some advice? => first build ever

Hello everyone,

I don't know if this is the right place to put it but because I'll definitely want to watercool my new rig I bet this is the right place.
I am new here since I just plunged out of the mac world, for more introduction you could always look here

Anyways, I want to build a sweet powerful rig that will do a nice overclock on both CPU as GPU. I'm tired of having only 2,66Ghz at my hands and I'd love to have double of that for times when I really need it. Since apple still got a (tiny) place in my heart I am building it into an old power mac G5 case and would like to make it hackintosh compatible. Main purposes however will be 3D cad (solidworks), 3D rendering (keyshot) and (flow)simulation.

I was looking at the following hardware:
Seasonic 1000w platinum
Gigabyte Z77 UP5 TN (Asrock Extreme6 looked good too however with my eye on the hackintosh part I'd go for the gigabyte board, as long as it can get good clock speeds)
Intel i7 3770K
ATI 7950/7970
16GB Corsair Dominator 1866
some SSD (how's the OCZ Vector?)

and the cooling:
MCP35x + tuberes => alphacool dominator 4x ram cooler => XSPC Raystorm => fullcover block for the GPU => alphacool UT60 420 (with 2x noctua NF-A14 FLX, 1x NF-A14 NLX) => res.

I was planning on getting the aquaero LT for the pump+fancontrol since I love silence and I'd like that to be in both osx as windows. That's the reason for the NLX on the rad as well, to give some deadsilent cooling for when the computer idles.



Because I have absolutely NO experience what so ever with casebuilding, let alone watercooling or overclocking I'd love to hear anyones opinion.
To start I really am not certain about the ram (and ramblock) but since the case will have limited airflow (the rad will be intake in the bottom, majority of the airflow will be 'pre-heated' so to say) I figured the ram slots might use some cooling. However I am worried if putting it in series with the cpu/gpu will affect the flowrate too much.

Anyways, many, many thanks in advance,

Jetskyer

Thanks for your reply and advice on both the case and ram.

Easiest part first: if the (any) ram will be cool enough to run reliably without a waterblock then no waterblock it is. However I must mention the case-temperature won't be ideal and I don't want to run into issues because the ram fries itself (however my room stays below 25º at all times)


About the case (and the whole project as is) I definitely do realize it isn't the easiest things to be done and isn't a one weekend project, I don't really do those
This is more a project I want to start up now so it's on it's feet and can be finished during my summer holiday. The G5 case will be here next week (hopefully) so I can do accurate measurements and 'import' it into solidworks to figure everything out to the millimeter. I got the idea for now pretty much worked out already however there always are things that fit in your head but really do not when you build them for real. Having the components in detail in solidworks pretty much eliminates this problem.
Next to that I do have my hands on a full workshop (CNC milling, turning, laser cutter, press brake. even a 3D printer) at my school.

That combined with a fair budget (and a lot of patience) makes me believe I probably will succeed this build.
However I still will do it in 3 etappes. Firstly the case. Measuring everything thoroughly and making sure everything will definitely fit. Then the rad (and the three fans) will come so I can build those into the case including the special brackets I need to solve the mounting issues. Only then it's time for the other hardware to be ordered. Before that last step I can always call it off or change the plans entirely without loosing much or any money. It's the gamble I am willing to make so to say.

I do wonder, is the MCP35x sufficient to run this loop through that 420 rad? (and will the rad + the three fans be sufficient to cool the mentioned hardware on a descent 24/7 overclock?)
And will the gigabyte board be good for overclocking? If I do something I rather do it (sort of) right the first time.

hmm, I should type faster...

Anyways, I'll look into better 'basic' airflow.
I came to the gigabyte board too because of it's efficiency and apparently it's designed for the low airflow you get with watercooling so I figured it'd do fine, but if you advice against that I'll redesign a thing or two once the case is here and I have it imported into solidworks. I am still not certain whether or not I will put the PSU in a bit unusual spot or at the place of the dvd-drive. I don't have a dvd-drive right now and don't even miss it a bit but I figured having a desktop with an optical drive would be nice.
Either way it'll be much clearer once I post a few images here but till the case gets here I'll just have to wait with that.

About the gentle typhoons: The roundup martin did is from 2 years back, I figured a few things changed since then and I liked what I read about the noctua's. I don't know how they'll perform on a 60mm thick rad though and maybe the typhoons will be better in that region.
[edit] There it is. Scythe doesn't make any 140mm rad-fans. The only 140mm fans they make have 120mm holes which makes using them a lot harder. Since a triple 120mm rad has the same capacity as a dual 140mm rad and I don't have room for a quad 120mm rad I figured I should go for the triple 140mm rad. Especially since 140mm fans are again more silent than 120mm fans. Only drawback is the lack of static pressure but low fpi-rads should deal with that good enough, if I have done my homework right that is [/edit]

About the PSU, I like to have a bit of overhead. I probably will be adding another 79x0 someday and want that to run for quite a while. Since PSU's do degrade a bit in power output over time I figured I'd need a little overhead, thus something like 800 watt. Since the difference between the 800w and the 1000w is just 20 euro's I didn't see the point in going for the lesser psu for such a small price difference.


Thanks for all the quick reply's, I really do appreciate it (even though I may sound a bit stubborn-ish)
Edited by Jetskyer - 1/20/13 at 2:05pm

Stumbled upon the Akasa Apache.
Don't know why I hadn't seen them before but they seem quite awesome for a rad.
The static pressure at 2,76 mm H2O is practically on par with the 2150 rpm gentle typhoon.
At 90 CFM it's a fair surplus over both the gentle typhoon as the fastest noctua which top off at about 70 CFM.

Seems like a nice fan, if the noise level isn't too high, but otherwise the specs look great, and at 15 euro's it's a bit cheaper than the noctua's.

If anyone can tell me more about these Apache's I'd greatly appreciate that!
Thanks.

[edit]
On that note, these fans are PWM controlled, just like the Swiftech MCP35x. With the motherboard having 5 4-pin fan-headers I'd suspect maybe the fan and pump-speed can be controlled in the bios, shaving a bit off the cost and complexity of the system.
I'd think that if you let the pump be controlled by the CPU-temperature (aka, higher cpu temperature => higher GPM) and the fanspeeds controlled by the inline watertemperature you'd come a long way.

At least, that's what I think. It could just as well be seriously annoying with the pump revving up and down all the time because the CPU isn't on constant load causing the temperature to fluctuate a lot. I bet fixing this in just the bios will be quite a challenge.
I'd love some advice on this point
Edited by Jetskyer - 1/20/13 at 3:33pm

Ok, I looked a bit more into the fan-control.

If I'd want to keep it simple and cheap I could use the BIOS (UEFI). It won't be perfect but it probably will work just fine.
It mostly depends on how much the CPU temperature the UEFI gets from the motherboard will fluctuate. A pump that's constant revving up and down and back up again is seriously annoying and clearly kills the benefits of watercooling (in terms of silenceness)
Then the radfans/casefans could be connected to the systemheaders, which also are 4-pins pwm headers. This only leaves the problem that the motherboard uses it's own temperature sensor to regulate these fans instead of the watertemperature. It isn't ideal but probably would work.

To solve that last problem I could use a mCubed T-Balancer miniNG which is both capable of normal voltage control and pwm (although that's 3-pin)
On that I could just hook up the rad fans and a in-line NTC somewhere in the loop. This gives a bit more control, at least, that's what I hope.
What worries me is the fact that it only has 3-pin pwm control which might give an annoying buzz?


The third option is going for the Aquaero 5 LT, by far the most expensive option, but if it works the best then that's the price I'll pay
It will be able to control the pwm pump nicely over it's 4-pin header, that with the ability for it to read the system temps and also other sensors I placed myself it's for the pump by far the superior option.
However the three other fan-headers are just simple 3-pin voltage regulated ports. I have no idea if I will get nice low rpms on the Akasa Viper or Apache without pwm control and that troubles me a bit. If either the Apache or Viper can run silently on a given voltage then the Aquaero is still the way to go for me. It offers the best features and tunability and this really is the only drawback it has.



Hope to hear some thoughts on this, and my apologies for three posts in a row.
Edited by Jetskyer - 1/21/13 at 12:52pm