PROJECT LOG Project Thief - Dual Watercooled Rigs - 3930K, 990x, 5 gpus, 8 ssds

[stren]

So while I was waiting for the screws, I decided to mount a reservoir to the motherboard tray. As the motherboard tray is HPTX there is a lot of spare space. Initially I wanted to also fit an RX360 on there, so that the motherboard/gpu/ram loop was self contained on the tray so that I could just pull it out and swap CPUs without disturbing that loop. Now I have another plan for the radiator instead. Here I am drilling the tray:



With the res mounted (it's a 250 EK multires if anyone cares and there's just enough room for a D5 underneath):



From the back with the reservoir mounted. You can see the two nuts holding it on:



Now with the motherboard tray back stiffening and tiding plate added:



Here's another shot of the front also showing the new cpu block. BTW any barbs are just place holders.



A quick test inside the case:



I also did a test run with the gtx560 radiator and the fan adapters with my new shiny 2150 rpm gentle typhoons!



That was it for the night, then the next morning I found an extra fitting and connected the res to the ram block. Almost a straight line lol.



No one had photographed the new thumbscrews on the cpu block - so I took a couple of that also:



Again ignore the barbs, I haven't quite decided how to route the tube out of there yet.

 

[stren]

Here's a pic of the iwaki next to a D5



Then I put the dvd drives in. These will eventually be hidden



Then I starting putting in the new ssds into the hdd side mount:



I have another 3 ssds and 5 hard drives to put in later on, when I really transplant everything over:





And now a tease of the case with the panels:



More to come soon

 

[stren]

[quote name="jackofhearts495" url="/t/1188030/sponsored-project-thief-a-dual-wielding-full-watercooled-caselabs-tx10-gulftown-gaming-sandy-workstation-990x-and-3930k-in-one-box-with-five-gpus-and-plenty-o-rads/400_50#post_16819510"]I'm sure you'd find better performance in two EX's than one GTX. It's a no-brainer if both options are the same price.[/quote]

Yeah I think you're right, may require some modding for the 3rd 560, but that's ok

So the only thing I got done this week was changing the switch plate to one that matched the exterior color. Here's the original:



The cover is held on with two nuts:



Put the new one on:



Reattach the switches:



Install it:



And put the panels back one:



That's probably it for the next week at which point a large order of parts should be coming in :thumb:

 

[stren]

Alrighty the fedex guy came, so here's some unboxing action:



Woooh packing







Opened some boxes - the front rad is an ex560 - not quite sure why this was the first 560 rad that XSPC made.



Mora 140.9 revealed - way thicker than the EX of course



Can you say quick disconnects?

 

[stren]

2nd update of the day:-

So I played around with my own version of the big slappy mod for the Iwaki - the idea is you tap the cylinder res for a much larger feed for the pump. The pump can't be on it's back so you need a nice slow 90 degree bend. The tough part is then getting down to the 5/8 OD pipe that is the inlet to the Iwaki. Here I used 1" pipe going to a 1/2" female converter fitted with a 5/8" brass barb. I butted the barb up right against the inlet and stretched some 0.5" tube over it:



The feed may not be quite as good as the original big slappy as that only had a bout 3/4" of 5/8 inlet tube, vs this 2.5" on this version. However the downpipe is 1" instead of the 3/4" that was used. So hopefully the extra width balances it out a bit. Here's a photo of the original big slappy:



and amuseme's version:

We'll see I might change to what they did, I feel like it might have better performance.

Also started spray painting test colors on a dead GT. I made a quick spray booth:





Done - there's some metallic flake in the paint, the color isn't quite as orange as the tube though:



Reassembled (kinda)





Then a final comparison with it mounted on the 120 rad (this rad is just for the motherboard block loop). The rad will be painted silver to match:



So what do you think? Are the colors close enough? Both are slightly off. I wonder if I can get a color match from the powder coat supplier. I think I'll look for a different red at the least tomorrow. The match does depend on the lighting though.

 

[stren]

Got some more today seeing as I got done with my deadline yesterday. I wanted to get the 120 rad painted to match the fan to see how it looks and what fittings to go with. So I started sanding down the brand new gt stealth:



Masked it off and applied primer:



Then painted a matching cover to dress up the fan a little:



While I was waiting for paint to dry, I put together the quick disconnect pairs, some will mount to panels with a g1/4 fitting on the other side, while some screw directly into radiators:



Then I realized I need two more pairs...

I also did some work on the pump mounting. I added a drain port to the inlet tube and mapped out the cuts I wanted to make to the base panel. Air has to flow through the base panel, so there has to be some cut outs. Because the pump will vibrate, I'm worried about making the noise worse with a floppy piece of metal, so I was thinking to stiffen it with two 1" by 1/4" steel bars screwed underneath the base plate (these are the two dark shaded strips. I'll have to add some rubber strips to try and isolate the baseplate from the frame also.



Here's a quick look at the painted rad from earlier with the fan on top:



And here's a piece of acrylic that was laser cut and then painted to match. The dimensions aren't quite right though:



Not sure whether to do something like this or not. I don't think I should use the zerg symbol anyway as it doesn't match the theme, but it's fun to play around.

Originally I had wanted to paint all the fans, then I got lazy and thought, well I'm more likely to screw them up by painting them (imbalanced rotors and all), plus they won't be seen so who cares. So I took a look to see if I could justify lazy or not: Here are the stock typhoons showing:



Here's one painted typhoon just rested up in there. Obviously the space around the fan (fan adapter) would be painted silver too so it would blend better. The red can't be seen too well though:



So I figure I have four options:

A) leave the GTs stock (lazy and quieter but looks ugly)
B) paint the GTs housing only and leave the rotor grey (quiet but stands out less
C) paint the GT fully (risks noise from a now unbalanced rotor and doesn't look much better than option b)
D) paint the GT fully and add some white LEDs to actually show the metallic red rotor off a little bit

What do you all think?

 

[stren]

The results are in:
A - 2
B - 7
C - 0
D - 6
Other suggesions:
- not paint and add leds - 2
- paint the housing and add leds -1
- paint hubs only and add leds -1

I liked some of the suggestions - I think what I'll do is actually not paint, and use red LED's to light the blades. I'm going to do a test run in the next couple of days. I'll also create a plate to attach the fans too that will cover some of the ugliness so only the blades will be seen. I can then create some back lit patterns. I need to check how much room is left in between the fans and the metal panel though.

Meanwhile I mounted the 140x9 radiator (without fans as I'm waiting on delivery), and checked the QDC's:



Unfortunately there is not enough room - only about 3/4" to make the 90 degree turn:



Luckily I had a non rotary 90 spare that could help out:



A rotary there would inevitably leak due to the weight of the QDC. I don't like the restriction of that tight 90 though so I may end up taking the QDC off of the radiator and putting it in line instead. I decided to leave it for a bit though and work on tapping the reservoir. The parts I need came in, so now it's time to build a makeshift tap handle lol.

 

[stren]

Alright so here's a shot of the tubing:



The difference looks 3-4x worse than the photo shows.

Also got some parts that were correctly manufactured (EK D5 top and lots of drain ports):



Bunch of fill ports:



I also got done with the clearcoat on the radiator so I could finally take the masking tape off:



Then I built a quick and dirty tap handle:



We'll see how it works, I may have to buy one but thought I'd try this first.

I attached the D5 top to the res with a rotary male to male connector. There was about 3/8" gap between the mounting plate and the motherboard tray though, so I picked up a rubber table leg weight distributor that felt like it would be good for damping vibrations. It's just the right size to hide behind the mounting plate. I had to shave it down a bit though as it was more like 1/2":



Here it is hiding:



If it's visible from the window, I'll have to replace it, but I think it's good. Here it is with the plate bolted down lightly (the barb is temporary):



Here it is mounted from the front:

 

[stren]

I made a review of the TX10. I hope it's helpful and that people like it. It's not exactly professional (iphone ftw) but I tried to do my best with what I had. To give you an idea of the scale of the case - I'm 6ft 5, so it's pretty big.

Let me know any feedback you have to improve it (or future videos). This case is a tough subject to review, simply because there are so many things to cover. I don't particularly like the ending, I'm thinking of adding on a real conclusion, but for all being one take I think it's decent :thumb:

Stren!

 

[stren]

Alright here's the quick video update as I haven't had time to edit the pics yet. This is about halfway through what's been done. One thing I've found with this case is that it's so large, that every wire needs to be lengthened

Skip to the end to see the comparison of an antec 300 to the TX10 lol

 

[stren]

So I finally tidied up the house. For some reason the wife was unhappy with every available surface being covered with stuff. This means I can start processing some photos.

So I started off by putting together the workstation upgrade. My gaming rig can be down, but I still have to work, so that's the first priority. The workstation consists of two loops:

1. i7-3930K - Mora3 140x9 - Dual PMP450S (D5 Strong)

2. EK R4E full cover block - 2 EK ram blocks - EK 8800GT block - D5 Vario - EK 250 cylinder res

As most of loop 2 was done, I started work on loop 1. So I started off mounting the fans to the mora3. Here it is with the CaseLabs "Super Mount". There are four dedicated mounting points independent of the fans which is nice:



This means you can just mount the fans to the supermount and not the radiator:



This is useful for cleaning because you can just undo the four mounting screws between the supermount and the rad. I.E. You don't have to remove every single fan for cleaning. FYI the fans are low speed 140mm yates (700rpm). I chose these because I wanted something cheap and quiet, and yates are both of those when at 700rpm.

Here's the super mount with fans mounted placed on top of the rad:



Then I attached the rad to the super mount:



The only downside to this is a tiny gap between the fan and the rad. However it's small enough that I don't think it will cause a problem:



Here it is mounted in the top of the case:



I then attached the quick disconnects to the CPU block for loop 1. Originally they were going to attach to the case and then have compression fittings on the cpu block. However there wasn't enough room to make the 90 degree turn, so i think this works better:



In the final setup I'll have some bitspower pass throughs that go to the top chamber. For now the tubing curves around to the drive bay area where the temporary reservoir and pumps are:



Again you can see the pink vs red tube. Primochill have shipped me some replacement tube - so props to them for taking care of it.

 

[stren]

So to build the workstation loop I also needed a rx360 rad from my gaming rig. So this meant that it was time to take the gaming rig apart. Here you can see it minus one fan that was clicking and had been removed. Yes you can cool 3 480's, a 920 and motherboard block with 5xAP15s but yes your water gets pretty warm lol.



So once the radiators were removed, I could take some side by side pics with the new case:



Yes the TX10 is huge!





So enough posing, it's time to take the guts apart:



You can see how the window was hiding some messy wiring. I hadn't bothered to tidy and sleeve much after putting in the Koolance res and STX because the TX10 was already on the way.

Lots of dust to be cleaned, here you can see the "saddlebag" setup of the external rads



About to take the fans and reservoir out:



Top fan and PSU removed:



Parts on the ground, parts on the ground looking like a fool with my parts on the ground!



The STX is a sexy card:

 

[stren]

Alright so more photos taking the old rig apart - we left off by removing the pci cards and the power supply:



So now let's remove the cpu block and check the tim spread:



Not the best but not awful. Now time to take the motherboard out:



Out it comes:



Which leaves a sad empty and dusty case!



Now it's time to take apart the rad setup:



Remove the steel bars:



Then the fans:



I noticed one side of the rads now had white stains on them, these were the sides on the top:



Compared side by side to the underside (bottom rad):



Anyone know what that is?

 

[stren]

Well I haven't done any more on it yet. Still working through the photos from the last two weeks. So here's another update...

So we left off with the antec 300 emptied out, here's another shot of it next to the TX10 now that it's empty:



I was also now left with a big stack of fans. This is without the 15 fans that have already been used in the TX10:



Now I could start rebuilding the gaming rig into the TX10:



Adding the 120 rad for the motherboard loop:



Testing that it still fits in the case:



Soon it must be time to start tidying up before I get slapped!



However first I need to get my work computer up. The free 360 is being used for the workstation motherboard/ram/gpu loop and will sit approximately here:



So now to take apart the loop that was leak testing in order to add the rad:



I changed out the 45 degree bitspower compression on the GPU as it felt like it had a slight leak in in that position, so it has a temporary barb, I also removed the pump sticker. It's much cleaner now, and who needs an overpriced dress kit



That's all for now!

 

[stren]

Here's a quick update - time to start drilling!



Adding some fill ports:



2 done:



All done:



Not as messy now:



Time to get the workstation up and running so I can get back to work (once I've cleaned up of course). I'll be using the Koolance dual bay dual D5 reservoir for now. It's a real pain to use because it doesn't bleed well, however if you add on some tube from the fill ports on the res up to the fill ports on the case you can keep the water level above the reservoir and it really helps.



Now we've freed up a 360 rad for the workstation gpu/motherboard/ram loop, we can put the loop together:



I'm using AP15's temporarily until I'm done painting the low speed yates. Also that one barb is temporary too:



The wiring is temporary too. So for loop testing, I disconnected the QDC's pulled the motherboard tray out of the case and the 360 out seperately, then I reconnected and filled the loop and left it to bleed/leak test on the counter for a few hours.

 

[stren]

Alright time for another update. Here's the loop testing for the workstation. Bear in mind this is not the final loop - it will be tidier with nicer fittings, for now I need to get my workstation up and running, I can pretty it up later.



Some of the tube is the pink tube that I had mentioned before, that will be replaced. Bleeding of the annoying koolance reservoir was made easier by the dedicated fill ports and by the QDC's. The D5's struggle to push that much air out of the system, so it was much easier to bleed the cpu section and the radiator seperately and then connect them up as a whole:



Now that it had passed leak testing it was time to take it to the office:



It was now heavy (and bulky) and I didn't trust the BP crystal links not to loosen up if I didn't take it down the step smoothly, so I found a piece of plywood in the shed to help:



First boot! Yay! It was just the kitchen that was covered in parts, so was the office, it's a real mess as I still had my old workstation running while I tweaked the clocks on this one.



I temporarily put the power supply in the top chamber while I did the overclocking tweaking:



Did a quick bench to see the limit of the chip, I couldn't get past 5.22GHz on water. I tried up to 1.66V, but nothing past 1.56 really helped. 5.22 means it's a pretty average 3930K, certainly no golden chip I tried to settle for a 24/7 clock of 4.95, but I didn't like the volts, so settled down for 4.9 instead, I'll see if I can tweak the memory faster than 2133 CL9 later, here's a SS of the 5.22:



Next I installed the power supplies properly, here you can see the optional PSU support bracket for long power supplies. It's probably not necessary, but why not? It comes with some rubber tape to damp any vibrations:



Here's the first PSU installed:

 

[stren]

A side diversion:

A board!



blah blah blah marketing - where's the window that the extreme boards have?



Now there's a board



I liked the door hanger - unfortunately this is for an overclocked workstation so not too useful here:



A large box for some memory (32giggles):



Matching:



Oh and a cpu:



Best put that in the socket then:



We should remove that plastic cover too:



Putting in that H100:



Yeah I know no custom water loop, but this is going to someone who can't be trusted with such things

miniThief is getting there:



miniThief- now with 100% more PSU:



Don't forget a GPU (9800GT ftw!)



Close up:



ISO:

 

[stren]

So back to the *real* project. Now that my workstation was up and running, I could take the old one down:



OMG dust! This is three months worth:



Still yucky:





Got out the duster and started taking it apart:



Nearly done



Now I've gone and made the kitchen messy again:

 

[stren]

So as it's the weekend you get bonus updates

This is how I initially wanted the PSU's to give maximum air intake:



However the left PSU once it had cables would conflict with the 360 rad mounted in front of it, so I decided to move it:



Done, you can see there's still a good amount of space in between:



Now to mount them - they're going in the second to bottom compartment:



and mounted:



Now time to mount all the hard drives - here are the gaming rig drives:



Now let's add in the workstation drives:



old skool x25e:



All done:



Now to cable it - I hate how asus only give you sata cables with right angles at one end and straights at the other. For this build I really need straight to straights, so I had to order some more from the egg, this is the temporary rats nest:



Yikes!

 

[stren]

Alright a quick update as I got some more time to process photos (on a side note the first mdpc package came woot!)

I got the workstation back up and running:



But I had to use the gaming side for location of the power supply as the cables were not long enough to reach the real location. As you can see it makes a good storage room also:



Workstation in action - no 2nd 8800gt yet because I'm only driving two screens, the card is being used as a test card for now for some other rigs I'm building.



Again a lot of fittings are temporary. So now back to the gaming rig. I transferred the sweet trident ram from my worksation to the gaming rig (I think it maybe hypers), it can do 2130 CL 8 and probably more but that's the limit of my 990x IMC. Should have tried two sticks in the 3770K rig I slapped together to see what it could really do! The ugly p6t board that was being used for the workstation is now going into a generic network maintenance use and will be put in a rack.



A shot of that sexy ram:



And the motherboard tray:



Here you can see I had soldered on an extra molex connector to the board (just to the bottom of the STX). My old case didn't have room to connect a power cable to the real connector, so this helped me give the gpus enough power.



And now time to swap the 920 for that sweet 990x: