Ultimate $20,000 Dual System Build – Corsair Slate Part 2

[jakkuh_t]

The finale to the Corsair Slate ultimate dual system build is here, in all of it's bold hardline beauty.

 

 

Buy Corsair Products:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/AXwiwJ
On Newegg: http://geni.us/fsEy

 

Buy EKWB Watercooling Parts:

http://geni.us/yForA

 

Buy Seagate Harddrives:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/RHhpC
On Newegg: http://geni.us/2aL36

[Lurick]

Love the hardline water cooling

 

Also, thanks for the pin

[Thermosman]

how much does it weigh?

[jakkuh_t]

3 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Love the hardline water cooling

 

Also, thanks for the pin

it was too good to pass up 

[pinkyandthebrain]

I feel like it is for ego with this case and what you can do.

also, imo, the sexy shots of pcs don't add much value to your videos. I just mute and 2X the speed.

[Egad]

I think the workstation aspect is a bit of a tough sell.  Doing machine learning, right now I'm pretty much buying new GPUs the minute they drop, since time is money.  Looking at the config, it looks like I'd have to touch both loops to swap all four slots on the big system (since access is blocked by the mITX's card).  Since the case pushes you toward water, as their air cooled temps show, you have big savings by grabbing pretty much any full tower, slapping your machine learning cards in it, and going from there.  Plus you can go exile your work system to some dark corner and just remote the thing as needed, this sucker's foot print is massive.  It's more just a statement piece you have in your lobby or whatever.  Probably see it at trade shows and such to flaunt water cooling products.  

 

I can kind of see it in my basement, but even that's a stretch.  Move my home Plex server into it and fill up all the board slots with GPUs that have been retired out of various gaming rigs for GPU accelerated Plex action.  Then do a little gaming rig to hook up to the TV in the basement.  But that's a lot of money just to slap four retired cards into my Plex rig and I'm not sure if I could even find water blocks for them ("Hey honey I spend 499  + (price of the rads, blocks, and 13 good static pressure fans) to put a HD 7970 and a couple other 3 to 4 year old GPUs under water").  

 

Probably the most reasonable thing is main rig in the main slot and then something on par with a NUC in the secondary slot for use as a pfSense router, NAS, and such, with the secondary system being on air.

[Sacredsock]

One slim real world usage I could foresee is for a SOHO setup that doesn't have a proper rack system, and wants a big case for a server

[Ringthane]

Anybody else getting tired of all these "Oh, we have so much money, look at all these amazing things we can do with all the free stuff we begged for?" videos?  Remember when this channel was a little more humble and a lot more "let's throw it at the wall and see what sticks"?  

[Ezzy-525]

1 hour ago, Ringthane said:

Anybody else getting tired of all these "Oh, we have so much money, look at all these amazing things we can do with all the free stuff we begged for?" videos?  Remember when this channel was a little more humble and a lot more "let's throw it at the wall and see what sticks"?  

I see where you're coming from, but Linus gotta do what he gotta do to keep all his crew paid. It is what it is.

[Lathlaer]

1 hour ago, Ringthane said:

Anybody else getting tired of all these "Oh, we have so much money, look at all these amazing things we can do with all the free stuff we begged for?" videos?  Remember when this channel was a little more humble and a lot more "let's throw it at the wall and see what sticks"?

I like seeing cool tech and if that tech happens to be expensive, then so be it. If I can't afford it, so be it as well. Projects like 16k gaming or "X gamers - 1 PC/CPU" are based on ridiculusly expensive hardware but are fun to watch. Hardline tubing is fun to watch, though I wouldn't necessarily advertise LTT as the place to look for it. There is only so many times you can see people do builds for less than $500.

 

That being said, when you look at LTT video history, you will still see a mix of everything (as it should be) - from last month you have some expensive product reviews, some road trips, a fairly entertaining build log, some retro nostalgia stuff and DIY stuff as well.

 

Technical and niche videos can only get you so far. There is a reason why GamersNexus, while highly regarded for their quality of work, have so few subscribers in comparison to LTT.

[ZeDestructor]

13 hours ago, Egad said:

I think the workstation aspect is a bit of a tough sell.  Doing machine learning, right now I'm pretty much buying new GPUs the minute they drop, since time is money.  Looking at the config, it looks like I'd have to touch both loops to swap all four slots on the big system (since access is blocked by the mITX's card).  Since the case pushes you toward water, as their air cooled temps show, you have big savings by grabbing pretty much any full tower, slapping your machine learning cards in it, and going from there.  Plus you can go exile your work system to some dark corner and just remote the thing as needed, this sucker's foot print is massive.  It's more just a statement piece you have in your lobby or whatever.  Probably see it at trade shows and such to flaunt water cooling products.  

 

I can kind of see it in my basement, but even that's a stretch.  Move my home Plex server into it and fill up all the board slots with GPUs that have been retired out of various gaming rigs for GPU accelerated Plex action.  Then do a little gaming rig to hook up to the TV in the basement.  But that's a lot of money just to slap four retired cards into my Plex rig and I'm not sure if I could even find water blocks for them ("Hey honey I spend 499  + (price of the rads, blocks, and 13 good static pressure fans) to put a HD 7970 and a couple other 3 to 4 year old GPUs under water").  

 

Probably the most reasonable thing is main rig in the main slot and then something on par with a NUC in the secondary slot for use as a pfSense router, NAS, and such, with the secondary system being on air.

Very much so. For server-style duties, you want to go either air-cooled rackmount (for density and reliability benefits), or full mining-style riser setups to maximize your GPU:Platform ratio. The Slate's entire reason to exist is to be the biggest, baddest, most ludicrous liquid-cooled case, and it excels at that.

 

IMO the 2nd system is a gimmick too: being mini-ITX, it's just not very useful. If it were microATX (microATX is 244x244mm, which should fit just fine given there's room for 2 120mm rads side-by-side with room to spare!) it would be much more interesting IMO, since you could also have a fast network card (25G/40G/100G)/RAID card/giant NVMe SSD alongside your capture card and optional GPU.

 

On the subject of the liquid-cooling loop costs, I don't see it as that much of an issue: you can reuse everything but your hardlines and waterblocks between builds. Tubes are so cheap they don't really factor, and waterblocks don't cost all that much more than a good air-cooler or CLC. Yes, it's a hefty initial investment, but once you're in, you're set for a long time. It's also not a maintenance nightmare if you stick to boring old clear liquid (distilled water + your anti-corrosion+biocide mix of choice) - no gunky fluids (particularly common with opaque mixes) meansno gunk buildup.

 

Overall, I like the slate. I mean, think about what else plays in the 480mm rad-compatible place, and you end up with a very short list:

1. Corsair 900D? Costs about the same for so much less case (and much less pretty as well, IMO).
2. Phanteks Enthoo elite? Costs even more while being smaller.
3. Silverstone TJ07/TJ11? Much closer, but they're old designs (5.25" bays in 2018?!), and the TJ07 in particular requires modding before you get to bolt in your 480mm at all. AND they cost 500+!
4. Caselabs/MountainMods? You could build the second system in the 1000D using just leftovers from not buying a 1000D equivalent case from them... And you still lose out on niceties like sliding radiator mounts and fan filters
5. Thermaltake? The View 91 is nice, but at the same price not worth it IMO (especially the lack of fan filters). The Core W100 is the real competition: It's cheaper, but you give up the second system option, and lose out room for one of the 480mms. It also uses the good ol' 5.25" bay conversion approach like the Caselabs cases, which I'm not the biggest fan of these days thanks to having the NAS connected to the desktop at 40G...

6. Lian Li doesn't even play.. largest rad I've seen em support is 360/420mm.

7. You can of course mod a number of cases, but now you have to spend time planning, cutting, drilling, finishing. And you still lose out on niceties like sliding mounts and fan filters.

 

Conclusion: if you want to step up to 480mm rads: buy the Slate/1000D until such time you decide to CNC/lasercut/otherwise build your own custom case from scratch

[Egg-Roll]

When it came to the montage when I saw the smoke I could only think of someone in the office doing this:

 

20 hours ago, Thermosman said:

how much does it weigh?

My guess is 100-120lb. My case is about 50ish with everything (case alone is about 23lb).

[Rune]

I have a 900D. All I can say is....

 

FINALLY

[Razor Blade]

That is a beautiful build that really filled out that gigantic case

[Marinatall_Ironside]

I'm still rocking a 900D for my main system, and recently I've liquid-cooled my CPU. With how I've set up my fan curves, it is ridiculously quiet now.

 

I may keep the case still, and I have a mod planned out for it, which is to replace the polycarbonate side panel (which I've cut out two 140mm fan holes, which look terrible) with a sheet of clear tempered glass, which will look amazing.

 

And if I really wanted to get into further modifying my 900D, I can upgrade the I/O to the latest spec with 4x USB 3.1 Gen.1 ports, a single USB 3.1 Gen.2 Type C port, and modify the basement portion so I can cram a 560mm radiator in there. I know it'll fit once you make the necessary modifications to it.

 

And lastly, maybe redo the paint job with some obsidian black automotive paint.

 

***

 

As for the video, it's good, but for a workstation, I was thinking of going soft tubing instead if I were them, and create two parallel distribution bars to install in the back of the Corsair 1000D, and go ham on panel fittings, and quick disconnect couplers (you'll need 8 male G1/4 BSPP non-spill, through-panel QDC fittings to mount through the panel and into two custom distribution manifolds that mount behind the case, and 8 female 3/8 x 1/2" compression couplers for the tubing that's attached to the cards to pull this one off) and plumb up the individual cards with angled terminals from EKWB. Of course all this would be piped to the radiators to cool the coolant being routed through the cards. The point of doing it this way is it will allow one to uninstall a single liquid-cooled card without needing to take out the entire assembly, making servicing a liquid-cooled workstation much easier. Pain in the ass to set up, yes, but trust me, when you need to service that workstation and you need to pull out that one card without taking out all the cards just for one card, you'll be grateful

 

NVIDIA did this with their DGX Station for their four liquid-cooled Tesla V100's, which I thought is incredibly smart of them to liquid cool the cards like that.

Edited April 10, 2018 by JurunceNK

[jakkuh_t]

11 hours ago, JurunceNK said:

I'm still rocking a 900D for my main system, and recently I've liquid-cooled my CPU. With how I've set up my fan curves....

I actually considered doing something like this, but the reality of how long it would take to setup in attractive manner shot that idea down.

 

However, that might actually be a decent video idea - a practical multi-gpu watercooling setup.

 

Or maybe: "Watercooling Basics" - where we talk about what it takes to setup a beautiful, and functional watercooling loop (pre treatment, water treaments, drains, fill ports, quick disconnects like you mentioned, etc).

[Marinatall_Ironside]

1 hour ago, jakkuh_t said:

I actually considered doing something like this, but the reality of how long it would take to setup in attractive manner shot that idea down.

 

However, that might actually be a decent video idea - a practical multi-gpu watercooling setup.

 

Or maybe: "Watercooling Basics" - where we talk about what it takes to setup a beautiful, and functional watercooling loop (pre treatment, water treaments, drains, fill ports, quick disconnects like you mentioned, etc).

Actually for setting up fan curves to get it as quiet as my setup, all you really need is an in-line temperature probe connected to a T-fitting, or a vacant outlet on a reservoir pump top. It also doesn't take too long, as it's up to the user to decide how quiet they want their system to be.

 

The basic thing with radiators in a watercooling setup is it's not cooling the component. Rather, it cools the coolant passing through the radiator, so basing your fan curves on the coolant temperature is ideal. The waterblock's job is to transfer the heat of the component into the coolant it's passing through. What I learned is the temperature of the coolant directly affects the temperature of the component you're cooling.

 

The coolant I use is EK-CryoFuel concentrate. Some users here have pointed to using premixed (preferably colorless) coolants as they're specially formulated and tested for use in watercooling loops. Premixes or concentrates already contain anti-corrosives, anti-microbial, and biocide chemicals mixed into the coolant in the correct ratios for you. Sure distilled water is good to get the job done, but it's been found that running straight distilled water as a long-term coolant (with or without a silver coil, PT Nuke, or a combination) can cause corrosion by way of absorbing ions too quickly, and/or the pH balance inside the loop got thrown off, which is why you're seeing a breakdown of the nickel plating. I'm no chemist by any chance.

 

This is also another why all-in-one OEMs use specially formulated coolants in their CLCs, and their examples are in the worst-case scenario: copper cold plates with aluminum radiators.

 

As for the watercooling idea I submitted, it's rather more functional than more pleasing to the eye, as in that scenario, you can swap out components easily, and minimize downtime. For the parallel bars that connect the GPUs to the splitter, they can be made out of POM acetal, and bore out a 1/4" hole through the entire piece, and drill out four holes each precisely where they need to go, and tap out 5 G1/4 BSPP threads to mount the fittings to. The bar should be about 5/8" square, and should be about 8" in length to make this work.

 

Watercooling basics should be limited to the mechanical properties of computer liquid cooling. The aesthetics part should be left up to the user to decide, as aesthetics is not a one-size-fits-all deal.

Edited April 10, 2018 by JurunceNK

[Juba1994]

Where can I get the parts list for this build? 

 

 

 

 

[mriggs82]

Using this case for a build for gaming and a Nas, would this be a better option over using unraid like in the gaming PC and Nas in one box? Obviously this is more expensive.

[FlameEngland]

Does anyone know exactly which res pump combos these are ? or which components make them up, i get a glance that they are Alphacool, but searching the web i cannot find them, just got the 1000D myself and want to use them in my build.