Case and Custom Loop for under £350?

[Daiyus]

So I've been trying to design my perfect PC for about two years now. It's gone through various iterations as my situation has changed. I even bought the system components: a Ryzen 1600 and a Vega 56 and necessary bits to have a functional PC.

Now I really want to get that Vega 56 under water to quieten it down and I'm starting to get really frustrated with myself with never being able to settle on a case design. So I've made a decision: liquid cool GPU and CPU in an off-the-shelf case for as cheap as possible.

Doesn't have to be pretty, in fact not having a windowed case would probably ideal as trying to display the system was what was causing my custom case designs to go through never ending re-designs. The only caveat is that I'll need an optical disk drive.

Anyone got any recommendations on how to do this cheap? Ideally no more than £350.

 

[FFXIhealer]

Not from me, bro. I'm also in your predicament about cases when it comes to a full custom water cooling loop, because I ALSO want an optical drive and most of the cases that support 240 and 360 radiators have a completely flat front with NO drive bays exposed at all. I guess the industry is moving away from those and toward USB everything.

Well, the case I've pretty much chosen for MY rebuild isn't cheap. It's the Corsair Obsidian 750D. It's full-ATX, has 3 5.25" drive bays, support for 360mm radiator on top and a 240 or 260 in front, a 120/140mm fan slot at the back, PSU at the bottom, 2.5" drive bays BEHIND the main tray, movable 3.5" drive bays, dual 120mm fan ports on the bottom in front of the PSU (you have to remove the 3.5" bays to get to each one, dust covers over everything.... a very nice case. But I'm looking at $120 to get it. That's a lot of money for a computer case to me. And it also has that glass side which I'm not overly thrilled about like other case modders are. I don't do RGB lights. I don't show off my system to everyone that comes in my room either. Most people I interact with really don't care anyway. I'd feel like an 8 year old child interrupting the grown-ups talking to go LOOK AT MY TOY! It's annoying to people, actually.

Ahh, to return to the days of the late 90s where cases were just there to hold components. You had to turn it on to see what it did.

 

[AlienALX]

It's easy.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Water-Pu...05&rk=1&rkt=1&&_trksid=p2045573.c100505.m3226

I am running two of those. One in here.

And one in here.

Which I ran for over a year. Never any issues. I also took it apart (so you don't have to) and it is all ceramic inside. Very heavy and solid too.

For a res buy something like this.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/G1-4-50x...720487&hash=item2f0c389d37:g:WdQAAOSw6HJZzhuV

Which is a clone of Bitspower. I actually have one sitting next to me, it's nice quality (well, I mean it's plastic like any other res).

Then look out for a sale on fittings. Buy them all at once and buy more than you think you need. For rads go second hand, or Mayhem.

https://www.mayhems.net/collections...cts/mayhems-havoc-240-mm-radiator-primed-only

Can of spray paint is about £5 these days.

And so on. Just basically use your brains fella. For CPU block? again get a used one. I got an EK Supreme? I think it is? for £25 inc. It is not worth buying a £15 chinese block because they are crap metal and not very good.

 

[Daiyus]

Thanks for the solid advice Alien. I'd never have the confidence to trust a £13 pump, but if you recommend it then that's more than good enough for me.

I guess the most expensive part will be the Vega block as they're relatively rare and new. This has really changed my perspective on what could be possible, thank you.

 

[AlienALX]

Thanks for the solid advice Alien. I'd never have the confidence to trust a £13 pump, but if you recommend it then that's more than good enough for me.

I guess the most expensive part will be the Vega block as they're relatively rare and new. This has really changed my perspective on what could be possible, thank you.

Yup unless you go core only there is no getting around the price of the block for the GPU tbh. They are very expensive at launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAi1cxDRIpE

Pump in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atwKmPZ8XsU

Me testing mine. Seriously it could squirt water across a room.

It's a hardy b*****d. I had another pump on the same molex run and the wire snapped off of it (ground). It touched the live and everything on that molex run blew up (temp sensor, volt meter, BigNG fan controller etc) apart from the Chinese pump.

It is still going strong today. You will soon learn that a res is a res basically. They are all made of plastic so don't over pay for one. I may even have one to sell soon.