Odessey Mk2 [first custom waterloop]

DisparateX

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I thought of putting this up on HardOCP as Kyle and his team inspired me to further "power" customize my pc's ever since i read the Swiftech mcx64 review.

I do not own a car or anything that sinks money, except building pc's is a thing for me since i got my first custom built Pentium 60Mhz on an Asus mobo in 1995. I had a main system upgrade cycle of 2-3 years until 2009 when Kyle inspired me to build a X58 system with a 920. It was good to me trough 2016 and survived a gtx 285, 580 and 780Ti. Now it is my son's gaming rig sporting a second hand I7 980X.

Anyway 2016 was a good year for me and at first i wanted to experience water cooling with a Corsair H115i before i would decide to build something myself. It is nice but feels like driving a economy 100hp diesel car instead of something that looks and behaves more manly.

The base of my build is my Corsair 900D case which i had for almost two years. It is kind of old fashioned and there are glass panel option nowadays but nothing beats the monolithic black design for me. And for someone with big hands and wanting optionality it has room to spare. It begs for more. One thing i do not like is the poor quality on parts of the case. Paint job is mediocre and easily damaged. Plastic parts that need handling with care. The top cover has a weird system unlike the 750D which is basically superior but smaller.

I wanted a bay reservoir and being a nostalgic fan of Swiftech i settled for the Maelstrom V2 with MCP50X pump. The case begs for an E-ATX board for which i chose the Maximus IX Extreme with Bitspower block.
Seeing there is still a gap between then mobo and front bay that begs for something to be put there i decided to add an Alphacool 250ml reservoir to have something to look at from the side panel.
For the gpu i found the Watercool Heatkiller IV block that i knew was compatible with both gp102 reference pcb's from nvidia.
I prefer 140mm fans over 120mm and settled for a top 420mm, panel side 420mm and lower back side 280mm radiators (45mm thick) from EK using a mix of EK fittings for soft transparent Mayhem tubing.
I tortured myself adding nzxt aer fans for having the option of rgb lighting. Just because the added options versus the extra cost was worth it.

I've done months of research and managed to get it all functioning in one go. In hindsight there are a few less then optimal smaller issues but at the time i didn't have the patience to figure it out.
The front bay res is nice with 3mm leds but for re-filling it i need to have tubing longer then i wanted. The res next to the mobo is for esthetics and feeds directly into the front bay res. I expected gravity versus vacuum to be a problem and sofar it seems to get the upper bay res half filled with air coming from the loop and/or preceding res.

Asus FanXpert works but i needed to adjust pumpspeed manually for it does not consider the bios settings i entered. The MCP50X is very powerful and 10% speed makes for a good visible flow as i can see it flowing into both the reservoirs and making the water fountain in the Alphacool Eisbecher res.

When i have time i will extend my findings and post photos. I hope you enjoyed this read about my first amateur build.
Cable management is not my strongest competence and for now i kept the standard Corsair HX 850i cables. Black camouflages better my lack of skills and the constant need to tinker with parts.

Oh yes. The cpu is a re-lidded 7700K @ 5GHz 1.32V. 5.2GHz is obtainable (windows boots and loads all its garbage) maybe just a bit more then the 1.42V i tried.

Cheers from Holland.
 

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Very nicely done! Congrats! (y)
Thx. I am now in the process of looking for rgb versions for the gfx waterblock, the two 3mm front bay LED's and the two 5mm reservoir LED. They are all white now and the goal is to have the entire system switch to any desired color. Once i find the LED function for the gfx card software (I installed nvidia experience but can't find the LED options) i might as well turn it off.
 
These are the specs:
Odessey Mk 2 born April 22 2017:
Asus Maximus IX Extreme
i7 7700K @ 5.2 GHz
nVidia GP102 reference pcb with Heatkiller IV by Watercool.de @ 2050MHz
Swiftech Maelstrom V2 / MCP50X
G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32GB
Corsair 900D, HX850i, K95, Scimitar Pro, MM800
EK Coolstream CE 2x 420mm, 1x 280mm, fittings 10/16mm
Alphacool Eisbecher 250ml
Mayhems tubing 10/16mm / UP H20, Feser View UV Dye, Nanoxia CF1
NZXT Aer 9x140mm 3x120mm, 2x Hue+, 2xUSB hub

Asus FanXpert is good but does not support pump speed tuning. PC on standby makes the pump go 100%.

Games:
Star Citizen
Elite Dangerous
Shogun II Total War
Skyrim SE 64-bit 300+ mods
Doom3 BFG UltimateHD mod
Crysis Maximum Immersion mod
Quake - Epsilon Build mod
Doom 4 vanilla edition

I run Windows 7 (last OS without DirectX 9 vram size limit) and W10.
 

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Last edited:
Looks very good, nice build.
Some photos modding the GP102 pcb with a Heatkiller IV blovk from Watercool.de
I am still looking for a RGB solution for the block as it looks awesome with the transparent shroud.
 

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