ケイ - Watercooled Enthoo Primo

[Kei]

Man, it's the end of an era!

Nice upgrade though.

It is indeed, I miss the simplicity of my amd system. Found it far easier to overclock compared to this. There are too many voltages to adjust amongst other things. It's still comfortably running at 4.5GHz, though it needed some additional tweaking to get it completely stable as the previous settings we're just on the edge. Not tried higher than 4.6 so far, but will see how far the chip will go up to a 1.4V ceiling at some point. Here are some examples of the difference the upgrade has made.

Tombraider on PII min:54 max:84 avg:68.9
Tombraider on i7 min:56 max:90 avg:69.9

Heaven 4 on PII min:19.4 max:112.2 avg:61.0
Heaven 4 on i7 min:31.4 max:135.4 avg:63.8

Valley on PII min:20.5 max:105.6 avg:62.2
Valley on i7 min:34.8 max:145.0 avg:75.9

Firestrike on PII: 8552
Firestrike on i7: 10320

Crysis 3 on PII
Crysis 3 on i7

I've been considering making some further changes down the road. The ram is going to change to something that can manage 2133 ideally at C9, been thinking the white team xtreem LV frost edition modules would look quite good. I really like the look of the new avexir blitz 1.1 modules but they aren't going to release any in a colour that will match my system. (and i really hate red & black I'm also considering a new case, the hot favourite being the phanteks enthoo primo. It'll be right on the limit of what i can fit under my desk, but it'll allow me to shift the reservoir off the radiator, add a 480 rad to the top and improve my airflow.

Still it's not looking too bad, though it lacks lighting since i took the cathode tubes out. Much as people will hate me for it, what i miss most is the blue pcb of the gigabyte board.

 

[Feronix]

Looking good!

PSU stickers need fixing though imo.

 

[Kei]

Major update coming over the weekend provided my deliveries arrive tomorrow. Got the following bits coming:-

Phanteks Enthoo Primo
Alphacool XT45 480mm radiator
XSPC photon 270 reservoir
Aqua computer D5 pump top
2m of primochill 7/16" advanced LRT
4x additional 45° fittings
1x 1/2" barb sealing plug

 

[Kei]

Not much good news from today. The specialtech part of my order didn't turn up which i can only assume is down to stock issues as two of the items which were showing as in stock now show as out of stock.

Second bit of bad news is that the xspc photon 270 reservoir that arrived from ocuk is obviously a returned item that was well abused by the previous buyer. I'd say that it was in poor shape for a b-grade item. The box was pristine, but there was only one piece of the original packing left inside and just jammed with bubbled wrap. There were also no bolts or LED in the box either, just an empty zip lock bag.


The res itself, whilst still in one piece has foam bits stuck to the back, watermarks inside and a fair amount of debris, damaged threads on two of the ports and to top that off, the mounting has been drilled.



The hole in the mount at the left of this image shouldn't even be there. The watermark runs the length of the glass and the debris is easily visible


Anyway, that aside, the good news is that the case arrived and is perfect. It is certainly heavy and my god is it big. Borderline too big, it completely dwarfs the old cooler master.


Sadly as i don't have the 480mm radiator, any extra fittings and no fresh tubing, i can't do anything with it over the bank holiday which is exceptionally annoying.

 

[Kei]

Started the tear down of the coolermaster today. The psu and fans have all been transferred across and i'm presently working on draining the loop so i can transfer the rest. Here's the progress so far:

Test fitted the res to see how well it fits. Will have to either resort to velcro or drilling the panel in the case as only two bolt holes line up. Tube routing is going to be fun. I'm hoping that I don't need any extra spacers.


Luckily that I actually have enough gentle typhoon's to cover all of the radiators. Really want to have GT's all round though as i simply cannot find anything that performs even close.


Cable routing has been easier than it was with the coolermaster, but it's still a difficult task. Whoever invented the SATA connectors needs to die, as they are always a pain to keep tidy, especially the power connectors which are upside-down. (meaning that the top hard disk needs to have the first connector on the cable.

 

[Kei]

I finally drained the loop in the old coolermaster today and shifted the components across to the phanteks. The ribbon cable that links the xonar essence st to the hdav h6 daughter board is not going to be particularly easy to hide now that it's all exposed. (was jammed behind the psu before)


I'm not joking when i say that the gap between the gpu and the reservoir is barely 3mm. There looks like there may be sufficient room on the side of the hdd cage to mount the thin xspc ex240 with a set of fans. Not sure if it'll be worth the effort though as i'll have 480 + 240 just for cooling the cpu and a single gpu as it is.


One very annoying thing i've finally noticed is that asus left out the front panel usb 3 header on the P9X79. It wasn't an issue with the coolermaster as it didn't have the connections. A minor nuisance with the phanteks is that you cannot unplug the cables from the connector pcbs like the coolermaster so i'm going to have to route the cables out of the way rather than remove them.


Specialtech are taking their time about sending out my order so i sent them a message before leaving for work today to change the pump top from the poor performing aqua computer part to an EK top. I also need to pack up the reservoir and take it to my local ups drop off location so that overclockers can swap it for a new one.

I'm still scratching my head on how i'm going to route the tubing, especially since the inlet and outlet on the reservoir are on the bottom.

 

[paulstung]

Looking good mate. I have the Photon 270 res too mate, with the pump in the same location and have had the same problem with tube runs. I ended up using a 90 sending it to the pump around the psu shroud. Another 90 up to the bottom gpu, and from the top rad around the back of the tray.

Iv'e tried a few options with that being about the neatest way. I'm about to strip it all out for Monsoon hardline, so the fun will begin again, that's the one good thing with solid tube, you don't have to hide it as much, as long as you make sure the bends are all spot on, and are you go in with a solid plan it should be ok.

 

[Agamemnon]

Looking good

 

[SuB]

doing a great job of keeping the cables tidy despite there being so many dude. keep up the good work

 

[Feronix]

Aaaahh original colour schemes.

Looking good dude

 

[Kei]

Cheers guys. An original colour scheme was the intention, best bit is that the psu labels are now covered up so i don't have to sort them. Black and xxx (red in particular) have been done to death so I wanted something unique. Thanks for the tubing info paul, hopefully that'll help me with the world of pain i'm sure it'll be. I think the thread title probably needs renaming now the 690 is being replaced.

Specialtech got back to me today and have sorted out my order, which i'm praying arrives tomorrow. (only one week after ordering it) Sadly I'm still not likely to finish before next week as I'm sending the used photon res back to ocuk tomorrow and i'll have to wait for them to process the rma and send the replacement.

I sorted out the rest of the cables this evening so that virtually everything is now connected up. I still need to sleeve the led/switch connectors and ideally, I should sleeve the molex y splitter i'm using to power the xonar too, but with it not being visible I'm not sure i'll bother for now.


This is the potential location for a thrid radiator. Not sure if it'd be worth the effort though. Not 100% sure whether the res will interfere with the fan either.

 

[Kei]

Other parts arrived yesterday. More problems. So far nothing has gone to plan with regard to parts being right and arriving on time. The swap to an EK pump top didn't happen even after they confirmed the changes and refunded the price difference. Wouldn't mind too much as i did originally order the aquacomputer top, but it turns out that based on the base plate size, it's way too big to fit on the mounting point in the case. So that's got to go back. I've ordered some 10mm fitting extenders so that i can use angle fitting on the lower radiator(s).

Fittings. I like good value hence the 1/2" fatboy barbs. (think i've spent no more than £30 in total on all my fittings) Spot the 2 bitspower fittings. (got them super cheap as they were on sale)


Primochill advanced LRT 7/16" tubing vs xspc clear and uv. The new stuff is extremely clear compared to the xspc i've been using. (the old uv tube is stained by the coolant)


The whole of the upper radiator covered by the best fans money could buy. All 4 fans are powered by a single channel off the fan controller.


The XT45 480 in the roof may look a tad slim but at least the bluray writer won't block airflow at the front.

 

[Kei]

Braided the front panel connectors and replaced the short molex for the sound card with a longer part this afternoon.


It's coming together now, still waiting on the reservoir and pump top though. Testing out the tube routes using the old xspc tubing. Behind the motherboad tray seems to be a bit too tight, but i won't know for certain until i've got the top for the pump.

 

[Kei]

New reservoir arrived from overclockers today. Perfect condition this time with no missing bits. Still waiting on the pump top, but at least i can start routing the tubing.

 

[alpenwasser]

Quite an upgrade mate, looking nice!

And yes, those freaking SATA power connectors are ridiculous. I usually
take them off the cables and switch them around these days.

 

[Kei]

Yeah i'm hoping to see some nice improvements both in noise and cooling. Next build i do is definitely having a modular power supply as i'm tired of finding places to loose cables and them not being to my liking. At least with a modular cable i can remake it easily without having to crack open the psu and grab my soldering iron.

The last piece of this giant puzzle arrived this afternoon. No doubt people are going to be asking wtf i was thinking getting a white top, but at the time i went with it, there were no black ones anywhere. I also thought i may potentially paint/colour in bits in blue/green to match. (though it's totally hidden anyway so makes no odds)

Now that it's in place I could see that it is still possible to run the tubing around the back of the motherboard after all, though i'm not sure which route is the better choice.


The inlet sticks out by the bottom rad. The alternative route for the pump outlet is via that circular grommet (at top of the image) and up behind the reservoir bracket.


No idea which is the better route. Behind the tray uses slightly more tubing and may also run the risk of slight kinking/squashing at the grommet up at the top of the case. Decisions, decisions...

 

[Kei]

Got the reservoir mounted properly, the tubing cut and fitted and filled the loop. Not managed to bleed it yet but so far at least there have been no leaks evident.


I decided to run the tubing behind the motherboard, which seems to fit ok with no kinks or squashed sections. Only minor issue so far is that the damping on the pump is insufficient. Hopefully i'll get it finished off tomorrow as it's now been two weeks since i dismantled the cm690.

 

[Kei]

Finally managed to finish up on this today after having to visit halfords to get more DI water. Ended up using about 2.2L in total. I was hoping that the change in reservoir was going to make bleeding easier, but in standard xspc style, air that returns to the reservoir is sucked down into the pump for another trip around just like the last xspc res. In keeping with the trend that this rebuild has had, the new WD black 640GB drive is DOA. (trusty 9 year old spinpoint 200GB gone back in)

The reservoir looks awesome although there is a distinct lack of lighting elsewhere in the case. Fan noise is very low now, but there is a resonance between the case and one of the hard drives that's a tad annoying. Idle temperatures are a bit lower than before at 32 degrees on the cpu and 29 on the gpu. Core 3 on the cpu is sitting at 24 and it's peak temp is only 44 vs all the others being 51. Didn't remove the block so haven't touched the paste since January.



I'm now considering rebuilding my old phenom II system from earlier in the thread using the old 690 case and the spare water cooling parts as i'm only lacking a d5 pump and some hard disks. It'd be built as a store server using an LSI sas card and 8 drives in raid 5 + OS drives in raid 1.

 

[frufsa]

I really like this one!
I admire your courage for going with a unique colour scheme. Looks just perfect with the litte hint of green in there.

 

[Feronix]

Yep, yep, yep! All of the yeps! Looks great dude

Quite dislike that flat, grey cable at the bottom though.