Finally replaced my old Core i7 920 cube with a more svelte and user friendly HAF-X case. Should've taken a few photos while it was under construction and looking showroom perfect, but I did make a few quick and dirty pics of it in operation.
I was originally aiming for purple liquid to match the black tubing, and it was purple in the jug but for some reason the red dye quickly turned brown in the loop... so now it looks like the reservoir is filled with coffee with dairy creamer in it. I don't drink the stuff so it's better off in there anyway. So now it's just my hot coffee mod.
As for the modded part, this is a HAF-X with the typical double-thick Thermochill triple 140mm radiator stuffed into the top. All that required was six screw holes to mount, even the 140mm fans all fit easily under the plastic top so I really have to hand it to Cooler Master for such a WC friendly design! Room for the pump was actually the biggest problem...
It's still a work in progress, the fan wires will be removed and I'll rewire all the fans through the top bezel next time I remount the radiator. Motherboard has seven fan headers and I stuck a low-speed fan off every one... https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7mdzh4yhqo8on3o/0PyW9xrAJs
Under full load at 3.5Ghz the new rig literally uses about 145 watts less power from the wall as compared to the 920 rig. Temps dropped considerably as well and depending on the room temp won't exceed 50c for the CPU cores or GPU core under a sustained load in my low-noise profile. This is a rig that will be near silent in a quiet room while maintaining a moderate overclock on everything.
As a side note. I took my OS drive straight out of the X58 motherboard and plugged it into the Z87 board.... Win 7 booted right up without nary a complaint and a few drivers later it's actually good as new, even all the drive letters are still correct. Did have to reactivate it of course, but I guess not a lot has changed in chipsets within the last five years...
I was originally aiming for purple liquid to match the black tubing, and it was purple in the jug but for some reason the red dye quickly turned brown in the loop... so now it looks like the reservoir is filled with coffee with dairy creamer in it. I don't drink the stuff so it's better off in there anyway. So now it's just my hot coffee mod.
As for the modded part, this is a HAF-X with the typical double-thick Thermochill triple 140mm radiator stuffed into the top. All that required was six screw holes to mount, even the 140mm fans all fit easily under the plastic top so I really have to hand it to Cooler Master for such a WC friendly design! Room for the pump was actually the biggest problem...
It's still a work in progress, the fan wires will be removed and I'll rewire all the fans through the top bezel next time I remount the radiator. Motherboard has seven fan headers and I stuck a low-speed fan off every one... https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7mdzh4yhqo8on3o/0PyW9xrAJs
Under full load at 3.5Ghz the new rig literally uses about 145 watts less power from the wall as compared to the 920 rig. Temps dropped considerably as well and depending on the room temp won't exceed 50c for the CPU cores or GPU core under a sustained load in my low-noise profile. This is a rig that will be near silent in a quiet room while maintaining a moderate overclock on everything.
As a side note. I took my OS drive straight out of the X58 motherboard and plugged it into the Z87 board.... Win 7 booted right up without nary a complaint and a few drivers later it's actually good as new, even all the drive letters are still correct.
Did have to reactivate it of course, but I guess not a lot has changed in chipsets within the last five years...