Water Cooled Prodigy

[Aoleus]

So, I've decided to build my first custom loop in a Bitfenix Prodigy. I've already ordered the bulk of the components for this project.

 

Loop as it currently stands:

Alphacool XT 140mm rad - Front (the math was telling me a 180mm front rad + fan could pose significant clearance issues with the R9 290)

Alphacool XT 240mm rad - Top

EK-DDC 3.2 PWM X-RES 140

Bitspower Maximus VI Impact Full-Cover block

EK 290X Acetal block

Various barbs/drain port fittings

Killcoil

 

I'm confident that I'll be able to get this up and running without too much trouble. Although I'm wondering if it would be worth the extra $50ish and work to add a second 140mm rad to the rear fan location? I know the 290 runs hot, and I've got a 4.6GHz overclock on my 4670K, so I kind of suspect that the extra surface area would be beneficial. The main trade off is having to move the rear fan to the outside of the case, or putting the rad outside and having to cut holes for the fittings and tubing.

 

The inner debate is getting me no where, so I figured I'd look for an outside opinion in hopes of breaking the stalemate.

[TheTechnerd]

just a note, you will not be able to have a DVD drive with a 240mm rad at the top. I know because I have one

overall the build will be very tight, pun intended. It was hard work enaugh to work with the cables in the little chassi.

[Dr3nz4r]

why do you need a fan and the rear rad? when having plenty of air pushed through the front, it should be enough to ahve a "passive" cooled rad in the rear

[airdeano]

So, I've decided to build my first custom loop in a Bitfenix Prodigy. I've already ordered the bulk of the components for this project.

Loop as it currently stands:

Alphacool XT 140mm rad - Front (the math was telling me a 180mm front rad + fan could pose significant clearance issues with the R9 290)

Alphacool XT 240mm rad - Top

EK-DDC 3.2 PWM X-RES 140

Bitspower Maximus VI Impact Full-Cover block

EK 290X Acetal block

Various barbs/drain port fittings

Killcoil

I'm confident that I'll be able to get this up and running without too much trouble. Although I'm wondering if it would be worth the extra $50ish and work to add a second 140mm rad to the rear fan location? I know the 290 runs hot, and I've got a 4.6GHz overclock on my 4670K, so I kind of suspect that the extra surface area would be beneficial. The main trade off is having to move the rear fan to the outside of the case, or putting the rad outside and having to cut holes for the fittings and tubing.

 

The inner debate is getting me no where, so I figured I'd look for an outside opinion in hopes of breaking the stalemate.

 

welcome to the LinusTechTips forums!

 

with all that hot hardware, you'll prolly either have to rethink the radiators or

have some fast fan speeds to keep that rig under some controllable temps.

 

depending on what voltage your overclock is and how well the R9 290x

responds to your configuration, you prolly won't like the results.

guessing 60°+CPU and 55°+GPU on 25° ambient. and that's prolly having

the fans up into the 1800-2000rpm range.

Linus did test the 290 in a recent video on a lone 240x 30 and saw 45° with

no CPU included.

 

[Aoleus]

The lack of an optical drive is a non-issue. I've got an external drive somewhere around here for those rare emergencies where optical media is unavoidable.

 

The passive rad is good in theory, but subjects my case to negative air pressure, as there's only the 140mm intake up front while the top has two 120mm fans exhausting air. Unless I run a Delta fan at very high RPM up front, there's no way to maintain a positive pressure to keep dust bunnies to a minimum.

 

Yeah, I'm not expecting anything amazing as far as temps go, it's mostly a "because I can" sort of loop, with some desire to muffle the 290 down to non-ear-bleeding levels. I will probably back off the overclock as well, since the performance increase from 4.4 to 4.6 wasn't anything special, but the voltage increase was significant enough to keep my H100i running warmer than I would typically prefer.

 

The first two rads and pump/res arrived today, so I'm going to test fit those and see how much room I've got to play with for a rear radiator.