D5 + tubular XSPC Photon Combo tips in 750D

CuteMango · July 12, 2014

I have purchased a bunch of watercooling kit including:

EK D5 Vario 12 DC Pump - stock housing

XSPC Photon 270 Tube Reservoir - probably should have went with the smaller 170 version but I like the look of the larger reservoirs.

XSPC M20 to G1/4″ Fillcap Adapter - this adapts the fillport to accept a G1/4" fitting

I was originally going to use Linus' method of just jamming the tubing (Primochill Adv LRT 3/8-5/8) onto the barbs but as I see fit, it doesn't look like I can really do this cleanly and then route the tubing from the top barb of the pump housing to the bottom of the case where an Alphacool rad is. I could flip the rad in the other direction which would make it easy to tube between the pump and the rad but then the tubing would need to take some weird path to the CPU block.

I'm mainly having issues on how to mount the pump - it would ideally work best if it was like this:

But I'm not sure how to mount it securely... so I thought about mounting it like this:

but I'm unsure if the tubing bend from the outlet of the pump would be too much to get to the fitting on the rad. The bitpower 45-adapter fitting isn't needed, just have it on for test fit purposes.

I have a Bitspower Mod Top coming in the mail this week -

https://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=27472

and a Koolance Swiveling M-M fitting to connect the mod top to the reservoir.

https://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=20421

So if none of this works, I'll hopefully be able to just fit the pump/top to the reservoir and the path to the rad should be much more straightforward. If I don't end up using the mod top, no biggie since I have a relative who could make use of it.

Thanks for any input.