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 Step up the Thermaltake Core X9

Now Purchased :clap:

 For this I will be gutting the main components out of my sig rig:
 Intel i7 4790K
 Asus Maximus VII Ranger
 EVGA 970GTX SC ACX 2.0
 SoundBlaster Z
 Gskill Ripjaw X 4 x 4GB
 Samsung XP941 256GB PCIE SSD
 Corsair 620w
 Asus ROG Front Panel
 EK-DDC 3.2 PWM X-RES 140
 Alphacool UT60 240mm radiator
 
The plan is as follows:
 Watercooling to be Pastel Red for CPU Loop and Pastel White for the GPU Loop
 The following components form my "planned" watercooling shopping list:
 Chipset waterblock for Motherboard - EK-MOSFET ASUS M7G - Acetal+Nickel Purchased
 CPU Waterblock - EK-Supremacy EVO - Nickel Purchased
 GPU Block - EK 970 ACX -
 360mm Radiator - Alphacool 35273 NexXxoS XT60 Radiator 360 White Edition x2
Purchased Replaced with Mayhems Havoc 360mm
 Reservoir + Combo - EK-DDC 3.2 PWM X-RES 140, Water Cooling Pump (This matches the one I currently have)
Purchased
 Monsoon White Fittings - ModMyToys 19/13mm (ID 1/2 - 3/4) Compression Fitting - Six Pack - White + Red Carbon (For the white loop) Purchased
 
 Fans, open to advice here, I want 3x white LED for the white loop and 2x red for the red loop

 White - Enermax T.B.Vegas 120mm Single Fan White LEDs - Purchased

 Extras:
 Tubing - Primochill Advanced - Purchased
 Coolant - Mayhems Pastal Red Arrived
 Coolant - Mayhems Ice White Arrived
 Fan Controller - BitFenix Recon - White Purchased
Ive also been thinking of sticking with my Alphacool GPU block. If I use the window on the left side of the case then the underside of the GPU wont be visible, will sit on the fence about this for now.
bit of an update from today (09/02/15)
   I've finally made my mind up on a few things, and whilst I don't have the Thermaltake case yet (delays from supplier) I have actually managed to get started.
I've decided to keep the RoG Front Base for the Asus Ranger Motherboard. Now as the case is going to be sprayed white, I figured I should make the front base as white as possible:

First thing I need to do was get the knob off (no puns!) what a pain in the rear this was, but eventually it came off allowing me to fully strip down the electrics from the case/cover:

Once that was stripped I went out and picked the brightest white I could find which is useable on both plastics and metal. Once the screen was masked up I got to work with the primer:




I've finished applying the top coat now, i'm going to let it dry over night, check for runs and hopefully remove the tape tomorrow evening, by which time I should know if the case is in stock at Scan :)
Got the RoG Front Base fully painted and re-assembled:



 
UPDATE (11/02/15)
So today the Thermaltake case arrived and oh boy, its big!



I took a picture of it here on my desk in between an Antec 902 and a Zalman case, both are mid towers, but it does show the scale of the Core X9.

Heres a few pictures of the case before I stripped it down for painting:



Top view with cover removed and rad/fan mounts still fitted:

Motherboard tray:

PSU Area (one of two!)

Front lower and drive cages, I won't be using these in my mod unless I need 6TB in the future : )

And here is the stripped frame, when they said this was modular they weren't joking!


I have started painting the internal parts of the case and the front mesh, I really under estimated how much paint I would need to do this, however heres some progress:
Front fully painted :D

PSU Blank/Grill

selection of other parts:

well it's been a late one, just the 3 external panels remain to be sprayed :rock:
Transferred the 200mm Red Fan from my Antec 902 mod to use in the front of this one.

Here's some pics of things so far:







UPDATE 15th Feb 2015
So I finally got around to finishing the painting today, I had the roof and side panel to paint and a few imperfections to address. So now I can say that the case is fully painted, now need to work out where I want to placed the 2x 360mm radiators and whether or not to go push or pull with the fans:



 
Its so annoying to think how much time and money I spent spraying this behemoth white for them to release a snow edition a couple of months later
Just had a doodle as I was thinking of a method to mount the 2x res/pump combos higher up in the case and came up with this (excuse toddler crayoning)

By doing this I will also create somewhere to hide the cables from the pumps and fans/fan controllers on the front of the case.
To do (not 100% sure on this yet) this, thinking of either:
a) a bent piece of acrylic sprayed white with the lettering left clear then using another acrylic piece behind with red LEDs in it to light the lettering red (much like XSPC method on the raystorm and like)
b) Sheet metal, cutting and bending I can do no problems. I do however see problems cutting the letters out of the metal. If I could manage this I would use the method as above to light the lettering
17/02/15
Today I had some treasures arrive :D




Bit of a play on paint to give an idea of the planned loops:

Today I got a couple of in house engineers to help with the partition. Hopefully have it end of this week/beginning of next week with the lettering machined out :D
 I unboxed a few things and tried a preliminary fitting of the rads and fans and I think I'm quite happy, just gotta make sure it tallies up with the partition wall.
I love these fans





 
19/02/15
Got the partition wall back today and I think the guys did a great job! I need to take it in again tomorrow for tweak to make it fit perfect before spraying it white, but it looks pretty good. Once the acrylic arrives I can stick the centres of the B, D and O's.

Heres the trunking im going to use to hide the cables going to the Asus Rog and Fan controller


I may have to reconsider the rad positioning for the CPU loop as the D will be covered if it goes where it's planned at the moment
21/02/15
So today I got quite a bit of work done and I think it's finally starting to look like a modded pc rather than a small building site, as a plus note i think i've finished spray painting so that should please the wife!
So the partition is painted and fitted, but I'm waiting on the 5mm LED's to arrive before I fit the acrylic and the inside of the B,D and O's from the text. I also painted and added my 240mm radiator to lower of the case to fill the void that was left from moving the rad to the ceiling:


As I said I've also moved the other 360mm rad to the ceiling, if it was left in the lower section it would obscure half of the text on the partition wall. Now both 360mm rads are in the roof!

As i got the partition wall in I figured I may aswell go ahead and sort out the locations of the two EK Pump/Res combos. I de-pinned the PWM and Molex connectors and made small holes on top of the partition allowing the wires to be hidden. That involved dropping the bottom from one of the res's to switch the wires to the reverse side. Now its all done, and i really like the look so far. The fittings on the left side Res will be swapped to the white ones i detailed in my initial parts list once i win the lottery to pay for everything :roll eyes:



24/02/15
Bit more work done tonight, got the letters stuck to the acrylic for the back drop, but can't attach the back drop to the partition wall until the LEDs arrive which appear to have been delayed :wall bash:
So all i got for the moment is an example of the routing from the res to the 240mm radiator, need to order more 90 degrees, compression and a couple of 45 degree fittings and the 16/10 primochill.


25/02/15
I decided to drop the motherboard and PSU in the case tonight as a temporary fit just to see what extra cables I'm gonna need and basically to see how the fans look, and I love them lol :D


For a start i need a braided 8 pin tax extender, cable is just long enough!



27/02/15
This case is huge, if the wife wasn't getting a new Sofa and moving the living room around a little there's no way i could fit this in.
Today I got the partition wall finished with LEDs fitted to the acrylic, so now the wires are well and truly hidden! I also had a delivery which was made up of the primachill tubing, and the 45 and 90 degree fittings (12 of). I got most of the CPU loop complete but i don't have the white compression fittings yet for the GPU and I'm still waiting on some funds to buy the EK CPU, GPU and motherboard chipset block


 
01/03/15
So as the 240mm radiator was added later on into the planning stage, it also happened to form one of the lower points in the CPU loop. Therefore i needed to add an additional drain to the one already planned for the res. So this weekend i got that finished which required some metal work on the rear grill to provide an opening for the actual drain point:




02/03/15
Today i had a couple of deliveries arrive including the Bitfenix Recon fan controller, 2x PWM hubs, a braiding kit, 8 pin red extension and the final Enermax Vegas fan for the 240mm radiator. I spent quite a lot of time wiring everything up and tidying up the looms from the fans in the ceiling of the case and also tidied some of the wires around the back of the partition. I also braided the CPU loop pump wire and the front panel header cables:

Got the wife to take the pictures as she better with camera than me, took the picture of the text with the lights off and no flash, but i think the exposure was too low, however the text doesn't appear as pink as normal lol
The front of the case, pretty much the only finished area : )

Both fans fitted to the 240mm radiator:



New XSPC fittings fitted to the res/pump combos, wanted to use the black chrome ones which I already had but seems theres a global shortage of black chrome

04/03/15
Just ordered the remaining 2 red compression fittings and the chipset and CPU waterblocks and as some people have asked how the case looks externally at the moment i figured I should add some pictures. These were quite difficult to get right as the lighting in my room is quite dim and the flash seems to over power the colours in the case:

Excuse the Intel Cooler, need something to keep that chip cool while she's been snapped!
Update 06/03/15

Just had some goodies arrive from Mayhems!


A pretty large box in which contained:
2x 1 Ltr Pastel Red

2x 1 Ltr Pastel Ice White

1x 1 Ltr H2O Pure


2x Blitz Pro 2
2x 15ml Red Dye

1x Blitz Clean Basic


and 2x something else .....

Thanks again to Mick at Mayhems!
What's in the box ?
2x Mayhems 360mm Havoc Radiators! Quad pass, triple chamber, can't wait to try these, but first I need to paint the primer to match the case, back to annoying the wife!



Nice paint free threads!

Ready for painting, a quick layer of white primer (although it's primed I feel going white needs to be over white primer ) before painting

Using this months CPC to blank those fins almost made me cry!
Rads primed and working on the top coat now






07/03/15
Radiators all fitted now, 8 hours work and it doesn't look much different :)



Hopefully the remaining compression fittings will arrive on Monday with the EK chipset and CPU Blocks
 
So i decided to paint the reverse of the PCIE adapter for the Samsung XP941 as the green wasn't really fitting with the colour scheme


and my assistant (or so he thinks)

09/03/15
My blocks arrived :clap:
EK Supremecy EVO

EK Asus M7G





Spent some time today working on the cable management around the motherboard tray and got the CPU and Chipset blocks fitted, just waiting on those compression fittings to arrive today, had an interesting chat with watercoolinguk.co.uk today which ended in no more information on where the hell the fittings are:
Ek Supremecy and M7G fitted



Relocated the 24 pin ATX connector from above the 240mm radiator


Quickly got everything connected, carried out a few hour flush and then filled the system. Done some leak checks just bleeding it now:
Love that block!

Had to take the fittings out from the CPU > Chipset as there just wasn't enough room to bend the hose:


Reservoir filled (well the cpu loop)



Just gotta get the EK Block now for the 970GTX, but that is going to have to wait as I have to go away with work tomorrow :waah:
 
11/03/15
Slight change to the cpu > chipset blocks


Loving that PWM plug there :wallbash:
So i'm about to go away with work for a while which puts this build on hold for a little while, so heres my to do list (for me as much as others!)
Ek 8mm extender needs fitting to the Chipset block as you can see in the picture its not quite parallel.
Order and fit EK 970 ACX + Nickel Backplate.
Order 1x XSPC Chrome 90 degree fitting (not in stock at the moment). This is the final fittings for the GPU loop.
1x red sata extension
2 more metres of Primochill advanced 16/10mm
Figure out a way to either make the bitfenix recon work with the pwm hubs and ek pwm pumps or buy a new fan controller. Or buy 4x fan pwm splitter cables for the 8 fans and find another way of controlling the pumps (must avoid connection to motherboard)
Ive figured out how I'm going to have to get control of the rad fans and pumps. its not ideal but better than full whack fans lol.
Instead of running the 2x hubs and fans from the recon, I'm just gonna remove the recon from the rad/pump loops. This means running a pwm splitter from the pwm chassis fan plug of the motherboard (will use an unpowered one)and connect both pumps below the motherboard, behind the partition wall. Ill then run a 3rd pwm from the splitter upto the 2 powered splitters with all the fans connected split it into 2 (4 total pwm signals) and connect to each of the powered splitters.
Hopefully this works, can a pwm single be split down this many times and still work ? If so then it means I won't have PWM plugs in the case window and everything will be automated.
So in addition to the above I need:
3 pin fan extender cable (around 50 cm)
pwm y splitter with all male connections (30 cm)
female to male pwm extension cable (around 30 cm)
pwm hub with 1x input 3x output
male to male pwm cable (around 15 cm) + male adapter
Male adapter x2 packs
The whole thing was put on hold at this point as I had to work away for a few months :
Well I'm finally home and got everything installed and after a minor angry moment with EK everything seems to be working.
After 3 months away the original pastel red had turned to a murky red, not sure what happened here but I had to carry out another flush of the CPU loop and refill it.
I've also installed the waterblock and backplate from EK for my 970GTX and on the first boot I seen a small flash and smell of burning. I narrowed it down to the GPU and it seems that the instructions are garbage ..... an area of the back plate touched onto some part of the PCB and caused a short. However it seems that a god must love me as I removed the backplate tried to boot again and everything worked. Just ran a few 3D benchies and everything seems stable, im counting my lucky stars today, but still incredibly pissed at EK...
Just leak checking now and I will post some pics up tomorrow.
 
Well the memory arrived and its now fitted so i guess that this is now complete, it's taken a lot longer than i wanted it to, but then working away for 3 months probably didn't help! :roll eyes:
Here's the ram all fitted:

Thanks again to Mick at Mayhems for providing the 360mm Havoc Radiators, all the coolants and the Blitz Pro Kit :clap:






PSU Died last week, the only thing I haven't replaced within the last 12 months .....
But it gave me an excuse to fit a Fractal Design R3 Newton 1000w White Edition (duh)

Leaves me some room for another 970gtx having just tried Witcher 3 on my 4k TV.... it didn't go well!
Also got some more cable extensions ordered with Sharkmods
Finally got the order in with Sharkmodz so hopefully I will have these next week:

Cables are now here, just waiting on the E22 Stealth Cable Combs to arrive before I can fit the cables
 
The Stealth Cable Combs arrived today, so I could finally get to work with depinning and combing these cables!







Think i'm done for now, until I get permission to buy/get donated another 970GTX to SLI this thing!
Thanks for viewing

Hi thanks, it took a while and I think it was worth it, itching to do something else now, considering SLI, but thinking about how to do it with where I want to mount the second GPU

To be honest I would be happy with 1x 980, don't think the married cash controller would approve  prices in the UK aren't kind, if I was in the US I would have had a 980 for pretty much the same $$$.
 
The rig runs pretty good, I can run 4.9ghz on the 4790k, but that needs 1.38v (temps don't exceed 65C) but I leave it at stock for day to day. However the card seems a ****ty clocker, can get around + 110 on the core and 80 on mem, which is poor and annoying as temps never exceed 45C.
 
returned that big fat +1
 

my cpu seems to clock well, but it seems to need some high vcore. at the moment its set to auto for everyday running at the usual 4.4ghz, I see it at around 1.3v, I think that's the Asus boards. I would be concerned but at stock it never exceeds 45C so  I don't stress

get yourself a waterloop

I aint used that swiftech, but it looks a lot better than a H80 I had. I moved from a 212 Evo on my old 3770k build and temps were worse unless I maxed the fans, in which case it made more noise, a LOT more. That's what pushed me to do this build.
 
Get a custom loop on those cards, I don' think ill do another build without water now

Ye they suck (imo), there are some well reviewed AIO water coolers out there, but I don't think I will stray from custom now, purely based on that Corsair experience

Thanks!

Thanks a lot!

Hi thanks, working on sponsors for the second 970 GTX

Hi thanks, I've delayed the 970 sli for a little while, I don't like these DX12 compute flaws that are going around, will sit on the fence for a while =)

love your build!!!
 
I recently upgrade my setup to Primochill PETG tubing and I used the Primochill Bender tool as well. I took some time with it, but finally got the hang of it :)

An outstanding build that keeps getting better and better.

Excellent, +1. 
Red/White liquid in loop. 
Case now look better than out of box. I like black case more, but this model now look better, more attractive. 
When you decide to upgrade next years you will easy to find motherboards with white color scheme and EVGA Hydro Copper with white LEDs. 
 
 

OK your RIG is fantastic at the moment. You don't need to change nothing for now.
But Intel Xtreme would be smart choice. I think you should wait Skylake-EP and than to upgrade on new chipset. 
Because one chipset cover two generations. No reason now only for Broadwell-EP.