Silverstone rvz-03 custom loop build log.

[kevinisbeast707]

So I finally bit the bullet and bought EK's s240 kit to cool down my ryzen 5 1600 and to start my own small form factor custom loop. I figured I would start a log to share how my experience has gone since i haven't seen too many people building custom loops in this series of cases. Eventually when I have the budget for a new gpu and gpu block i'll add that to this as well. For the moment I should be waiting on my kit, an sfx to atx adapter, venturi 120 hp, and noctua p12 redux fans to arrive and then I will start posting pictures and writing on my experience. They should all be arriving at my house starting on June 7th but most of it should be here by they 10th and I'll probably start posting on the 11th due to schedule conflicts.  Should be fun!

[kevinisbeast707]

Day 1:

 

Alright so everything showed up today except the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut that I had ordered. I'm going to start by showing a couple of pictures of what it looked like before I started. Ignore the fan that is not screwed in, during normal operation it was but I had already taken the screw out before I realized that I should take a picture of it.

Here is where I began my tear down of the system and I took pictures of pretty much every step. Yes there is an rgb dimm in there and yes the corsair sf600 mobo cable is totally covering it. But hey, it was only $5 more than a regular dimm and I could use it in another build someday.

[kevinisbeast707]

Day 1 continued:

 

At this point of disassembly, I had access to all of the fans so I took all of them out so that I could compare their noise, airflow, airflow through a radiator, and airflow through a dust filter. I had lined up for me: a Fractal Design Venturi hp12, a Noctua Nf-p12 redux pwm 1300rpm, two Corsair sp120qe pwm, two EK Vardar f3 120mm 1850rpm, and one Silverstone fn121 or one of those numbers between 121-123. It should be mentioned that I had previously tested some of Deepcool's gf120s which worked excellently in an Aerocool ls5200 with its foam-like dust filter and ample room between the fans and the filter but which utterly failed in a close to the filter test as in the rvz-03.

Most of the fans exceeded my expectations. The EK Vardar fans proved to be very noisy with not only turbulence noise but also plenty of noise coming from the dual ball bearings inside of the hub. They were quite disappointing though they didn't produce much if any noise from the blades of the fan passing over the fins of  the radiator in a pull configuration and they could still work very well if noise is not as much of a concern as they still move quite a bit of air at higher speeds. The next fan that I tested was the Corsair sp120qe pwm. I had already known from experience that that fan was a very good all around performer. It was pretty much silent at low to medium rpms, and it moved a very good amount of air through both the radiator and the dust filter. I have nothing but praises for that fan especially for the price. Next on the list I had the Noctua Nf-p12 redux pwm. Now I have never been a Noctua fan for the reasons of color scheme and cost, but boy was I wrong. Even with this being one of Noctuas older designs, it both looks decent in the dual tone grey, and performs excellently. It is a fantastic all around fan for pretty much any situation. It had very similar sonic characteristics to the Corsair fan without any (and I mean zero) motor noise. Whatever Noctua has done with their ic, it's working. Anywho putting the fan up against the radiator, It performed about as well as the sp120qe when both were on full blast, but once switched to around 600rpm, the p12 redux was able to blow more air through the radiator. Along with this it had a slightly quieter, but slightly higher pitched, overall sound signature and the noise of the blades passing over the fins of the radiator was ever so slightly quieter when in a pull configuration. This also lead it to narrowly outperform the sp120qe in the dust filter test as well. The fan that I found most disappointing was the Fractal Design Venturi HP12. When I initially plugged the fan in, it sounded wonderful. Zero motor noise, a very pleasant sound signature, and very good airflow. Then five minutes later, the bearing began to make clicky and grindy noises. That was very disappointing, though it was not as bad as the Vardar fans were so I was willing to overlook that issue because the fan was just so damn sexy. As soon as I put it on a radiator though, I noticed that it was fairly decent at pushing air through the radiator and it kept up nicely with the Vardar fans while being much quieter, but once I put the fan in pull, it began to make a high pitched hum from the blades passing over the fins of the radiator. None of the other fans had had that problem to any noticeable extent. What really surprised me with this fan is that once it was allowed to ramp up in speed, sure it got louder, but holy crap that fan became a monster performer. At near the same rpm as the Vardars, the Venturi was able to pump out much more air and pressure while maintaining a lower overall air movement noise and bearing noise. I think that the reason that this fan performs so poorly at slower rpms is that there is a large gap between the tip of the fan blades and the outer casing. The blades look to be a cross between the sp120qe and the Nf-p12 but that gap leaves it without low rpm pressure. As a high rpm or free flowing fan it is excellent though. I was just expecting more at a quieter level. I think that overall I will be picking up two more Nf-p12 redux fans to complete this build as they are just such good all around fans, barely, and I mean barely beating out the sp120qe's.

[Psmall5]

looks good so far!! are you going to WC the gpu too?

[kevinisbeast707]

1 minute ago, Psmall5 said:

looks good so far!! are you going to WC the gpu too?

I plan to once I get a better GPU. I don't see a point in wasting money on a block for a 750 ti lol. I do need to get a better gpu though because if I don't have a waterblock on the gpu then I cant use two fans on the rad.

[Psmall5]

true... 750 is a little old lol.

 

It would be interesting none the less. Pretty sure EK would have a universal block...

If you needed any inspiration, you could go back and watch Linus's old school WC build (if you hadnt already)

Looks to be similar size;

 

 

[kevinisbeast707]

2 minutes ago, Psmall5 said:

true... 750 is a little old lol.

 

It would be interesting none the less. Pretty sure EK would have a universal block...

If you needed any inspiration, you could go back and watch Linus's old school WC build (if you hadnt already)

Looks to be similar size;

 

 

I had actually seen it but I'm rewatching it rn. EK does have a universal block for the 750 ti but I'd rather have a full block for a better card so that way I wouldn't have to worry about vrms or anything. If evga's hydrocopper series or gigabyte's waterforce weren't so expensive, I'd go with them since I'm lazy and I don't want to put my own block on 

[kevinisbeast707]

Technically day 1 still:

 

So yesterday I fell asleep before posting about all that I had gotten done. I had had my sfx psu mounted in a pretty ghetto way. I bought an sfx to atx bracket (thank you Corsair for finally including it in the platinum ones) to fix this. Please excuse the food as I had gotten hungry at this point.

Moving past this, I cleaned off of the cpu and noticed that my arctic silver 5 was bleeding out over the cpu and it began to seep towards the socket. Guess I'll be using EK's ectotherm for now (As I'm writing this the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut has arrived). 

Now for the cpu block. I wish that I didn't have to take the block apart to use the am4 mount but at least it's very sturdy. I noticed once I took my block apart that some of the fins were bent but oh well. It all went pretty well.

Now for mounting. I wish that I didn't have to take the stock back plate out because I had to take the motherboard out at that point. The kit comes with two different mounting screws. One set for lga 2011 and one set for am4 and lga 115x. The set with the longer thumb grip is the am4 and lga 115x set. It also uses its own pvc washers, springs, and thumb caps. It was a fairly straight forward install and went totally smoothly.

Now everything has to go back in. FIrst the mobo and then the Power supply. Of course all of the pain in the butt cables. Next will be the radiator which barely fits and it actually hurts me to bend the power supply cable like this. I just wish that EK would stop using Allen screws...

Now I wasn't very bright and I put the fan in before adding the fittings but I had to take the fan back out to put the fittings on the radiator. Next I had the pleasure of finding a place for the pump. I was quite surprised when it fit below the power supply and with the midplate still in. Now with the compression fittings it would not fit but I have procured and now tested EK's 90 degree fittings and they work perfectly. with millimeters to spare from the side panel. I have at this point also attached the 90 degree fittings to the cpu block as well so that I can more easily attach the fan on the side panel. I will update this post once I take the pictures.

[kevinisbeast707]

I have finished the loop and I will post the final pictures and words on Tuesday probably. It turned out alright and I will never be building something in this small and unoptimized of a case again because it was a huge pain and when I get a gpu that requires power cables, I will have to move the reservoir and also every part of that reservoir is going to be a pain to move. Pro tip: don't break the EK acrylic vortex prevention thingie inside of the pump... Looking back I think I was too harsh on EK's Vardar fans. They move a very good amount of air in all situations and they have beyond excellent vibration characteristics. When put into a pull configuration on anything they make very very little blade noise and even at max speed they are pretty comparable to Corsair's sp120qe when it is also mounted in a pull configuration at full speed. I feel like it is an excellent fan that is let down by the inherent noise of a dual ball bearing bearing design. If they could somehow use Corsair's or Noctua's bearing designs for the same fans, I think that they would be my go to's right behind the p12's or even tied if they weren't so damn expensive. Also I don't know if i was hard enough on Fractal's hp12. As a free flowing fan it is still excellent for the most part. After further testing though, even against only a dust filter, the fan was totally useless as a static pressure fan producing very little airflow through with little to no focus while also being incredibly loud on its blade noise at full speed. Even at lower speeds, the blade noise was pretty bad compared to the other fans at comparable rpms. What was even worse is that if you put the fan as a push fan against a dust filter, IT STILL MAKES THE BLADE PASSING NOISE! Why does it do that? No other fan that I own has this issue except the hp12. I hypothesize that the aforementioned gap between the fan blades and the fan frame that give it worse pressure characteristics, is also giving it worse noise characteristics as when the fan is in pull it is having blades create an area of lower pressure where the air is moving to the side instead of down and when in a push configuration the air is being pushed back up the sides of the blades creating unnecessary turbulence noise. Fractal please fix. Also fix the bearing clicking. It's such a sexy fan to perform so abysmally.