Corsair water 540d

[jackparkyy]

Hi everyone!

 

I have just finished my second personal build and my first liquidcooling build. It's been a work in progress for three moths now, not all the components are new, as my very first build was just over one year ago now and I didn't feel the need to replace all of the components so I just carried them over from my old system. The components that where carried over are the motherboard (asus maximus v formular), cpu (intel 3770k) and RAM (corsair XMS 2000mh/z DDR3). The new components are the WD red drive, samsung 128gb 840pro, NZXT HUE lighting and 2xtitans in sli (windforce editions).

This first picture was the first of the new components that I bought, I bought them both at the same time and they turned out to be the things that caused me the most trouble. I took them out of the package, ran them for an hour to see if they were defective and they both worked fine so as I bought the windforce editions, once I had done that, I took them out to replace the stock cooler to the windforce cooler.

This was before I had got my new case, ssd or hard drive so the next pic is of them both in my old system, I had spent a good month or so sleeving all the cables in my old system and I did go on to use the same psu in my new system as sleeving takes a very long time! I also decided to start sleeving during my GCSE exams which was probably a bad idea

As you can see my old HAF case wasn't the nicest looking case in the world. later that night I was playing Far Cry 3 and my system crashed, I hadn't overclocked the graphics cards yet so I wasn't expecting it. I tried to reboot my computer but it did nothing at all, I knew that something had to be shorting out and I thought it was probably my cables. after about an hour of trouble shooting, I finally tired taking out the bottom graphics card and the system turned on. I came to the conclusion one of my titans was dead, after a lot of swearing and hitting things, I looked at the warranty and it did cover replacing the cooler. I took it back to scan the next day, they confirmed it was defective and sent it off for a replacement, while I was there, I bought my new case which is a corsair 540d and the HUE lighting. The next pic is of the graphics card config I was running while I was waiting for the replacement and what it looked like when I transferred everything over to the new case.

As you can see, not the most optimal configuration. five weeks later after calling scan ten times and emailing gygabyte I finally got a replacement titan sent, I went to pick it up from scan and this was when I bought the 128gb samsung 840pro. I checked the replacment was working and then replaced the cooler  and installed it into my system, finished sleeving the extra pci-e power cables that I needed going from the 690 to titan sli and then installed it into my system and this was the configuration I was running for about two month before I decided to liquid cool a few weeks ago.

As I said before, I recently decided to liquidcool a few weeks ago but I didn't do it all in one go, I first bought the res (phobya 150 black nickel), rads (EK-CoolStream 40mm PE 360 & 240), tubing (Clear primochill) and the SP120 QE fans. I fitted what I could of the cooling at the time as I only had half the components.

I had to bend the right brive bag in order to fit the tripple rad in the front, meaning I moved the ssd to the back compartment of the case.

two weeks later, I had the money to get the rest of the components. I got the cpu block (EK Supremacy Nickel frosted plexi glass) , gpu blocks (EK-Titan-SE Acetal + Nickel clear plexi glass), Backplate (EK titan SE black backplate), Pump (Alphacool D5 variable speed), pump top (EK D5 X TOP), EK Blood red premix, 6x phobya Compression fittings, 4x phobya 90 degree fitings, 4x phobya 45 degree fittings and a few dust filters. As soon as I got back, I began the 4 hour fitting stage.

 

I began by fitting the pump top and then installing the pump into the case using good old velcro.

I then cracked on with the graphics card waterblocks, I took a few "glamour shots" of all my old air cooler for the titans while I was fitting the waterblocks.

Windforce cooler close ups.

Reference titan cooler close up.

GTX 690 close up.

days of air coolings past.

The waterblocks took about 40 mins each as I cut out all thermal pads for the 24 memory chips separately but other than that, installation was easy, nice instruction from EK!

 

I then installed the CPU block which was again very easy to do and finished all my tubing runs.

I unplugged everything but the pump from the psu, layed down some newspaper and started to fill the loop. All went well, now leaks but lots of air bubbles which took a very long time to get out as I had everything in the least optimal position for getting air bubbles out (triple rad was upside down and I was using the inlet as an outlet on the cpu block so no runs crossed over). I did eventually get all the bubbles out and then left it on overnight to leak test. woke up, nothing had leaked so I powered on the system and everything was A OK!

 

I managed to get my titans upto 1084mh/z and +400mh/z on the memory in game thanks to gpu boost 2.0 which gave me a 13% performance increase in heaven vs my air cooled overclock and this performance increase was about 10% in game. However the performance increase isn't the best bit of watercooling, it was the noise difference. I'm running all my fans at 800rpm and getting temps of 60C max on the top gpu and 55C max on the bottom gpu even with this massive overclock. I'm also able to run the pump at 50% speed and still get great flow, this all adds upto me hardly being able to hear it. It looks sick too, in the night shot above it comes off a lot darker then it actually is so I'll try and get a better night shots with a better camera soon. The 3770k I have isn't a very good overclocker, with the RAM running at 2000mh/z, I'm able to get it upto 4.2gh/z@1.185v but that's as high as it goes with temps at about 70C. The only issue I have is the 90 degree at the bottom doesn't look that great at the tubing comes out at a funny angle to it so I'm going to be replacing it with a 45 degree soon.

 

I'm sorry that the pics aren't of the best quality, I took them on my phone and wasn't planning to do a build log so I'll upload some "glamour shots" taken with a better camera to this thread soon!  Also, I'll upload some screen shot of overclocks, benchmark results and in game fps when I get time.

[Emkryan]

The one problem I have is the extreme flooding of red light coming from the LED's. Toss those out and get some nice white LED's

[Qpm5]

looks really good. Like the cables they look really nice in the build.

[Guest]

Man, you have a sexy cooler collection. Lucky you...

[jackparkyy]

The one problem I have is the extreme flooding of red light coming from the LED's. Toss those out and get some nice white LED's

I have a HUE, so I can make it what ever colour I want.

[jackparkyy]

looks really good. Like the cables they look really nice in the build.

Thanks a lot! took me for ever to do that with my friend who eventually gave up on his and got a corsair psu so he could buy the pre done sleeved cables they do.

[jackparkyy]

Man, you have a sexy cooler collection. Lucky you...

I know, it's a shame for them to be stuck in the draw though. The GTX 690 is also in the draw, that's an even bigger shame. 

[thibauldz]

looks awsome!

[Liam-McShane]

How do you have so much money at your age?

[TicTac]

Looks nice wish i had all dem cards

[jackparkyy]

Here's those Better photos and night shots I promised...

[CJPowell27]

How do you have so much money at your age?

Theres a 16 year old at my high school that has triple sli 780s, previous to that he had quad 680s. Might i say he has an 8...ahem... Unreleased intel desktop processor. All for protein modeling which needs none of that. He invests and he's very good at it. Point being age never matters

[jackparkyy]

Theres a 16 year old at my high school that has triple sli 780s, previous to that he had quad 680s. Might i say he has an 8...ahem... Unreleased intel desktop processor. All for protein modeling which needs none of that. He invests and he's very good at it. Point being age never matters

I was thinking about 780 tri sli but the 3gb of vram would have been a bottleneck, the 780 sli would have had more gpu power and been about £150 cheaper but I use about 4gb of vram in crysis 3 so I needed the titan's.

[George8D]

very pretty

[jackparkyy]

If there's any photos that anyone would like to request, I'd be happy to add them but I'd like to thing I've covered plenty of the rig.

[CJPowell27]

Can we have pics with while LEDs? Pretty please

[jackparkyy]

Can we have pics with while LEDs? Pretty please

All the day shots above are with white LED's but I'll take some night shots with white LED's soon.

[LogicDeifying]

Wow much water good build me crying no have good PC.

Looks extremely clean and sexy but those first pictures don't do it justice but then those later ones

What are you taking these pictures with?

[godsarmy]

Nice build man!!

[jackparkyy]

Wow much water good build me crying no have good PC.

Looks extremely clean and sexy but those first pictures don't do it justice but then those later ones

What are you taking these pictures with?

A Sony A380 DLSR, bought it back in 2010 with a decent lens and even though it's a bit old now, it still take picture in higher then 4k resolutions.

[purplepenguin202]

I'll take that 690 off your hands so it isn't being wasted...

[Monty007]

Great build! I love that you are doing different things with the case especially the water cooling! Love the pics too. My fav is the one looking down at the three spinning fans!!!

[carolkarine]

Theres a 16 year old at my high school that has triple sli 780s, previous to that he had quad 680s. Might i say he has an 8...ahem... Unreleased intel desktop processor. All for protein modeling which needs none of that. He invests and he's very good at it. Point being age never matters

I call horse shit.

[jackparkyy]

Great build! I love that you are doing different things with the case especially the water cooling! Love the pics too. My fav is the one looking down at the three spinning fans!!!

Thanks, I with the 540d as it was the only case that would fit on my desk and fit an e-atx motherboard in it.

[jackparkyy]

All the day shots above are with white LED's but I'll take some night shots with white LED's soon.

I will get these done at some point.