Cases Watercooled CM Cosmos II Build (Pics on Page 3)

yea but there is big and then there is obscene, it is a personal gripe as if i had liked it i would own it.

i have never been let down so much by a case release.

 

Well, we'll see in a few days as I placed my order yesterday and it should be shipping tomorrow; hopefully.
The size is a plus for me, within reason. I don't mind the fact that it's huge as I'm tired of working without room in my machines.

My radiator is a slim one, so I think I'm covered for the roof mount.

 

I am going to be giving my dad my Cosmos 2 next month or so because of the lack of rad support and will be replacing it with this instead.

http://specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/Phobya-UltraBig-Watercase-V1-Black-Edition-pid-15035.html

I need to be able to use my 360mmx60mm rad as well as another 360mmx60mm with another 140mmx60mm when I add a 2nd GTX 680 and watercool them.

Really let down with the Cosmos 2 and just wish I had seen the Phobya case before I bought the Cosmos 2.

For me cases don't have to look nice as I don't buy them for the looks, but they do have to support what I want and from the reviews I saw the Cosmos 2 seemed to fit that until I got it home and started to fit thing's in it.


Also word of warning about mounting a rad in the roof you may have to get a Dremel or such out as the holes for the fan's don't line up fully for the Rads.

Other than that if you are a massive case and don't mind doing abit of work you will be fine.

 

If the size alone isn't enough to put you off, then the price should be.

I know both of those alone and together sure make it just a completely ridiculous case for me. Then again, if you don't mind either of those points, just go for it?

 

Makes my Define XL look positively small...

 

Blast, they beat me to the idea of of having a case with space for 3 x 360mm rads side by side, dammit. Oh well.

If you really want a case that has rad support look at the case labs STH10

 

I saw that case but at around £1000 including everything I would need it's just not worth it, as well as them having to be shipped from America as far as I am aware.

 

My sii has better mounting for rads than the tj11 does

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

 

£1000? really? i swear it was only about £500

 

Yes but by the time you have added drive cages, rad mounting plates and all the other thing's that I would need and delivery it works out at nearly £1k.

 

And I thought the Elysium case was big... I can't wait to see the mods on that STH10!

 

To me the STH10 is ugly. I don't think it really pulls off the 'clean and simple but classy' look that other boxy cases like the Antec P18x series managed.
It's just a good thing that there generally seems to be a case to suit most tastes out there these days.

On that note, the Cosmos II has arrived; courtesy of my poor local postman while I was at work. I literally laughed when I saw the size of the box it came in.

I love how it looks and the build quality thus far seems up to what I'd hoped for. I won't get around to putting anything into it for a few days yet though; waiting on a delivery from Aquatuning.

 

Rebuilt my rig inside the Cosmos II today, took some low-quality phone photos as I worked:

Motherboard, PSU, etc. in place. Old chassis in the background. (CM Stacker 830)


My GTX580 with Ghetto watercooling - MCW60 on the core, stock heatsink on the board, memory & power:


Forgot to add the 360 rad to the loop...


Leak testing:









Cat's cradle at the back:


It's alive!


Front View:


Side View:


Backlit Reservoir:




Roof 360-Radiator mount:


The new DDC pump that I got (DDC1T) seems to be much louder than the previous model I had (MCP355), so I'm going to have to find an inline resistor for the molex connection to drop the voltage I think.

 

What is the water pump mounted on?

 

It's attached to one of these:



As it turns out, the noise was being caused by the reservoir itself; something to do with the inlet affecting the impeller. I had to loosen the screws to reduce the noise, but I'm at the maximum looseness that I can use without it leaking and there's still some noise.

I checked with my old 18W DDC 3.2 pump and the same noise is present so I think it's just some kind of design flaw with the XSPC reservoir.

There's some vibrational noise as well from the reservoir rattling against the case, and that's proving difficult to take care of because of the way it mounts, but I'll get that sorted sooner or later.
For now I'm just going to put a PWM controller on the pump to quieten it down.

 

Good lad! See I knew you wanted to buy it really

 

Well I have just added another rad in to mine ready for watercooling my GTX 680 and ready for when I add a 2nd GTX 680.

Radiator in the bottom is a tight squeeze.



But overall it came out looking ok

 

I did, I can't deny it. And I'm delighted with the case now that I have it. My build is tidier, my CPU & GPU temperatures are fine, temperatures inside the case and for other components (northbridge etc.) are better than before; and apart from the pump noise the overall case is quieter than before too.
I think the fact that it's a 'closed' case without mesh like the Stacker 830's side panels helps a lot on the noise front.

Plus, the Cosmos II is sleek as hell. Getting it up the stairs with a full load of equipment + two radiators + coolant was no mean feat though! Since the case is 22kg empty, I'd hazard a guess that it's currently sitting at about 25-26kg in total.

That looks doable alright. The airflow from the 2x120 CM fans to the 360 rad looks dubious to me, but probably won't affect things too much in practice.

I went with the 360 in the roof and a 120 attached to the upper hard drive cage, fed by the 200mm front fan; And things are working out fine for me in the loop. CPU & GPU temperatures are only slightly higher than they were at load with my 360 + 240 loop previously, and the rest of the case is better cooled overall, so it's a fair tradeoff.

If I need to improve the cooling later I can still make use of a radiator or two in the bottom as well. I love the number of expansion options I have with this thing - It makes me feel as though I won't need to buy another case any time soon.

 

I have mine setup with:

1x 360mm x 35mm Rad in the roof with 3 fan's set to pull

1x 120mm x 35mm Rad in the back with 1 fan set to pull

1x 360mm x 60mm Rad in the bottom with 6 fans in push/pull

2x 120mm fans on the side panel and the standard 200mm in the front all pulling air in to the case.

All fans are set to 5v to keep the noise down while giving a decent airflow in to the case.