Putting my rad in the TJ09

[NicePants42]

Loving the single pass 120 on the back. Any chance you can mount that thing in the front bottom intake under the HDD cages without mauling the bracketry too much? It doesn't look like it - maybe if you used a rad based on 80mm fans?

By the way - have you used many UV additives? I'm currently rocking a red/black color scheme, but I haven't been able to find a red UV dye that works 1/10th as well as a decent green or blue dye - I've tried Fluid XP (mistake) and pentosin G12 (much better) but neither has anything like a decent reaction to UV lighting. If you know of any good red dyes, or could list your favorite dyes in order of brightness, I'd certainly appreciate it.

Here are a few (not so good) shots of my current setup.

 

[madmat]

Nope, I don't do UV additives as they have a very bad tendency to separate out of the water. I'm running a 6% mix of blue Zalman coolant to distilled water.

After I get home from work in the morning I'll get a few closer shots of the details such as the res and the GPU blocks, I was too wiped out to deal with it today.

Oh, yeah the fan extension wires running in front of the PSU are hooked to the clear CMOS header on the mobo and the jumper is on the fan end. The clear CMOS header is located under the latch of the lower PCI-e slot and I have no desire to unplumb my loop every time this board decides to take a dump.

BTW, nice rig!

 

[madmat]

Now, here's a bit more detail on the loop since my pics are so damn dark. Little did I know that this camera was pre owned by a film noire fan.

Anyways, this loop features SLI and I have the Swiftech Ramcool 79 on here. In this situation you run one F fitting to the first card and at the back run a crossover tube from block to block like thus:

This is made a bit more challenging by the fact that I'm running the sub loop for the rear rad in this area as well.

The F fitting is so large that I had to run it up closer to the CPU block in order for it to not hit the side of the case.

And here's a better look at the entire SLI sub area. I've got the temp sensors from the CFA635 CrystalFontz hooked up as follows: Sensor 1 is on the side of the CPU block baseplate. This will give me a good idea of the temp of the IHS, it should only be a few C off from it. Temp sensor 2 is on the input side of the rad so that I've got an idea of the water temp coming from the pump. Sensors 3 & 4 are running to the sides of the memory blocks on the vid cards. This will show me how much heat the CPU block dumped into the loop along with how much the ram is contributing in the case of no. 3 and in the case of no. 4 it'll tell me how well the rear rad is dropping the water temp coming from sensor 3. This should prove interesting.

Here's a look at the Ultra X3 that will be powering this beast. Yep, 1000 watts of goodness sitting on the floor of my case praying that the loop holds

And here's a better look at how the reservoir is plumbed in. It's living in the space once taken by the drive cage. Now, if you're wondering why I pulled the cage out, look at the space where the tubing runs. You'll see that it's running under the duct for the front fan. When the drive cage in in that bay the plastic levers for that cage (the ones that release the locks on the cage) protrude into the area needed by the tubing. Yep, total buzzkill. Still though I like it and as long as I'm happy it's OK because in the end isn't this all about me? I mean I hope others like it to one degree or another but it's my PC and if I'm not happy that kinda sucks and if I am happy that's great. If after reading through here and you think it's horrible, please don't share if you can't be nice about it. I hate it when people treadcrap in ways like "It looks like sh!t, it's dumb and you're dumb!" and If you like it I hope it inspires you to try the road less traveled.

Enjoy!

 

[Greg King]

Looking good.

 

[madmat]

It's up and running. I'm seeing 41/47 on the cores under load and the GPU's are hitting 39/35 under load. The lower temp is on the GPU after the rear rad so it does make a good difference.

Ambient temp at those readings is 28C.

 

[Tech-Daddy]

Nice work there bro! Looks VERY nice!

Taking lots of notes! I'll be working on my first WC rig on my next mod!

 

[madmat]

Thanks, I got a 320 (Swiftech triple 120 rad) so one of these days it'll be going in there.

 

[NicePants42]

I'd like to know how effective you consider those RAM blocks to be. I had a couple of X1800XTs running under MCW60s a while ago, and guess how much RAM cooling I needed. Answer - None.

So I'm left to wonder if those RAM blocks are worth it. I mean, each RAM block costs ~$50, and has a very small scope of usefulness compared to the MCW60 since they can only be used on maybe one complete series of cards (that is getting a little dated). Add in the little factors like more, smaller hose and extra heat, and what benefits do you get?

If you've got any temperature data for the RAM chips or increased speed, I'd be glad to hear about it. If there are other benefits you've noticed, please enlighten me.

 

[madmat]

On air I was getting a max stable ram OC of 25Mhz effective (12.5Mhz DDR) and with the Ramcools I'm hitting 783Mhz (net gain of 58Mhz effective or 29Mhz DDR) in SLI. In single card I was hitting 810 stable for 85Mhz or 42.5Mhz DDR gain. As to temps, measured on the sides of both blocks (my temp probes are way too large to sit next to the chips) the ram blocks are running at 31.5C and 32.5C currently. Under load I saw a max of 36C and 37.4C running a heavy 3D load. The CPU temp (measured in the same method) is 30.4C ATM and during the same 3D load I was seeing 34.1C. The hot side of the MCR220 was registering 38.3C.

I'm convinced that they do the job that they're intended to do and if you're going to V-mod the board you'll see even better results.