250D Hard Line Custom Loop Build

[bpw87]

So I'm thinking of building a mITX water cooled loop in a 250D.

 

Has anyone done this or anything like it?

 

General specs will be along the lines of

 

i5 k processor

980

ROG mITX board

m2 ssd

EK blocks, reservoir and pump

Alphacool rads

 

I don't want to use a 5.25" bay res pump combo.

 

 

 

[Syte]

Goooood luck!

 

Small custom loop builds are hard as hell and I highly recommend against this if you're still getting your feet wet (pun intended). Adding the hard line to the mix only deepens the gamble. I mean, it will look great if done right and pulled off correctly but mITX custom looping is still one of the hardest things I've ever done when it comes to building.

[bpw87]

Goooood luck!

 

Small custom loop builds are hard as hell and I highly recommend against this if you're still getting your feet wet (pun intended). Adding the hard line to the mix only deepens the gamble. I mean, it will look great if done right and pulled off correctly but mITX custom looping is still one of the hardest things I've ever done when it comes to building.

 

I don't mind the risks and while this will be my first water cooled build I'm optimistically confident going into it and feel like it's something within my abilities. If something goes wrong then I'll suffer the consequences. If I go this route which is almost certain at this point I want to go all out with all the bells and whistles and aim for an elegant show case style build to be the centerpiece of my desk.

 

Thanks for the input

[bpw87]

After doing some research it looks like I'll only be able to put one 240x120x30mm rad without it being really cramped and extra difficult. I wonder if a single rad with a i5 and a 980 both overclocked moderately will be enough for cooling? 

[Syte]

You can find a lot of good Delta V calculators out there to tell what kind of cooling and flow rate/rad space you need. Spitballing it: a good 240mm rad would probably be fine as neither the GTX 980 or i5 4690k are particularly hot.

[bpw87]

You can find a lot of good Delta V calculators out there to tell what kind of cooling and flow rate/rad space you need. Spitballing it: a good 240mm rad would probably be fine as neither the GTX 980 or i5 4690k are particularly hot.

 

I had a bit of a look for a decent Delta V calculator I can't seem to find one that is tailored toward computer hardware, do you have any links that could help me find one. I was thinking that one might be enough as I've seen people run hotter hardware on similar sized cooling but I don't know what sort of temps they are getting and if there ambient room temps are more reasonable as here we often get 40c days through summer and while I have air con it does almost nothing where my PC is on days that hot.

[Syte]

I had a bit of a look for a decent Delta V calculator I can't seem to find one that is tailored toward computer hardware, do you have any links that could help me find one. I was thinking that one might be enough as I've seen people run hotter hardware on similar sized cooling but I don't know what sort of temps they are getting and if there ambient room temps are more reasonable as here we often get 40c days through summer and while I have air con it does almost nothing where my PC is on days that hot.

 

With water on the GPU you generally don't ever have to worry about temps as long as you have a good pump, CPU is a whole other story, given that you don't have many options the 240mm will work though you may need to be lenient on your CPU voltage to make sure you aren't stable in Winter but unstable in Summer.

[bpw87]

With water on the GPU you generally don't ever have to worry about temps as long as you have a good pump, CPU is a whole other story, given that you don't have many options the 240mm will work though you may need to be lenient on your CPU voltage to make sure you aren't stable in Winter but unstable in Summer.

 

I may use my 4670k yet as it gets a stable overclock of 4.2ghz @ 1.164v and barely gets to 65c with a 212 Evo under heavy gaming conditions. I was probably looking at pushing the 980 a bit harder as I want to be able to run most AAA titles on ultra 1080p 144hz

[bpw87]

I found some pretty awesome examples over on overclock.net. I want to aim for something close to the quality of these builds but with my own unique finish.

 

http://imgur.com/gallery/YGrub

 

[Kermit]

^^ this looks sweet

 

if you can recreate something like that I'll give you a gold star

[bpw87]

^^ this looks sweet

 

if you can recreate something like that I'll give you a gold star

 

I will try with all my might to do something even better but I think I would be happy with something even close to their quality