G5ive

[kierden]

Awesome, inspiring, build so far! Gotta love the Mac Pro case, never seen a modded one like this before, yet alone water-cooled! 

 

Did you stick with those 560TI's? Seems a bit of a let down in a build this slick.

 

Looking forward to seeing more :D

[nickpc]

cool

[Shawy]

Awesome, inspiring, build so far! Gotta love the Mac Pro case, never seen a modded one like this before, yet alone water-cooled! 

 

Did you stick with those 560TI's? Seems a bit of a let down in a build this slick.

 

Looking forward to seeing more :D

 

Thanks! There's a few out there, not many watercooled and those which are have a simple cpu loop with a skinny 240 rad.

Unfortunately I've just finished my degree and yet to find a job so the 560s will be staying for a while yet.,, Unless anyone has a pair of 680s lying around they want to get rid of.. :rolleyes:

[kierden]

Thanks! There's a few out there, not many watercooled and those which are have a simple cpu loop with a skinny 240 rad.

Unfortunately I've just finished my degree and yet to find a job so the 560s will be staying for a while yet.,, Unless anyone has a pair of 680s lying around they want to get rid of.. :rolleyes:

 

Ha, I was in the exact same position this time last year! Got there in the in the end though. 560TI's should give you good performance but not what the build deserves :D

[Sundanc3]

Ha, I was in the exact same position this time last year! Got there in the in the end though. 560TI's should give you good performance but not what the build deserves :D

560ti's are decent enough. They definitely don't ruin the build. They are also good cards for Hackintoshing

[Shawy]

Ha, I was in the exact same position this time last year! Got there in the in the end though. 560TI's should give you good performance but not what the build deserves :D

 

Yeah it sucks, I've got my eye on a nice pair of 770s, hopefully after summer I'll have a job sorted and can treat myself to a nice little christmas present... ^_^

 

560ti's are decent enough. They definitely don't ruin the build. They are also good cards for Hackintoshing

 

Yeah they'll do for now at least.

[Shawy]

The dust filter has been installed. I used 6mmx1mm magnets attached to the steel screws which fasten the case together. You can sort of make them out along the edge of this next picture:

 

 

I also added soundproof foam to the motherboard tray. The bare aluminium had gotten quite scratched and grubby so I decided to add the foam to clean it up and blend it in with the back of the case.

 

 

The SSD is mounted to the back of the motherboard tray to hide the cable. I really hope I don't have to replace it because it'll require taking pretty much everything out of the case first..

 

 

And here's a shot of the motherboard ready to be installed inside the case - notice the right angled SATA cables tucked out of the way. 

 

 

 

I'm pretty much ready to fit everything inside the case now! Not having a removable back panel makes it 10x harder to fit everything in. And everything needs to be installed in a certain order to make sure the next parts will be able to fit in. I also need to plan out all of the cables first and hope that I don't miss any and have to strip the case out and start again.

[Tan-M4-DMR]

Wow. I can't wait to see this thing with all of the watercooling. Are you planning a window, or are you just going to keep the overall look of the G5 the same?

[Shawy]

Wow. I can't wait to see this thing with all of the watercooling. Are you planning a window, or are you just going to keep the overall look of the G5 the same?

 

I'm trying to find a place that can laser cut 3mm aluminium near by as I don't really fancy having a wonky window that I've cut with a dremel.. No luck so far but I'm moving soon so hopefully I'll find somewhere.

 

 

Penultimate update is here!

 

Assembling the build starts with the power supply and the mechanism which locks the side panel when closed. 

 

 

Next comes the motherboard tray, with the SSD attached and cables running underneath.

 

 

Next in is the Monsta rad - so big that I had to take the CPU block off to squeeze it in.. The tubing had to be attached to the rear of the rad before installing it which didn't make things any easier.

 

 

Then I cleaned up the TIM and remounted the CPU block.

 

 

 

Next was the most annoying part - the pump. It's mounted using silicone fan mounts which have some washers to keep them from slipping out. I had to feed the silicone through the hole in the case floor and pull it through the other side - it sounds a lot easier than it is, as it all has to be done pretty much blind.

 

 

Onto the second most annoying part was tubing the pump to the rad. Such a tight space made it a little difficult, but the silicone pump mount enabled me to wiggle the pump around to ease the tubing on.

 

 

Next the res was installed onto the pump and the GPUs slotted into place. Tubing had to be attached to the reservoir before installing it to save having to deal with the cramped space.

 

 

Then cut and fit the tubing to the GPU blocks.

 

 

And then route the tubing to the CPU block. It's quite a tight bend but the 11/16mm tubing handled it quite well.

 

 

 

That was pretty much it.. Time to fill her up and hope for the best.. :eek:

 

 

Reservoir filled for the first time - no leaks is always a good thing.. Was not looking forward to turning it on for the first time just incase I'd forgotten to plug a hole or I'd missed an o-ring..

 

 

 

Thankfully everything went ok and I managed to fill the loop with just over 1 litre of fluid.

 

 

Now to let it run for a few hours to leak test and bleed the bubbles out of it. And due to how the loop is set up and the 3way parallelness it takes a fair amount of effort to bleed all of the bubbles out. :(

 

 

Hopefully I'll be able to take some shots of the finished build tomorrow :D, though I don't want to jinx myself by speaking too soon...

[Tan-M4-DMR]

Man, she looks beautiful. Something of that tier definitely deserves to be shown off. I seriously think you should get a really nice side window done. Right over where the motherboard and the reservoir are, but not quite to the edge of the case, and just hiding the fans. Just about like this:

[Shawy]

Man, she looks beautiful. Something of that tier definitely deserves to be shown off. I seriously think you should get a really nice side window done. Right over where the motherboard and the reservoir are, but not quite to the edge of the case, and just hiding the fans. Just about like this:

 

That's the plan! I just need to find somewhere local to cut the panel for me, rather than have a shoddy dremel cut ruining it.

 

Onto some finished pictures:

My camera died on my before I could take any more, I'll try again tomorrow and hopefully it wont be as sunny.

[Raxxdude]

Looks awesome. Very creative.

[TicTac]

looks awesome !

[jscho]

That's such a nice build! Definately unique!

[Shawy]

Looks awesome. Very creative.

 

 

looks awesome !

 

 

That's such a nice build! Definately unique!

 

I'm glad you guys like it. :)

 

A little setback on the photos - I was cutting the USB plugs off of my fan controller so it would fit inside the case and I shorted 2 of the channels when testing it (I didn't put the PCB back in the aluminium case and the pins were exposed to the case) so now I only have 2 fans working.

Temps are still under control - I'm starting to think I could just use the Monsta rad completely passive, it's ridiculous. Anyway, I wont be able to finish everything until tuesday now.

[Raxxdude]

I'm glad you guys like it. :)

A little setback on the photos - I was cutting the USB plugs off of my fan controller so it would fit inside the case and I shorted 2 of the channels when testing it (I didn't put the PCB back in the aluminium case and the pins were exposed to the case) so now I only have 2 fans working.

Temps are still under control - I'm starting to think I could just use the Monsta rad completely passive, it's ridiculous. Anyway, I wont be able to finish everything until tuesday now.

That sucks, but the fact that your temps are still fine is pretty cool.

[Raxxdude]

I'm glad you guys like it. :)

A little setback on the photos - I was cutting the USB plugs off of my fan controller so it would fit inside the case and I shorted 2 of the channels when testing it (I didn't put the PCB back in the aluminium case and the pins were exposed to the case) so now I only have 2 fans working.

Temps are still under control - I'm starting to think I could just use the Monsta rad completely passive, it's ridiculous. Anyway, I wont be able to finish everything until tuesday now.

That sucks, but the fact that your temps are still fine is pretty cool.

[911^NEmeSis]

Very nice mate. Well done!

Will look awesome once the side panel window is on there and to my surprise, the case seems more cramped up than I thought it would be. I've seen a few of the Apple cases like this in real life and they were huge.

 

Nice one anyways, perhaps with the window and some lights done it will look an absolute monster :D

[ghrimey]

Nice job man. I'm going to build a hackentosh for a buddy of mine this summer (maybe) but I don't plan on going all out like you did with a custom loop and all but it looks great.

[Williamchan87]

that's beast

[Shawy]

That sucks, but the fact that your temps are still fine is pretty cool.

 

 

Very nice mate. Well done!

Will look awesome once the side panel window is on there and to my surprise, the case seems more cramped up than I thought it would be. I've seen a few of the Apple cases like this in real life and they were huge.

 

Nice one anyways, perhaps with the window and some lights done it will look an absolute monster :D

 

 

Nice job man. I'm going to build a hackentosh for a buddy of mine this summer (maybe) but I don't plan on going all out like you did with a custom loop and all but it looks great.

 

 

that's beast

 

Thanks guys! Finished pics won't be up until next weekend now - I've got a nice little upgrade coming in the post...

[prodigydoo]

Very sexy

[Shawy]

Just when I thought my rig was finished, I went ahead and bought a pair of 680s..



Just waiting on some nice new blocks for them now.

[Shawy]

It appears that I made a slight oversight with the new 680s. They're 25mm longer than my current 560Ti's which are already squashed in place by the reservoir. Unless I can manage to push everything forward a tad, I'm going to have to use a shorter reservoir which fits underneath the cards.. :(

[KushKomputers]

It appears that I made a slight oversight with the new 680s. They're 25mm longer than my current 560Ti's which are already squashed in place by the reservoir. Unless I can manage to push everything forward a tad, I'm going to have to use a shorter reservoir which fits underneath the cards..

Dang, that's a serious bummer man. Maybe you could use a thinner rad in the front instead of changing the res. Idk how much more expensive that would be though...