My Obsidian 750D

Hi!

So, I got a new case for christmas, the Corsair Obsidian 750D and I decided that I wanted some changes to my system, but possibly without a massive upgrade of all the core parts in the system. I came up with the idea to look for a cheaper way to cool my system, allowing for overclocking so my parts would keep up with the newer technology arriving more often than I go to the bathroom.

The Corsair H100i was a no-brainer for me, as I'm on a budget to the scale that I won't spend 300£ on a custom watercooling loop. The problem was the GPU, as I was stuck with a reference cooler on the Radeon HD6970, which is basically an airplane stuck in a computer case. That's when I found the Arctic Accelero Hybrid, AIO liquid cooler, with the nice price tag of 70£.

So these are my current specs.

Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68-XP-UD3
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.2GHz
Ram: Corsair Vengeance 12GB @1600MHz
Graphics: XFX Radeon HD6970 2GB
Sound: ASUS Xonar DG
SSD: Corsair Force GS 240GB
HDD: 1x 1TB WD Caviar Black & 1x 3TB WD Caviar Green
PSU: Fractal Design Newton R2 1000W

Cooling:
Corsair H100i AIO Liquid CPU cooler
Arctic Accelero Hybrid AIO Liquid GPU cooler
6x Corsair SP120 PWM Fans
2x Corsair AF140 Fans

4 fans are connected to the H100i, the rest, along with the lighting in the case is connected to a Corsair Link Cooling and Lighting kit.









Sorry about my girlfriend's Alexander Skarsgaard pillow in the background (Totally hers! Promise!)

No a bad looking rig dude, 5 minutes work and a couple of cable ties and it could look much better too

tinytomlogan said:

No a bad looking rig dude, 5 minutes work and a couple of cable ties and it could look much better too

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the plan further on. I've bought some cable sleeving along with some heatshrink. Just need some depinning tools and I'm good to go, gotta wait for my next paycheck though.

Kengachu said:

Yeah, that's the plan further on. I've bought some cable sleeving along with some heatshrink. Just need some depinning tools and I'm good to go, gotta wait for my next paycheck though.

Click to expand...

Cable ties are just to fix them so they look tidier dude

tinytomlogan said:

Cable ties are just to fix them so they look tidier dude

Click to expand...

Good idea. I think I got some more lying around. The USB 3.0 cable could be moved to the grommet closest to the power supply too so all the front panel cables are in the same spot. I think I have a couple of ideas for the other cables aswell.

i think this is the first build on here i have seen one of thos gpu coolers being used, how does it compare to the stock cooler? noise temps etc.

garih said:

i think this is the first build on here i have seen one of thos gpu coolers being used, how does it compare to the stock cooler? noise temps etc.

Click to expand...

It's actually quite ridiculous. My temps at load has decreased by 30 celcius, and that's when I run my SP120s at 900 RPM. It drops even further when I run the fans on full speed, but it's really not required, so I just run them at a low RPM setting to keep things nice and quiet. So the noise really depends on the speed you run your radiator fans at, but mine are whisper quiet at 900 RPM. As I have full control of all my fans you can't hear anything if there's some background noise anywhere else in the room.

Of course you wouldn't have the same effect as the full-cover waterblocks as the VRM and memory are cooled by a single 90mm fan or so, but with a 70£ price tag, it's definitly a very good option. Good bang for your buck.

pretty descent looking rig man, i do love the odsidian range. and as tom already said a little work on tidying up the cables and it will look much better.

Question, have you tried mounting the artic cool rad on the front of the case instead of the back. i think it would look much neater, you wouldn't have the tubing bending back on itself like that. just looks a little off to me. that and the 240mm in the roof, a 360mm would suit this size case in my opinion.

Yeah, I quite like this.

As for the 120 mm rad placement, I might try to mod some additional mounting
holes into the roof and try to fit it there as well besides the 240, but without having
the rig in front of me it's kind of difficult to judge it that would really be a good idea
or if it's just something that sounds better in concept than it would be in practice.

But still, nice rig IMHO.

Yeah, I used to have the 120mm rad in the front at the top mounting holes, but as there's no real support to the PCB, the card was bending a bit too much for me to rest easily so I ended up with fitting it in the back.

I was actually thinking about fitting the 120mm rad in the top at some point, but we'll see how that goes. I also know that I will make a custom loop when I do a massive upgrade, and then there will be a 360 rad in the top, but for now, I'll stick with the H100i.

Question. I've been eyeballing this case for a while now.
I'd like to have 3 radiators inside, 360 up top, 280 in front, and 240 on bottom. I'm a big fan of using every bit of space, whether I need to drill new mounting holes or not. Would this setup fit with 35mm thick radiators in all locations with Corsair fans mounted on them?

Mainly, I want to know if a 480 can fit up top, if a 280 will fill the front well, and if a 240 will fill the bottom well... all without making things too cramped.

damn, thats one nice looking rig right there!

You will be able to fit a 420, but a 480 will be a VERY tight fit, I wouldn't try it, as it will be all the way to the FP connectors in the front. The slightly lowered part of the top panel where the different mounting holes are is 46cm, with about 4cm to spare. So if you really wanted to, you could be able to fit one with a little bit of modding, but there's obstructions in both the front and rear.

The problem with this case though is that the fan mounts in the bottom aren't too well utilized. They're way too close to the front, so I'm not sure if you can fit a rad in both the front and the bottom. I don't have any spare radiators around to check, but I think Hardwarecanucks mentioned it in their review of the 750D. If I remember correctly, you kinda have to choose one of them. I'll have to disassemble my rig to find it out for you and I'm not too keen on doing that.

Yeah, I wouldn't ask you to do that, haha.

Would you be able to take a well-lit picture of that front section? The top panel too? Thanks! If not, no worries. I'll have to see if the Googly machine can turn anything else up for me.

I'll get it done tomorrow. I've had alot to do, so haven't found the time yet.

Right! So I had a quick look at what I'd have to remove to get rid off the harddrive cage to show you the exact measurements and all for rads in the front, but it really was alot, so I tried to find another way to get some pictures of it.

I've also cleaned up the cables a little bit around the power supply, the front IO, SATA data cables aswell as the PCI-E cables. It's not much as I'm restricted by way too short cables for the PCI-E and front IO and a awkwardly placed USB 3.0 connector on my current motherboard, so untill I try out cable sleeving next week, this will be the about the best I can do with what I've got in my opinion, but I'd love some more advice to make everything even more tidy and better looking.

So here are the new pictures:






Now, over to the measuring for radiator capacity:

The top:


As you can see, there's a 51cm to the very edge of the top panel before the front section starts.



It's a quite tight spot, but you should be able to push in something slightly longer than a 360mm rad.


Now for the bottom:

This was the best I could do as I would've had to rip out my entire Corsair Link to be able to get the HDD cage out.

At the edge, where I put the.. uhm.. Measurement stick (!), is where the front fan mounts are, right next to the fan mounting holes in the bottom of the case, so I'd say you wouldn't be able to fit a radiator in the bottom, but what do I know, you could try, but it's a safer bet on the front, where you got multiple fan holes for different heights and the option of drilling some more if you so desire.

have you tried moving the artic cooler 120mm rad to the front panel?

Yes I have, but the GPU bends too much. Didn't like it so I tried to find another way to fit it and this seemed like the better option. Atleast compared to the front.