Watercooling a 650D - Blue Black & Silver

[STKS]

THE PLAN;

Hello! This is the first PC I ever built, its about 7-8 months old, and while i'm pleased overall with my component choice, there are lots of little things that I could of done better as i think you may agree!

What you can see in the above picture is an i7 3770K @ 4.6Ghz, Corsair H100i, Asus Maximus V GENE, Asus GTX 670 @ 1140mhz, Corsair Vengeance 8GB @ 1800mhz, Crucial M4 512GB, Xonar Essence STX, Corsair AX750 all inside a Corsair 650D

While i cant fault any of my components i don't like the look of my case, it looks dull, like every other aircooled corsair / asus build. I also don't like red. I also don't have nearly as much cooling performance as i want, small FFT on Prime 95 pushes my CPU up to 90C - the limit of what i would consider acceptable, the GPU also regularly hovers in the mid 70's.

Rather than upgrading so early (and lets face it, there is absolutely no reason to upgrade from the components i'm using right now) I plan on a side grade, fixing some of the issues i have with my current build.

The three main areas i want to fix are as follows

1) as much cooling as I can cram into my 650D as possible
2) I am ditching the boring red / black scheme for something that fits my set-up much better

3) far better cable management


Here is what I have in mind for my loop

 

 

Up next, component choice

 

 

[Samdb]

Before you water cool, I would recommend managing your cables.

[RaVenBelgium]

THE PLAN;

Hello! This is the first PC I ever built, its about 7-8 months old, and while i'm pleased overall with my component choice, there are lots of little things that I could of done better as i think you may agree! IMAG0042.jpg

What you can see in the above picture is an i7 3770K @ 4.6Ghz, Corsair H100i, Asus Maximus V GENE, Asus GTX 670 @ 1140mhz, Corsair Vengeance 8GB @ 1800mhz, Crucial M4 512GB, Xonar Essence STX, Corsair AX750 all inside a Corsair 650D

While i cant fault any of my components i don't like the look of my case, it looks dull, like every other aircooled corsair / asus build. I also don't like red. I also don't have nearly as much cooling performance as i want, small FFT on Prime 95 pushes my CPU up to 90C - the limit of what i would consider acceptable, the GPU also regularly hovers in the mid 70's.

Rather than upgrading so early (and lets face it, there is absolutely no reason to upgrade from the components i'm using right now) I plan on a side grade, fixing some of the issues i have with my current build.

The three main areas i want to fix are as follows

1) as much cooling as I can cram into my 650D as possible

2) I am ditching the boring red / black scheme for something that fits my set-up much better

3) far better cable management

Here is what I have in mind for my loop650d_d.png

 

 

Up next, component choice

Looks nice, try to manage your cables first before you go watercooling ;)

[STKS]

Before you water cool, I would recommend managing your cables.

 

 

Looks nice, try to manage your cables first before you go watercooling ;)

As you may be about to find out, I'm posting all this retrospectively, my PC has been in several pieces for the last few days. So now its time for a mega update through tonight and maybe tomorrow depending on how long it takes. The cables in that picture are awful i know, i just couldn't find the willpower to do it knowing that i had this planned.

[RaVenBelgium]

As you may be about to find out, I'm posting all this retrospectively, my PC has been in several pieces for the last few days. So now its time for a mega update through tonight and maybe tomorrow depending on how long it takes. The cables in that picture are awful i know, i just couldn't find the willpower to do it knowing that i had this planned.

I'm looking forward to your update ;)

[STKS]

COMPONENT CHOICE

Bearing in mind that I'm ditching the red from my build, in favour of - as the title suggests; blue, black and silver i need to find a replacement for my ROG board and red vengeance RAM.

I settled on the MSI Z77 GD65, while this is a cheaper board and i lose a few USB ports and onboard audio quality, it fits the colour scheme perfectly, and is also ATX rather than micro ATX, giving me much more options in future builds. to counteract the loss of USB ports I'm buying a USB 3.0 PCI card and the change in on-board audio quality is nullified by the Xonar STX that I own.

As for RAM, rather than just buying new RAM for a different colour scheme i wanted to jump ship from Corsair and get something a bit different, i chose the 2x4GB HyperX predator 2400mhz kit from Kingston, partly for their reputation for reliability and partly because they look phenomenal.


THE SHOPPING LIST

As for the loop, I'll keep it much simpler and show you the parts list, then dive straight into the build pictures to let you see why I chose these parts.

• Phobya Xtreme 200mm Radiator
• XSPC Low Profile Radiator EX240
• XSPC EX Series 120mm Single Radiator
• BitFenix 120mm Spectre PRO Fan - Black X3
• BitFenix 200mm Spectre PRO Fan - Black
• Lamptron - 5.25'' Rheobus - 4 Channels - FC6 - Black
• Primochill PrimoFlex Advanced LRT 1/2" ID - 3/4" OD (13-19mm) Tubing : Crystal Clear 2 Meters
• Mayhems Fine 99.999% Silver Kill Coil
• XSPC X2O 750 L/ph 12V Pump V4 with Dual Drive Bay Black Reservoir
• Mayhems Ultra Pure H20 Water : 2 Litres
• Generic Battery Top-up Water (for flushing the loop)
• Koolance QD3 Quick Disconnect Male and Female
• EK-CSQ Fitting 13/19mm G1/4 - Nickel x12
• EK-FC670 GTX DCII - Acetal+Nickel
• EK-Supremacy - Acetal+Nickel
• EK-CSQ Adapter 45° G1/4 Nickel x3
• EK-CSQ Adapter 90° G1/4 Nickel x3
• EK–FC670 GTX DCII Back Plate Black
• AKASA UV Cold Cathode X2
• TeckNet 4 Ports PCI USB 3.0 Expansion Card
• MSI Z77 GD-65
• Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB (2x4GB) 2400mhz

AND THIS IS WHAT IT ALL LOOKS LIKE !

UP NEXT

THE BUILD

[STKS]

Before I start I just want to post two photos that I think will be of interest to some of you, but don't really fit elsewhere.

First up; I like to see what tools people use, so if there are any of you that feel the same - here are mine !

 

 

(there's a black and decker drill that I ended up using and some funnels / buckets that i didnt include in the photo)


Secondly, I really appreciated how much effort had gone into EK's packaging, from the water blocks to individual named bags for the fittings, here is just a little bit of the GPU block box. ( I have a hunch that there may be a few of you on this forum who appreciate a nice experience when opening a new product)

 

[Bicko96]

COMPONENT CHOICE

Bearing in mind that I'm ditching the red from my build, in favour of - as the title suggests; blue, black and silver i need to find a replacement for my ROG board and red vengeance RAM. 

I settled on the MSI Z77 GD65, while this is a cheaper board and i lose a few USB ports and onboard audio quality, it fits the colour scheme perfectly, and is also ATX rather than micro ATX, giving me much more options in future builds. to counteract the loss of USB ports I'm buying a USB 3.0 PCI card and the change in on-board audio quality is nullified by the Xonar STX that I own.

As for RAM, rather than just buying new RAM for a different colour scheme i wanted to jump ship from Corsair and get something a bit different, i chose the 2x4GB HyperX predator 2400mhz kit from Kingston, partly for their reputation for reliability and partly because they look phenomenal.

THE SHOPPING LIST

 

As for the loop, I'll keep it much simpler and show you the parts list, then dive straight into the build pictures to let you see why I chose these parts.

 

• Phobya Xtreme 200mm Radiator
• XSPC Low Profile Radiator EX240
• XSPC EX Series 120mm Single Radiator
• BitFenix 120mm Spectre PRO Fan - Black X3
• BitFenix 200mm Spectre PRO Fan - Black
• Lamptron - 5.25'' Rheobus - 4 Channels - FC6 - Black
• Primochill PrimoFlex Advanced LRT 1/2" ID - 3/4" OD (13-19mm) Tubing : Crystal Clear 2 Meters
• Mayhems Fine 99.999% Silver Kill Coil
• XSPC X2O 750 L/ph 12V Pump V4 with Dual Drive Bay Black Reservoir
• Mayhems Ultra Pure H20 Water : 2 Litres
• Generic Battery Top-up Water (for flushing the loop)
• Koolance QD3 Quick Disconnect Male and Female
• EK-CSQ Fitting 13/19mm G1/4 - Nickel x12
• EK-FC670 GTX DCII - Acetal+Nickel
• EK-Supremacy - Acetal+Nickel
• EK-CSQ Adapter 45° G1/4 Nickel x3
• EK-CSQ Adapter 90° G1/4 Nickel x3
• EK–FC670 GTX DCII Back Plate Black
• AKASA UV Cold Cathode X2
• TeckNet  4 Ports PCI  USB 3.0 Expansion Card

• MSI Z77 GD-65

• Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB (4x2) 2400mhz

 

AND THIS IS WHAT IT ALL LOOKS LIKE ! 

 

 

IMAG0034.jpg

 

 

 

UP NEXT

THE BUILD

 

"Halfords Battery Topup Water" yeaahhh like a real man

[STKS]

First I used the battery top up water (de-ionised water) to flush the radiators and reservoir then left them to dry overnight.

 

 

 

 

This picture also highlights how much surface area a 200mm rad has compared to the more common 240mm, both in flat area and thickness.

 

 

 

 

This picture doesn't show it well at all but the pump/res was filthy on the inside

 

 

the tubing was also rinsed with warm water to remove the bend from the warehouse then again with de-ionised water to remove impurities from the tap. I also may also  have had a lot of fun blowing through the tubing when it arrived...

 

 

 

This is what came out of JUST the 200mm radiator in the first flush 

[STKS]

Next up is the GPU block.

 

 

 

Removing the heatsink and backplate was easy enough, but this is where I ran into my first problem

 

 

 

As you can see the VRM has its own heatsink, despite being directly under the DCUII cooler, this wasn't in any of the photo's of the Asus 670 that i'd seen so might possibly be a feature of new revisions ? This didn't seem like much of a problem - remove the screws and lift it off. However i was unable to lift the heatsink off of the VRM, after a few minutes of trying to find the balance between being gentle and using the right force I resorted to pulling with pliers. nothing. At this stage I was growing worried that there may be some other screw or even worse - solder. as a last resort a soaked a scalpel in isopropyl alcohol and began to run the blade around the edge where i could see the heatsink meeting the thermal pad, half way round it suddenly poped off ! maybe I loosened it up, maybe the alcohol did something, maybe it was just suction keeping it on and I let air in ? The stock thermal pad crumbled in my fingers like hard mud, it was definitely a wise move to replace my GPU cooling.

 

 

 

Next up, i applied new thermal pads to the VRM and VRAM and replaced the thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5)

 

 

 

Problem number 2, the backplate i ordered is for stock 670's not DCUII cards, and is therefore too short, I returned this backplate and will attach the correct backplate at a later date as it was out of stock.

 

I didn't read the item description properly and ordered a EK-FC670 GTX instead of a EK-FC670 GTX DCII, easy to overlook I guess ?

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I attached the block and screwed in the 90° adapter, the GPU is now ready.

 

 

[STKS]

Swapped the CPU over to the new motherboard and dropped the RAM in.

 

 

 

Then I began attaching fans to the two smaller radiators

 

 

 

Then I fitted them to the case and installed the motherboard

 

 

 

Now its time for the tricky bit...

[DinckelMan]

This is going to be awesome!

The only thing i dislike is the pump\rez. I personally dont like these combos

[Mr. Chairman]

Man, you need to paint your optical drive.

[RaVenBelgium]

Man, you need to paint your optical drive.

Or just get another one :D

[ERSCreeper]

Looks a lot better already!

[STKS]

There are two main reasons that people don't put 200mm radiators in this case

1) Corsair 200mm fans are not standard sized, meaning other 200mm fans / rads wont fit

2)Clearance between the top fan mounts and the bottom of the 5.25inch cage is not sufficient to mount a radiator

 

 

 

 

Before i can do anything i need to remove this section of plastic that the hard drive cages mount to, its relatively easy, 4 screws on the bottom of the case and it lifts off.

 

 

 

To solve both of these problems I decided to use rubber fan pins, that - unlike screws - can enter through holes that aren't lined up. But to do this I need to re drill the holes on the mounting plate, to allow the thicker screws through. 

 

 

The fan and rad can now be mounted to the front of the case, I used 4 metal washers to make sure the rubber fan pins wouldn't slip back through the holes,

 

 

 

 

[nickpc]

nice

[STKS]

Now things are starting to come together, i've put the CPU block on, installed the GPU, sound card and USB hub.

 

 

 

Now its time to start lining up the fittings 

 

 

 

now we're getting somewhere !

 

 

By the way, I did something crazy and voided the warrenty on my PSU by removing the stickers.

[STKS]

Before I fill the front bays, I wanted to remove the built in fan controller, front panel audio and firewire cables as i never use them and they just cause clutter in the back of the case

 

 

 

Now its time to fill the loop !

[STKS]

Now some of you might be thinking that the clear tubing looks a little dull, but the more astutue of you may remember that i had UV lights in my shopping list...

 

 

 

So here's a little sneak peak for later

 

 

[Muffinator]

I NEED MOAR! Looks so amazing!

[CobaltMK33]

Nice! Can't wait to see the UV lights installed at the end!

[Barfnargle]

Looks awesome! Can't wait to see the UV effects

[Mr. Chairman]

IMO clear tubing is way better than coloured one. As long as you have dyed liquid flowing inside :D

[RaVenBelgium]

The UV-effects look awesome, keep up the good work! :D