Water-cooling Build Log: Project Red-Chalk

[manofchalk]

Welcome to the ongoing build-log for my system, the Red-Chalk. It details from when I first started water-cooling and covers pretty much all the goings on with my rig since then. All my long winded thoughts, idea's and explanations are here, so a light read this is not :lol:.
Big thanks to Moto, Scopey, Rubix , Big-Cyco and amuffin for helping me out when I first inquired about water-cooling, and many others who I have learnt from since.

-- --- --

The XSPC Raystorm 750 RS360 water-cooling kit.
PrimoChill PrimoFlex Pro LRT tubing red, 7/16ID 5/8OD. 2m of it.
And a Killcoil.

Well, I took the plunge and got all that water-cooling stuff yesterday, and now it is assembled, leak tested and probably not fully air bled yet if the pump noise means anything :lol:.
As promised, here is my build log and hopefully all the pictures you could want.

This is before I started pulling everything apart, my dual fan Hyper 212 Evo doesn't even know what happening yet.

Stripped out all the unnecessary stuff, the HAF-X is starting to look empty.

My 3570K tries to hide itself under a layer of thermal paste (which is fairly well applied, I wasnt expecting that good an application considering it was the first time I had done it. Little bit of spillage though)

Remove the Thermal paste with some White Spirits cleaning fluid, and its revealed.

Took the opportunity to clean my PSU. Full modularity is so useful.

Time to get down to business. First the radiator had its stock XSPC push fans screwed to it and then was mounted in the case.
Protip: When water-cooling in a HAF-X with a triple rad, you will need the top 5.25" bay clear if you want to fit a radiator+fan in there, even for slim radiators. I was lucky my fan controller doesn't take up the whole bay, but if you had in optical there and every other bay was full, you'd be in trouble.

Mounting the pull fans, two Coolermaster Silent red LED fans and one mystery red LED fan I found in an old PC one day.

The Raystorm CPU block did go on with some trouble. The LGA1155 backplate was somewhat difficult to place on the back of the mobo, and that caused havoc when you try to screw in the block and the plate has moved. Got it in eventually though.

One uneventful (and undocumented unfortunately) pump/res mounting later, I got down to putting in tubing.
ProTip: Measure everything! Once that tube is around the barb, it aint coming off without a fight. Stuffed up the connection between the radiator and pump/res, spent the next 20min pulling the tubing off each end. Makes me wonder why we even need clamps.

 

[bigcyco1]

Sub-total: $734.00 holy crap lol!

 

[manofchalk]

+$20 postage :lol:

Yea... the budget for my brothers rig is only $1000.
But $300 of that is going straight into this and a few other bits being sold off, so hopefully once the dust has cleared I'l only be ~$450 out of pocket. Which is fairly good value since the 7970 alone cost $400. Would be far worse if I had to pay for it completely and had a 7870 lying around at the end just depreciating in value, though that's whats happening with my X20 750.

 

[bigcyco1]

That's true.Well good luck.

 

[toolmaker_03]

looking good, will be watching to see what else you build, sounds like there is always something going on as far as projects go anyways.

Check out your PM when you get a chance

 

[mlcaouette]

Looking forward to your update manofchalk!

 

[envy14tpe]

Read through the thread and wondering why are you spending all this time and money?

Hobby or do you really want performance gain?

 

[manofchalk]

Definitely hobby, my temps were adequate with a 212 EVO and my overclocking aspirations aren't exactly high.

Also a fair bit of it is about keeping the rig "future proof". I build a water loop, give it way too much radiator space and a powerful pump. From now on, cooling is a non issue and it is amazing cooling.
Same with the case, which I commented before was completely overkill for my initial build. Get an overkill case, having something that will fit what I want is a non issue for the conceivable future.

My build in an exercise in future proofing, which is what I intended from the start (I would even link to my first post here saying so if the forum change hadn't wiped my post history pre June 2012). The case has proven itself already, now I'm just waiting for the PSU and Cooling to pay off in the long run .

 

[manofchalk]

Just...
If any Australians read this, I can give a massive thumbs up to PC Case Gear as a great retailer. In the Melbourne area they are the only store I'v been too that hasn't had issues with returning faulty products and their customer support is amazing. I emailed them on the weekend asking whether they could stock the Swiftech MCRes, got an email this morning (Monday) saying they had contacted their suppliers and were seeing about getting it done. The day hasn't even ended and they send another email saying they'v got a supply of it and they'l be available for purchase by tomorrow, at a cheaper price than the other store ...

I'm stoked for this upgrade now.

 

[bigcyco1]

Read through the thread and wondering why are you spending all this time and money?

Hobby or do you really want performance gain?

You have to custom watercool to understand it.:lol:

 

[mlcaouette]

Hey manofchalk, just wanted to let you know that the pmp-500 is very loud. I just started using mine last night and it is annoying loud at least for now. You might want to consider buying the pump controller so you can slow this beast down and hopefully bring the noise down too. I haven't got around to measuring much temperature data yet but I should have the info in my thread soon.

 

[manofchalk]

Well a black monolith of computer parts arrived today from PC Case Gear, and I'v been drooling to get to work on it. But unfortunately, time constraints means I cant work on it till this weekend. Probably pushed it by building as much of my brothers rig as I did.
So expect an update soon, and heres a teaser!

Yea, poor lighting and resolution, my phone's camera isn't all that great. The tablet I usually use is temporarily out of order (hopefully will be good by this weekend).

 

[toolmaker_03]

Why was HIS, the company that was chosen for this pice of hardware?

 

[manofchalk]

Because its the cheapest (and only reference design) 7970 available where I was buying. Although annoyingly a reference design MSI card popped up a few days after I bought it, given the chance I would get that but its too late now.
Besides, its reference design. Which means that its no different to any other reference card except for the HIS box and sticker.

Also, just starting the upgrade now, expect updates soon-ish.

 

[manofchalk]

No progress on the loop itself, focused on the GPU today.

The card in my rig, running Furmark for about an hour. Want to make sure that its stable before I go to the effort of putting a waterblock on it. In hindsight should have put it under gaming load as well, especially with a newly acquired Crysis 3. The stock cooler is pretty loud.
Idle Temp: ~33°C
Load Temp: 64°C


Obligatory naked PCB shot. Whoever applied the paste at the factory put on way too much, took ages to clean out from the surrounding (not sure exactly).
Blue PCB, it was black in the product picture . Ahh well, all the more reason to get the backplate .

And yes I did notice that thermal pad in the top left and replaced it after the shot.

With the block mounted, looks veeeery sexy as all shiny new components do.


Tomorrow, pump and res mounting!

EDIT: Also I have come to the conclusion my rig is a troll.
Unplug it, put on table, plug back in, doesnt power on. No power, nothing.
After about an hour or so frantically trying to find out whats wrong, thinking the motherboard might have killed itself or the CPU 8pin has somehow broken. I clear the CMOS because by this point I was truly out of options, so why not, and it just turns on...
No power in the system? Clear the CMOS of course! Makes perfect sense.

 

[bigcyco1]

Looking good.I have never liked that motherboard. I had one it died.I tend to stick with Asus for motherboards as they just seem to always work for me.

 

[manofchalk]

Loop is complete, leak tested and is currently undergoing stress testing.
Both CPU and GPU are at stock clocks.

Fumark Testing.
Idle GPU Temp: 24°C
Load GPU Temp: 34°C
CPU temps unaffected.

Prime95 Testing.
Idle temp: 20°C
Load Temp: ~47°C
GPU unaffected.

Furmark + Prime95 Testing (right now).
Load Temp GPU: 38°C
Load Temp CPU: 51°C

Pretty amazing temps, and its dead quiet as well. The pump gives off a whine, but its not loud and I bet with the side panels on would be unnoticeable.

Pics are incoming.

 

[bigcyco1]

Cool man can't wait for pics

 

[manofchalk]

Mounted the reservoir and the water-blocked graphics card. That tubing run is going to be tight (and is).


Mounted the pump on the side of the drive bays.
Really happy with the way I mounted it, the pump is very well decoupled and didnt have to drill any holes. Lost two drive bays, which isn't an issue for me.



With everything connected up.
Flow order: Res -> Pump -> EX360 -> RS360 -> CPU -> GPU -> Res.
.............................\................
...........................Drain...........


Yep, that run between GPU and reservoir is pretty tight. Had to use a couple of of clamps and a zip tie to lessen the kink that developed. Who needs coils? :lol:


Leak testing passes, glamour shots now!.




Bubbly res is bubbly.

 

[bigcyco1]

Awesome!Looks really good!Congrats!

 

[manofchalk]

Got around to overclocking the 7970 today, and true to form it overclocks like a bat out of hell. Easily hit the 1125/1575 barrier with no additional voltage needed.
However something peculiar has occurred. Increasing the memory clock beyond 1450Mhz decreases performance, at least according to 3D Mark 11. Tried bumping up the Mem voltage a bit, but no effect. Though at 1550Mhz is fairly close. Will test this a bit more thoroughly to see if its just random fluctuation.

Anyway, GPU at stock speeds (CPU at 4.3Ghz)
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6521957

GPU at 1125Mhz Core, 1450Mhz Mem (highest score so far)
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6522235

EDIT 1: Ran another 3DMark 11 Tess with 1550Mhz on the mem clock, massive drop in score compared to my last result at that frequency.
Hmm... Maybe the 15 different internet tabs I'v accrued in the intervening time are affecting the bench.

EDIT 2: Closed those tabs and undid the memory voltage tweak. Raised the score, but not to what I had gotten before. Lowering too 1450Mhz and seeing if that correlates with the previous score, might have just been a one off.

EDIT 3: Yep, my 7970 doesnt like memory frequencies above 1450Mhz. Ran with that again and got the highest score yet. Think I'v found my overclock (until I can figure out how to get past the 1125/1575 barrier anyway ).
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6522537

EDIT 4: Prime95 + Furmark test results are virtually unchanged with this overclock. the GPU has gone up by 1°C, the CPU a fair bit more but I suspect that's to do with its own overclock (previous results were at 3.4Ghz, now its at 4.3Ghz).

 

[bigcyco1]

Not to bad your gpu oc seems a little on the weak side you should be able to get 1200 or higher on the core i would think.I know every chip is different though and it's basically luck of the draw.

 

[manofchalk]

Software is the bottleneck here, Afterburner wont let me go past 1125/1575Mhz.

 

[bigcyco1]

Software is the bottleneck here, Afterburner wont let me go past 1125/1575Mhz.

Wow really i wonder why have you contacted MSI about it?

 

[manofchalk]

Found a solution to the problem. Afterburner wont let me overclock past 1125/1575Mhz, but Sapphire's Trixx software will .
So now I'm only using Afterburner to read the usual things like temp, FPS, GPU and VRAM usage which is displayed through a Rainmeter skin. Trixx is for the actual overclocking.
Currently running at 1200Mhz Core, and 1575Mhz Memory. Could push it further, but its already a pretty good overclock (though it is a 7970, a good overclock isn't hard to get ) and there's no real need to push it further.

I think the reason why it only lets me get that far is that's also the limit in the Catalyst overclocking tool, must be a hard limit set into the driver that MSI adhere too, while Sapphire is a bit more blase about what AMD wants or not.

EDIT: Downloaded 3DMark Basic so I could have a look at the infamous FireStrike benchmark. Brought my rig to its knees, during the combined Physics+Graphics test it reduced my FPS down to 15. Not even on the extreme preset since its the Basic edition.

Heres the score.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/670879

 

[bigcyco1]

o.k. well glad you figured a work around 1200 is a very decent oc congrats! I also agree no need to push it any harder if you're happy with the results.