Build FX Tamer - Water Cooled Upgrade

Theres been no shortage of threads lately with people having issues or wondering if thier temps with their FX chips were right or safe to run. I have to admit I first started seriously thinking about a custom loop shortly after I Bought my FX 8120. If you are serious about High Overclocks and about cooling these wonderous little heat pumps cool then a custom loop is the only way to go. A little history about my build and problems I came across so bear with me a bit ..........

I started with a Lian-Li A71 case which was the only thing I could find locally without breaking the bank so to say and as it turned out was a great case but in order to use both a 240 rad up top and an 280 rad of the front I had to remove the hard drive cage which caused a bit of an issue for me with stroage but I settled on this case after thinking about it for a bit.

My problems came as I was installing everything and I found I was running out of room fairly quickly though I was able to get everything in that needed to be unless I had to change something. One day when I was changing out some wiring I some how shorted something causing the CPU to short out ...... .

Not sure what it was but sometime **** happens this was when the Cosmos II was out about a month or two. Well after looking at it in the store and online what more can you say but it is big and roomy just what I needed. I moved everything over into the Cosmos II and to my surprise it just didnt preform like it did in the A71 (see pic below). Why Airflow.

Now this all can't be blamed on the case's airflow as I was doing renos at home and had to move the sytem upstairs in the sumer which increased Ambients to around 30*C which contributed to it as well but I had lost about 15*C in temps just like that if not more. Part of the reson was because I couldn't use the push / pull on my top rad, not enough room and the fans Yate Loon 140mm Medium were not strong enough to do either a pull or a push on my rad .... again see pic below ..... A sollution I wouldnt be typing all this if there wans't.

The Build ..... Lets see if I can get this to flow right.

Cosmos II Ultra
Black Ice® GTX Gen Two Xtreme 240
Black Ice® GTS Gen Two Stealth 280
Koolance CPU-370SA
XSPC Dual 5.25" Reservoir for One Laing D5
DazMode STORM D5 VARIO 8-24V Pump
2 X - TFC - Triebwerk - Performance Radiator Fan 3000RPM 215CFM (Removed from Build- Noisy)
4 X - Scythe Gentle Typhoon Black Edition 3000RPM 83CFM
2 X - Prolimatech Aluminum Vortex Series 140mm x 25mm CPU Fan - Red LED ( 1600RPM / 127CFM)
2 X - Bitspower Plastic Fan Adapter 120mm to 140mm


This was all the same as the previouse build except I added the vario D5 pump and the fans of course.

Old Fans .....

4 X - Yate Loon CLEAR 120mm Medium Speed Silent Case Fan with Red LED
2 X - Yate Loon CLEAR 140mm Medium Speed Silent Case Fan with Red LED

First problem to deal with was getting the push / pull on the 280 rad. I used the Prolimatech 140mm Fans for pull and 1 GT 3000rpm Servo Fans with 140mm - 120mm adapters and fitting it into the case. Yes it was that tight but it is in.

Surprisingly the rest was pretty simple. I did start this upgrade with some big 120 X 55mm fans in the pics but in the end they were too niosy for me and I Ended up changing them out for another pair of GT 3000rpm Servo fans same as I used on my 280 rad. I used some old fan frames for spacers on the back of the rad this allowed the rad and fans to take up almost the whole width of the case sucking in cool air and exhausting the warm air out through the bottom vents on the side pannels. With those 120 X 55mm fans there was so much air hitting the wall a role of paper towel was blowing in the breeze on top of my desk ..... a bit of overkill maybe ......

To finish off the cooling I routed my lines leaving room for a pair of Asus GTX560Ti448DC2. This finished this side of the case and the airflow issues I had for the most part but over the last few months especially with the high socket temps allot of us had been adding a fan on the back of the motherboar in the socket area ...... the only problem it didnt get air out. Dug out the dremel tool and added some venting out the back of the case with a NZXT Enthusiast series fan.

Finally the rusults of all this. Well I am about $250 poorer after buying te fans and shipping from the state ven though I I was able to get some of this stuff from Daze Modes here in canada the shipping really killed the costs in the end. In the end I was able to shave off a resonable 20*C off my temps and that was at a higher 4700MHZ OC to boot. I still have room to play for max OC's if I chose to do so and with the cooler weather coming soon I will probably do so but for now these improvments will do me well. Let me know what you think and any suggestions are alwasys gladly accepted.

20C? woo hoo, great job! And it's quieter??

Once I get all the wiring done yes its allot quieter than my H100 with 2 fans. Part of the reason I dropped the 120 X 55mm fans was they wouldnt undervolt at all. All the fans in the loop will undervolt easily and can be run off the Cosmos II fan controller or by usig an inline resistor. The loudest fans in the system are the NZXT. That brings me to 1 question..... I think I understand it but would not mind clariication as it would make the last bit of wireing easier if I am wrong.

The Gentle Typoon Servo has a 0.22A draw when running but its startup draw is something like 0.97A. The Cosmos II controller is just 1A per channel. I will assume that hooking 2 of them onto 1 Channel would not be a good thing as the startup draw would be 1.94A and too much for the controller. Thats assuming the amps add up as I am thinking. I was just gonna use a resistor wire on then that will run the fans at 2300rpm and quite sillent.

Yep, good fan controllers are 30W or so. For multiple fans. You got a good solution, try it. Try them without first, you'll be suprised how good they sound.

Which GTs? I got the AP-15s.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...=30013&zenid=2c42679a0c32fb4d77c49144b7595472

Yes even when I was running all fans full tilt the noise is more barable than running my H100. I was very surprised with the GT Servo 3000RPM fans. I have the 4 fans on the 280 Rad wired through the fan controller .... 2 X Prolimatech Aluminum Vortex Series 140mm on 1 channel and 1 of the GT 3000 on a channel each. That will let me controle the upper fans at the push of a button. The last 2 GT's will be undervolted to 2300rpm and any other fan is run off the last fan controller or the motherboard. It took a bit to figure it all out but it was worth it and will make for a pretty quiet case. I would of had it all done but the lst 2 fans just came in Thursday late afternoon. It'lll get donw when I get home SUnday night.

Ohhh, you got the 300 RPM, never mind. Yea, they are a true performance fan.

My fans are at 1000 RPM max.

On a side note, I had to order 140mm fans for my build, just didn't like putting 120 fans on top for a 140mm hole. Another budget busting gotta have it thing...........And the build waits, at least the mobo/PSU/GPU all tested fine.

I tried to avoid using an adapter for the 140 to 120 fan but I was 1mm short of sapce to do a push pull with 140mm fans no way I could fit it. Using the adapter was my only choice. The prolimatech fans are a nice fan and quiet ...... would of loved using 4 in push pull.

Thanks for linking me over here to take a look, "bassnut". Good methodical build man and thus very good results it seems. Be well man. RGone...ster.

Thanks RGone .... ster coming from you ..... sweet. A personal trait of mine when I do something I go all the way. Its always been like that from me I seem to always work in the extreams till I am happy with my results.

very nice!

that's the Vortex metal fan right?
I have seen those in my dad's collection, surprisely quiet fans!

how would you compare that fan with the stronger version of the Gentle Typhoon?

Yes they are the aluminum 140mm fan and they match up very well well with the GT Servo's. When undervolted they are a very good and quiet combo for a 280 rad with clearence issues like I ran into for a push pull.

Very nice build and writeup Bassnut, I always like to read about other peoples builds. 1st thing I noticed was the RAM clearence, is it as tight as it looks? Just to clarify, the original temp pics were with the H100?

Yes its as tight as it looks. If I had to I can swap out my ram using a blade style spark plug gap gauge or a thin paring knife. There's just enough room to pop the white clips.

The original temp pics were with this exact same build I have here exccept ..... I was using a swiftech MCP655-B pump instead of the new vario pump I used in the pics above. On the rads I had 2 Yate loon Medium 140mm fans on the upper rad in push a third on the bottom in pull. The bottom rad had 2 Yate Loon Mediums 120mm fams in pull and 2 NZXY Enthusiast fans in push. The airflow was reversed from top to bottom getting sucked out the front.

Blade style spark plug gapper, someone works on cars,no?

Wow that is a big drop in temps then.

Yes I used to play a bit ....... well allot when I was out in BC, in the millitary I was running a 74 Vett 454 all tricked out. A bit of street racing and allot of Drag racing, some good times. Gave it up and sold my car when I got back here in 2005. Racing was fun but the Vett was an expensive car to fix and maintain and I had to choose between that and getting a new boat.

Yes I was even surprised with my temp drops. A drop in ambients, about 8*C between the 2 runs helped fixing the airflow and getting a working air circulation in the case really helped. It is a little more noisy but not by much. I do believe that reversing the airflow in a case can work but these FX CPU's generate so much heat it couldnt do a good enough job for me.