H440 Watercooling

[JWMutant]

This is as much a log of my impressions in regards the H440 as it is a log of my very first water cooling build.

 

 

The PC

 

H440 Razer Edition

ROG Maximus VIII Hero

1151 i7 6700K 

MSI 980TI

 

The Loop

 

EK-XRES 140 DDC 3.2 PWM Elite Pump/Res combo

EK Supremacy EVO Acetal CPU block

EK-FC980 GTX Ti TF5 Water block and EK-FC980 GTX TF5 Backplate (R2.0)

Black Ice Nemesis 360GTX Rad

Primochill 1/2ID 3/4OD

EK-Vardar 120mm 1450rpm fans

EK-ACF 13/19mm compression fittings.

 

 

The bulk of the parts

 

I will say at the outset that the H440 Case is without question a great case, however for those who have this case or are thinking about gettings this case and watercooling it while they say you can fit a 360mm rad on the top, it will only take a 360mm rad that is up to a certain overall length. The 360mm rad I bought was a little to long to fit in the top, however the case will take a 360mm rad at the front as well.

 

 

 

As this is the first time I ever watercooled, I wanted to make sure I wasnt going to have any leaks. I did this by putting the fittings on, filling it up with distilled water then blocking one pipe and blowing into the other pipe. As this creates more pressure than the loop will generate seeing no leaks gave me alot of confidence that all will be good.

 

 

As stated above I did the same pressure test on the pump/res combo.

 

 

Rad and fans are now in place, it may look like a snug fit but she'll be right. 

 

 

 

 

Time to see how much room I have to work with.

 

 

 

 

Time to put the CPU water block on.

 

 

 

 

Its now time to start work on the 980TI. The overall process took me about 2 hours to do. Pics are step by step.

 

Side note on this, the water block and backplate was alot more heavy than I was expecting so ended up getting a vga bracket that runs the length of the card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One step closer.

 

 

Time to mix the coolant. 

This is just a EK Concentrate that has additives in it to stop growth and distilled water. 1 Litre mixed of which I used about 900ml.

 

 

Time to switch it on. And thanks to some pressure testing at the start, leaks was never on my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

I will post some bench testing results tomorrow, however pre water loop I was using a Corsair AIO to cool just my CPU and was getting 68 odd Degree with no overclocking on the CPU and hitting 80-83 degrees on the GPU while gaming (BF4).

 

 

[comefightme]

My goodness that must cost a lot

 

The red accents on the board and ram doesn't fit the green theme though

[JWMutant]

About $850 AUD for the watercooling.

 

And yea the red does look out of place but couldnt be arsed painting it. Due to time limitations it toke me three weeks as it was to do due to having only weekends to do it.

[_Banas_]

Are thoose fans set to push out air in the front of the H440?

In that case, what do you got as intake?

 

Edit: Why don't you pull air into the case at the front?

And no, that would not fry your system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCZ5iP5cu8g

[JWMutant]

Are thoose fans set to push out air in the front of the H440?

In that case, what do you got as intake?

Yes they are set to push air.

 

Currently I have a 140mm on the back of the case and 2 x 120mm fans on the top of the case all pushing air into the case.

 

I will soon swap the 2 x 120mm fans on top for some 140mm.

 

Side note. Those Vardar fans on the rad I worth every penny I spent on them.

[airdeano]

seems all of your fans (but one) are set to exhaust and that is not a good air flow scenario.

 

[JWMutant]

seems all of your fans (but one) are set to exhaust and that is not a good air flow scenario.

Thats probably my fault with a misleading answer.

 

The rad fans as seen in the pics are pushing air out of the case.

The 140mm fan at the back and the 2 x 120mm on the top are pushing air into the case.

 

So due to the back and top fans spinning at a slightly higher rpm than the rad fans this is creating positive air pressure.

[JWMutant]

Just a few stress tests to finish of the build.

 

Before I started down the custom loop I was using a Corsair AIO setup for the CPU and the GPU was air cooled.

 

 

All testing was done with a ambient room temp of 25 degrees.

 

Stress testing on the CPU under a AIO setup saw a average of 50.5 degrees

 

 

Stress test with the new loop gets 39.5 degrees whcih was pretty much what I was expecting.

 

 

Wasnt sure what I was going to get with the GPU and CPU stress tested at the same time.

 

Decided I would give it a small overclock and see how it goes. 4.7 OC and the temps are looking good.

 

I was playing BF4 last night with a ambient room temp of 27 degrees. Under my old setup these conditions where seeing temps on the GPU hit low 80's and the CPU high 60.

Last night saw the GPU temp max out at 55 degrees with the CPU hit 52 degrees.

 

I think the last thing im going to do to this build before I call it a day is mod the top of the case to allow better airflow going into the case as the H440 isnt really designed for good airflow.