Harvest - Bitspower purist Threadripper build

[ThatsADoozy]

Hey guys.
This is something I've been planning to do for nearly two years now, and it's finally coming to a head.
As some of you may have seen, I recently put together a custom reservoir to sit in the window of a Thermaltake Core P5.
You can find the thread detailing how that all happened here.

So after much debate between choosing X299 or X399, I eventually opted for Threadripper. I wanted a build I was sure would continue to be supported for years to come, and I didn't feel that I could get that out of Intel (Plus I didn't want to delid).
So here are the parts! I ordered these during one of Ebay's 20% off sales, so most of them were a pretty good deal.


The parts are as follows:
Threadripper 1950x
Asus ROG Zenith Extreme
Strix GTX 1080ti Gaming
TeamGroup Vulcan ram (64gb 3000mhz)
Samsung 250gb Evo M.2 SSD
Thermaltake 850w DPS Titanium (Only PSU with theRiing fan and two EPS outlets)
Some Riing fans for the radiator
And of course, the Core P5.
I'll be using some HDD's from my current computer when it's time to migrate to this one.

The first thing I did was put everything together and test the system. I decided to shove the 1080ti straight into my current build and pull the R9 290x out of that one so I could enjoy those high refresh rates straight away.







We have ignition!


Windows was successfully installed! It was time to focus on the more aesthetic side of things.

I figured, if I was going to put this much effort into this build, I may as well have a symbol/logo done up to match the PC's name.

I contacted a graphic designer located in Queensland called Sam Johnston (He has a business page if anyone's interested. Would recommend). Within a week I had a fully-fledged logo!

I'm lucky that at work we have a laser cutter on hand. Here I am testing a few different power levels before etching the window.





And here's the real deal. I decided to etch it backwards so that it would retain the gloss from the front side of the window.


And not long after.


Here it is after a quick cleanup.


And finally after a polish.


Not long after this, my water cooling equipment arrived from Bitspower. All bar the pump mount, which I unfortunately forgot. Hello extra $35 shipping.


I tell you what, I feel that Bitspowerdon't get the recognition they deserve. Look at the quality of these blocks.






Opps, forgot to take a photo of these ones with the wrapping off.


While the waterblocks were great, I did have an issue with the radiator.
I find it unfortunate that Bitspower stopped producing the single-sided version of the 480 radiator, and have opted for a double-sided model only. This produced a problem when mounting it to the P5 as I'm sure you can clearly see here.


The Core P5 is flat on the side I need to mount the radiator to. But I had a solution in mind.


Little bit of silicone and they were sitting pretty.


Just shove em in.


And wipe the excess away!



Now I do love Bitspower, but one thing that irks me about them is the fact that all their plexi products have a frosted finish. I much prefer how EK does this with their crystal clear blocks.
Thankfully, polishing acrylic isn't something that's particularly difficult.

Before:


And after:


Before:


And after:


Before:


And after:


This was by far the worst part.


I forgot to take photos of the ram blocks, but I did get a few before and after shots of the ram sticks themselves.




At this stage, I ordered some cables fromCablemod. I quite like the scheme I came up with.


They arrived not long after.


Shortly thereafter, my pumps and liquid metal arrived.


Naan Bread always looks at me like I've just asked her to hang out the washing.


Unfortunately I didn't order enough sleeving. I sleeved up one of the pumps, but had to order more sleeving for the other.





I couldn't find anyone selling Alphacord in Australia, so I opted for a knock-off vinyl sleeve from eBay. It was not good. I'll post photos of that later, but it looks like I'll have to order more Alphacord from overseas. Money money 

 

Next up was attaching the monoblock to the motherboard. 


Not a bad idea, Asus.


Liquid metal is awfully pretty.


And hard to figure out how to apply for someone who's never used it before.


I got there eventually.


And that's where I'm up to for now!


Looks pretty good I reckon.


I've got a few more parts on the way. Not much more I can do for now until they arrive.

[ThatsADoozy]

Update:

The biggest issue I faced next was fitting the GPU into the case without striking the reservoir. It's easy enough to just move it back since Thermaltake includes a pretty versatile vertical GPU mount, but I felt that it would leave a great deal of unused space. So I decided to cut the GPU bracket.





Cutting it with my knock-off dremel was particularly difficult. I went through over 20 disks before I had to make a trip to Bunnings and get something stronger. 


I didn't do a good job keeping the cuts smooth and even, so I had to hit it with the belt sander at work afterwards. 


And I needed to drill a new set of holes to hold it together with a bolt since I'd cut off one. 


Next came colour matching. I wish I'd known at the time that this was wildly inaccurate.


Got it all primed and painted.


It wasn't the match I'd hoped for. Way too glossy. The picture doesn't show just how shiny it was. 


Second attempt with a matt black paint and a matt clear.


Not perfect, but much closer. Please don't mind Papadum in the background. 


Installed the pump top to see what kind of clearance I was dealing with. The reservoir is covered by a microfibre towel to keep it protected (Hence why it's not obvious what I'm doing. 
It's way too close together. I'll have to mount it side on to get the bends done. 


I had to do some drilling to make it fit. It's always nerve racking cutting into your case. 


Installed it side on with some rubber underneath to prevent vibrations. Not overly happy with the rubber I've used, so I've got something better on the way. 


Installed the ram next, followed by the ram blocks.


 

That's it for now. 

I feel like Bitspower don't get the recognition they deserve. Look how beautiful that is. 

[Nicnac]

On 12/18/2017 at 4:04 AM, ThatsADoozy said:

I got there eventually.



 

[GDRRiley]

nice work so far looks great. 

[Tech_Dreamer]

nice.

[ThatsADoozy]

UPDATE:

So I decided to purchase another part! Figured my HDD's are getting pretty old (Purchased between 2007 and 2011) and decided to get a new storage SSD for my games.
The performance differences between the Evo and the Pro are negligible, so I opted for the Evo. Getting an SSD cover for it anyway, so no one will know it's not the blisteringly fast one.


Also, my mod kits arrived.
Now I love Bitspower to death, but $75 for a single mod kit? Too much. Barrow has them for $25 each. 
So I opted for Barrow, since they're identical.


Or so I thought.


Being the perfectionist I am I can't deal with this. So I decided to flip them over and cover them up.



Looks better than before, but I needed something to cover the other one.


I ordered some black vinyl and this neat little sticker. I'll be covering the other one with this (The Ryzen sticker, that is).


I also learnt that my TT Premium Riing fans were not Asus Aura Sync compatible, which sucks.
But as it so happens, there is a module you can fit which corrects this. Only cost me $30, so why not?


Speaking of my TT fans, I unpacked them and found they had an unsightly coloured cable before the heatshrink which will be exposed due to the open nature of the Core P5. Ew.


So I fixed it.


Ah, bliss.


Now I've been conflicted about the colour of my case for a little while. It's a metallic matt black, which is the colour Thermaltake uses for all of their cases. I decided I wanted to change this. Nothing too extreme, just a nice satin black with a touch of gloss. I figured this would match my hardware a bit better, particularly the mod kits and radiator.

Before sanding:


First coat of primer:


Second coat of primer:


Had to give it a light wet sand with some 600grit sandpaper in between every coat after this to avoid bubbling or uneven layers.
I'll speed things up a bit here.
Second or third coat of satin black here, not sure which.


Fifth: Nearly done. Had some severe bubbling so I had to do some significant wet sanding.


And curing after the final coat:


Not too shabby.


The feet were a goddamn nightmare to paint, but I got there eventually.
I had to sand them back so many goddamn times.


And that's it for now. Got some new cable sleeving on the way for my pumps which should be arriving soon. Decided to cut it back and make them shorter. My first time messing with wires. Pray for me.

[ThatsADoozy]

Update!
Pumps!
So the sleeving arrived! Decided to change things up a bit and expand my cable colour scheme to include the pumps.


Wiring them up was easier than expected. I cut the cables since they were about 80cm long each. Reduced it to around 30cm. 


Bought some fresh molex connectors so I wouldn't have to ghetto rig it. Easier to do than I expected. Just need a crimping tool or small pliers. 


It isn't as perfect or neat as the original, but it's sturdy and not coming loose. 


Sleeved them up and got my hands on some better heatshrink. It looks much better this time around.
I expected 6mm heatshrink to shrink down to the right size, but it didn't. 4mm is the way to go.


Neat!


This part was a touch challenging. The sticker was much more fragile than I expected. I had to be super careful and poke the excess down into the hole.


Hey, I did ok!


Covered the other pump I/O cover with matt black vinyl. I've got a Ryzen sticker on the way to put on top of that.


It's a tactile sticker. Looks like this.


I decided to order an SSD cover for my Samsung Evo. JMMods had it done and shipped within hours. 
Looks good! Can't wait to receive it!



I'm heading back to Brisbane for the next two weeks so this will be my last post for a while. 
Going to propose to my lady while I'm up there (Don't worry, she doesn't read this forum ).
If she says no I can sell the ring and buy more PC parts,so either way I win! 

[ThatsADoozy]

Oh boy.
So a great deal has happened since my last post (Including my lady saying yes if you read my last post). 
The painting didn't go as I'd hoped. It looked fine, but when I started bolting parts down all the paint I'd applied started to strip away. What didn't strip away was left with these huge imprints where the parts had sat. 


So I had it sandblasted and contacted an automotive paint shop.
This was after sandblasting.


Unfortunately the sandblasting process was too strong for the plastic feet. I knew this could be an issue, and the guy took $30 off because of the damage (Which was what it cost me to replace them).


In addition to that the standoffs that came with the case were far too short for me to route my cables behind the motherboard. This isn't a fault of the case, but of the motherboard. Turns out the Core P5 isn't built for E-ATX motherboards.


So I got my hands on some 10mm standoffs (5mm longer than standard).
They were brass so I opted to have them painted with the case.


The sandblasting process did damage some of the threads where they mounted, so thankfully because the thread was 5mm long I had the option to brace them with a washer and nut.


So I dropped the case off at Fuller Brothers Body Works. Good blokes.


Took about a week and a half to get the case back. While I was waiting there were a few other things I had to sort out. 
First was my PSU. I wasn't a fan of the logo plate they included. I love Thermaltake, but their TT Premium logo is much nicer than the sawblade. 


So I sanded it back.


Painted it.


And added a vinyl cut logo.


It looked better, but the vinyl cutter wasn't precise enough to write the text that always accompanies this logo. So after this little experiment, I contacted JMMods again and asked if he could create a laser etched version. His attempt was much nicer. 


I also sleeved up some molex splitters, but forgot to take photos of the finished product. I sleeved two of them. These photos will have to do. 



So I got the case back after that. 
Look at that paint job! Semi-gloss, but reflective close-up. 
Much better than anything I could have done. 



It was time to start fitting all the parts. Enjoy the montage.

 

Nearly done with this update. 
Next came pulling the Strix 1080ti out of my ghetto build and slapping my Bitspower waterblock over it. 


Disassembly was easy, but I did feel some pain when tearing through that warranty sticker.


Beautiful.


Liquid metal'd up.


This is something I love about Bitspower. They give you two sets of instructions. One for using the included backplate, and one for using the stock one with the RGB LED's.
I opted for the Bitspower backplate.


I encountered a slight problem here. The included bolts didn't fit the fitted standoffs.


Little did I know those standoffs were for the stock backplate. Turns out Bitspower included a second set that fit. Rookie error on my part.


Here she is!


Lastly, I needed to modify my Cablemod cables.
I wanted them to look a bit sleeker when the plugged into the GPU, so I sourced some 3.5mm 16pin cable combs from JMMods. 
Here are the cables.


Here we are beginning the process of installing the combs.


About half way there.


And done!


So that's where we are for now. Not much left to do after this.

[Jsunn]

Amazing build, I really do like bitspower stuff!

[ThatsADoozy]

So, hurdles of progress this time around.
Here's where we started.


First step after getting all the hardware in place was to secure the rods that hold up the window. Since the window was also holding up the reservoir the bolts needed an upgrade. I opted for some high tensile strength steel bolts with oversized washers and then used a profoundly strong version of Locktite to hold them in place.



Here we go!


While I was at it, it was time to take my HDD's out of my old PC and slap them in the new one. 
The WD Black is about six years old and still going strong. 
The other two drives are purely for storage.


I pulled the old HDD tray sliders off and stuck the new ones off. Unfortunately it looks like I won't be able to fit all three 3.5in HDD's as it'll cause my cables to squeeze upward and prevent me installing the door covering the back. I thought I might be able to get away with this by putting an SSD in it's place, but nope.



So I needed to make an adjustment.



Much better.
Cable management is not my forte though.


Even with a bunch of these I did a ghastly job.


Christ almighty, at least it'll be covered up.


I took apart the reservoir again to install the anti-whirlpool fitting. Took an hour with all those bolts. Gotta be super careful when installing them. Overtighten a single one and that's it.




So, first time bending now. 
I had a lot to learn. I messed up pretty bad. 




Everything is watertight, but a number of my tubes have blistered.




I got one I'm happy with, that's it.


Had one tube that just didn't work out, but I wanted a functioning computer so I made a temp fix.


So I got leak testing after that. 
The flow rate was way too low.


My first solution was to turn up the pumps, but that didn't help.
Turns out the anti-whirlpool fitting was to blame. 
Fixed.


Next issue was that the radiator was leaking. 
It's too tight a space to use stop fittings, so I slapped some Sugru over the problem area and painted over it the next day.



After that my low profile USB 3.0 header arrived. Easy to install.



And my new PSU logo plate and RGB splitter arrived from JMMods.


Turns out Bitspower have some silly RGB strip that doesn't conform to Aura Sync's 5050 socket layout in their monoblock for the Zenith Extreme.


Easy fix. Just swap the blue and red wires.


A more difficult problem was that the LED diodes in my motherboard's I/O shroud were busted. The right-hand red one to be specific. 
Try to show orange, get green on the right.


Asus wanted me to send the motherboard back. That could take weeks, so I've ordered an RGB strip and will swap the LED's out. 

So I have more tubing on the way, and a few other small bits coming, but for the time being we're up and running.

[ThatsADoozy]

So, it's been a long time since my last update.

I was contacted by Matt at Cablemod after mentioning in the Cablemodders group that I was having a hard time routing my sata cables without striking and moving out of place my bottom SSD.

 

He offered to send me some free right angle sata cables to fix this little issue I was having, but due to Cablemod moving offices (Or something like that) it was going to take about two months to arrive.

When they did, it was finally time to finish the build.

 

I also managed to get my hands on two pairs of Core P90 front feet which thankfully also fit the Core P5. These were to balance out the case as the reservoir added a great deal of extra weight (Especially when filled).

 

So, I'd decided that I'd had enough of my window on the Core P5 flexing. It was ruining the aesthetic.

 

So I did the only logical thing I could. I took it all apart and had a new one made double the thickness. I had this done at Plastic Creations in Canberra. Good blokes.

 

I also opted for straight holes this time instead of countersunk. I figured that the bolts on the case were almost exclusively socket heads, so that would be a better fit for the reservoir too.

 

I also had an issue where all bar five of the bolts lines up perfectly.

 

So I had to grab my mini file set and widen them a bit. One in particular had to be widened 1.5mm upwards in order to fit the bolt. Not sure how they messed that up but whatever.

 

Unfortunately, the O-ring added a bit of extra pressure with this new window that couldn't flex at all. This resulted in a crack along the O-ring cutout at the bottom of the reservoir.

Not good.

 

I took this to Plastic Creations and they added some acrylic solvent which fixed it up very nicely, although not perfectly, but it was the best they could do. Barely noticeable from a distance.

 

I made a new O-ring since the old one had lost its shape a bit. Needed to be much more careful installing the window this time.

 

Voila!

 

Next I needed to lengthen the bolts that hold the window in place. Oddly, one of the four was not like the others. The first three could have the thread removed, but the last one seemed to all be one piece. Weird way to go Thermaltake.

 

Done!

 

At this point, it was time to remove the motherboard and take apart the monoblock in order to get the flow meter out.

The built-in flow meter is a great idea, but it must be unbalanced or something because it makes a god awful amount of noise.

 

I also took the time to clean up the liquid metal on my CPU. It did leave a few marks.

Turns out it isn't the best idea to leave liquid metal on a vertically mounted CPU. Good thing I caught it early.

 

Back to old trusty Arctic Alumina.

 

I also needed to remove the LED's from my I/O shroud since two of them couldn't display red.

 

The plan was to install an LED strip in the shroud as a replacement. But the vent for the motherboard chipset cooler wasn't going to look great with this option, so I chose to make a small change.

Here we have a small 2mm thick piece of acrylic.

 

Which was subsequently cut to fit the vent.

 

 

Some sanding later it was glued in place.

 

Looks good.

 

It's a bit ghetto but whatever.

 

With that out of the way, I placed the new logo onto the PSU. Turns out I didn't measure it quite that accurately, but it's fine.

 

The motherboard was back in place! I flipped the radiator upside down as well to make routing easier.

 

So worth it. The cables are much better this time.

 

Getting close now. Time to start bending.

 

 

 

At long last I could hide this godawful rat's nest.

 

So clean.

 

Wow, you can really see a difference with this new window.

 

And the last bend is done!

 

Time to get filling!

 

 

Not quite what I was expecting but it diluted quite well.

 

 

This little tool makes filling a breeze.

 

Good lord that's bubbly.

 

One successful leak test and many bubbles later.

 

 

 

All that's left now is to wait for the bubbles to clear out. Once that's done it'll be time to get out the DSLR and get some shots of the Mayhems dye being added.

Not long now!

[stealth80]

So much attention to detail, congrats looks great, PLEASE REDO THAT LEFT SIDE TUBE ITS DRIVING MY BEND OCD CRAZY! 

 

 

[Mnpctech]

Nice Laser.

[ThatsADoozy]

13 hours ago, stealth80 said:

So much attention to detail, congrats looks great, PLEASE REDO THAT LEFT SIDE TUBE ITS DRIVING MY BEND OCD CRAZY! 

 

 

I've yet to find a way to photograph it in it's best light. It looks a lot better in person. It's actually entirely right angle bends but the top side is higher than the bottom in order to fit it. Looks like it's on a 45 degree angle side on. 

[ThatsADoozy]

IT'S DONE! THIS IS IT!

So I did end up having to drain the system and take apart the reservoir so I could clean it out. The Cryofuel left this awful residue in the reservoir that was very obvious, so I cleaned it out.

After that I flushed the system and just put in regular demineralised water. I'll add some kind of biocide or coolant at a later date after more research.

I don't have much more to say! But I did record a video of the dye being added to the system. It has been sped up.

Click here to view.

 

Some pics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's a gif of the dye running through the system for the first time!

 

 

And now, some close-ups!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in full.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that's it! We're done! I'm actually a little sad. No more tinkering. 

I hope you've all enjoyed the build and seeing it come to fruition. It's been a fantastic, although sometimes stressful, experience.

Thanks very much!

[TekRed]

How you like that board? I just ordered it with the 1950x and been hearing mix reviews. Beautiful build btw I have wanted that case for a long time but I'm waiting till our house gets built and I have my own office and not worry about kids spilling anything in it

[ThatsADoozy]

On 5/27/2018 at 10:38 PM, Tekred said:

How you like that board? I just ordered it with the 1950x and been hearing mix reviews. Beautiful build btw I have wanted that case for a long time but I'm waiting till our house gets built and I have my own office and not worry about kids spilling anything in it

Sorry for the late reply.

I love it, although I've yet to really start fiddling with the settings (Especially since I nearly bricked it). The auto-overclock function is great, but I've yet to figure out how to clock the ram up to it's rated speed without crashing the system.