I would have thought there would have been plenty of vertical room, wow.  Perhaps thinner tops or bottoms are available, like on the Bitspower models, going with single port tops?
 
Also maybe using bulkhead fittings to pass the line through the otherside and lining the pumps up along the bottom panel, using either EK or Bitspower dual pump tops, upgrading to D5 pumps?  Another option is to go with a line of double or tri D5 pump tops, such as EK’s http://www.frozencpu.com/products/16419/ex-pmp-198/EK_D5_X-Top_Acetal_Pump_Top_CSQ_-_Laing_D5_and_Swiftech_MCP-650655_EK-D5_X-TOP_CSQ_-_Acetal.html; although you could do just the same with DDC pumps and tops?  However, it might be better in the long run to go with PWM pumps, overall saving money and wear and tear when implementing system redundancy (e.g., why run four pumps on setting 3, when the system is cool enough for the time being to run at 1, or why run at 2, when it heating up and really needs to be at setting 4, at least for the moment.)
 
The advantage of sticking it out with the 400mm tanks is that through convection you loop will be more capable of remaining closer to ambient temperatures by pushing so much fluid around the loop; for example, mid-loop you could run a dump and pull through two of the water tanks and then again the end of the loop, that will keep temps low throughout each cycle, and more so when you introduce air-cooled radiators to that process.
 
And you reduce noise and visual cutter in the front view by stowing your pumps on the rear-side of its divider.  Plus you could add color to your res-tubes by going with Bitspower, either red, blue, smokey (this one is hard to find now), or clear.

Has it been two weeks already? Well here is a massive update post to compensate. Let's begin with taking a look at the first post again. Thanks to Hellfire Toyz, this build is now sponsored. I have ordered from them multiple times in the past, especially on their Amazon and eBay store. The owner, Eric, also gives free shipping past a price point and allows for special orders of EK and Koolance products if he (or none of your friendly neighborhood watercooling gear retailers) have it in stock. So many thanks to Eric again:
 

 
Now then, a couple of international packages came in this past week. First up:
 

 
Now what could that be? Oh ya, replacement brackets for the Aquaero 6 so they actually do fit in a standard 5 1/4" bay.
 

 
Those didn't look any different from the naked eye, or dSLR lens for that matter. In fact, here is an image with one of the old and new brackets each next to each other. Imaginary brownie points for those who can tell which one is which:
 

 
Got them installed on the AQ6, man that red heatsink looks very nice!
 

 
But does it actually help out? It was hard to fit the AQ6 in earlier, the display front plate used to bulge out a bit and I was just about to order the Caselabs short non-confirming mountswhen I realized I might as well make good use of Shoggy's offer of replacement brackets. This way, I can be rest assured that this would work with any case for anyone in the future- if it does work, that is!
 

 
Yes!! Thanks Shoggy, it was a massive relief getting this in easily with no real effort.
 
Before I go to the next international package, I had something in mind with the Aquaero, Darlene's Diva 'Dapter which was referenced previously in here and the Corsair SP120 "PWM" fans. My other PSU, the Corsair ax1200i, is already in the case so I figured what better way than this to test out the EVGA 1300G2 that I had recently bought:
 

 

 

 

 

 
Customary EVGA logo close up shot above. Speaking of close up shots and small objects, here is the NZXT Grid which is currently at a great price on Amazon (US website anyway) next to a Nexus 4 for comparison. The thing is much smaller in person than what I expected from images:
 

 
10 channel 3-pin fan hub, each channel capable of supplying upto 3 watts. It comes with all the cables needed as well. So at <$10 currently, this has to be a steal- not really. Thanks to an OCN member, I realized that the rpm (tach) signal wire is split to all 10 ports in this making it useless to use with most fan controllers because the rpm speed inputs from all of the fans will corrupt the signal and the fan speed will not be correctly reported to the controller. Even cheap 3-pin fan splitter cables will only have all three wires going to one of the fan plugs, and just the 12v and ground to the rest. So I decided to open 'er up to see if newer batches had this corrected by any chance.
 

 

 

 
Unfortunately not, while faint one can still see the RPM trace going across from channel to channel on the PCB.. Oh well, there was already a solution provided above so I did the same, i.e, cut off the RPM signal prong from 9 of the 10 ports and make sure that single port with the RPM prong is occupied:
 

 
Problem solved, the Aquaero displayed RPMs correctly now. So I now started testing the real issue I had: Corsair's PWM implementation on their SP120 fans. Feel free to skip this section if this is not relevant to you. First up, the SP120 QE
 
Hooked directly to the Aquaero, at 50% PWM control:
 

 
Now connected to Channel 1 of the Swiftech 8 way PWM splitter, which is powered straight from the 1300G2:
 

 
Ok, that's close enough. Let's add in another fan:
 

 
We already start to see the effect of a non-standard PWM implementation. So now with fan 3 added:
 

 
Fan 4:
 

 
Fan 5:
 

 
Getting bad now, what about 6 fans on the splitter?
 

 
Ouch! Now adding fan 7:
 

 
Full speed already, no control whatsoever possible. Finally, fan 8:
 

 
Nothing changes as expected. So can the Double D help out? I hooked up the splitter to the adapter and had the passthrough over to the Aquaero.
 

 
Now with all 8 channels filled, and at the same 50% PWM signal:
 

 
Darlene is a magician- or someone with a very good electrical engineering background. Personally I prefer the former. Control is back on, the only change being a lower RPM compared to when a single fan was hooked up directly. I can live with that, I don't imagine having to run full speed anyway. The QEs are pretty quiet (who would have thought!) so let's try out a bigger challenge- the Corsair SP120 HPE fans.
 
First up, a fan hooked directly to the Aquaero at 50% control:
 

 
Now the same fan hooked via the Swiftech splitter:
 

 
Identical for all intents. Let's add fan 2:
 

 
Sigh.. Why did you have to do this, Corsair? Oh that's right- proprietary implementation + making a controller that is the only thing to work with it = Profit :thumbsdow
 
Fan 3 added:
 

 
Fan 4 added:
 

 
Now with fan 5:
 

 
and the dreaded 6th fan:
 

 
As expected, a massive jump with 6 fans on. A few users have reported having no control with 6 fans but I have a wee bit left as was the case with the QE fans. But now with fan 7:
 

 
As before, everything now runs at ~100% speed no matter what. Adding in the final 8th fan does nothing really different:
 

 
Does the 'Dapter help here too?
 

 
Yes, it does. As with the previous case, the RPMs are lowered a bit. That isn't an issue for me as I said before but I am curious as to why this is happening. Moving on, I hooked up both splitters to the adapter PCB and then to the AQ6:
 

 
No need to repeat the results here, it was the same as before. So I am confident the PCB will perform as intended with all channels occupied. In fact, this is so good that daisychaining also works. I hooked up 15 fans total (8 HPE, 7 QE) to the adapter and then to 1 channel on the AQ6 and it worked great. There is a caveat though- if I hooked up the 8 HPEs to 1 channel on the Swiftech splitter that housed 7 other QE fans, then there was no control available. If I daisychained it so that the QEs were hooked to the splitter that had the HPE fans, it was fine. Another point of curiosity but since I don't have any plans on having these different fans on the same channel, it does not affect me. Hopefully it will help others who want to try this.
 
Tl,dr.: Darlene's Diva 'Dapter works great. If you have a PWM controller (Newer Aquaero 6 units have this taken care of apparently) and have Corsair's PWM fans, chances are it won't work as expected. This will help.
 
Now to the other international package, Mayhems sent me a Blitz Basic kit for coming in close to winning a contest a few weeks back. I had already purchased a Blitz Pro kit from PPC so here they are together:
 

 
Blitz Basic has only his Part 2 solution which is enough for a 4 L effective cleaning solution of a loop. Now if you have rads that you suspect haven't been cleaned well from the factory *cough..Alphacool, Phobya..cough* or have purchased 2nd hand rads which have had dyes/colored coolant run through them, I would recommend using Part 1 on the rads alone. Here is the issue I have: Thanks to US customs, Mick was forced to change the formulation of Part 1 so it only gives 1 L effective as opposed to 2 L everywhere else. The Alphacool Monsta 480 alone consumes over 650 mL filled and I got a Mo.Ra 3 9.140 and Black Ice SR 1 560 that were used by a previous owner which I want to clean up as well. While I am at it, I might as well clean the other rads I have too. So I would imagine needing 3-4 L effective Part 1 (I have numbers for all the rads but that Mo.Ra) which means needing another 2-3 Blitz Pro kits just for more Part 1. I am tempted to just do the Monsta and and SR 1 rads now and have the rest cleaned with a dilute phosphoric acid solution but if anyone has suggestions otherwise, I am all ears.

So I previously unboxed the EVGA 1300G2 but as fate would have it, I got this yesterday:

Ok that wasn't exactly the halo effect I wanted so let's get right to opening up the EVGA 1600G2:



Look at all these cables:




That's enough PCI-E power for 3 MSI 290x Lightnings/EVGA 780Ti Kingpins without needing a daisy chained cable :D
Oh, I forgot to mention I also got a 750G2 for Side 2. So here's a EVGA fanboy shot:


But wait, there's MORE:



So how do they look all mounted on the PSU mount?

 
~5000 W of PSU in there, enough to burn down any circuit I have in this place. The ax1200i is pretty much spoken for already but the 1300G2 needs a new owner who will care for it and keep it longer than the ~6-7 days it has been opened :(
Anyway, so here's the final PSU configuration:

The EVGA 1600G2 for Side 1 and EVGA 750G2 for Side 2. I got these both at a tremendous price so no complaints. But not everything worked out as planned, I had a set of Lamptron handles that I was hoping to install on the PSU mount to make it "drop-in" style too. Unfortunately the only place I can have them without interfering on the 4 mounting locations are the extreme ends and the handle holes match exactly the screw in locations of the mount to the case:

So there is no way I can think of making this a drop-in mount unless I am missing something obvious. Oh well! Next up, this goes in the case and I see if the stock cables are long enough. Side 2 has the same motherboard that I currently have but for Side 1 I have to assume a similar layout and see.
 
 Another surprise, this time of the good kind from the UPS man:
 

 
Definitely need to gift the UPS man come Christmas time. Above is 1 XXL window door for Side 1 (because XL just isn't enough to show off 2 FrozenQ reservoirs and the respective loops), 2 480mm rad mounts and a few flexbay/HDD mounts thrown in. Now I have enough for all my rads as well as enough for an additional 480mm and 540mm (180x3) rad if need be. Come to think of it, I got the space for those two as well. Hmmm....
Now I need to clean up the rads with the Mayhems cleaning kits and my own dilute phosphoric acid solution and start putting them all in. I have also decided to go hardline in the motherboard area, at least for Side 1. Copper or acrylic is the question now. What do you guys think?

My god I will never survive this nice power cable same on my NEX1500. 
And with 1600 model came little connector for fast checking PSU, highly recommended
things for building watercooling loops, drain and fill loop, etc...  PSU is huge.
And Caselabs,  it hurts me to look something what I love and can't buy because at the end final value
after shipping in Europe destroy fun. 
Same happen to me looking EVGA graphics before several years, only that is not expensive, little higher price is nothing serious and I could start to buy, but Caselabs... very hard. 
Caselabs builds are best.
 

Thanks guys, ya this is a pretty amazing case :)

Thanks RJ 
 
So I had some thumbscrews at the front that were getting stripped and no matter which screwdriver I tried or how much WD-40 I added it did nothing. In the spirit of the US independence day, since finesse didn't work I resorted to brute force to get what I wanted :p
 

 
Dremel + metal cutting blade + WD-40 on the screws equals:
 

 
I cut a large, flat hole in each of the stripped screws so I could then use a flathead screwdriver with increased torque. 30 minutes later, all of them were out and I can now play with the front of the case as I wish:
 

 
There is enough space for a 5x120mm rad in the front on each side if I want. Bitspower had promised such a rad (600mm rad) last year but nothing came of it so far:
 

 
Oh well! I am doing some radiator cleaning now, I had to remove all the fans off that Mo.Ra though and it will be a real pain to put them back on :(
 

 

 

 
Used Part 1 of the Mayhems Blitz Pro cleaning kit on the Alphacool Monsta 480, Phobya G-Changer 120 and Swiftech MCR120-XP. No prizes for guessing where most of that gunk came from. The amount that came out was pretty shocking though, as I had the monsta in a loop before for ~ 2 months and had the Primochill SysPrep running through it initially. Guess now we know that does absolutely nothing! For the rest of the rads, I had a 1:10 by volume solution of distilled white vinegar and distilled water in them for 6 hours followed by flushing with regular tap water and then distilled water. The effluent from these was much better which goes to show XSPC, HardwareLabs and Watercool really clean their rads before shipping them. Now on to Part 2 of the kit to do a general scrub and neutralize the pH back to 6.5-7 after the acid bath. For this I set up a rad only loop which took up most of my my table downstairs:
 

 

 
The loop is still running (24 hours recommended) as I write this. Tomorrow morning I drain it, run just distilled water to clean it up and we are all ready to go!

Now that is going to be a lot of hardware to pack in. It will be a great build once done.

Do you mean a red exterior with the black interior?

So I finally tried out the cables in the current rig to see how they looked. First up, motherboard, CPU and only 1 KPE hooked up with discrete VGA cables:
 

 
Don't mind the large cutout in the motherboard tray, I have a back cover coming in and will likely drill in a cable management hole in it. These were so easy to navigate and install compared to the Corsair set I had- the thinner sleeving definitely helps. They also retain the "bend" easier. I did get a sample custom paracord sleeved 6 pin PCI-E cable from the previously mentioned custom sleever which looked better and held shape better but for a $90 kit, this is really good. Some cable combs or lacing and the cables will look much better.
 
Now with the 2nd KPE hooked up, I had to use a daisychained VGA cable here without any choice:
 

 
The dreaded loop appears. Fortunately, thanks to that wall of VGA cables and the easy to bend cables, it is not hard at all to tuck in the loop:
 

 
One small thing I really appreciated was that the 6 pin and 2 pin sections of the 6+2 VGA cable are separated all the way from the PSU connector. So it is very easy to simply use the 6 pin part only if you have to!
 
I have decided to use the cables in my build and also set up some thing in motion with EVGA about the 1200P2 (hopefully anyway!) so I gladly announce EVGA as a sponsor of this build:
 

 
I also set up the 3 quad radiators back with fans, since I have already shown the SR 1 560 with the Cougars before I won't show it again. Here is the XSPC AX480 with 8 Corsair SP120 QE fans:
 

 

 
Those rings are definitely not finalized yet, but this rad is going to be on Side 2 where most of the components are set already. So I may well end up having all red rings in there. For the Alphacool Monsta 480, I decided to have the drop-in mount in the front so that the first set of fans provide enough gap to allow the front set of ports not interfere with the rad mount:
 

 

 
That's one thick assembly. I am considering removing the rings all together and going stealth like with the SR 1, let's see.

:D

Welcome along for a long ride!

  I like!!

vsg28
 Welcome to my build log now sponsored kindly by HELLFIRE  TOYZ
 
 

Are you sure your not being sponsered by FORT KNOX

Used some epic MS Paint skills and 5 minutes of my time for this mock up:
 

 
 

So speaking of X99 and Haswell-E, Pieter had this to say on HWBOT:

 

 
This was posted on the 22nd, and if he is right (he pretty much always is) then we got another 2 weeks before Haswell-E. This is way sooner than I expected. TTL in one of his videos hinted at this too but I didn't take him seriously then.

I found some time to work on the pedestal. The poor thing had been left as a frame only for over a week:
 

 
First up- base added:
 

 
That leaves these bare spaces where the casters go (what a shocker!):
 

 
For some reason I had the standard casters on the case even though the TX10 comes with HD casters as default. Much as I would have liked the SD caster platform, I couldn't justify $180 on it when even the SD casters were working ok. But I went ahead and got a set of HD casters:
 

 
That's better. Now it is much easier to roll around in place and makes putting on things way easier too:
 

 
Now it's time to put on the powdercoated pieces. First up, the side panels:
 

 
I was set to save money and just have the outer sides powdercoated at first. But when I realized this wasn't going to cost as much as I though, I went with double side coating. Definitely made the right choice here I believe! Now let's add in the back and front panels and fit in a flexbay cover as well:
 

 
Hmmm.. I am glad I made that mock up in paint before. The black flexbay cover looks so out of place here:
 

 
Let's fix that up quick:
 

 
Much better. Now I know I promised close ups to better represent the powdercoat accurately, but without better lighting the camera just can't see what I can with my naked eyes. I went over to the local camera store and even they admitted that a table top "studio" was going to be my best bet instead of going big with studio lights and backdrops. So I am going to place an order for it and it should be here pretty soon. That will allow for a lot more freedom in taking component pictures, including a little something red from EVGA for benching.