Diggy Hole - A watercooled, overclocked, ITX, 4.2ghz Minecraft server!

[Muel]

I recently found I was having a problem with my current home server, in that the Minecraft Server application was struggling massively because I build a lot of large redstone machines. Minecraft Server runs the the main world engine thingy in a single thread, which means that it needed a big increase in single thread performance. Not something the 45w AMD Athlon X4 615E in my file server can provide, So I decided to build a separate box just for Minecraft Server.

I raided my spare parts cupboard, and found I had a 128gb Crucial M4 SSD, 4gb of Corsair XMS3 DDR3, some Bitfenix Spectre Pro fans, and a load of watercooling parts. After some deliberation, I decided that - given that single thread performance was key - an Intel Pentium G3258 CPU in a watercooled, overclocked system would be pretty cool, use up all my spares and it wouldn't be too expensive to buy the other parts I needed. I've never built an ITX based system before, so decided this would be a good project to build on that platform seeing as there would be no GPU and only one SSD.

Here's the spec I landed on:

• CASE: Silverstone Milo ML05B
• MOBO: Asus H81I-Plus
• CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition - 4.2ghz @ 1.2v
• RAM: Corsair XMS3 2x2gb 1600mhz DDR3
• SSD: Crucial M4 120gb
• PSU: BeQuiet SFX Power 2 300W
• CPU BLOCK: Phobya UC-2 LT
• RAD: XSPC AX240
• FITTINGS: Barrow 16/10
• PUMPRES: Magicool DCP450

Build was very simple, just chopped a couple of holes in the case for hoses and plugged it all together.

Pics!

Really happy with it, it seems to have roughly 4/5 times the performance when playing Minecraft than that of the file server it was running on before.

 

[barnsley]

That is very cool! Its a shame you've not got the best chip for OCing though. Nice to see another custom loop pentium on the forums.

 

[Muel]

That is very cool! Its a shame you've not got the best chip for OCing though. Nice to see another custom loop pentium on the forums.

Might not be the highest clocker in terms of ghz, but it's good enough for my needs. I did no tweaking or proper overclocking though, just stuck it at 1.2v and 4.2ghz out of the box and it's never crashed. I'll probably try and push the clocks further on the same voltage in the future but as it's a server I want to keep it stable. Adding 1ghz to it is enough for now.

Very impressed with the CPU though, I paid £53 for it and it seems perfect for this build - pretty highly clocked dual core with as low a TDP as possible.

 

[Dawelio]

Now this is just so cool and kinda cute I must admit ^_^ ... Well done bud!

 

[Dicehunter]

Looks really neat, Haven't seen many external rad builds that look good but this looks great, Although that XSPC logo being upside down would drive me nuts, Get one printed and put it on the right way up ^_^

 

[Muel]

Now this is just so cool and kinda cute I must admit ^_^ ... Well done bud!

Cheers mate, means a lot.

Looks really neat, Haven't seen many external rad builds that look good but this looks great, Although that XSPC logo being upside down would drive me nuts, Get one printed and put it on the right way up ^_^

Cheers, this was my first watercooled build actually (got another that's been stalled for months), I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I decided early on that looping white tubing would be a focal point, partially because I wanted to reduce the number of fittings where possible to save money. I already had the tubing and most of the fittings from my other build, which I'm now considering doing hardline tubing in.

I was thinking about re-spraying the rad white anyway, but then had the idea of somehow wrapping the shell to look like a dirt block (you can remove the radiator itself from the shell on the AX series). Can't find any suitable vinyl wrap/stickers though.

 

[Tolemac]

Nice build there matey can you not lower the core voltage at 4.2?. I have a Pentium K in my rig atm at 4.2 with the vcore@ 1.1v but that might be due to the superflower psu I am using .

 

[Ady6UK]

Very nice Muel. How quiet is the pump? Might be tempted to use one on a small build I'm planning.

 

[Muel]

Nice build there matey can you not lower the core voltage at 4.2?. I have a Pentium K in my rig atm at 4.2 with the vcore@ 1.1v but that might be due to the superflower psu I am using .

I could possibly, but that's not the plan. I always intended on running a relatively mild clock for the voltage because I want to pretty confident in it's stability. However, I will up the multiplier a notch or two once it's run at 4.2ghz for a month or so.

Very nice Muel. How quiet is the pump? Might be tempted to use one on a small build I'm planning.

I've got nothing to compare it to having never done a watercooled build before this one, but it is definitely audible. Not silent by any stretch, but not annoying. It's no louder than the fans, just a different sort of noise. I could see some people getting pretty frustrated though.

 

[Muel]

Very nice Muel. How quiet is the pump? Might be tempted to use one on a small build I'm planning.

Since my last post I decided that the flow rate was too bad to be happy with, so I swapped the Phobya block for an EK one and it's massively improved. A side affect has been that the pump is now silent, can't hear it at all even if I stop the fans with my fingers!

Very impressed with the pump now. £30 for a silent, good looking little pumpres with easily enough flow rate for a CPU loop.

 

[Nhirlathothep]

you created a really good looking rig with your spare parts!

 

[Dacho]

Cool.

 

[remember300]

Looks cool

 

[1woo]

Now that's cool !!! :cool1:

 

[Wraith]

Tasty little server you built there, and great choice on the CPU, kudos for the Pentium K love. I ran one for some time 4.6Ghz @ 1.25v even at that temps were sub 26 Degree on the H100i.

 

[Darkwood Systems]

This Server looks awesome, love the external rad

 

[You_What?]

Overkill? Perhaps, but I gotta say that is one unique build and as others have said, its been executed very well.

Definitely something different for the showpiece, I mean home theatre setup.

Love it!

 

[sfelock]

Very nice! If you don't mind me asking, what was the build cost before the water cooling components? I've been looking into a server build for a bit, just don't really know where to start.

 

[0100001]

Looks sweet mate

 

[sheroo]

That's pretty darn cool.