly well. If only the G2 variants had come out in black sooner! Maybe I'll look into a swap somewhere in the future.



EK-Quantum Torque Without a doubt the best looking fittings on the market. I'm using a bunch of different variants (90deg/45deg/pass-through...etc) to simplify the tubing runs.



EK ZMT 10/16 Great looking soft tubing from EK, always been a fan of these. Due to the 10/16 sizing, these are not as soft as one would think. It will be interesting to see how well I can straighten these!

[crispy.ltt]

Hey!

During the last week I've been test-fitting everything into the North, and I'm happy to say that everything went surprisingly well. Feels great seeing everything coming together pretty much the same as I planned. My doubts regarding the fitment of the radiator, and the clearance between the GPU and RAM turned out to be much easier resolved than I anticipated. On that note, I did alter my plans for the chassis modifications slightly for a cleaner result. More on this below. 

Here's some images for you to enjoy.
I'd love to know what you think!



Blacked out and clean, love this look!



Reservoir/Pump Setup I opted for a slightly different setup than what i previously had in mind with the inlet/outlet. After some research I found that using the intended inlet as inlet would be best, feeding the pump coolant properly. Even though it's advised against I'm going to use the dedicated drain/fill port (top right) as the outlet. Having the outlet at the top should be good as air will naturally escape upwards. The fill-port location might change, I think this setup will prove to be quite finicky when filling the loop. More on this later.



The motherboard, CPU block and GPU block belnds together very well, and the surface finish of these fittings is outstanding. Just very prone to fingerprints so I think I'll be using gloves when I handle these going forward.



Super satisfied with how the direction of the fittings align. This is going to look incredible with the tubing installed!



Radiator Fitment I scrapped my initial plans to modify the front chamber side of the chassis after realizing that cutting an opening in the bottom of the chassis was a much less intrusive and better solution. This allows me to slide the radiator into position from underneath and leaves the visible part of the chassis free from cut surfaces! I used a few features/indentations already present on the bottom of the chassis as an outline and cut a rectangular slot using my DREMEL cordless rotary tool. Since the panels are fairly thin (1mm) a fiber-reinforced cutting disc made quick work of this. To clean up and conceal the opening I 3D-printed two magnetically-attached plastic covers on my Bambulab A1.  



Drain Port I quickly realized that I had two unused ports at the bottom of the radiator, so I changed my drain port location to the bottom of the radiator which should be optimal. Thankfully, the clearance between the bottom of the drain valve to the bottom of the chassis feet is just enough at roughly 5 mm.



Radiator Fitment The radiator actually did fit, with virtually no clearance at all! Saves me the trouble of cutting into the front chamber of the chassis. It does put some strain on the bottom M4 screws that its attached by but not enough to be worried about I'd say.



Pass-through Fittings Pinning down the exact drill positions for the pass-through fittings was no joke. After a ton of measuring and marking, I ended up 3D-printing a few tools to help me get this right. Even a small misalignment will end up looking crooked and ruin the look, so I took my time here and carefully marked out the positions with an automatic center-punch. I did end up with some misalignment but thankfully I was able to correct it with my DREMEL. 



Clean cut holes with a step-drill that were a perfect fit for the fittings! Very happy with the final result. 



GPU/RAM Clearance This turned out better than I thought. While there was a slight interference between the GPU and the RAM, it was smaller than I calculated. I used some motherboard standoffs to offset the vertical GPU bracket slightly and voila, it fits! One important note here is the use of low-profile G1/4" plugs. These are only 3mm tall when installed as compared to the EK-Quantum Torque plugs which are 5.5mm tall.



GPU Sag Even with a vertical GPU I suffer the consequences of a heavy graphics card. The chassis was bending at the rear causing the GPU to sag so I 3D-printed a small magnetically-attached cylinder to place between the tip of the Flex 2 bracket and the chassis, slightly elevating the card. Works like a charm, simple yet effective!



SSD Heatsink Super annoying to install to be completely honest. Almost made me break my SSD in half as the included thermal pads were slightly too thick. Thankfully I had some spare thinner pads from the GPU block that I could use. Too much hassle for a heatsink!

Until next time  

[crispy.ltt]

Hello again!  

Back with some updates on the build. I've been spending a lot of time tinkering with cable management, and I feel like I've reached a design I'm satisfied with. While the North is quite limited in space for cable management in the rear chamber, there are a few things you can take advantage of to improve cable management. Since I'm graced with having a 3D printer, I've been cooking up a collection of plastic parts that help me route, cover, and tuck away cables. 

 

Here's what I'm talking about. Enjoy and let me know what you think!



Management  I've designed a tile-like set of plastic pieces that are mounted in the rear chamber. These guide the cables to the correct places and help tuck away excess cable length. While this defeats the purpose of having sleeved cables to a certain extent, I find the design quite appealing. These are still a work in progress though, so there may come updates that allow for more of the sleeving to be showcased (perhaps by using clear PETG). These are all attached using magnets, screws, or a combination of both. Since I'm using an ITX motherboard, there are quite a few mounting holes left unused, which I can utilise for this purpose.



Hub Attachment The most functional of the five pieces is the hub attachment. This piece takes care of almost all the excess cable length from fans, RGB cables, USB headers, etc., which is only possible thanks to the localised indentation in the chassis. This makes the chassis deep enough to fit cables underneath the dock, but to fit all of the excess cables, I've added a storage section below, which is covered with a magnetically attached lid. The toughest cable to manage in this area is the twin wire ribbon cable used to power the front USB 3.0 ports. Ribbon-style cables are always a hassle since their flexibility is restricted to one direction, and I'd much prefer if Fractal replaced these with regular cables with round profiles moving forward. 



Big Cables The two larger pieces on the right-hand side are designed to guide the individually sleeved 24-pin ATX, 8pin CPU/EPS, and 12VHPWR cables. I've left the area surrounding the M.2 SSD open to allow for heat to escape a bit better, and I'll probably add a cutout for the CPU backplate for the same purpose. These are currently printed in PLA, which I might have to replace with PETG for higher temperature resistance. 

 

Intake Chamber Covers It bothered me that the cable slack from the intake fans looked so unorganised, so I designed two magnetically attached covers that run along the entire front intake. A small but neat addition to clean up the build. 

 

Bottom Cover I've fitted another cover piece that runs along the bottom of the chassis, which does a great job at covering the 6-pin -> 2x daisy-chained SATA PWR cable. This is connected to the power cable for the DDC pump and the Corsair control hub, and since I'm using a MOLEX->SATA PWR adapter for the pump, it looks quite messy and bulky. Thanks to the absence of 3.5" storage drives in this system, I had a few drive sled screw holes that I could use for mounting this piece.

More on cable sleeving and tubing coming up in the next post!

[Hasle]

Love what you're doing here - very clean! Very keen to follow along!

[crispy.ltt]

3 hours ago, Hasle said:

Love what you're doing here - very clean! Very keen to follow along!

Thank you! More updates on the sleeving, tubing and cable management will come during the weekend! 

[crispy.ltt]

Hey! Back with some sweet updates to the build!

After spending a ludicrous amount of time crafting sleeved cables for the build, I've finally been able to put everything together. The system is now ready to be filled with coolant and booted for the first time! I've had a pleasant experience with EK's ZMT 10/16 rubber tubing, and I think the result looks great. 

Here are some shots of the progress. Enjoy!

 

Main chamber

 

Cable Management I've made some slight updates to the management tiles in the rear chamber since last time. The bottom left cover has grown in size to better cover the SATA PWR cables for the Corsair hub and the DDC pump. The larger tiles on the right-hand side have also been reinforced with more attachment points and some non-visible technical updates. The channels for the 24-pin and 12VHPWR cables have also been given individual cable attachments for strength and assembly purposes. The previous design was a pain in the ass to set up and bulged outwards due to the cables being quite stiff.



A closer view of the main chamber.



Reservoir The inlet and outlet on the reservoir have been slightly revised. I'm using the standard inlet and the top right port as the outlet. Instead of having a fill valve in a T-fitting at the inlet, I've opted to use the topmost port for improved functionality. I didn't have any extra 90-degree fittings, so I just added a plug to the top of the inlet to seal the open end.



A close-up shot of the bottom rear chamber.



Cable Sleeving I knew that crafting custom cables would be time consuming...but damn. I'm not sure how many hours I've spent on these cables, but it feels like forever. I used supplies exclusively from MDPC-X, a German supplier. Great products with great quality and great customer service, I can highly recommend them for those interested in crafting custom cables. I chose to sleeve with the colour "Shade-19", which is a dark grey that matches the inner panels of the North pretty well. It's still a very subtle colour, just not as stealthy as a pitch black variant.



12VHPWR This cable has been nothing but a pain for me...and after three failed attempts, I decided to purchase a pre-built sleeved cable from Corsair. For some reason, the terminal pins kept failing to lock in place inside the connector.  The sleeving doesn't match the other cables, but at this point I just wanna get the system up and running. I'm baffled at how terrible the 12VHPWR connector is, and in my eyes, this should never have passed as the new standard for high-power GPUS. The assembly conditions are horrible, and the safety margins are considerably worse than the 8-pin EPS / 6+2pin PCIe. I've designed a clamp that allows me to bend the cable quite aggressively while maintaining a safe and rigid connection. The clamp is press-fit into the opening in the GPU block, as the connector is slightly recessed. 



24-pin ATX I'm very happy with how this turned out, even though I had some setbacks as I realised some of the terminals required double wires a bit too late. This cable takes a ton of time to create, and can be quite easy to mess up due to the sheer number of terminals. Pure laser focus is the only way to do it when inserting the correct pinout for your PSU. I checked continuity and voltage afterwards to make sure I got everything right (which I highly advise anyone to do). This cable also has a 3D-printed clamp to bend it into the rear chamber. 



8-pin CPU/EPS This cable is a breeze as compared to the 24-pin and 12VHPWR! 8-pins with an incredibly simple pinout. As I'm running two 140 mm fans at the top as exhaust, I'm unable to bend the cable upwards. Therefore, I opted for a sideways 180-degree bend, which is held firmly using a 3D-printed "router". The router is fastened using an extension from one of the motherboard standoffs.



Tube Preparation Since I have a few tubing runs that I want to keep completely straight, I've spent some time manually straightening the tubing. The tubing is packaged in a spiral, and if you install it right away, it will put unnecessary strain on the fittings and appear crooked. I found that a combination of heat, bending, and moulding worked the best. I used a heat gun to soften the tubing while manually bending it. When the tubing looked completely straight, I inserted it into a 3D-printed mould while it cooled. It's also important that you cut the tubing as straight as possible, otherwise it will come out of the compression fittings at an angle. 



CPU Tubing This tubing run is quite tricky and tight in this build due to the use of a vertical GPU bracket. There's just enough room to fit the tubes, and they don't end up being completely vertical by themselves. I designed a "tube router" that is fastened to the chassis, completely hidden behind the GPU. I forgot to take a good shot of this part, but in the image it's visible as the light grey surfaces. 

The build finale is on its way! Stay updated!

[venomtail]

Work of art, especially the arse under. Love the cables. Great rear panel, jealous and in awe. Straight up the 1% of the 1%.

[crispy.ltt]

On 5/23/2025 at 11:42 PM, venomtail said:

Work of art, especially the arse under. Love the cables. Great rear panel, jealous and in awe. Straight up the 1% of the 1%.

Thank you very much! A lot of work has gone into it, and I'm beyond satisfied with how everything has turned out  . I'm doing some finishing touches currently and will post the build log finale in the coming week, which will be followed by a performance evaluation and some metrics! 

[crispy.ltt]

Hey!
 

Project North has officially wrapped up, and the latest* post is now live on the build log!
 

I had hoped to share this update before summer, but life threw a few curveballs along the way. Despite the delays, the project is complete—and I’m thrilled with how it turned out!
 

During the final assembly, the build underwent a few adjustments to address unforeseen issues with the cooling loop. Some 3D-printed parts were redesigned, and a few new elements were added, including extra cooling fans and a coolant sensor. As always, I recommend checking out the build log on my website for a closer look at the finished setup. I’ve also been working on improving the site’s mobile responsiveness. While it’s not perfect yet, navigating on smaller screens is already much smoother.
 

* There will actually be one more follow-up post featuring detailed performance metrics, so this is technically the second-last update!

Enjoy these shots of the final build!







Cable MGMT Some slight changes have been made to the tile cable management system in the rear chamber to cover up the cable connections near the power supply.

 

Rear Fan An EK Vardar 120ER EVO D-RGB has been added to the rear of the chassis for illumination purposes. See nighttime images below for reference.

 

Tubing Due to some incredibly poor judgment and decision-making on my part, I've had to re-arrange the tubing coming in and out of the reservoir. When EK says "you must..." in their reservoir/pump manual, follow it! Don't be foolish like me and take it as advice rather than instructions! Regardless, I'm very happy with how this tubing turned out, and the position of the fill port turned out even more practical than before.

 

 

Control Hub I love setting fans/RGB up like this, even though the setup part can be a bit bothersome at first. 3x NF-A12x25 share PWM-1, 2x NF-A12x15 occupy PWM-2/3, 2x NF-A14 occupy PWM-4/5, and the DDC310 pump is connected to PWM-6. Three RGB headers are used for the reservoir, GPU block, and CPU block. Unfortunately, the CPU block RGB was not cooperative with iCUE, giving me the option of either static or flashing red regardless of settings. The coolant sensor is connected using the bottom-facing 2-pin header. 

 

Filling was super convenient using the EK "linear-style" valve fitting. 

 

 

Quality Control One of my fittings was missing an o-ring, which fumbled me at first as I didn't spot it until it started slowly leaking. While they are captive, it must've fallen off while I was assembling the system at some point. I'll make sure to double-check each fitting next time as I install them.



Cooling Capacity I was a bit worried about the airflow through the front radiator with lower fan speeds, so I decided to install two slim NF-A12x15 fans in a pull configuration. This required some light cutting work with my DREMEL on the bottom fan frame, as it interfered with the chassis. More on the impact of this in the performance evaluation coming up next!

Continued below...

/ Nik

[crispy.ltt]

Here are some low-light shots of the build to showcase the LED setup. Enjoy!

 

 

Rear Fan The Vardar addition was a great contribution to the overall illumination of the build. Due to the lack of LED lighting on the CPU block, this fan does a great job at brightening up the surrounding components in the left-hand area of the main chamber. I love how even and smooth the LEDs on these fans look, very minimalistic and clean.

 

 

 

 

 

/ Nik

Working on the performance evaluation, I'll post as soon as I have it compiled and ready to go!

[crispy.ltt]

Project North – Performance Deep Dive

This is the performance testing and tuning phase of my Fractal North custom water-cooled build. The focus was to validate thermal headroom, optimize efficiency, and push both CPU and GPU performance without sacrificing acoustics.

As always, there's a more comprehensive post on my website!

Loop order: Reservoir/Pump → GPU → Radiator → CPU → Reservoir/Pump

 

Thermal Results (Gaming Load)

• Average CPU temp: 56 °C (OC) 61 °C (Stock)
• Average GPU temp: 54 °C (OC) 55 °C (Stock)
• Average coolant ΔT: 9 °C (OC) 8 °C (Stock)
• Average coolant ΔT (Without 2x NF-A12x15): 10.6 °C

Normalizing ambient temperature to 25 °C drops GPU to 53 °C and CPU to 52 °C

 

Tuning & Settings

GPU – RTX 4080 TUF

• Power limit: 110%
• Voltage: locked at 1.025 V
• Core boost: 2925 MHz (stable) vs. ~2760 MHz stock
• Memory: 12400 MHz effective vs. 11200 MHz stock

CPU – Ryzen 7 5700X3D

• Curve Optimiser: −30 mV (all cores)
• FCLK: 1800 MHz (from 1600 MHz default)
• ASUS Performance Enhancer: Level 2
• Average boost improvement: +145 MHz
• Peak temperature reduction: −6–10 °C in sustained loads

 

Benchmark Results

Benchmark	Stock	Tuned	Δ
3DMark Port Royal	17,730	19,399	+9.4%
3DMark Time Spy Extreme	10,710	11,447	+6.9%
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra	15,832	16,816	+6.2%

 

Game	Stock FPS	Tuned FPS	Δ
Elden Ring	96	108	+12.5%
Battlefield 1	276	288	+4.3%
Forza Horizon 5	129	134	+3.9%

Cooling & Airflow Lessons

• High-FPI, thick radiators (60 mm, 18 FPI) suffer without push+pull; adding two NF-A12x15s in pull boosted airflow consistency.
• Radiator airflow reduction: expect 30–50% loss compared to raw fan specs.
• Positive pressure (~+10%) helps keep dust out while stabilising temps.
• Loop bleeding caution: releasing a port too early caused a spill due to trapped pressure — patience required.

 

Key Takeaways

• Undervolting is king: GPU undervolt allowed near-OC performance with lower temps and power draw. The CPU curve optimiser added both higher boost and efficiency.
• Push+pull is worth it for thick, high-FPI radiators — performance difference is measurable.
• Pump noise is the limiting factor for completely “silent” operation; fans are practically inaudible, even at gaming loads.
• Real-world uplift: Across all workloads, the build averaged ~7% higher performance with no thermal compromises.

 

/ Nik