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.

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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.

 

[manofchalk]

Love the thing, though I cant say I have noticed as much of a image quality difference from it. Maybe its because I'm used to 24" 1080p, so going to 27" 1440p isn't that bit a jump in DPI (only about 3000dpi difference). The straight up extra real estate is great though, and for $400 AUS its great (hear they can get as low as $300 for US residents).

If I had to choose between a single 1440p and triple 1080p, triple 1080p. You have the option of Eyefinity there, and I have become so accustomed to having such excessive amounts of desktop that going back to a single screen, even 1440p, would be a pain.

Still rocking the 7970 and have no real plans to swap it out anytime soon. The card is 3yrs old but its still on par with a mid-high range card today, the 280X is just a rebranded 7970. I have vague plans in the back of my head for when I overhaul the system to X79 (or future equivalent) that I will move the current hardware into a more LAN friendly case.

 

[envy14tpe]

I understand having more screen real estate with 3 monitors. I was thinking of keeping my 23" IPS and having a 27" 1440p next to it. Less taxing for high detail gaming compared to 3 monitor gaming.

Yeah the 280x was lame cuz it is same as 7970 but I was stoked to get one cuz I had the 660ti before and thought the 7970 was too much $$$ so I bought the 660ti instead, but then the inevitable price drop happened and I was elated to get a 280x for around $300usd (although not in US).

One day I hope to do custom loop but not priority right now. Gotta wait until this current system out dates itself. However, your system looks really nice.

 

[frazfraz]

Hi manofchalk,

I have HAF X that I'd like to water cool - I've got some questions if you don't mind.

Underneath top cover of HAF X you put 3 x 120mm fans is this correct? - Did you modify the case and drill extra holes?

Then you've used a 360mm radiator at the top of the inside of the case and occupied the 1st 5.25" drive bay - Will any 360mm radiator screw into the case quite easily? - or is a modification needed?

What is the maximum depth of 360 mm radiator that HAF X can use?

I'm looking to get a good cooling for AMD 9590 - A hot chip!