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[Build Log] Mini Elite Crusher - Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced

62K views 82 replies 32 participants last post by  xyexz 
#1 ·
Okay, this is my first official build log that I've ever done on here, it's also my first custom watercooling build, which is also SFF.

I'm using the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced case that came out not too long ago and have been running the hardware for a couple of days to make sure it all works before I begin the watercooling.

PC Hardware:

OCZ ModXStream 600 watt modular psu
ASRock Z77E ITX motherboard
Intel Core i5 3570k processor
EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC+ 4GB w/ Backplate
Crucial Ballistix Sport 2 x 4GB 1600MHz Dual Channel ram
Crucial M4 128GB SSD
Seagate 7200 RPM 750GB 2.5 HDD SATA 3
Vantec EZ Swap F4 5.25 to 4 x 2.5 Bay Converter SATA 3

Cooling Hardware:

Corsair SP120 120MM x 2
Swiftech Apogee Drive 2
Swiftech MCRES-Micro Rev 2
XSPC RX120 Radiator 120mm x 63mm
various swiftech 3/8 id fittings
3/8 id hose

GPU Block undecided atm.

It's late so I'm only going to post a couple of pics of the build that I started tonight.

I'm planning also to change the radiator out possibly in the future to the AlphaCool NexXxos Monsta 120mm x 80mm but currently I'm working with the XSPC RX120 radiator to test it out.

I'll also be purchasing some other surprise items from mnpctech to spice up the outside areas of the case but I won't be speaking of those yet
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Some may be concerned about running cpu/gpu on a single 120mm radiator but that is why I'm using dual sp120s with an extra thick rad, it's an experiment that I can't help but to try out.

Without further delay, tonights pictures:
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This is showing the radiator in the stock hdd bay area to test fitment.

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Another side shot of the radiator fitment in the hdd bay.

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After remove the rivets for the hdd bay the radiator fits nicely with plenty of room to spare for the motherboard.

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Front shot of the radiator before fan placement.

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Motherboard fitment with the APD2 installed, luck was on my side as there were no clearance issues for the large bracket that supports the APD2 underneath the mobo, the CM Elite 120 case had raised mobo liftoffs just enough for this kind of install.

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Closer look at the pump clearance against the psu, may have to use right angle fittings here so there isn't any question of kinks in the final install of the tubing.

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Front case shot showing fan installed as well as the Vantec bay device.

That's all for tonight, enjoy and comment!
 
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8
#2 ·
Interesting! Very tight space, good call on removing the drive bay first
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.

I'd be very curious to see how the temps are, and how you like the Drive 2
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Also, how's the clearance between the 670gtx's PCB and the rad? It's tough to tell depth, looks like it's not touching.

Anyway, awesome! Keep us updated with more photos (custom loop set-up, huzzah!
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) and numbers!
 
#6 ·
Yeah I may order the Monsta along with my gpu block, tbh I want my rad in/out on the gpu side of the case so the swiftech micro-res can fit on the cpu side of the case and I think the loop would look much better that way but I can't do it that way unless I have the stock reference cooler removed on the gpu as it'll be much shorter so I'm going to have to get the gpu block asap.

I definitely will be playing with the idea of using the psu as another exhaust, there is a side 80mm slim fan that cooler master includes as a side intake in stock configuration, I will be switching that to exhaust, plus with positive air pressure some of the heat will exhaust out of the sides and there is a top vent that is meant for the psu to draw cool air in that I imagine some heat will exit out of.

More pictures and updates tonight!
 
#8 ·
Incoming updates!

I purchased the rest of the watercooling items I needed (hopefully), had some issues with some fittings I purchased at MicroCenter with mislabeled thread types so I couldn't run my single CPU loop like I wanted until my GPU waterblock arrived next week - it's all for the better though as that gives me more time to mod!

I also purchased some items from Bill @ MNPCTech.com and he was kind enough to stop by today while he was close by and drop stuff off, thanks Bill!

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All the items from MNPCTech, fun!

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Going to re-sleeve the psu with the UV Blue, it's a tad darker than the Corsair fans, however the heatshrink is almost near perfect match, plus different shades of blue are find by me.

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Purchased a set of black anodized case feet with rubber inserts, these are way better than the stock hard plastic feet that came with the case plus they look great!

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3M Di-Noc, this is going on the front of the case, because why not!?

That's it for new goodies today, tonights creativity fueled by:
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It's creativity in a bottle!

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Ok, so I didn't post this picture last night but it just shows the clearance of the rad and the GPU, with the stock reference cooler off this clearance will be opened up by another ~68 mm or 2.7 inches.

Kind of a terrible picture but I installed the new case feet from mnpctech, man they look nice:
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Started modding the outside shell of the case, getting rid of the restrictive side vents, since I'm going for positive air pressure and will be counting on heat to be vented out the sides I wanted to remove them.

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Taping everything off for dremel time.

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It's a little hard to see but I thought it was odd that the square holes that Cooler Master punches out on the sides aren't actually lined up perfectly, some of them are just downright terrible... I guess I can't expect much for $50.

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All cut up and naked - AHH!!

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Both sides cut and nekked now - I see you peeking!

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Deburred and sanded with dremel, did some more touching up after this picture - pretty happy with the results.

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MNPCTech modders mesh cut and temporarily installed via tape method haha. This stuff is so easy to work with and Bill was kind enough to remind me to use an etching primer on this to ensure protection and proper adhesion.

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Closeup of the mesh installed, honeycombs need to be lined up to the cut better but didn't turn out bad for a quick tack job.

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Otherside meshed as well.

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Here's the front faceplate of the case looking all innocent and scared.

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Things got a little heated and I've ripped it's eye out!

Tip for anyone that tries to remove this logo - the logo is metal but thin, I had to heat up the back and front of the faceplate to loosen the adhesive tape, but a couple of times I noticed the plastic backing start to get soft and had to let it cool a bit before I pushed on it from behind with a finish nail tap.

I ran out of daylight to continue any modding tonight, Di-Noc will be placed on the metal part of the front faceplate, I'm trying to decide what to do with the logo, reinstall it or find something else to put in it's place?

There is a hole right in the center that I could easily put a screw through should I find something big enough to cover the stock hole, hmm decisions decisions, (suggestions are welcome!).

I'll give a quick rundown on the other watercooling parts I purchased today from FrozenCPU:

GPU Block I chose was the XSPC Razor nVidia GTX 670 Full Coverage VGA Block - Reference Design, it had blue leds that will fit with my blue theme but it still had a metal front so it shouldn't be too bright (if it is I'll put a resistor in the led circuit to dim them).

I also purchased the back cover for it, pretty much have to as I have the 4GB model of the GTX 670 which has ram chips on the back, and I'm not about to put heatsinks on a wc'd GPU.

I also picked up some Bitspower Matte Black Stubby G1/4" Barb Fitting both 90 degree and straight fittings.

Then the piece I'm most excited about, the Alphacool NexXxoS Monsta Single 120mm Radiator - 80mm Thick!!

I will be seeing this stuff monday via USPS 2-3 express mail, updates to follow!
 
#11 ·
Ok so not a huge update today, mostly going out and finding paint colors and other materials as well as some tools.

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Roughed up the case and gave it a good rinse and let it sun dry.

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First coat of primer towards the front of the case, I haven't really painted anything in a while and found I'm a little rusty, good thing I'm using Rust-Oleum? (bad joke I know)

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Primer hand dry in very little time thanks to the minnesota sun, put a coat on the backside as well and let dry.

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Sneek peek of something else I decided to do for the front of the case.

Stay tuned!
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by BodenM View Post

looking good
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I'm thinking about making a build for my bro in this case, is there anything in particular that's bad about it?
P.S: subbed
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Well no case is perfect and if I had to put my finger on something I wish I could change about the case it would be the cpu cooler limitation.
I toyed with the idea of first putting the PSU where the HDD bay was and using the top vent for a nice intake fan, giving myself a large area for cpu tower cooler but I didn't feel like messing with the gaping hole for the stock psu location haha.

Also what Cooler Master says for max height cpu cooler is wrong, you have ~70mm of clearance but the psu would be sitting on the cpu cooler practically. I used the Zalman CNPS8000b cooler and it did way better than stock cooler on stock clocks for my 3570k. I tried the Cooler Master Geminii M4 but it wouldn't clear the PCI-E slot on my ASRock Z77 ITX board.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow_Foxx View Post

Cool project! Where do you live in MN? and since when does Bill hand deliver??
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I live in Plymouth, MN, I happened to send an email to him in the morning regarding a local pickup the same day he was going to be 8mins from me so just kind of worked out, I doubt Bill would just drop by anytime I sent him an email haha, although I have beer so perhaps we could work something out!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by She loved E View Post

diggin this so far... seems like a versatile little case.
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Thanks, I'm really liking this case, there is plenty of room upfront for rads and such, just the hdd bay needs removed. I really think what they should've done for this case in stock configuration is remove on side of the hdd bay bracket and allow someone to install the hdd/sdd vertically and maybe offset the bay slightly towards the cpu side of the case, that way people could install the AIO liquid coolers stock on their cpus, you could lower the height of the case this way as well making it a lot smaller.
But ideas are like ( * ), everyone has one
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#16 ·
im also jumping into my deepest build yet and went with this case, will be working with the front of it as to me it is not aesthetically pleasing, hopefully just throw a filter in the front and it will look a little better, will be attempting to cram a 200mm phobya + an RS120, and n the side an RS240, with the rs240 on the outside with slim fans on the inside, but will be doing some more research on if the 200m + 120mm will be enough for a 3770k and a GTX480, love your build, VERY cool and inspiring , hope you don't think I'm thread jacking you or rig jacking either as it will be blue themed also, just got excited when i saw your thread and would like to share lol
 
#17 ·
Hey there, nice to hear more people are looking at this case, I think it's exciting. Wow that's a lot of rad to fit into such a small case, what are you doing about storage?

Yeah the GTX 480's ran pretty hot but I think 320mm worth of rads would be enough for sure, not sure how you're going to fit a 200mm rad in the case though, the measurements on Cooler Master for height and length include the case feet as well as the back extension where the psu comes out, so the case isn't even 200mm tall on the inside.

That's why I decided to go with the thickest 120mm rad I could find, but also I'm trying to have everything inside the case and still relatively functional as far as disk space etc.

Good luck with your build, I definitely don't care about and of your choices when building your rig, mod on!
 
#18 ·
Well no updates tonight, I'll have to postpone the build until I get another Cooler Master Elite 120 here in the next couple of days, something happened with the coat of paint I put on it and it had some kind of reaction and balled up all nasty.

I used all of the same brands of paints to make sure this kind of thing didn't happen but I guess I just won't paint the next one I get
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#19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by xyexz View Post

Well no updates tonight, I'll have to postpone the build until I get another Cooler Master Elite 120 here in the next couple of days, something happened with the coat of paint I put on it and it had some kind of reaction and balled up all nasty.
I used all of the same brands of paints to make sure this kind of thing didn't happen but I guess I just won't paint the next one I get
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That's a shame. Can you let us know exactly what brands and what went wrong? Then maybe your bad experience can help warn someone off a wrong combination in the future.
 
#21 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by WiSK View Post

That's a shame. Can you let us know exactly what brands and what went wrong? Then maybe your bad experience can help warn someone off a wrong combination in the future.
I used Rust-Oleum automotive primer after scuffing all the stock paint on the interior of the case, I washed with water and micro fibre cloth to ensure no dust would be in the case.

After letting it sun dry I put the first coat of primer on and it basically started balling up and doing weird odd crap from that point on. I sanded down the primer smooth - what actually stuck on and didn't ball up and tried to put another coat of primer on, the second coat went on better which I then sanded and washed, dried and applied a coat of Rust-Oleum white lacquer and it just continued to ball up, almost like something was seeping up through the layers.

When I tried to sand the white to smooth it out all of the layers peeled off, including the primer.

I think it was a mix of not sticking and a weird reaction to the stock paint, idk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stealthybox View Post

sand it?
Haha, yeah I tried to do some sanding by hand and if I wanted to take over a month to complete my project I suppose I could sand it all down by hand - with no gaurantees that the paint wouldn't just do the exact same thing it did the first time.

I'll save the case for another project, perhaps I'll find a used blaster on craigslist or something to take it all the way down to the bare metal, I'll drill all the rivets and paint the individual pieces instead of trying to paint it as one piece.

Another problem I found as well was the paint made the drive bay too short in height for my 4 in 1 5.25 bay device where I'll be storing my harddrives so it's basically going to keep me from completing the build with the paint on it - the bay device was a tight fit already and the paint just made it impossible to slide in.

I should have another cooler master 120 elite by tomorrow, all I'll have to do is drill the hdd bay out on the new one and continue mounting all the hardware in it, luckily I hadn't painted the side panelling on my first elite 120 so I don't have to recut the sides.
 
#22 ·
Well this update is a day late for some of the stuff.

Got my watercooling parts in the mail the other day, they look glorious lol.

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This is the 80mm radiator that is now in my possesion muahahaha.

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Here is the radiator next to a bud light bottle for reference.

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Radiator came with awesome looking copper caps and screws for the fans.

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The XSPC GPU block!

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Sexy backplate,grrrrr.

Ok so that's enough of that, onto the work portion
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Funny looking sticker with some kind of unknown writing on it, what's a warranty? lmao

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Took the PSU apart to begin sleeving and found this beauty of a soldering job, really OCZ?

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Basically your standard stuff, numbering all of the wires and depinning everything, yes I cut myself plenty of times in the process of removing the stock sleeving - that stock heatshrink is a pita.

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Here's the PSU all finished up, I removed the 4 pin wire as I'm not using it in this build.

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Went through and sleeved some of the front panel connectors for usb, audio etc as well - I took the time to remove the AC'97 portion of the HD AUDIO cable as it's not used for this build and it really cleaned things up with that cable.

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Installed the gpu block and backplate on the gpu tonight as well, installed the wc fittings on the upper block portion as well, once the next cm 120 case gets here I'll be able to test fit the placement of the fittings, I may have to move the top on to the backside.

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Took the time to place some of the Di-Noc on the front faceplate, I think it turned out rather well.

That's the updates for tonight people, the new cm elite 120 case will be dropped off tomorrow so I should have some major updates tomorrow night!
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by xyexz View Post

I used Rust-Oleum automotive primer after scuffing all the stock paint on the interior of the case, I washed with water and micro fibre cloth to ensure no dust would be in the case.
After letting it sun dry I put the first coat of primer on and it basically started balling up and doing weird odd crap from that point on. I sanded down the primer smooth - what actually stuck on and didn't ball up and tried to put another coat of primer on, the second coat went on better which I then sanded and washed, dried and applied a coat of Rust-Oleum white lacquer and it just continued to ball up, almost like something was seeping up through the layers.

Another problem I found as well was the paint made the drive bay too short in height for my 4 in 1 5.25 bay device where I'll be storing my harddrives so it's basically going to keep me from completing the build with the paint on it - the bay device was a tight fit already and the paint just made it impossible to slide in.
I should have another cooler master 120 elite by tomorrow, all I'll have to do is drill the hdd bay out on the new one and continue mounting all the hardware in it, luckily I hadn't painted the side panelling on my first elite 120 so I don't have to recut the sides.
Good work so far, we are really entertained by your progress. We paint the Elite 120 in a dry powder coating type of way for steel. This means the parts have a slight negative charge and then the paint dust adheres and its cooked on. Did you try fixing or getting rid of the charge before painting over our factory coat?
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by CM MR HAF View Post

Good work so far, we are really entertained by your progress. We paint the Elite 120 in a dry powder coating type of way for steel. This means the parts have a slight negative charge and then the paint dust adheres and its cooked on. Did you try fixing or getting rid of the charge before painting over our factory coat?
Thanks for the compliment.

That's interesting for the paint method, I didn't know of that method before I attempted to paint it so perhaps that's what is messing with the paint I'm spraying, any tips on removing the charge would be most appreciated, it makes sense though now that I think about it because the case has a rough finish on it versus a smooth finish.

Anyways thanks for that information - I don't feel so bad now about my painting abilities haha.

I'm already thinking of a project for that case, it'll require a lot of sanding but that's okay - my other cm elite 120 case will be here today so I can at least finish this build and move on to the other one in the future and won't be as rushed.
 
#25 ·
Okay big update tonight! UPS dropped the case off and I didn't waste anytime putting the build together, I didn't anticipate completing the watercooling tonight but ... well you'll see
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So here I already drilled the rivets on the harddrive bay for the new elite 120 case, I also installed the NexXxos Monsta 120mm x 80mm radiator and the two SP120 Corsair fans.

Also I did a test fit of the swiftech micro rez which worked out beautifully since I was able to rotate the rad due to the shorter gpu pcb.

Also notice the sound dampening material that will be under the motherboard - I added it to my order from Frozen CPU last week for $0.99! There is so much of it I don't know what to do with the rest yet
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Another view of basic start of the case build, you can see the other side of the rad better.

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After installing the motherboard I attempted to mate the gpu to the mobo, but I had an issue, the backplace from XSPC was so thick that it was hitting the RAM clips nearest the PCI-E slot.

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I took a dremel to the clips after taping all the sockets/slots off, since these clips are stationary it doesn't hurt to do this mod but I was nervous lol.

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Here the first line was routed from the rez to the intake of the AD2, sexy.

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After taking the PSU out I decided to put 90 degree fittings on the CPU block on both sides, I simply didn't like the PSU basically sitting on the hoses even though they weren't kinking or anything.

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Here is a shot of the GPU side of things, you can see the beastly rad here.

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Moment of truth, beginning the prime of the pump as well as air removal and leak testing.

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Used a lot of paper towels to help with the leak detection.

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I let her run for about an hour and kept shaking bubbles out for some time, turning psu on and off to get pump to jostle the bubbles through the system. Here is a shot of her all hooked up and running for real!

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All I can say is wow, I managed 4GHz without increasing the voltage and ran prime95 for just 5-6 minutes to see where it'd get to, very impressed. You can see that my chip has the problem of the core hotter than the rest ivy bridge junk - it's not nearly as bad as others I've seen and it isn't malfunctioning or anything so I will leave it alone as during gaming it'll be just fine for me.

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This is a screenshot after playing a full round of BF3 on ultra, drives set to full quality and AA, AF and Vert sync turned on. The GPU managed to get "up to" 45 degrees lol, this thing rocks!

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For reference, here is when my cpu was still on air after building it fresh and running prime 95 with an OC of 4GHz, no voltage increase.

I currently have the fans running at ~1500rpm and I can barely hear them with the front faceplate on.

Motherboard temps seem to be doing just fine and are better than stock air cooling, even with the stock side fan gone!

Still have plenty to do on this build, need to paint the mesh mod on the side panels and finish the wire management but I'm going to be a little busy with BF3 for a couple of days me thinks over the weekend
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#26 ·
Great pictures! Monsta rad is looking good. Did you put the Apogee PWM on the CPU fan header or the chassis fan?

I noticed that you initially wanted to attach the GPU out-take to the side port, but it's blocked by the PCIe connectors. Seems like an obvious design mistake by XSPC: that port is useless unless you attach a 90 degree fitting, and then you might as well just use one of the ports next to it instead.
 
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