Work log: 420 and 360 radiator in Cosmos 1000

Tsumi

Tsumi

[H]F Junkie
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Mar 18, 2010
Messages
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Some of you may have seen my build over in the watercooling forum, with a GTS 420 mounted to the roof of a Cosmos 1000. Well, one of the biggest problems with the case that I found was the lack of fans pushing air into the case, which severely cuts down on airflow. To remedy that, I decided to mod the bottom of my case to add more fans. While I was thinking about it, I decided why not add another radiator as well. I took some measurements, and concluded that a 360 radiator will just barely fit with a standard length ATX power supply, my Seasonic M12D 750.

System specs:
Core i7 920 @ 4 ghz
24gb Patriot Viper II Sector 7 DDR3 1600 mhz
MSI Big Bang Xpower
Gigabyte HD6990
300gb Western Digital Velociraptor
320gb Maxtor
2tb Western Digital Green
DVD burner

Cooling:
MCP655 with XSPC D5 tank (to be added)
Black Ice GTS 420
Black Ice GTX 360
3 Aerocool Silver Lightning 140mm
3 Cooler Master R4 (to be replaced with 2150 RPM Gentle Typhoons in push/pull)
XSPC Rasa
XSPC 6990 Razor

Sorry I don't have any pics of it being taken apart, but here goes.



Here is the initial test fitting. As you can see, there's barely any room between my power supply and the radiator.



You can really see how close it is here. The modular connections are actually underneath the radiator with fans installed. With a fully modular power supply, this probably would not be possible.



The hardwired cables come out to the side of the radiator.



The grill conveniently lined up with two of the screws, so I used that as a guideline for mounting the radiator and the cutting to be done.



Making sure I have enough room for a push/pull setup for when my Gentle Typhoons come in.
 
Last edited:
Case has been cut, hard drive cage reassembled.



View from bottom.



Holes drilled and radiator mounted with the Cooler Master fans I had on hand.



Both radiators mounted with PSU in. PSU actually has to be mounted before the radiator can be put in, due to the cables actually going underneath the radiator.



Top radiator with fans installed. Some of you have probably seen this in the watercooling subforum.



View of bottom with most of the trim and legs installed.



Top with trim, handlebars, and top panel installed.



Interior with some preliminary routing and installation.

 
Thanks everyone!

A mini-update. My case always kept falling off my Antec Lanboard I got from Fry's, so I decided to mod it a bit. Shaved down the edges a bit, drilled some holes into 4 L brackets, and voila! No more slipping off!

Mandatory pics :D



 
Last update, build completely finished! I made some modifications after I put it in, namely turning the top radiator around so that the outlets were on the back end of the case. It was much easier to route tubing this way.

Outside shot with side panel off. There's probably enough room for me to do single GPU SLI/crossfire if I wanted to, since those cards are shorter than the 6990 I have in there. Should be able to clear the pump/reservoir easily.



Shot of the GTX radiator in push/pull underneath the hard drive bay.



Wanted to put another Gentle Typhoon here, but there wasn't enough clearance due to the motherboard heatsink. I will probably replace the Gentle Typhoons on the 140 radiator with 140mm fans eventually, there's enough room for that. Besides, it will help create additional airflow over the mosfet heatsinks and RAM.



Another shot of the CPU area.



Another roof shot. I wanted to run that CPU power cable behind the motherboard tray, but the extension wasn't long enough. I'll wire and sleeve my own eventually.



Shot of the lower area. If I put a 45 degree or 90 degree angle on that inside inlet, I could easily do a SLI or Crossfire configuration. Going to also try to find some rear brackets to cover up those empty slots.



Moved the controls for the cold cathode light inverter to the top of my case from the PCI back bracket. In its current position, it can sense sound much better than back by the motherboard tray. The wire wasn't long enough to wire it elegantly (would have to stretch across the front), so moving it to the top made hiding the wires much easier.



How it looks with the UV lights on, side panel off.



Side panel on. Pics doesn't really do it justice, unfortunately. And with the sound sensor and music playing, it looks much more awesome.

 
Haha, to be honest, my velociraptor is plenty fast enough, and my cousin's SSD 2600k system doesn't really feel any faster than mine. Only thing is slightly faster bootup times, which I couldn't really care any less for.

My next upgrade is most likely going to involve the $250 i7 3820 deal from microcenter, and hopefully overclock that beast to at least 4.5 ghz. Just looking for a cheap used x79 board with 8 ram slots now, I would like to keep my 24+ gb RAM. Engineering stuff eats that RAM up real fast.
 
Thanks!

I want to paint it next, probably going to go with a black interior.
 
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