Antec 1200 getting custom loop love for the 1st time.

[DaPoets]

Hey all, I have had a number of threads going on specifics of this cooling upgrade that I have spent way way way more money on than I expected and I expect to still spend more lol.... $1,000 and counting.

My Antec 1200 case is old school but it's not going anywhere as it's custom painted by a well known artist in Western New York who has murals up all over the place in Buffalo NY. He took the time to pain my avatar on the side of the case for me. So it's mod mod mod time in 2019. I'll keep this thread going with updates on this loop being built. I dipped my toe into water cooling with the Corsair h115i Extreme and I was highly impressed w/ it's performance over my previous air setup. So now it's time for a full loop! I know loop order doesn't really matter so I'm just going to make it look as clean as I can while I'm using soft tubing. I'll eventually get into hard lines. Here is what I'm working with:

8700k delid w/ rockit cool copper IHS
ASUS Strix VEGA 64
64GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance
x2 Barracuda 6TB HDD
Samsung NVMe and a couple of Samsung SSDs
Gigabyte z390 Master
All fans are "be quiet!" silent wings 3 high speed 120mm & 140mm

I went w/ EKWB for all of my loop which includes:
EK-Velocity CPU Waterblock RGB Full Nickel
All the fittings are nickel 10/16mm
EK-CoolStream PE 240 (Dual) 280 x 130 x 38mm
EK-CoolStream SE 240 (Slim Dual) 280 x 120 x 28mm
EK-CoolStream XE 360 (Tripple) 400 x 130 x 60mm
EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 RGB PWM

I had to drill holes to fit the PE 240 rad up top under the 200mm Big Boy fan.
the SE 240 Slim rad doesn't fit inside the case but the Antec 1200 is made to have external rad support so it's strapped to the rear and has 2 tube ports that will be used.
The XE 360 will be in push/pull up in the front and will be invisible.

Here is the start!

 

[godevskii]

This is just my opinion but, if it was me i would mod the top panel to fit a 360mm, and then just run two 360, one in the front and one on top. Because having to run tubes outside for that back rad is just not gonna look as good, and having that top rad secured only on one side and having that gap just looks weird to me, it may not feel relevant to you but since you are spending that much, why not to make it nice so you can display the case, since it has a nice art work! That said you already have the rads so...

 

[DaPoets]

This is just my opinion but, if it was me i would mod the top panel to fit a 360mm, and then just run two 360, one in the front and one on top. Because having to run tubes outside for that back rad is just not gonna look as good, and having that top rad secured only on one side and having that gap just looks weird to me, it may not feel relevant to you but since you are spending that much, why not to make it nice so you can display the case, since it has a nice art work! That said you already have the rads so...

For the top there isn't anywhere near enough room for a 360mm, I would need to cut way too much metal and stretching that far toward the front doesn't allow for much exhaust air flow so I would actually be retaining heat and get less benefit that what I have now. I am going to flip the top L Brackets around which will raise the 240 PE rad up by 1 inch and thus making it flush against the 200mm big boy fan. I'll be doing that tonight as I"m sure It won't be as easy as I think it should be. I'll probably have to remove the motherboard in order to make it easy on myself.

The 360mm front rad I actually have on sliding L brackets so I can easily move it when needed for any servicing as well as to ensure it's flush against the 3 front 120mm intake fans. I'll post a pic of what that looks like later.


Also I'll be using these EK-AF Angled 90 G1/4 Roatary Fittings Nickel on the rear rad to make a quick loop entrance into the rear of the case. I actually have seen a lot of pics of people using the rear tube openings on the Antec 1200 and I like how it looks.


Unfortunately due to desk space and how damn large the Antec 1200 is it lives on the floor under my desk so the rear of the case is never seen except by me when I pull it out to service it.

 

[godevskii]

I'm sure there is enough space on top, you would just need to remove whatever is in the top slots on the 5.25" bays.

I don't recommend EK-AF Angled, they are among the worst and they will eventually leak. Go with bitspower or enzotech if you can find them.

 

[DaPoets]

I guess I'm not sure what the point of putting a 360 up top if there is no way for the airflow to be exhausted from the case since the only area that could go is at the 200mm fan. Nearly half of the 360 would be against a brick wall...

And what's up w/ being against EK? They have great reviews and come highly recommended from numerous sources. Bitspower, Enzotech all have great stuff to but they all will leak w/ roughly the same statistical averages.

 

[DaPoets]

Slapped on the water block to the ASUS Strix VEGA 64 8GB OC edition. EK gave sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many screws and washers probably thinking YOLO givem em everything!

 

[godevskii]

I guess I'm not sure what the point of putting a 360 up top if there is no way for the airflow to be exhausted from the case since the only area that could go is at the 200mm fan. Nearly half of the 360 would be against a brick wall...

What?!?!? That's why i said

if it was me i would mod the top panel to fit a 360mm

it means you have to build a new panel or cut the existing to fit the 360 rad with their respective openings! This is relative easy to do, at least for me.

And what's up w/ being against EK? They have great reviews and come highly recommended from numerous sources. Bitspower, Enzotech all have great stuff to but they all will leak w/ roughly the same statistical averages.

I'm not against EK, just their angled fittings and some of their res/pump combos, because i have had many of their angled rotary fittings leak on me and brands like bitspower and enzotech survived for longer periods of time, much more actually...

And this was only an opinion/suggestion i made that clear, don't wanna go against anyone wishes, but trust me on the angled rotary...

 

[DaPoets]

Yeah I'm not modding the top of the case as that would be way too intensive for no real world benefit with my current setup. Plus I would no longer have space for my last 5.25 bay which I actually use.

 

[Zerileous]

As long as your rad is flush with the top fan I think it will be good. I agree though that dead space should be minimized between the rad and the fan. Otherwise I think you're doing great! I don't blame you at all for wanting to keep the case with such amazing art work on it. If you're not comfortable hacking it I don't blame you at all!

 

[DaPoets]

Got the top 240 PE rad flush against the roof of the case and it's solid as hell! Started to drill and install the rez/pump too.

 

[DaPoets]

Currently letting air bubble out but here is nearly the finished product! Cable management is next really.

 

[Zerileous]

Looks nice. A couple minor things. I didn't notice earlier but with the front rad ports at the top instead of the bottom, it's going to be more difficult to drain. If possible I would have switched the pass-through, just for appearance, but it looks like It might be too tight. Overall it looks great!

 

[DaPoets]

Looks nice. A couple minor things. I didn't notice earlier but with the front rad ports at the top instead of the bottom, it's going to be more difficult to drain. If possible I would have switched the pass-through, just for appearance, but it looks like It might be too tight. Overall it looks great!

For switching the pass through do you mean my drain port? I was actually thinking of switching it to the "IN" instead of the "OUT" for where it is now. Also thanks for the draining thoughts, I was having a hell of a time draining it and couldn't figure out what was going on.

 

[Zerileous]

I mean where it goes out the back of the case. If the one from the pump to the rad went through the top hole, then I think the run from the rad to the GPU would look cleaner. But it might cause the hose from the pump to the rad to kink.

Does the pump/res use a tube for the inlet so that the water flowing into the res goes up a tube before entering the chamber? If so then moving your drain wouldn't let you drain the res. If not, then it should be OK, but I would have to look at the pump top / bottom of res piece more closely. I've never really seen one of the EK one up close. Edit: I looked at it again and I don't think what I'm saying is even possible.

 

[DaPoets]

I mean where it goes out the back of the case. If the one from the pump to the rad went through the top hole, then I think the run from the rad to the GPU would look cleaner. But it might cause the hose from the pump to the rad to kink.

Does the pump/res use a tube for the inlet so that the water flowing into the res goes up a tube before entering the chamber? If so then moving your drain wouldn't let you drain the res. If not, then it should be OK, but I would have to look at the pump top / bottom of res piece more closely. I've never really seen one of the EK one up close.

I like that idea going through the top hole and I think it would work fine actually w/ out kinking up.

The pump/res seems to be a simple in/out and the top of it is just for filling. When I open the drain valve and the top of the rez I have to tilt the case back and forth in order to get this system to drain. The next time I dig into this case again I'll flip the front rad like you suggested for easier draining. I almost wish I had this setup so that I could blow into a tube from the top to help it drain to the bottom.

 

[Zerileous]

That would work too. Once the top rad is drained could you disconnect the tube from the top to front rads and blow the coolant out of the front rad?

 

[DaPoets]

That would work too. Once the top rad is drained could you disconnect the tube from the top to front rads and blow the coolant out of the front rad?

Ah great thought!

Today after having bled the system overnight I ran a blender benchmark and my 8700k skyrocketed to 85°C.... I changed the thermal grease from Hydronaught to Kryonaught and it still hit 83°C right away... So then I checked my delid liquid metal and yep it was bone dry. Liquid metal over time absorbs (long story short) into copper it doesn't actually "dry out" so a just slapped on some more liquid metal to the die and IHS (all copper one from rockit cool) and my max temps after running a 20min blender bench was 81°C and it took a while for it to hit that, where it started at about 67°C (eye balling it) so the liquid metal re-apply did the trick. I guess I'll have to keep an eye on it. This is also why I went w/ soft tubing because I know how I am, I love to tinker and having to deal w/ rigid tubing right now would annoy the hell out of me. Soft tubing I can take the video card out, remove the IHS and what ever else and the loop is completely fine.

 

[Zerileous]

nice, sounds like it's doing well!

 

[DaPoets]

Sooooooo yeah in my haste or just my 1st time taking a video card apart to add a water block to it I made a mistake that thankfully didn't ruin my card. The included thermal pads had difference sizes so it was easy to tell what went where, and I removed the tape/film on them and placed them on the cards VRMs as directed and also added the pads to the back plate as directed. I had ZERO idea that there was tape/film on BOTH SIDES of the thermal pads lol.... So yeah I installed it w/ only 1 side w/ the film removed and the other side w/ the film still on it. I noticed this while watching a random water cooling video on youtube and I'm like yeah that all looks familiar until the 2nd film was taken off of the pads and I nearly spit out my coffee....

Thankfully w/ soft tubing I was able to remove the card unscrew the plates, remove the film on the pads and put it back together.... No melting or anything thankfully. Yes my GPU temps are a bit better now..... /PalmOnFace

 

[Witchdoctor]

Build turned out nice

Post up some temps, sure the are going to be epic