Originally i started off with a very basic looking machine that i bought from Mesh computers. I was a noob then and didn't really know what i was buying and with very little research i went ahead and made the biggest mistake of my life. What i got was an all out basic machine that had alot of ram but absolutely no gaming performance whatsoever! Basic specs were: Phenom II 955BE @3.2ghz Some generic 8gb ram @1333mhz (4x2gb) Asus Matx board 1tb samsung f1 hdd generic 300w psu mesh case... the bloody thing didn't even come with any fans apart from the cpu fan! So from there feeling disgusted, i went ahead and got myself an ATI 5670 which for what it was worth, pretty decent at playing games on medium settings at the time (talking about 2 years ago nearly). I also got myself an Asus Silent knight CPU cooler which was epic for me at the time thinking what a beast this thing was! But anyway thats the boring part... I decided to get a new case for my system for more upgradeable options in the future i.e. more fans and defo more hardware so i set about looking for one on a particular forum (ocuk). The guys there said for an Matx system and something thats small and quite niche they recommended the Antec Mini P180. The case itself is gorgeous with plenty of room for upgrades but at the time i didn't realise how much upgrading i would actually be doing otherwise i would have opted for something a little bigger! The build went ahead to transplant my parts in the mesh system over into the new case along with some other new bits: 2 new fans (Sharkoon SE golf style) 1 new PSU (Corsair 650W HXUK) New thermal paste Some white cable braid With that lot all in, i then set about upgrading my GPU again so i sourced (at the time) a high end one which would be the ATi 5870. The thing cost me £300 at the time and i didn't know the GTX 480 was only around the corner as well. Little to say i was quite miffed but i did take advantage of crossfire when the gpu prices dropped to the £100 mark . Also took the opportunity to sort out a side panel window to show off the hardware inside And of course i invested in an AIO watercooling solution the Corsair H70 which cost £80 at the time but totally worth it for the temperature drop and further overclocking potential (achieved 3.8ghz with this cooler with good temps) But the upgrade itch never stops and with the crossfire issues i was having at the time, it was time to swap out the GPU's for something else. Although a little slower in performance, i wanted the stability so as soon as the GTX 570 came out, i sold my 5870's and grabbed myself a Asus GTX 570 Direct CUII (3 slot card!!!) and had this monster plumbed into my system for maximum gaming performance. I'm not biased but at the time the nvidia drivers were much better than ati's. Next came the watercooling stage!
So for my watercooling setup, i didn't want to risk mismatched components so i decided to buy a complete kit.. looking around i decided to get the EK H30 kit which consisted of the LTX supreme cpu block and 1 x 120mm radiator. I bought another 120mm radiator so i could make full use of the front fan mounts and mount both rads there. I had no plans at this point to add another radiator in as i hadn't decided to plumb in my GPU yet. I had everything fitted and assembled in my rig, ready to power on when the worse of the worst happened! While screwing in my rads i had stupidly tightened them up too much and punctured both radiators which caused a massive leak! One was caused by a longer screw which is provided by EK but i did not notice until it was too late . I managed to fix one of the rads with some Super Steel Epoxy Resin however the other Rad seems to be beyond repair as i may have punctured more than 1 tube within the radiator itself. Pic of repaired rad: But thanks to a forum member on the ocuk forum, he supplied me with a spare 120mm rad he had so i fitted that along with my replacement 120mm rad that i got. As always upgrade itches keep coming (there should be a medical term for this!) so when the GTX 680 came out, of course i went out to get one! I snapped one up about a week after release date, snagging myself a PNY GTX 680 2gb card for £420. Which i then shortly after watercooled it aswel with an EK FC 680 waterblock Performance results: Idle temps: 3Dmark11 run at stock: 3Dmark11 run at overclock: +140 +170 3Dmark11 overclock score: But wait theres more to come!
thats the reservoir: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-102-EK&groupid=962&catid=2133&subcat= However it only works with the EK DCP 2.2 pump. Theres more updates to come, just writing it up now
The Final Frontier... While i was happy with the performance, the upgrade itch is never far away... My AMD cpu was starting to struggle and in some games i played, i noticed a little lag and the gpu utilisation was not optimised meaning cpu at 99% usage and gpu only hitting 70%! I ignored it anyway... and since well the new GTX 680 just came out, how could i resist? So on release day, i went out and picked up one of these bad boys and quickly had it installed into my system. Completely forgetting that my cpu would bottleneck it anyway, i was too hyped up about the new top end card that i just bought for £420 Happy with the card, i decided to follow it up and watercool this and adding it to my loop (since i had the radiator capacity to support it anyway). There weren't many block options at the time so just opted for the most common one being the EK FC 680 waterblock with the acetal top With the whole system watercooled now apart from the Ram (not really relevant these days), it was time to think about upgrading the cpu to truly finish the performance of my system. Gaming optimisation is very important to me so i really wanted to get the best without breaking the bank and of course what better to get than the new Ivybridge i5 3570K cpu Coupling this with an MSI Z77MA-G45 motherboard (micro atx cos of my case) and also a new backplate for better support for the waterblock with Z77 motherboards (EK 115X TRUE backplate). And more juicy deliveries came a few weeks later ... every geeks dream? Performance hardware installed and done, not it was time for some more watercooling upgrades and case mods afterall what's the point of stopping there when i can see more to be done I started out by looking at what i could do with the roof of my case, having seen on other threads where people have mounted a 240 radiator up there.. i thought how hard could it be? So first some measurements to make sure it would fit and where it would fit in my setup. And while i was at it anyway, i thought i would remove the mid plate that sit between my front 2 radiators which caused me to do a sharp "U" bend in my loop.. getting rid of this plate would allow me to fit 2 x 90" bends and a straight piece of tubing inbetween. The top 5.25" bay would have to come out aswel, so while removing mid plate i removed the top bay for more room to work with (who even has a optical drive these days?!?!?) And finally once my Radiator had turned up (Black ICE GT 240mm Stealth, one very very thin radiator with a high FPI!) The fitting of this new capacity could begin . Mounting and fitting was relatively easy provided you have a wide range of screws and nuts available at hand To finish it off, a neat decal across my case (finishing touches are always important afterall!) This is my first scratch build, my next build will be even smaller, possibly ITX with a smaller case for watercooling. However, there are a few more things planned for this build but will reveal those closer to the time. Stay tuned guys!
