Shawy Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 Here's an initial design render: And a render of the watercooling loop: I wont post all of the pictures of parts, instead you can check out the full album. I didn't take many photos while actually modding as I tend to just get stuck in until it's done. It was basically a case of measuring the motherboard tray, cutting a hole in the back of the case with a Dremel and test fitting the motherboard tray. It took 5 or 6 test fits to get it right, as I had to file grooves for the rivets to allow the back of the motherboard tray to sit flush with the back of the case.I have tapped 4 of the ventilation holes on the back of the case so that I can secure the tray to the case using 4 M3 screws.Here's the case all gutted out ready for modding:But first I needed to mod the motherboard tray. I cut out a hole for 2 80mm fans instead of the original single fan mount, as well as cutting a slot for the back panel clasp and a hole for the SATA cable to be hidden below the motherboard tray where the SSD will be mounted. There's also some cable management slots cut into the sides for the front panel cables as well as the 8 pin.Once the back of the motherboard tray was cut, I used it as a stencil to cut out the back panel of the case.Here you can see the holes cut into the floor of the case. The 2 large circles towards the front of the case are for the radiator plugs to sit in so that I can use them to drain the loop. I'll also be using 10mm extension fittings to give the radiator a little more support. There's also two holes for mounting the pump and 2 more to mount the L bracket used to hold the radiator down.I cut out the original harddrive tray to act as a PSU holder. The fan screws will be threaded through the bracket to secure it down, and then the bracket mounted to the case. There's also a hole for the tubing to pass through to the main compartment.This is how the motherboard will sit inside the case when it's done.And this is where the watercooling components will sit.Here you can see the rad is as far forward as possible which will allow room for a set of fans, but unfortunately not enough space for some shrouds as I had originally planned.The radiator takes up a huge amount of space when the fans are installed. 130mm thickness altogether!I had to use a 10mm extension, a 45° fitting and a 90° fitting to be able to route tubing from the pump to the radiatorThey align almost perfectly.Once everything was in place and all of the cuts and holes were made to the case, I started to sound proof it. There's two reasons for the sound proofing, firstly to try and absorb some of the noise that echoes around the solid aluminium case, and secondly for aesthetics. I didn't want a fully aluminium interior and there were a lot of holes in the case from the original Apple hardware which I wanted to cover up some how. The back panel has 2 layers of 3mm closed cell foam, the first of which has holes so that the smaller screws line up with the surface, and a second layer to cover up the small screws. The larger standoffs have been left as they will be used to support the motherboard tray and used for cable management.The PSU in the top is such a tight fit that I had to cut out a gap in the roof sound proofing else it wouldn't fit.And here's how it looks with the components back in. Assembling the build starts with the power supply and the mechanism which locks the side panel when closed.Next comes the motherboard tray, with the SSD attached and cables running underneath.Next in is the Monsta rad - so big that I had to take the CPU block off to squeeze it in.. The tubing had to be attached to the rear of the rad before installing it which didn't make things any easier.Then I cleaned up the TIM and remounted the CPU block.Next was the most annoying part - the pump. It's mounted using silicone fan mounts which have some washers to keep them from slipping out. I had to feed the silicone through the hole in the case floor and pull it through the other side - it sounds a lot easier than it is, as it all has to be done pretty much blind.Onto the second most annoying part was tubing the pump to the rad. Such a tight space made it a little difficult, but the silicone pump mount enabled me to wiggle the pump around to ease the tubing on.Next the res was installed onto the pump and the GPUs slotted into place. Tubing had to be attached to the reservoir before installing it to save having to deal with the cramped space.Then cut and fit the tubing to the GPU blocks.And then route the tubing to the CPU block. It's quite a tight bend but the 11/16mm tubing handled it quite well.That was pretty much it.. Time to fill her up and hope for the best.. :eek:Reservoir filled for the first time - no leaks is always a good thing.. Was not looking forward to turning it on for the first time just incase I'd forgotten to plug a hole or I'd missed an o-ring..Thankfully everything went ok and I managed to fill the loop with just over 1 litre of fluid.Now to let it run for a few hours to leak test and bleed the bubbles out of it. And due to how the loop is set up and the 3way parallelness it takes a fair amount of effort to bleed all of the bubbles out. I then swapped out the original 560Tis with a pair of 680s, and due to the extra length of the cards I had to use a shorter reservoir to fit everything in. And here are some finished shots: I ended up cleaning the insides up a little - removed Alphacool logo (and ended up vinyl wrapping the radiator after the paint chipped off), made a cover for the top compartment, and fixed the GPU cables: The mirrored acrylic: How the mirrored acrylic works: On / Of Night shot of the case with the window on and lights turned on: And finally the internals with the window off and lights off: Thanks for checking out my build, any feedback is greatly appreciated. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PunkNugget Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 SWEET ! Now THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT ! You took your time and took the progressive pics along the way of doing this build. Thanks for bringing us through the process. You sure that rad is big enough ?!?! WOW ! Nice Push/Pull config... Congrats, you definitely GOT MY VOTE ! It would be great to see your GeekBench & Cinebench score. If you can post it that would be great. Again, great build ! As I'm taking more time to observe this build I noticed that you used a smaller cylinder res as the other other one seemed to be tilted; maybe because it was in the way of other parts inside the case and a bit too long. With the rad you got goin' on that is res enough to hold plenty of fluid anyway. I have a strong feeling that you're going to win this month for sure... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rampage Dev Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 GOT MY VOTE ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomppaq Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 Ooh! YOU GOT MY VOTE!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 You got my vote! Also great presentation, possibly the best ever. Very well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theconnactic Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 Got my vote! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawy Posted July 21, 2013 Author Share Posted July 21, 2013 Thanks for the comments & votes guys! I'm glad you all like it! The taller reservoir was a tight fit with my old 560Ti's and the 680s which replaced them are 25mm longer and extend past the motherboard so no way of fitting the larger res, but the smaller one works just fine (though more visible turbulence when running). The rad is amazing, I was debating a second rad in the floor too, but the monsta rad is more than enough on its own - CPU maxes between 55-65°C under maximum load (I've tried resetting it but 2 cores run much higher than the other 2 no matter what). I don't have a geek bench score (and I'm currently travelling) but I ran cinebench when I was testing and you can see the score below: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawy Posted July 25, 2013 Author Share Posted July 25, 2013 Here's a couple more shots of the build in the dark. Believe it or not these are all taken with the mirrored side panel on. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AT0MAC Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 Your build looks absolutely awesome, but Im wondering why you have two GTX 680? As far as I know SLI is not supported in OS X... (or something I have missed, please enlighten me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie81 Posted August 15, 2013 Share Posted August 15, 2013 I adore your build!! Would love to input some of your ideas into my G5 mod. I know where you had the G5 side panel made, but what were your exact measurements? Anything you would do differently in regards to the panel in hindsight? Finally, regarding the little extra 1mm tab at the bottom of the panel to help lock into the case, how did you solve this. Was it already cut by the company, or did you just attach and epoxy this little 1mm strip to the square mirror panel? I think I'm gonna implement your idea on the side door Well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawy Posted August 15, 2013 Author Share Posted August 15, 2013 Your build looks absolutely awesome, but Im wondering why you have two GTX 680? As far as I know SLI is not supported in OS X... (or something I have missed, please enlighten me) Gaming at 1440p in Windows 7. I adore your build!! Would love to input some of your ideas into my G5 mod. I know where you had the G5 side panel made, but what were your exact measurements? Anything you would do differently in regards to the panel in hindsight? Finally, regarding the little extra 1mm tab at the bottom of the panel to help lock into the case, how did you solve this. Was it already cut by the company, or did you just attach and epoxy this little 1mm strip to the square mirror panel? I think I'm gonna implement your idea on the side door Well done! Exact measurement = 475x405. I added the extra for the tab at the bottom. I had a quote from a different retailer for about £200 to machine the tab onto the sheet (which is retarded, quite frankly), so I decided to do it myself. I clamped a metal ruler (any straight edge will do) to the acrylic 5mm (I think) from the bottom and then used a craft knife to shave off thin layers of acrylic until I cut about half way though. I then used a metal file to cut the grooves at each end. It took me about half an hour but I'd much rather spend 30 minutes than £200. If I could have got the original door laser cut, I would've gone down that route, and had a window cut to the exact size which would sit flush with the side panel. I'm still on the look out for a company to do that, but until then the 2 way mirror will do. It's a really nice effect and it was the only way of having a flat side panel and hiding parts of the build at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsmmichael Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 Amazing Presentation! This is great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Xtreme Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Nice I'm going to be posting a mod that has never been posted on the internet before! it's going to be my gaming machine though it may not look like it is one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lotustar Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Probably one of the most elegant mods I've ever seen. Super classy. Great work!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts