Happy New Year to all!  I hope your holiday weekend went well and that you were able to get some gaming into the fray.
 
Short story:  I went to a mini LAN party on Saturday at a friend's house in Denver and he decided to buy my EVGA GTX980Ti SC+ ACX 2.0 card that was installed in my mini-ITX gaming system.  I then decided to try out something that I've wanted to do since I first rebuilt my mini ITX system a month ago.  That wish was to somehow figure out if a Hybrid cooled version of the GTX980Ti would actually fit inside the Silverstone RVZ01B case.  There are no pics, forum posts, or YouTube videos that I could find of anyone having done this, so to me it was a venture into the unknown.  So, I went straight to Microcenter and picked up an EVGA GTX980Ti Hybrid card and went to work.
 
End story is that I was able to 'implant' the Hybrid card w/radiator into my mini-ITX system with one caveat:  because of the thickness and length of the card itself, there was absolutely no way to fit both the radiator and fan on the inside of the case.  So, I mounted the radiator inside the case and then replaced the stock 2.5cm thick fan with a low profile 1.2cm Silverstone fan I had in my spare computer parts drawer.  The low profile fan I used was the Silverstone Tek Professional Slim 120mm FN123.  I also decided to use a fan guard as I had already almost taken off the tip of my left hand finger by accident when I was using the stock fan temporarily before I could replace it with the low profile fan.  The fan was oriented for pushing air into the case since the radiator is covering 3/4 of the fan inlet on the card itself and I didn't want the two fans pulling against each other for air.  This also allows for the cool air from outside the case to be used to cool the radiator (NOTE:  The Corsair H55 I have mounted to my 6600K on this system is also oriented to push air into the case).  So, the end result is a quite surprising, if not a little bit dorky look.  But I think it came out extremely well considering what I had to fit inside that tiny case.  The only 'mod' I had to use was the metric screws needed to mount the low profile fan from the outside of the case.  Luckily, I already had them on hand from when I bought them from an Ace Hardware store for a previous custom liquid cooled system build.
 
Here are the temps that were recorded when each card was installed inside the RVZ01B case with the ambient room temperature @ 22C:
 
EVGA GTX980Ti SC+ ACX 2.0
 
Idle:  54C
 
Full load:  88C
 
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EVGA GTX980Ti Hybrid
 
Idle:  26C
 
Full load:  62C
 
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Not only does the Hybrid run cooler, it also is a lot quieter versus the stock air cooled card.  The only 'bad' about this setup is that the card runs ~8-10C hotter using the low profile 15mm 120mm fan vs. the stock 2.5cm 120mm fan.
 
In the end, it was a win-win.  Better temps and less noise!
 
Let me know what you think!

Interesting solution and nice workmanship on your part. This might end up getting moved to the 'Mods Rigs' section but still a good job. Thanks for posting.

Iluv2raceit
Zuhl, thanks for the compliment ;-)
 
And please by all means, move my posts to the mods section of the forum.  I didn't even bother to think it would belong there instead!

Somebody has already awarded you a Blue Ribbon for your work. Congratulations! They might just leave it here.

No, I definitely did not like the look of the stock 2.5cm thick 120mm fan.  I will look for a higher static pressure fan that is also low profile, but I don't think I will find one that will make that much of a difference.  Regardless, the temps are great and I am willing to compromise on the slightly higher temps in favor of a more pleasing aesthetic look to the build as a whole.
 
Thanks for your feedback as it is always appreciated!

dieandpuke

Congrats on the hybrid! I love mine. Question or comment though. I have my hybrid with AIO taking the air out of the case in a push pull. In my HAF 932 the rad is in the 140mm fan spot on the top rear.

I was wondering why you are deciding to dump a lot of heat into the case. If you have the AIO taking the air out of the case I would think it would work better. With the reference cooler it is sucking most of the gpu heat out the back of the case. (obviously no core heat). You do not have a lot of heat generated from inside the case to go into the AIO if it would be turned around.

I tried it both as an intake and outtake and the temps were 3-5C cooler with AIO taking the air out of the case.

I just wanted to see if this was thought about.

Great question!  For my particular build, pushing air from the outside actually yields much better temps versus pushing air out.  The RVZ01B case has open venting on all sides, so the ambient temperature inside the case doesn't climb beyond a certain threshold because the hot air is always venting out the sides.  This is not the situation with conventional mid and full tower PC cases where venting internal air outward is limited.  Also, by setting up both of my radiator fans to push air into the case, it creates a positive air pressure state which further augments the already very open venting design of the RVZ01B case.  And yes, my CPU and GPU temps are 5-7C cooler set up as is versus pushing air out of the case - I tried both and know this is the best setup - but for my specific system.  I do understand that this may not be the best setup for more conventional computer case designs.

Iluv2raceit
EVGA GTX980Ti Hybrid
 
Idle:  26C
Full load:  62C
 

26c idle?!  Man what am I doing wrong?  My two 980ti Hybrids both idle at about 32c and I even replaced the stock thermal paste with CLU!
 
Though I've yet to see one go over 52c yet while under load.

Asvanzors
Shout-out to Iluv2raceit for one, selling me his EVGA GTX980Ti SC+ ACX 2.0, and two, for coming out for the mini LAN I had! Great guy, and great builder! 

Asvanzors!  Thanks for the shout out!  I hope you are enjoying the new 'beast' GTX980Ti card.  Definitely an upgrade from your old GTX670 ;-)
 
I definitely look forward to the next LAN party

joshlu
Nice build OP. I'm also looking to mount the exact same fan to my hybrid to fit my case - do you remember what size screw you used by any chance? Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I did the same on a Coolermaster 840 case. Putting the fan on the outside of case and I used 6-32 screws 1/4 longer than stock.

Wait, what was the blue ribbon for? I've seen much better mod rigs that never got a blue ribbon... 

joshlu
Nice build OP. I'm also looking to mount the exact same fan to my hybrid to fit my case - do you remember what size screw you used by any chance? Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Sorry for the late reponse.  I'm glad to see that DAVE2HOT4U provided a response to your question.  I'll check the screw size when I get home later this afternoon.  I believe the screws I used were actually metric and not English measurement.  More to follow once I have verified the size.