DeWoof01's Cosmos 1000 Case Mod & Build

Hello all,

I am new here and this is my first post. I am starting a new build witha cosmos 1000 that will be heavily modded. I have gotten alot of my inspiration for this mod from other build logs and am hoping to get some tips from all of your and have a good thread that is informative to other about building my system. This build will take several months and i am hoping for completion about May or June of 10'. I am very heavy into research for my parts and spend alot of hours at night deciding on parts before purchase and i will detail my decisions on this thread. I have built several computers before, but nothing near what this one will be. Here are some of the parts I will be looking at:

-Cosmos 1000 case modded for alot of air cooling
-Watercooling added to case
-Single ATI GPU
-Fan Controller
-AMD board & CPU
-DDR3 Ram
-3 hard Drives
-Windows 7


So far i have spent about 30-40 hours of research on the case and case fans, those are my only purchase so far. Pics to follow!

Again i would greatly appreciate input and help with selecting parts as this is by far my most complicated build yet.

Ok so here are a few pictures of the case. I had seen the case a year ago or so and knew of the build quality. This thing is a tank, heavy, large, and well built, this is my main reason for choosing this case. First off, the cooling on this case sucks, its completely ridiculous. They have 1 slot for an intake fan and 3 exhaust fans, that makes no sense. But the good thing is that there is so much potential for modding this case that it doesn't matter how bad the stock version is, there are ways that it can be modded to become a GREAT case. I will update the modding plans i have for the fans and cutting to help airflow in the future. I only got a couple pics of the case because i know everyone has seen the pics of this case before.





This is where most of my modding will be taking place...

THE FANS!

Ok so this was an easy chose. Only took about 2 hours of research to find out these were hands down the ones i wanted. The Ultra Kaze 3000. Yes they are loud but they make fan controllers! I have 6 of these that will be going into the case. 2 in front, 1 on the bottom, 2 on the top, and 1 in the rear. I will put pics of up the positioning of the fans as well as the way they will be hooked up to the fan controller.

Some Pics of the dismantling...

Ok, so i was able to make the cuts over at my shop to the frame and HD bays. All cuts were made using a Dremel or 114mm Hole Saw. Had one problem in that i miscut slightly by about 1/16th inch one of the holes on the black exterior piece where the two holes are supposed to line of with the holes in the frame. This won't be seen though as its at the bottom of the case and my cat will probably be the only one to every notice this problem. I am probably going to be using a rubber piece between the fans and the case where the screws are for no vibration but i cannot find these at fry's, does anyone know something you can pick up at lowes or Home Depot that can adapt well for this purpose? Here are the pics!....

SAFETY FIRST!

Ok so i got the 2 front fans mounted and everything turned out alright. I needed to mount them first in order to measure my distances for cutting the HD bay assembly so it will fit with the fans in there. I need some help tho... I am at a crossroads where i don't know what i should purchase next.

I don't want to buy any components that are going to become outdated until the very end (i.e. CPU, MB, GPU). I need a power supply, fan controller, and liquid cooling. I believe my best bet now would be getting all the liquid cooling supplies i will need in order to mount them and check for fitment while i am still in the cutting phase of this case. I have NEVER done a water cooled system before but here are my plans, some help would be tremendous:

1- 2x120 Rad up top. I don't want to cut a third hole up top unless really neccesary.
1- 1x120 Rad in the upper HD bay slot.

My question is what is my best bet for cooling? Obviously the CPU will need cooling, as i am going for over 4Ghz on a AMD Quad Core. But would it be good to have the second 120 loop go to cool the GPU? Or for the Northbride or something else? Any help would be great as i am a real Noob when it comes to watercooling. Thanks,

Hey mate looks like a great build! i'm looking forward to seeing more pics and i'll follow as you go along.
Cheers.

Sweefu thanks bro,

This build is going to take a while as i am trying to get all the case, ps, cooling system, etc. all done before i even go into part selection as i don't want the parts to be out of date by the time i put them in the computer. Ok so if you guys could lend some help that would be great. I have very little knowledge of water cooling systems, but am learning as i go. I am at the point now that i need to order my water cooling system now so i can drill holes and cuts for it before the case goes to paint. Below is a picture of what i am looking at for water cooling. I will be having a high end AMD quad core or better processor in this as well as a DUAL (NO sli or crossfire) video card. Should i be looking to cool the CPU and the GPU only? I will be overclocking this system very heavily. Please advise,

Look closely for the labeling...

Looking to be great project will be looking forward to seeing more future updates,

Ok so what i am thinking... In order to somewhat futureproof this case it looks as though i am going to have to go with a 120.3 rad up top and a 1x120 down in the upper hard drive bay. Been doing a little research on these an so far thermochill looks the best but i will be spending the rest of this week looking at Rads and how i want to go ahead. Please give me your suggestions...

Ok so I have been able to do quite a bit of research today at my office while i was "working" and it looks like i am going to be going with a 120.3 up top for sure, but from my research i discovered there looks to be no way a 120.1 will fit in the upper HD bay like my original plan was. I saw that one thing i can do is either mount a 120.2 on the bottom of the case, OR mount a 120.2 on the outside of the HD bays between the HD Bay and P/S right now this seems to be a more reasonable option then i will be able to place the pump inside of the upper HD bay. I think doing a 120.3 + a 120.2 loops will be way overcool for what i am trying to cool, but who knows how hot chips will keep getting in the future. These are the Rads I am researching right now:

Black Ice Xtreme III 120.3- $99.99

ThermoChill PA 120.3- $119.95

XSPC RX360 - $94.99

Feser X-Changer Triple- $139.99

Now the big thing is that i am not needing a low restriction type radiator as i have 3 scythe ultra kaze 3k's ready to cool that baby down and will have a fan controller attached to it so i can lower the speed down when the wife is yelling at me. On the other hand, is there that much of a performance difference when you go to the low restriction with a lower speed on your fan? We will see.

So this is a photo of a comparison I did, much thanks to Skinee!

dewoof01 said:

Ok so here are a few pictures of the case. I had seen the case a year ago or so and knew of the build quality. This thing is a tank, heavy, large, and well built, this is my main reason for choosing this case. First off, the cooling on this case sucks, its completely ridiculous. They have 1 slot for an intake fan and 3 exhaust fans, that makes no sense. But the good thing is that there is so much potential for modding this case that it doesn't matter how bad the stock version is, there are ways that it can be modded to become a GREAT case. I will update the modding plans i have for the fans and cutting to help airflow in the future. I only got a couple pics of the case because i know everyone has seen the pics of this case before.

Click to expand...

It could have been worse with 3 intake and only exhaust fans. What are those vertical trays at the bottom for? Badass case by the way.

true it could be worse with that, still for 200 bucks, it should have been better planned at least they left room for modding! Ok here is a pic of the two front fans mounted. Then i just cut the HD bay mounts to allow fitment around the fans, but all three HD trays on the bottom will still be able to fit in. This was my plan and hopes as I will be running a 80gb SSD 1 200-300gb application drive and a 1 TB movie/music drive.

Front Fans Mounted





HD Trays, Cut to fit front fans

Looking great so far. Can't wait to see it finished.

OK Quick update. Through research i think i have selected the BI GTX360 rad for the top mount. The rad is going to mount inside the case and the 3 scythe 120x38 fans will be mounted on top exhausting. I think this is the best way to go on this, not sure how the fans will fit so some cutting and making it work may be ahead on the top piece. Ordering the Rad this weekend more than likely just need a little more time to make my decision finalized (I like to feel confident in a decision before i "push the button". If anyone has any comments on the case so far and my parts selection keep them coming it is appreciated! Also I am going to be needing a ton of suggestions/help when it comes to the W/C setup so please give me your advice. Will update tomorrow with a pick up the HD bay sittingin the case so everyone can get an idea of what my cuts were all made for.

Ok so I got the BI GTX360 ordered from Danger Den. Paid 121 with shipping, not too bad. Jab-tech was 100 but they have been out of stock of that rad forever. Good news is Danger Den is located about 120 miles from me so i will ahve the Rad tomorrow! I will have pics posted tomorrow night hopefully showing the size of the rad and how it will be mounted in the case. Stay tuned....

lol u could have 2 swiftech 320 for that price and on the chart its only 2degree difference but stil la good choice on a phenom II 955 / 965 O.C + any ati card only need 1 loop with that gtx360.
3000rpm fan wtf!!! are u making a vaccuum computer? +_+

Guess what came today ....