Ordered...

[Burgerman]

To drain, open the RED valve. Theres is actually 2 red valves. One is hard to see. One drains the loop, from the opposite side of the flow meter, the glass thing below with the yellow "fan" inside. It allows all the liquid out except the front radiator. This has its connections at the top. So needs a 2nd drain at the radiator bottom end that isnt visible. Theres a 2nd red valve just visible in the wires side of the case at the bottom. Both of these drains, valves, are connected together and also connected to the lower front drain with the nickel EK cap on it!

So draining is a simple matter of connecting a rubber tube with a 1/4 fitting at the front, then turning on the 2 red valves.

Look at the yellow indicator on the right. It has a small 6mm tube coming out of the right side and going down to the basement! To a red on/off plumbing valve.

This is the front case. Cover removed (pull!) showing the EK hand removable plug. Remove this to show a 1/4 thread. To attach a long rubber tube for draining. Which will not allow any water out until: ...

Under a cover you will find these red valves. One is obvious, the other is further underneath and hard to see. Open these to release the coolant fron the front drain port. Can you tell I was once a plumber?

And as if by magic, all wires and untidy pipes are gone! These covers cre that problem. This case has 2 glass sides.

[Burgerman]

Some random extra pics. Note how many 5 and 10gbps USB 3.1, 3.2 ports. Inc 4 extra at the bottom. And 3 at the case front... So a lot!

[Burgerman]

Also theres no PETG tube here. This is all hard super clear acrylic.

Yes harder to bend. But PETG tube that has become so popular is a bit soft, like polythene. It marks more easily. It may be easier to use, but its not crystal clear. And also very hard to get perfect runs as it flexes and bends tend to return to straight slightly over time esp if it get warm... Plus the G in thePETG tube name stands for GLYCOL. So if like me you want to use ethlene glycol antifreeze (prestone) it attacks the tubing. Which isnt good! So if you do this, do it the slightly harder way! My pipes have to be straight, good bends, etc as I am a plumber. If not everyone would take the piss.

Next pics will be when filled, tested, with top, front, and 2 smoked glass sides are on.

[Burgerman]

And now with green antifreeze (and a tiny bit of mayhems emerald green dye) and previously fully washed out with distilled water and a trace of detergent.

Looks better in real life than this terribly lit snapshot on the floor. It has only got power to the pump ere, motherboard power connector temporarily unplugged which you can see in the picture. That white thing is plugged ito the connector instead to stop allow the power supply to turn on. So no lights here. Looks great when every RGB component lights up! Water moves fast, and totally silently. Pump is inaudible even at 100% speed. Left running all night to remove all the tiny air bubbles. Now the only way to see the water moving is the spinning wheel "flow site guage" lower right.

Nor just needs the PC testing, latest bios 4005 for the dark hero motherboard, latest VGA bios for the 3080 Ti, and the top, front, and glass sides fitting. Whooho. Already cloned my Windows LTSC instalation to its boot drive. All done literally FROM MY BED! Every bit. And its better than I see on jay2cents for neatness and accuracy. He doesent have my ocd!

Once that white (pump link) connector is removed, and m/b power connector reinserted, with all lighting on, and everything polished and dusted as its full of dust/plastic swarf and greasy fingerprints. With the still boxed up top/front/sides all added I will do some much better quality non flash photos. So we made it 99% so far! This is a very compact case for a complex water system. Not easy.

[steves1977uk]

Impressive build BM! The green antifreeze reminds me of your BM2-L chair.

I'm up for a challenge, mine's going to be a simpler build and just watercool the CPU to start with.

Steve

[Burgerman]

That used to be a sensible idea. But seriously consider this...

The new 30 series graphics cards (3080, and more powerful 3080 Ti and 3090 graphics cards that you will want are absolutely super heaters! They each take 360 watts of power if not overclocked while gaming. And 400 watts easily when clocked. Thats much more than the stock AMD or Intel CPUs.
To KEEP this performance they need good cooling. The temp determines the frame rates and the overclock they will automatically do. Thats why UNDEVOLTING increases performance. And all those watts must be dissapated.

So even if you have a latest breed top of range CPU like the new super greedy 12900K at around 250 watts (and so cant really be clocked much. It already is!) And if you try it exceeds 350W. Or the AMD 5950X as I have, which can be clocked very well if cooling is adequate and even that more efficient CPU makes it jump from around 150 watts to a similar 300w, then its still less than the graphics card!

So in reality if you want to make either modern CPU or GPU perform well you need a GOOD water system. Because both automatically increase GPU and CPU performance if:
a) cooling allows it. Which means much better cooling neded if overclocked!
b) The motherboard communicates with the CPU and tells it how much power from VRM is available. In the bios on my board for e.g it asks if its on air or water. And max watts available to the CPU. This changes headroom and power available for the components to boot higher. For longer. And thats before overclocking it.

So you really need to cool both. With a total power level of up to 400w GPU + 350W CPU. This is almost completely dumped as waste heat. Your loop needs to be able to dissapate 750 watts of heat! Thats crazy. Thats like a powerful hairdryer or almost a 1 bar electric fire...

So that tranfer really needs "liquid metal" (scary!) on the water block/GPU and CPU interfaces, which I did. And enough water flow, and radiator heat fin area to dump all that heat.

As such I have a thick 45mm core 3x 140mm fan front radiator (with expensive high static pressure) fans. And a standard 30mm thick 2x 140mm fan one up top!
The FAN speed is controled by the water temprature via a sensor.
The PUMP speed is controlled by the CPU temp.

Because this CPU gets hot in 1 second when loaded. And that happens in desktop or gaming use. And that needs instant fast water flow to remove the heat quickly. The water itself (some 1.4 litres) plus the thermal mass of cooling copper blocks and radiators themselves takes a long time to warm up.

So the fans are controlled by the water temperature. They are only ramped up as the water temp goes up to 30C. It normally sits around 22C water at idle on most custom loop systems. That heat up, seldom happens unless you were to game for maybe 10 or 15 mins solid. So used as a desktop it should not happen at all. So all 5x 140mm fans are turning slowly and silently (or off) for 95 percent of the time. Only benchmarking or burn in testing or continual gaming ramps up the fans. They are 500 rpm at idle (22C or less) and will will reach 2000 rpms at 36 degrees water. Which will never happen in reality with 2 large radiators.

[Burgerman]

When I say GOOD water system I dont mean an AIO.

They have a few issues.
1. They use a weedy pump sat on the CPU. So water flow doesent get close to a DDC or D5 pump as used on a custom loop.
2. They use thin 25mm radiators. So less fin area. So even a 3 fan 360mm one has much less cooling capability.
3. They have small pipes that restrict flow further.
4. They use ALUMINIUM radiators for cost reasons. Not good for heat transfer. And can cause the often seen corrosion issues after a few years.
5. They dont have nickel plated cooling blocks. So bare copper. So using liquid metal which helps enormously needs regular replacement. As it is absorbed and alloys with the copper. So yearly maintainance is needed.
6. The flow rate and water temperature are not fed into or controlled by the motherboard.
7. Water level can drop and you cant see it or easily top it up.

Advantage is that AIO are cheap and easy. And normally quieter than an air cooler. And can cool slightly better in the right situation. And its a neater installation.
Disadvantage of a full custom loop is that it costs £££ and its more difficult to do for many people as it needs a few skills.But I am an ex plumber! But its much better in a multitude of ways. And achievable by anyone that is prepared to learn. Main difficulty for most people is that they dont know what works with what and you need a plan before ordering ANY parts!!!

[Burgerman]

Does anyone still use spinning rust drives in 2022?

[Arima]

Does anyone still use spinning rust drives in 2022?

Well...

Will you name that beast?

I'll call mine "Hard Times".

[Burgerman]

Thats straight out of 1990s with no power or anything! An old dell? Maybe not that old with sata though just not fashionable. All that hard drive stuff is just waiting to fail. And so slow that it takes an age to do anything. But if it works for you then keep doing it.

I dig the external 2nd supply for graphics power! An SSD for boot at least?

I just "fixed" my ex gf laptop.
I installed an old M500 250GB SSD from my shelf in place of a 5400rpm HD. Which went straight in the bin. And cloned my optimised laptop drive with LTSC. Chnge a few drivers and we are done. It used to boot in 4 mins and 40 seconds and still wasnt responsive ever... She complained that everything was slow. Now it boots in 16 seconds to the desktop and responds sharply. It also helps that I cleaned out a completely blocked cooler that was making it throttle to 400mhz instead of 2.2ghz...

She is still amazed.

[Arima]

I love my rabbit ears wifi. Yes the 1660 you guys recommended seems to do the job. Also SSD but not the rgb one. Graduated to the Diamond DA42 Twin Star. It starts beeping and I have no idea why. The free Flightgear software also seems adequate at least for me. Still all pretty stressful but getting better. I don't have to hose it off after a run thru the weeds.

[Burgerman]

https://sourceforge.net/projects/flightgear/


Graphics are best described as basic. Works quite well. Never tried it before. Nowhere close to MS Flight sim 2020 but then its free and will run on a toaster.

[Burgerman]

Incidentally, nobody spotted the leak!

Actually its from the air vent on the top of the front radiator. I forgot to tighten it.

Look at the bottom near the flow indicator... Theres a puddle.
If you look above that pipe connection is wet with green water too. And the nickel one above it. Its dripped from the air vent at the top that you cant see here.

[fishinjunky]

Hey bm got any finished pics of the pc build? I bet it would be a beast to game on.

[Burgerman]

Yes.
Mildly overclocked on all core, to 4.75ghz, and single core to 5.2ghz, and running at up to 245 watts CPU core, it never exceeds 65 to 68C.
So with the usual tests it murders everything! Inc the popular Cinebench R32
17000 single core, and 32000 dual core basically dispenses with everything intel. And many uber expensive Threadrippers too.

Which is why I suggested snaker went AMD 5950X as it overclocks by a massive margin. Which the new intel CPUs dont.

And has 32 threads, 16 cores. But he wants intel... Which doesent overclock enough to beat this even if you get the pricier 12900k.

This motheboard and 5950X is a monster! And silent. It is massive overkill.

And the 3080 Ti GPU is also a monster! 400 watts of it... 4K? High frame rates? Easy!

[Burgerman]

Pics as requested

[Burgerman]

AMD 5950X 16 Core, 32 thread.
ASUS Crossfire Dark Hero motherboard
3600 4X 16GB (64GB) DDR4 RAM - Crucial BALLISTIX low latency 16 18 18 48 ram running at 2X 1900, 16 16 16 48 and (at 3800).
Palit 3080 Ti, overclocked...
2 of 2TB NVMe Samsung 980 PRO
2 of 2TB SSD Crucial.
All EK Water blocks and pump etc.
850watt platinum power supply
2 radiators, 5x 140 watt fans.
Rear case distribution resorvoir.
Cool case!

[martin007]

What is the total cost of that machine?

[Burgerman]

A lot.
Around 5k. But I enjoyed building it, its a work of art. And it destroys every other computer. Quietly.

[snaker]

BM, on the rear, near PSU, there are 4 blue sockets. Are they usb3? Do you get them by an expansion card or something?

[Burgerman]

Yes an addin card. 4 real seperate USB3 sockets not a hub. Although this board already has a load of USB 3.1 5gbps and 3.2 red 10gbps ports, About 16 total, for front and rear panel, I always need more! Lots of hobby stuff, scopes, RC transmitters, 4 chargers, various extra keyboard and mouse connective dongles or USB connectors or printers etc take up most of them. So I always use an addin card. 2 actually. One for 2 additional nvme drives, and one for proper USB 3 ports. Beware, many dont work or share bandwidth etc, need drivers, or additional power connectors etc. Your motherboard must support bifurication of the slots (PCIE) too to use the nvme addin cards unless you have a 3rd slot on the chipset. Be careful what m/board you get.

Specifically https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09 ... =UTF8&th=1
and
Specifically this https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01 ... UTF8&psc=1

I have looked at and teted others and they either dont work or need power or drivers... So those went back. I dont have the nvme one installed yet, awaiting funds to buy a 4TB one for storage and thats not cheap! And later on a 2nd 4TB one. So I will have eventually the two 2TB NVMe's already installed for dual boot Win10 and Win11 (yuk), 2 bigger NVME drives on the addin card for storage, and 2x 2TB SSDs as I already had them and are installed now.

[snaker]

I need additional usb2 sockets too. I intend to buy this expansion panel. It's too cheap, only $0.75. Not sure if it works.

[Burgerman]

It will if theres additional USB2 ports but on modern motherboards those are usually either gone or only intended for control of internal lighting or fan controller boards.

So I doubt it will help much esp for charging or anything needing some speed like a external drive and super slow.

You need USB3.0 or 3.1 with 1A to 3A and 5 or 10 gbps. These are all USB2 backward compatible.

[snaker]

The mainboard has several unused usb2 headers. My devices like wireless keyboard, mouse, printer, esp32, phone, usb token, bluetooth dongle etc all prefer usb2. Some only work with usb2. I have no idea why

[Burgerman]

Me either, all modern boards work perfectly with USB 2 legacy devices. You must have driver ussues. Theres actually no reason to include USB2 ports at all. Some motherboards still have them as they never changed that part of the design, and because the connectors are smaller where real estate is tight. Trust me, you dont need them.

[Burgerman]

The other side is just dark glass, no lights.
Both sides are dark glass, and it doesent have to be green! Its all RGB and in zones. So can be all unicorn poop colours, or red, or breathing, or sequenced, or anything you want. In my case, mostly off! Or white light. Or related to temp. Or CPU speed or whatever I choose. If the pump RPM goes below the normal 200rpm lowest speed. Pump speed is determined by CPU temp. And water temp sensor controls the 5x 140m fans. So its silent with stopped fans at 30C water. And ramps up if water reaches 35C.

Top radiator is 280mm x 30mm thick. And an exhaust.
Front is 420mm x 45mm thick so huge! Its an intake. With filter. So always positive case pressure.

[fishinjunky]

now that is some good pc porn i really like the green

only 5k that not bad at all i was expecting way more. I know lots of people that spend way more than 5k on their gaming pc setup an they wouldnt even come remotely close to your build. Your build process is also probably more efficient than most. excellent job

[Burgerman]

Well I dont know how you could spend more really, everything was best fastest and highest quality available. Unless you paid some incompetant to do it all. But I am an ex plumber! So pipes better be good! My reputation depends on it!

You could have used a 3090 in place of the 3080Ti, wasted another 500 for a literal 2% higher frame rate in some games. But thats about it. But the overclock gains 8% and beats that anyway in frame rates. And the CPU overclock gains a massive 20% in multithreaded stuff. From 3.4ghz stock to 4.8ghz base clock on all core. And from 4.9 to 5.2ghz on single core - sustained because of cooling setup. No throttling even at a 245 watt over boost. Up from the stock 105.

Actual PC build was just a matter of planning with a very capable high power vrm mainboard and the right CPU, and getting the right radiators, fans, distro blocks, pumps etc that will fit neatly, maximise radiator area, and work together in fittings, bends, air vents/drains and its all just planning ahead.

It actually looks way better in reality than the pics. They dont show how good it really is. Colours etc dont show, cleanliness and wiring too. But build one, its fun!

[fishinjunky]

Well I dont know how you could spend more really, everything was best fastest and highest quality available. Unless you paid some incompetant to do it all. But I am an ex plumber! So pipes better be good! My reputation depends on it!

You could have used a 3090 in place of the 3080Ti, wasted another 500 for a literal 2% higher frame rate in some games. But thats about it. But the overclock gains 8% and beats that anyway in frame rates. And the CPU overclock gains a massive 20% in multithreaded stuff. From 3.4ghz stock to 4.8ghz base clock on all core. And from 4.9 to 5.2ghz on single core - sustained because of cooling setup. No throttling even at a 245 watt over boost. Up from the stock 105.

Actual PC build was just a matter of planning with a very capable high power vrm mainboard and the right CPU, and getting the right radiators, fans, distro blocks, pumps etc that will fit neatly, maximise radiator area, and work together in fittings, bends, air vents/drains and its all just planning ahead.

It actually looks way better in reality than the pics. They dont show how good it really is. Colours etc dont show, cleanliness and wiring too. But build one, its fun!

You got me seriously considering building one, I love doing this kind of stuff. And I really need a good pc setup I can pull up to with my wheelchair an use without any help positioning it. And I'll just use my laptop for charging graphs an for outdoor wheelchair programming.

That pc could definitely win all beauty contests

I know I asked this before but how many years do you think you have it future proofed? Looks like many years.

[Burgerman]

As it absolutely murders everything I throw at it, instantly then I expect that it will last me at least a decade. Why? Because every version of windows is crap, esp 11, and so I will be using Win 10, IoT LTSC until its licencing and support ends. It is the only clean version of windows. And it ends in 10 years. Its really quite a monster, suitable as a very fast desktop, or real heavy duty server or workstation. WAY beyond what any home user will ever need. Complete overkill for no good reason! And so while costly, it isnt really that bad long term.

My only real reason for doing this was to run the rediculously CPU and GPU heavy MS Flight sim. At 4K resolution rather than upscaling, this is actually required as a minimum. FS was written for future computer capability. Its as much of a monster as this PC. Everything else is easy!

Content creation, 4k or 8k movie editing is smooth, no stuttering or jumping as you move up and down the timeline in premier etc, as long as you have a lot of memory too. It does need the Dark Hero 8 asus motherboard to be quite this good though. As to fully unock this performance level you must have whats called DYNAMIC OVERCLOCK SWITCHING and I think only the dark hero 8 board allows this. With that configured, I have a super stable single core overclock from 4.9 to 5.25ghz using PBO (a single core PRECISION BOOST OVERDRIVE) and a multi core increase from the stock 3.4ghz to a remarkable 4.75ghz on a couple to all 32 threads at once... Which takes it from its normal 105w TDP design, to 245w without any throttling or overheating. At 245 watts it just touches 69C. And it still ramps down to virtually zero power when idle. (5 watts!) So beating even the very latest intel offerings.

And it does so silently.