ZBOX Mobile Watercooled Workstation

[shu.tography]

Hey All,

 

Just thought I'd do a build log of my first watercooled build.

Here's how I categorize insane:

1.) Neverwatercooled before, Goes straight for the hardest, hardline tubing.

2.) Rather than do it in a normal case, does it in the world's smallest case

3.) Not even sure if the components will fit.

 

I feel like I've come on top of it a stronger, wiser person.

 

The main inspiration for this build is ultimate performance (As much as I could afford), In the world's smallest case. 

Because my work is never in the one place and I travel heaps, I needed the desktop processing power as I do a lot of development for Virtual Reality and also shoot a lot of 4K footage. Throw in some computational Architecture and simulations and the laptops just die from hearing my footsteps.

 

I thought because it's such a small case the most effective cooling would have to be watercooling, and also because it just looks so freaking cool.

 

Anyway, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

 

PC Parts:

 

More PC Parts:

 

Water Cooling Parts:

 

Hoo boy, taking off the stock cooler of the GPU

Such a nerve wracking process:

 

All the bits here for scale

 

Putting the Waterblock on the CPU was pretty fun, and I love how the EK one looks, it looks great

 

 

But I hated how the backplate was chrome so I painted it black:

 

Figuring out where my watercooling components goes was the hardest thing for me

Because I didn't want to use the brackets they got for side mounting it because I can't see inside anymore

so I had to mount it on the bottom, this was hard because it would but up against the front IO cables, which was a massive pain in the ass, 

and then I thought why not put the fans on the bottom?!? 

 

 

Next was figuring out where the Reservoir goes, this was a hard one because I wanted to put it side ways but someone else already did that.

Can't be like everyone else can I.....

 

So I decided to put it above the graphics card here, how I'm not so sure yet...

 

 

 

Finally, my backplate for the GPU arrived

 

I have to say I was so surprised at how shiny the thing was, but damn does it look good. Also protects the GPU board and acts as a heatsink so that must be good right...

 

 

SHINNNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYYYYY

 

 

Quite like this turn that the pipe is doing, Devil is in the details.

 

Alright watercooling piping time, time to put on my plumbers hat......

 

So yeah I have no idea what I'm doing, I went through 3 or 4 tubes before I got my bends right, such a noob....

OH well I'll know for next time....

 

I build car engines too, not just computers.

So Basically, theres a few holes on the top of the power supply bracket, so I was like, well they're not being used by anything

So I made an aluminium angle to go there.

It fits in quite nicely actually.

 

Oh man what a mission it has been, towards the end of my build I actually took the whole thing to a parts shop, and bought parts as I was putting it in and returning them when they didn't fit.

The hardest part was getting the pipe to go from the radiator back into the RES, which ended up being made out of ALL FITTINGS. SO EXPENSIVE!!!

 

 

I'm surprised my lighting controller actually fits in there, There is literally 0mm of tolerance at any given point in the build....

I also painted the Silverstone fans white because they come in such an ugly Blue which would not have looked good

Oh well, it's done now. Now to LEAK TEST

 

 

And she's all good!!!

 

Let the party begin!!!

 

[gamingowiz]

Awesome job mate, Looks great! 

[Moonzy]

nice  suprised you even fit everything in tbh lol

[amvoith]

What happened to the cablemod cables? I don't think the Silverstone strider set is out yet? Supposed to be sometime this month though. 

[amvoith]

The lighting looks amazing by the way. The only thing I would have changed is rotated the CPU block 180degrees so you wouldn't have to cross tubing runs. 

[azkite]

damn, that looks nice as hell.

[astheria]

Awesome stuff! Any word on temps for idle and serious gaming load after an hour or two?

[nmil]

If I were to build an itx build in the future, I'd probably go straight to your level of insanity. There's just something really rewarding with going with building super difficult and completing it. Good job btw.

[colinreay]

We need custom cables! This is ridiculously good for a first time build!

[shu.tography]

On 3/31/2016 at 11:42 AM, astheria said:

Awesome stuff! Any word on temps for idle and serious gaming load after an hour or two?

The Temps for idle are around 28C for both CPU and GPU. But when serious gaming happens shoots right up to 68C and 65C for CPU and GPU.