Water Cooling Project - Complete

[Skampy]

Pictures!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25515400@N07/


I went with the Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultima Liquid Cooling Kit. I was originally thinking the Koolance Drop in kit (720 SL) but there is a few reasons I went with the Swiftech. The first reason is that Koolance hasn’t updated this kit in a very long time. The Koolance kit was considerably more expensive and came with less accessories and also the reputation Modders and reviewers have with the Swiftech kit.

The Kit itself was $250 from crazy PC
Misc other tubes, Coolant/UV Dye, Cold Cathodes, VGA cooler, Approximately $100
Tools Needed $50(Drill Bits, Bimetal hole drill, safety equipment, funnel)
Case Side W/ Window: $60

Total cost about: $460

I am running a LIAN LI V2000 Series Case. In this case the motherboard mounts upside down. The motherboard mounting upside down created issues during this installation. The problem I ran into with the case is that expansion slots are above the fan. The radiator connects to the fan slot and you need to drill two 7/8” holes above the fan. The expansion slots were in the way so there was no way to drill into the cases on the right side of the radiator. We ended up using an included PCI slot cover that had holes drilled in it to run one of the water tubes in. For the left tube we had drill through the mesh. Once these problems were taken care of installing the radiator was as easy as installing a fan. The bottom CD ROM bays on my case are not required so I mounted the reservoir there. I drilled two holes into the left side of the CD ROM Bay’s to mount it.


The pump was installed in the power supply chamber in the bottom of the case. http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/xoxid...0-plus-2-5.jpg



The way the system is connected:

Radiator - > CPU - > Reservoir -> Pump -> GPU -> Radiator



Before I Installed the kit my cpu was sitting at 60C idle on air with the case open! After some testing my processor sits at 40C idle and 60C pegged. We made an image with Photoshop that was 50 inches x 50 inches with a few different filters and then we used the BLUR tool at max size which pegged the processor for about 30 minutes straight.

One of the cold cathode kit’s I bought doesn’t work so I have to send it back and get a new one. I also need to get one more Molex to Sata port for the DVD Drives.

Overall I am completely happy with how the installation went.

The next thing that I need to do is put in some good overclocking ram. I am going to order two of these kits
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227406

This is the fastest memory certified to work by DFI


Pictures!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25515400@N07/

Heres my Current RIG

Intel Penryn 8400 Dual Core
DFI LANPARTY DK X38-T2RB
6 gigs of Corsair XMS DDR2- 800 – Soon to be 8 gigs of OCZ DDR2-1150
Nvidia - 8800 GTS 512
Soundblaster Audigy 2
LG – BluRay Reader/ DVDRW
LiteOn – DVDRW
3 – 500 Gig Seagate Drives
3 – 1TB Seagate Drives
Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultima
SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA Controller Card

 

[Wshmaster0]

Nice!

Now you can start on cleaning up that wiring

 

[JeremyCT]

Am I reading this correctly, you said 40 C idle and 60 C load on water? That sounds really high, did I miss something? Is that Tcase or Tjunction? Calibrated? Not that it really matters, still sounds high.

 

[soulesschild]

Am I reading this correctly, you said 40 C idle and 60 C load on water? That sounds really high, did I miss something? Is that Tcase or Tjunction? Calibrated? Not that it really matters, still sounds high.

could be a couple of things

1. air in rad still
2. bad mounting
3. high ambient

I know my machine gets about 40 idle, 60 load, but that's because my ambient sucks. I've seen my CPU drop to 15C when my room is ridiculously cold.

 

[MocciBoo]

You made a smart choice not going with Koolance. The kit you got is real solid and offers a lot of bang for your buck performance. Really like the case. Is that a lian li? As for wiring that is all aesthetics and not really important..at least from what I can tell from looking at your pics. As for the temps...that seems about right for a dual rad cooling a gpu/cpu. We don't know what clocks he's running at, to say it's too high is a bit premature. Nice set up, how do you like it over air...do you notice a big difference? I certainly did.

As for the window mod, it's a easy do it yourself job, and cheap if you got a jig saw laying around. All you need is some clear acrylic panel at home depot, some door ege guards, and that red double sided tape at home depot. Costs like $20 for the materials if you already have a jigsaw / or can borrow a jigsaw from someone.