I thought I'll start by listing my before PC spec:
Current PC Spec:
Asus P5Q Deluxe w/2x2gb OCZ 8500 Reaper HPC 5-5-5-18
Q6600 @ 3.8ghz ~1.55v w/D-Tek Fuzion V2
AMD Radeon 7970
120gb Corsair Force3 SSD & 1TB 7200RPM Samsung SpinPoint F1
27" 2560x1440 IPS monitor.
Laing DCC 3.2 18w pump with XSPC Laing DDC Top Reservoir
Antec 300 case
Modded Antec 300 case with Alphacool NexXxos Xtreme II Rev2 mounted on top with 2x scythe 1200 rpm fans.
I've been running this system since ~August 2008. Although I've gone through several graphics cards (8800GTS,HD4870, HD6870) in this time and 1 motherboard (it got fried when my water pump failed and I tried plugging it into another motherboard header). I've been itching to upgrade as I find working on PCs quite fun, especially when it comes to drilling, cutting etc and the plumbing work with water cooling.
Before photos (pretty much like this the last 4 years):
Here's a plain Antec case for reference:
As I had some days off around Christmas / new years time I decided I wanted to work on my PC but the current generation of socket 1155 still doesn't quite seem worth it for me so I decided to upgrade the water cooling of my PC instead. I bought an AMD 7970 just under a year ago to go along with my 27" 2560x1440 IPS monitor with an intention to water cool it. I was just waiting until I upgrade my motherboard and CPU etc. So I decided to revamp my water cooling as this is usable on future upgrades and the 7970 is noisy under load.
I bought the following:
1x Phobya Xtreme 400mm Double Radiator
2x Phobya 180mm G-Silent 18 Red LED Case Fan (the 32mm thick 800rpm version)
1x EK Water Blocks EK-VGA Supremacy - Acetal + Cu adapter
1x EK Water Blocks EK-DDC X-Top V2- Acetal
4x barbs
1x Angled rotary adaptor
1x Phobya Flexible Thread Funnel
1m of 7/16" ID Masterkleer Clear PVC Tubing
2x 10 pack of Alphacool 15x15mm GPU Heatsinks
Alphacool Double-Sided Thermal Adhesive Pad
The plan is to:
1) Replace my double 120mm radiator which is mounted externally on the top of my Antec 300 case with the Phobya Xtreme 400 with the 180mm fans mounted inside.
2) Getting rid of the Laing reservoir and replacing with the EK-DDC X-Top V2 and to hang the pump by the tubes somehow to avoid vibrations.
3) Replace the Radeon 7970's reference cooling with the EK universal GPU block & fit ram and VRM heatsinks.
4) Overcome the inevitable problems.
Now the Antec 300 case has the dimensions of 205x458x465 (Width x Height x Depth) and the Phobya Xtreme 400 has the footprint of 200x448 which is obviously cutting it extremely tight and I knew there would be a lot of drilling and cutting involved.
I stripped everything out and realised straight away I found out that I couldn't fit the chunky fan in due to the protrusion of the motherboard stand
I used the Phobya fan adapter plate as a template to mark out what I needed to cut out away from the top of the case. This took a lot of time and consideration - I wanted it central but also had to think about the positioning front to back due to the extremely tight tolerances I was working to. I had to ensure the hoses would fit over the barbs at the front of the case and still be able to use the front USB panel located in the same area. Likewise at the rear of the case I couldn't go too far otherwise the fan would hit the motherboard's IO panel.
It turns out that tolerances I were working to were in fact negative tolerances - I didn't have enough space! I decided I had to cut away part of the fan to allow for a little more room:
As I said before the chunky fans wouldn't fit due to the protrusion of the motherboard stand. I decided that I had to cut (mill using my dad's equipment) this section away. I didn't want to loose all rigidity so I kept a bit of metal in between where the 2 fans would sit to retain some support to be bolted or riveted back together:
You can also see the 5.25" bay has been chopped away to allow for the front fan also. I decided to keep the bottom section so I could still mount a cd rom drive.
I also had to file away some of the metal near the barbs and I even had to file down the back of the plastic front USB panel.
Most of the metal removed
I didn't take any further photos so the rest from now on are literally ones I've taken today/recently.
I finally had the radiator and fans in place. It took quite a few days to get to this stage but I wasn't rushing anything and was quite enjoying the work in between watching things on TV / eating! This after all was the bulk of the work.
I proceeded to remove the 7970's shroud/heat sink/fan combo and went about installing the universal mount. This was the easy bit. Putting heat sinks on the ram and VRMs required cutting 2 of them down to fit under the hoses and cutting all the ram sinks I used for the VRMs into narrow pieces. I stuck them all on with double sided adhesive tape. I kept knocking some of the narrow ones off by accident but to this day they haven't fallen off by gravity!
Only photo I can take at the moment:
I took apart my cpu block to clean it out with a toothbrush and vinegar. I know the D-tek Fuzion V2 isn't that great any more but I didn't see the point in replacing it until I get a new platform. I also cleaned out the Phobya radiator with a vinegar/hot water mix. Nothing other than a few little specs here and there came out.
I swapped over the acrylic top with the EK top on my water pump and went ahead and plumbed it all together. fitting the 7/16" hoses over the 1/2" barbs is hard work with the new tubing but under the hot water tap they went on. The hardest to attach were on the radiator due to the tight space they were in. I managed to fit a couple of cable ties over them which was extremely tricky.
The plumbing was arranged like this:
This allowed the pump to be suspended by the tubing so not touching any part of the case.
I filled the system with the Phobya funnel here (which incidentally had a slight leak
I guess I should have mentioned it to the reseller but I couldn't be bothered):
The last thing I did was mount the original 120mm scythe fans to the front of the case to bring air in and set them to low speed in the bios.
The finished article inside:
Outside:
I flipped the side panels over as I didn't want air coming through the side and bypassing the filter and also probably helps reduce noise slightly. I may mask off the rear fan holes too at some point.
It was a lot of work but I'm extremely happy with the system and it should last for some future platforms. The Phobya fans are extremely quiet, I can only hear the air with my head in the path of the fans. The only noise created is from my old scythe fans and the PSU fan and they don't make too much noise.
Upon some testing while running prime95 and Furmark at the same time I think the GPU temps never went above ~45° which is good considering the Q6600 running 3.8ghz @ 1.55v has a TDP of about 250w and the 7970 is at about 200w! I believe I only bought the case for about £32 in 2008 too.
Current PC Spec:
Asus P5Q Deluxe w/2x2gb OCZ 8500 Reaper HPC 5-5-5-18
Q6600 @ 3.8ghz ~1.55v w/D-Tek Fuzion V2
AMD Radeon 7970
120gb Corsair Force3 SSD & 1TB 7200RPM Samsung SpinPoint F1
27" 2560x1440 IPS monitor.
Laing DCC 3.2 18w pump with XSPC Laing DDC Top Reservoir
Antec 300 case
Modded Antec 300 case with Alphacool NexXxos Xtreme II Rev2 mounted on top with 2x scythe 1200 rpm fans.
I've been running this system since ~August 2008. Although I've gone through several graphics cards (8800GTS,HD4870, HD6870) in this time and 1 motherboard (it got fried when my water pump failed and I tried plugging it into another motherboard header). I've been itching to upgrade as I find working on PCs quite fun, especially when it comes to drilling, cutting etc and the plumbing work with water cooling.
Before photos (pretty much like this the last 4 years):
Here's a plain Antec case for reference:
As I had some days off around Christmas / new years time I decided I wanted to work on my PC but the current generation of socket 1155 still doesn't quite seem worth it for me so I decided to upgrade the water cooling of my PC instead. I bought an AMD 7970 just under a year ago to go along with my 27" 2560x1440 IPS monitor with an intention to water cool it. I was just waiting until I upgrade my motherboard and CPU etc. So I decided to revamp my water cooling as this is usable on future upgrades and the 7970 is noisy under load.
I bought the following:
1x Phobya Xtreme 400mm Double Radiator
2x Phobya 180mm G-Silent 18 Red LED Case Fan (the 32mm thick 800rpm version)
1x EK Water Blocks EK-VGA Supremacy - Acetal + Cu adapter
1x EK Water Blocks EK-DDC X-Top V2- Acetal
4x barbs
1x Angled rotary adaptor
1x Phobya Flexible Thread Funnel
1m of 7/16" ID Masterkleer Clear PVC Tubing
2x 10 pack of Alphacool 15x15mm GPU Heatsinks
Alphacool Double-Sided Thermal Adhesive Pad
The plan is to:
1) Replace my double 120mm radiator which is mounted externally on the top of my Antec 300 case with the Phobya Xtreme 400 with the 180mm fans mounted inside.
2) Getting rid of the Laing reservoir and replacing with the EK-DDC X-Top V2 and to hang the pump by the tubes somehow to avoid vibrations.
3) Replace the Radeon 7970's reference cooling with the EK universal GPU block & fit ram and VRM heatsinks.
4) Overcome the inevitable problems.
Now the Antec 300 case has the dimensions of 205x458x465 (Width x Height x Depth) and the Phobya Xtreme 400 has the footprint of 200x448 which is obviously cutting it extremely tight and I knew there would be a lot of drilling and cutting involved.
I stripped everything out and realised straight away I found out that I couldn't fit the chunky fan in due to the protrusion of the motherboard stand
I used the Phobya fan adapter plate as a template to mark out what I needed to cut out away from the top of the case. This took a lot of time and consideration - I wanted it central but also had to think about the positioning front to back due to the extremely tight tolerances I was working to. I had to ensure the hoses would fit over the barbs at the front of the case and still be able to use the front USB panel located in the same area. Likewise at the rear of the case I couldn't go too far otherwise the fan would hit the motherboard's IO panel.
It turns out that tolerances I were working to were in fact negative tolerances - I didn't have enough space! I decided I had to cut away part of the fan to allow for a little more room:
As I said before the chunky fans wouldn't fit due to the protrusion of the motherboard stand. I decided that I had to cut (mill using my dad's equipment) this section away. I didn't want to loose all rigidity so I kept a bit of metal in between where the 2 fans would sit to retain some support to be bolted or riveted back together:
You can also see the 5.25" bay has been chopped away to allow for the front fan also. I decided to keep the bottom section so I could still mount a cd rom drive.
I also had to file away some of the metal near the barbs and I even had to file down the back of the plastic front USB panel.
Most of the metal removed
I didn't take any further photos so the rest from now on are literally ones I've taken today/recently.
I finally had the radiator and fans in place. It took quite a few days to get to this stage but I wasn't rushing anything and was quite enjoying the work in between watching things on TV / eating! This after all was the bulk of the work.
I proceeded to remove the 7970's shroud/heat sink/fan combo and went about installing the universal mount. This was the easy bit. Putting heat sinks on the ram and VRMs required cutting 2 of them down to fit under the hoses and cutting all the ram sinks I used for the VRMs into narrow pieces. I stuck them all on with double sided adhesive tape. I kept knocking some of the narrow ones off by accident but to this day they haven't fallen off by gravity!
Only photo I can take at the moment:
I took apart my cpu block to clean it out with a toothbrush and vinegar. I know the D-tek Fuzion V2 isn't that great any more but I didn't see the point in replacing it until I get a new platform. I also cleaned out the Phobya radiator with a vinegar/hot water mix. Nothing other than a few little specs here and there came out.
I swapped over the acrylic top with the EK top on my water pump and went ahead and plumbed it all together. fitting the 7/16" hoses over the 1/2" barbs is hard work with the new tubing but under the hot water tap they went on. The hardest to attach were on the radiator due to the tight space they were in. I managed to fit a couple of cable ties over them which was extremely tricky.
The plumbing was arranged like this:
This allowed the pump to be suspended by the tubing so not touching any part of the case.
I filled the system with the Phobya funnel here (which incidentally had a slight leak
I guess I should have mentioned it to the reseller but I couldn't be bothered):
The last thing I did was mount the original 120mm scythe fans to the front of the case to bring air in and set them to low speed in the bios.
The finished article inside:
Outside:
I flipped the side panels over as I didn't want air coming through the side and bypassing the filter and also probably helps reduce noise slightly. I may mask off the rear fan holes too at some point.
It was a lot of work but I'm extremely happy with the system and it should last for some future platforms. The Phobya fans are extremely quiet, I can only hear the air with my head in the path of the fans. The only noise created is from my old scythe fans and the PSU fan and they don't make too much noise.
Upon some testing while running prime95 and Furmark at the same time I think the GPU temps never went above ~45° which is good considering the Q6600 running 3.8ghz @ 1.55v has a TDP of about 250w and the 7970 is at about 200w! I believe I only bought the case for about £32 in 2008 too.
