9ine04

[Shaw]

I don't think I've seen another build I want to be finished as much as this one.

I've got an insatiable curiosity as to how well your stacked rads are going to turn out. After all this effort you've put in, I really want them to do well!

It always used to bug me when it took people ages to finish a build log - I mean how hard can it be, right?
But when you're building PCs for your day job, it's a lot harder to bring your work home with you at the end of the day. Not to mention find the time to sit down and really make some progress.

Anyway… All cables are now sleeved! Good job too as I'm down to about 5m of paracord left from the 60m I bought.

Here's where I'm at now:

At the last minute, I changed where the 24pin was going to be routed. I had already cut a hole into the motherboard tray for the cable to go through but, as I discovered with the 8pin, it would have crossed the tubing. And I didn't want that. In the end I routed it up and over the radiators, and then out of the case inside the gap between the inside and outside of the case (where the SSDs are). Routing it here will mean that I can't sew it, but it'll mostly be hidden anyway.

(It'll look better than that when it's finished.)

I also changed the PCI cables so they fold back on themselves, instead of angling towards the PSU. I'll need to cut a hole for the cables in the rad mount so I can hide that mess in the unused space behind the original front panel.

I also found a better way to manage the cables behind the radiators. By moving the fan PCB to between the bottom 2 radiators, the 8pin and SATA power cables can fit around the edges better.

The Molex cable will mostly be hidden underneath the radiators.

The end is now in sight!
I still need to cut a hole below the motherboard for the tubing, as well as in the optical drive bay below the PSU. Hopefully everything will line up for me and I can just crack on with the tubing.

Speaking of tubing: acrylic is a lot harder to work with than normal tubing. A lot harder.

 

[wassupdoc]

Looks beautiful! Is there no way you could just bend the 24 pin 180 degrees and go straight behind the MB? It wouldn't be too hard to keep the route clean across the back of the MB

 

[Feronix]

Awesome

 

[Shaw]

Looks beautiful! Is there no way you could just bend the 24 pin 180 degrees and go straight behind the MB? It wouldn't be too hard to keep the route clean across the back of the MB

That's where I had originally planned it to go, but I don't want it to cross over the tubing - and I don't think there'd be enough room for it anyway.

 

[Shaw]

Right, it's been a while since the last update.. Way too long to be honest, but one thing after another kept coming up preventing me from finishing this build..



I know a lot of you, myself included, really wanted to know how the stacked rads performed. And I now have the answer!



.... but you'll have to wait a little longer...



Since the last update, I've just had to finish cutting the acrylic and didn't take any photos of the assembly. It was awkward enough as it was without having to stop and take photos every 2 minutes. I will be posting finished shots and giving more details on the build, including test results very soon.



For now though, here's a teaser of the finished build:

 

[Sir-Weasel]

yes it has been a while since you last updated us but this beautiful build is definitely worth it. can't wait to see some pictures of it fully asembled

 

[TPC]

Its a real shame I didnt saw your build earlier! Its beautiful you are giving me some good ideas for my next build

 

[barnsley]

Wish I could do this to my 901 .

Looks beautiful mate.

 

[Gurt11]

Ooeew, I'm curious (again)

 

[Shaw]

 

[Wraith]

Moar!! Love that top mood shot.. I don't know why but that pink just works, I wouldn't mind it one bit.

 

[JR23]

Whoa, that is just the canines cojones. I don't need moar, I was spent after the first shot.

That is the finest implementation of lacing I have ever seen, I normally don't like it but yes...yes....all the yes...

JR

 

[Tripp]

offfft thats a sexy looking rig mate, very clean. what are your temps like?

 

[Shaw]

Thanks guys! More shots will come this weekend when I have more time and some natural light.

I'm still testing the temps, they should be up in the next couple of days though.

 

[Feronix]

I love it!

 

[Shaw]

Slight hiccough with the testing. But here's some temp results gathered so far for an i7 3930k (6cores/12threads) and 2 GTX 770s SLi:

Stock settings under Prime 95 for 30 minutes:

• idle 38-42°
• load 68-81°C

Overclocked to 4.5GHz under Prime 95 for 30 minutes:

• idle 49-52°
• load 78-91°

Overclocked to 4.5GHz under Unigine Heaven for 30 minutes:

• CPU 68-72°
• GPUs 51-52°

Overclocked, the CPU get's quite toasty. But stays under the throttling temperature (95°C), albeit by a couple degrees. Running at stock speeds (3.4 turbo) only saves 10°C at both idle and load.

Now onto the problem: the fans.

I chose 800rpm eLoops because they are as close to silent as you can get from a fan. They are silent because they barely spin. Because they barely spin, they hardly move any air.
Normally, when you finish a bench mark/stress test, the temps rapidly drop down 20-30° then then slowly level out. With the eLoops, the temps stayed stupidly high and only dropped very slowly. And when I tried to run a couple of graphics tests, things got warm. A little too warm. So warm, in fact, the fluid reached over 60°C. Now, I don't have any temp sensors in my fluid, so how could I possibly know that? Well, DDC pumps have an operating temperature of <60°C.

Yup. I fried my pump.

So this weekend, instead of getting some pictures of my finished build, I will be stripping down my whole system - partly because the pump is completely hidden underneath the inner part of the case - partly to swap out the eLoops for some Silverstone FQ121s, which look an awful lot like gentle typhoons…

 

[BoxFabio]

=S it was so shiny love this case and your ideas still waiting for the build to be completely finished . Better look next time =)

 

[Shaw]

Right guys! I know I've said this before, and it's been a few months since I've last posted.. BUT... The final images are being uploaded right now and I will be finishing this build log later today!



Stay tuned.

 

[Shaw]

Final update time!!

It's been quite some time since the teaser images and the failing of my fans & pump. Truth be told, I repaired the PC months ago and it's been

working just fine ever since - I've just been too busy/lazy to update this build log. But better late than never eh?

There's a couple things I'm not 100% happy about - the fans mainly. They do the job just fine, I'm just not a fan of the white frames and

should have gone with some higher RPM eLoops, but I'm not gonna strip it all down and spend money again when I don't have to. I might end up

covering up the fan frames eventually with some black vinyl or something, but for now it'll do.

So, anyway, here it is. Enjoy.

There you go. Hope you guys like it.


When I started this log there was a lot of discusion about whether or not the stacked rads would work, especially with the parallel loop, and

it turns out it does work. Admitidly, it didn't work with 800RPM eLoops in there because they just didn't move any air. But with some 1500RPM

'GTish' fans, it's been working flawlessly (other than a slight memory overclocking fault that's now been fixed).

Temps may not appeal to everyone, but they are well within Intel's spec, and the system won't be run anywhere near full load for prolonged

periods of time anyway.

Stock:

Overclocked:

(CPU @ 4.5GHz 1.35V, RAM @ 2000MHz 9-10-10-24 T1 @ 1.7V)


And here's the whole set up for anyone interested:

LG 34" ultrawide
Ducky Shine III - Cherry MX blue
Logitech Performance MX
Corsair SP2500
Generic RGB LED strip

 

[Feronix]

Hmmm not too sure about the white fans! Would've probably preferred them black (pink would ruin the subtle pink accenting). Nevertheless, it looks amazing!