jushui
Description
EDIT: Thanks to PCPP for the feature! Love this site, it's the best custom PC building community and I used it throughout the purchasing part of my build which definitely helped me save some dollars. Thanks for existing PCPP!
I don't really play games or do any kind of specific tasks with my personal machines so more than anything, this is just a toy. Big kid Lego (with water!).
This is my 2nd water cooling build. First time using hard tubing.
Overall had a great experience and I'm satisfied with how it turned out minus a couple of tubes that were measured too short on the pump discharge and a few minor hardware issues that I've outlined below.
Took about 1.5 months of research, planning and acquiring parts and materials. Also a few hours a night of labour for about 2 weeks (could only work on it after the kiddies went to bed. They were wayyyy too interested in what I was doing for me to focus lol)
Had very little complications and setbacks during build process.
Most difficult part was obviously planning and bending the tube runs but it's actually not too hard when you have the right tools.
Favorite part of the build is the waterfall tube reservoir by Bitspower. Haven't seen any reviews or builds online with it so I took a risk not knowing what it would really look like and how it would function. It actually looks really cool and is very quiet. I was also afraid that it would be difficult to fill and bleed the loop due to only having a single port on the top but my fitting made fill port worked out just fine.
Had a small leak at the base of the reservoir due to a faulty O-ring. Luckily bitspower supplied a spare in the box which stopped the leak.
Some positive things I have to say about some of the parts in this build:
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Aorus Gaming 8 Mobo is awesome in almost every way. Lets me ramp up radiator fans based on water loop temp instead of CPU temp so fans whirring up and down is more or less non existent.Also Came with an external temp sensor that I ran to the exterior of the case that lets me monitor ambient temps. Bitspower VRM copper waterblock is good quality wouldn't expect anything less from bitspower. Keeps VRM at 28C idle and 40C under load.
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EK waterblocks are great love how I could line up one of the GPU block ports directly with the CPU block inlet port. Even let me use the EVGA OEM backplate even though the website says you can't!
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Darkside fittings are a great lower cost alternative to Bitspower (probably about half the cost with the same quality). If you aren't made out of money, these are high quality, have a consistent finish, have triple o-rings and didn't have any leaks. Gotta shout out Dazmode.com for making these available at a fair price. We don't have much domestic options or access to water cooling parts up north besides Daz so I gotta big up him for not taking advantage of this and keeping his prices reasonable and fair while still maintaining quality product.
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Thermaltake Riing Fans. No matter what anybody says about Thermaltake, these fans look awesome! They give you the desired lighting bling but are very subtle about it. Quiet as well.
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EVGA GTX 1070 FTW. Card overclocked like a beast out of the box. After water cooling I was only able to lay on another 25Mhz but temps are significantly lower than the stock air cooler.
Some negative things I have to say about some of the parts in this build:
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i7 7700k runs pretty hot. At 5GHZ, 1.34V and depending on ambient temps, it drifts between 35-45C idle and 65-75C under load. It's stable but I've been considering trying to de-lid it. Still not sure if the benefit outweighs the risk.
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Thermaltake psu does not have a standard 24 pin motherboard connector on the PSU connection side.
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PSU is not quiet at all. Definitely the loudest part in my build next to the mechanical drive I use for storage. Wondering if a higher wattage unit would have been quieter.
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Aorus mobo RGB leds on white setting are not all the same temperature of white. Looked a little funny at first but I got over it.
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G.skill RGB ram beta software is garbage and conflicts with mobo rgb software. Have to leave it in default rainbow mode or risk the leds malfunctioning. I messed them up pretty bad and one stick wouldn't even light up. After messing around with it for a couple hours i finally got them both lit back up. Uninstalled Gskill software immediately.
That's its.
Hope you like it as much as I do.
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