900D fully liquid cooled project

[mihapiha]

Here:

As you can tell by the first picture, I took out all the stock case fans and replaced them with the AF series Corsair fans. I also installed the reservoir, just to see how it would fit. In the second picture I installed the bottom radiator and some SP120 Corsair fans. The picture from the top kinda should show how far to the center the reservoir is. I will definitely have to figure out a good tubing solution so that this looks more like it's meant to be there...


I figured out a neat way to add a draining system to the loop:



Basically I only remove the front panel and the front panel dust filter and I can easily access the draining system. Pretty cool! It's on the lowest point of the loop so I should be able to get pretty much the entire coolant out of the loop easily.

I must save up the money next for the PSU so I can start adding the bits and pieces into the bottom compartment. Never mind getting started on the cable management...

 

[SPS]

Please don't include a RAM fan on this build, it looked soo bad on your previous build.

Other than that I'm intrigued.

Oh also, can you not upload smaller pictures? They are way too big, especially when you provided a link to the full res versions.

 

[mihapiha]

Top radiator is in. Now everything looks a whole lot smaller.

 

[mihapiha]

I tried to use some fittings to connect both radiators. Unfortunately I couldn't turn around the radiator to have the fittings on the other front panel side. I figured it would be tighter that way. Now I just tried to make it as neat as I possible can. Also I fitted the EK-pumptop with the two D5 pumps. I haven't mounted it yet. It was more meant as a placement thing and I wanted to see how it would fit eventually. I ran out of fittings so I have to wait for those to arrive now. But I connected reservoir and pump. I seriously think I'm gonna need a better solution as it's not neat - or rather not neat enough.

But it's slowly beginning to come together...



The top reservoir fitting solution I don't like either. I have to figure out an alternative so it would be more straight.

 

[clone38]

Got my 900D sitting in its box at the moment as im still buying parts for it and its good so see how your getting on with your build as its helped me out with seeing how you installed the drain valve,keep up the good work.

 

[Remmy]

Nice I'm looking forward to seeing this behemoth progress

 

[mihapiha]

The reservoir fittings were a little loose. I tightened them up again so everything is straight now. I also chose to change the solution of the reservoir => pumptop rout. I will change the fittings and put in a 3-slot SLI fitting so everything will be sitting in tight. I now also mounted the pump-top to the case. The SP120 quiet edition fans are really quiet. I hope they won't be overwhelmed if I put 4 GPUs in there.

Next update probably in a few days when the next fitting parts arrive...

Ok a few more fittings arrived and I did some cable management. Still a lot more work to do. The next thing I have to get is the PSU which is 350 Euro. So that will take some time till I have the money for that. But I did finish the loop and I am leaktesting now:



Also installed the LED strip... Pretty cool



If the leaktest is successful and I find no drop outside the loop tomorrow I can really start focusing on the cable management. I tested the fans, and the front panel Corsair AF120 Performance addition are a bit too noisy. I put them to 7V for now. Once the PSU is in I have to connect everything and check whether I have enough positive pressure.

I really want to avoid installing back panel fans.

 

[mihapiha]

As things progressed, I did order some new bits.
I purchased the Corsair AX1200i 1200W PSU with individual black sleeving.

Today I ordered the first main hardware parts, which hopefully will arrive sometime after New Year.
Most should arrive sooner, but I seriously doubt I will be able to run the computer before everything arrives...

The hardware I decided to go with:


Motherboard: ASUS P9X79-E WS
CPU: Intel Core i7-4930K
Memory: Corsair XMS3 Dominator Platinum DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR3-2400, CL11-13-13-31
SSD: Samsung SSD 840 Evo Series 500GB
Graphic card: 1x PowerColor Radeon R9 290X LCS OC Battlefield 4 Edition
Monitor: Dell Professional P2815Q, 28.3", 4k (3840x2160)

I considered long and hard and decided to go with merely one GPU (hopefully I will be able to add more later) and the 4k monitor.

First pictures will be up as soon as I return back to Austria and get some time building the PC. I will also put Windows 7 64Bit on it, not Win 8...

I'm hoping that I will be able to save some money soon to add another 280X card soon. The 4k monitor will swallow much of my performance...

 

[mihapiha]

All the parts except for the monitor arrived today, and I spend the last two days putting the system rather rapidly together. Thank god I didn't have any leaks and all the hardware works just fine.

Unfortunately the pictures I made look pretty crappy. Oh well you'll have to deal with those.

Tomorrow I will clean up and redo the cable management. I still am missing one fitting - or I'd need to drain the loop to add another fitting... Long story, not important...

Also I have to get a couple of 12V to 7V redactors for my fans. Because there will be so little hardware to cool, I don't need those fans spinning as quickly as they do. That would only increase the dust in the case...

Temperature wise I temporarily over clocked the CPU to 4.5 GHz @ 1.25V and the GPU left the GPU stock. I've seen 60°C on the cores for the CPU and 37°C max for the GPU... More testing and better pictures will follow

And one quick benchmark score: http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/4915476

I can't seem to pull off a good picture when the LED-Strip is illuminating the inside of my case

The real thing just looks so much better than this:

But this is what I was able to pull off thus far. I hope I will have the money to add another R9 290X soon...

 

[CreatiXx]

looks pretty cool but just one thing that popped up in my mind. To bad that the liquid doenst match the tubing from what i see on the pictures It would be so much cooler if it would've. Besides that pretty nice job

 

[Dedwoods42]

Interesting to see a 4K build. Darker blue in the fluid would be nice, and the blue light bars for the Dominator Platinums.

 

[Meladath]

Very nice build but I beg the question. Why did you go with 2 480 80mm rads, a 4930k, a 1200w PSU and yet... only a single 290x.... Surely 2 290's would have been much much better for this build? Heck even 2 290X since you seem to have a fat wallet. You have enough power and cooling for a 4960X and 3 R9 290X's If you want to play at 4k too a single 290X won't be enough for high settings.

 

[mihapiha]

Interesting to see a 4K build. Darker blue in the fluid would be nice, and the blue light bars for the Dominator Platinums.

The suttle white of the Dominators looks much better in person than it does on the pictures. I fear the light bares might make it too bright...

Besides the blue was supposed to be quite suttle. Black and Silver were ment to be the dominating colours. That's why I went with the black cables, instead of the blue

I must say I'm quite happy with the tone of the blue. I agree though, that it would be nice if it was a little darker. But as it is very dark in the reservoir, I am a litte worried of pushing it further

Very nice build but I beg the question. Why did you go with 2 480 80mm rads, a 4930k, a 1200w PSU and yet... only a single 290x.... Surely 2 290's would have been much much better for this build? Heck even 2 290X since you seem to have a fat wallet. You have enough power and cooling for a 4960X and 3 R9 290X's If you want to play at 4k too a single 290X won't be enough for high settings.

The 4k display swallowed too much of my budget too buy more GPUs. The entire thing was setup around 3 to 4 GPUs, but I decided to get the monitor first. I hope I will be able to add more LCS cards in the months to come.

If you read the entire topic you will see that the one GPU part was a last minute decision...

 

[Meladath]

The 4k display swallowed too much of my budget too buy more GPUs. The entire thing was setup around 3 to 4 GPUs, but I decided to get the monitor first. I hope I will be able to add more LCS cards in the months to come.

If you read the entire topic you will see that the one GPU part was a last minute decision...

Ah right, fair enough, sorry about not noticing. I read the vast majority of this thread, must have missed it. Anyway good luck!

 

[mihapiha]

I added some more blue dye. It looks much better now. I hope the night-time look didn't suffer....

 

[Damien c]

Is it just me or does it look like the graphics card is in the 3rd PCI-E slot??

If it is, is it running at 16x or 8x not that it would really iirc make much of a difference but still wouldn't it be best to run it in the top slot.

Nice build though.

 

[mihapiha]

Is it just me or does it look like the graphics card is in the 3rd PCI-E slot??

If it is, is it running at 16x or 8x not that it would really iirc make much of a difference but still wouldn't it be best to run it in the top slot.

Nice build though.

The entire rig was meant to be for 3 of those cards. So I prepared everything in terms of cable management to eventually add two more. The Asus P9X79-E WS has 7x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots with only the black ones running at x8. You can do 4-way on this thing and it will be still x16.

Although it said in the manual that the top PCIe 3.0 x16 slot should be occupied with merely one graphic card installed, it couldn't be fitted because of the odd placement of the 6-Pin-PCIe connector for the PCIe lanes power. Now obviously that only has to be connected with 3 GPUs or more, but since I did the cable management, I figured I'd plug that in to avoid future hassle.

If something is plugged into that 6-pin power connector, than a GPU would still fit, but not the PowerColor R9 290X LCS because it has a back plate. The back plate collides with the connector and you can't put the graphic card in.. So I had to do the #3 Slot thing. Also, it made tubing easier...

GPUz confirms that the GPU is running with PCIe 3.0 x16 just like it should...

 

[Damien c]

Ah right.

Well as long as it's all running ok and was done for a reason then it doesn't really matter.

It does look better being in a slot abit lower down and it does look like the tubing route would have been, more of a pita if it was in the top slot.

Either way it is a nice build, the 900D is a nice case still trying to decide if I should bother buying a midplate for mine from Cold Zero or just get the test bench I am thinking about, since I am going for a 1080 rad or waterchiller.

 

[Dedwoods42]

See what you mean about the Dominators. A fair point! Definitely enjoying the coolant more now it's more blue Shame about the sag on the GPU.

 

[mihapiha]

See what you mean about the Dominators. A fair point! Definitely enjoying the coolant more now it's more blue Shame about the sag on the GPU.

I still plan of fixing that wit he GPU. I think I'd need to shorten the tubing by a few mm and for that I'd need to drain the loop. The big problem IMO isN't the draining, it's the danger of the leak. I think I'll do that as soon as more graphic cards arrive.

I might also add one more white LED strip behind the res, because it loos very dark there.