Well it's update time again lol. My what a crazy and expensive hobby we all have. I sold my 980Ti's last fall and have been on a pair of 960's ever since
. It was all just an attempt to bide my time until 1080Ti's launched. Well I missed out on the first round of ordering, so I waited until the SC2, SC Black, and the FTW3 cards were up for pre-order and signed up for 2 SC Black editions. Then the FE cards came back in stock so I cancelled my pre-order and decided to pick up one FE card. That decision was based solely on the fact that EK's blocks made the card a single slot card. I like that idea because I like to fold and do other DC projects so if I want down the road I can fit multiple cards in my system and still have access to the slots not used by cards if I want. I then also decided to switch things up in this machine and went hardline, and upgraded my pump/res from the dual DDC setup to a single D5 setup. I also after having the X99 FTW board finally put my nateman_doo board blocks on. I ordered them after I had initally built the machine and just never felt like tearing it down that far to install them until last weekend. Also a special thanks to Bill Owen at
MNPCTECH, he helped me out by getting my fittings to me very quickly so I had them by the weekend to get this project started. If you don't know him check out his website and some of the
mods he's built over the years. He is extremely talented and a great asset to the modding/PC enthusiast community. So here's the parts list and some pics.
Pump/Reservoir-
Alphacool EisphachCoolant-
EK Cryofuel Blood RedFitting-
MNPCTECH Overkill compression fittingsTubing-
PETG 1/2"OD x 3/8"IDGPU-
EVGA GTX1080Ti Founders EditionGPU water block-
Ek-FC1080 GTX Ti Nickel with back plateX99 FTW board blocks-
nateman_doo blocks Well I think that's it. Here's some pics:
Board blocks and an EK Supremacy block that I've had since my Ricochet Redux build from a few years ago installed to match the GPU block:
GPU in place and hanging out before reinstalling the top radiator
Starting some tubing bending:
For those who haven't done hard lines before you should. They are fun to do although can be a bit time consuming. Also order more tube than you think you'll need. I ordered 6 24" pieces and barely finished this update. The piece in the pic above actually was changed due to the loop routing. I tried to use it in another place but accidentally cut it to short making it useless. But it was fun, and also PETG tubing is MUCH more forgiving that acrylic tubing and doesn't become brittle and crack like acrylic.
Tubing all done:
Don't mind the run from board block at the back of the GPU to the front radiator. It looks much worse in the pic that it really is. The S bend needed to be a little tighter that I made it so the run looks to sag just a little. But the pic definitely makes it look much more pronounced.
Cooling system flushing, what a funny place for a computer:
I used a
Mayhems Blitz cleaning kit to flush the radiators. It did manage to removed some gunk from the inside of them. But I was only able to get 2 of my 3 radiators done. I have 2 280mm, and 1 420mm radiators in the 30mm and 60mm thick versions. The 1st part which is put in the rads only and left for 6-12 hours only had enough for 2 of them. The second part for the whole loop had enough to do my entire system. I can't say if it helped temps because I changed my CPU block during this project.
Loop completed with Blood red EK Cryofuel in the loop:
I'm loving this GPU under water. I've gone from 1845MHz at 77c with the fan at 80% to 2025MHz at 40C while folding. We will have to wait and see what the points change to. I've also been able to get the ram to +635MHz stable. So not a bad GPU card but seems to be a pretty good memory card.