[Phobos223]

So I have this Coolermaster Stacker T01 that I have had for like 8 years... and it has been home to some really sweet systems over the years starting with an Athlon M back in the day, a few Opteron systems, a Thuban system, and now it will be home to a new Ivy Bridge system.

Working with this case has been a blast over the years, and I am looking forward to this latest build! I have been an AMD man since 2000, and this is my first personal Intel build, so I am really excited to get this thing together. Being such a loyal AMD fan I do not feel guilty as my old gear has been assinged to server/BOINC duty

For some history on the case, and the last build out which includes lots of the customizations for the case, see the 4th incarnation link in my sig if you are curious.

I have a whole new theme for this build, that will be revealed later on, but we'll go ahead and get started with guts of the system!



As you can see, the core of the system includes a 3770K to be mounted in an Asus Maximus V gene board. We got 16GB of 2400Mhz CL9 Vengence RAM, and a couple of Mushkin SSDs.

The reason for the small form factor build in this huge case is that I figure when it is time for the 6th incarnation of this beast, I will put this hardware in a tiny case

Also to note, I am going to use some of the WC gear form my last build, including my trusty EK Supreme HF block, 2 XSPCs pump res combos, and some Black Ice GTX rads (120mm and 360mm)

Lets get started here!







CPU installed with waterblock, mounted to MB tray for some quick leak testing. In this and the next few pics, don't mind the tubing or the fitting arrangement, as all that will change once the real build begins

 

[Phobos223]

Originally I was just going to roll with my 5870CF that I had in my old rig as I don't really game very much, but then I realized what a silly idea that was and picked up a pair of EVGA GTX 670s from a fellow OCNer! Little do these guys know what's in store for them!!



I reamed these 2 out pretty good for about a week crunching on GPUgrid work units, and they performed great. With my warm ambients (25-30C), and the fans on about 75%, they sat at about 75-80C, at the cost of the mind numbing hair dryer sound...

Well, at least I won't have to listen to that anymore! Came home yesterday to a nice heavy box from Sidewinder Computers with some goodness from Germany

I wasted no time in removing the stock fans and heatsinks! Looking at the size of the PCB of these cards once the stock cooling is removed is why I wanted 670s in the first place. These suckers are tiny! Crazy how powerful they are in such a small package! These will make for a great small form factor build in a few years

Installation of the Heatkiller blocks was breeze, especially with the backplates





After about 40 min or so, the cards had been reborn and were ready to rock

 

[Phobos223]

After a quick break for a cold beer I was ready to try these guys out. First I had to prep the rad. I tested out some of the Corsair SP120 fans a few weeks ago, and really liked how they performed on the Black Ice GTX rad so I went ahead and decided to use them throughout the build.



Got everything hooked up for some leak testing. Again, don't mind the random mix match of hoses and fittings

I have a box of goodies coming in from FrozenCPU tomorrow that will get me sorted

Still can't belive how small the 670s are with the blocks!!





So after a sucessful leak test, I couldn't wait any longer and went ahead and hooked everything back up, powered up, and got BOINC running again. Got some great results on the GPUs!

So full load on GPUgrid, was sitting at 75/82C for the cards with the fan maxed out and loud as hell. After the block install, same ambients (~27C), after 2hours of crunching, sitting at 38/42. I am quite pleased with those results.

So that's pretty much it for now. Big shipment of case gear comes in tomorrow, so will be a fun weekend! Planning on de-lidding the CPU as well sowill have somes and benchmarks if anyone is interested. I may also switch the TIM on the GPUs over to LP Ultra that I have coming in, see how it compares to the MX4 I used today.

 

[PCModderMike]

Subbed to see this all put together. Excellent choice in blocks!

 

[Phobos223]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCModderMike

Subbed to see this all put together. Excellent choice in blocks!

Hell yea dude! Your 670s got quite the makeover

 

[cam51037]

I'm amazed by those GPU temps, before and after water.

Awesome build man! For me, that would be totally overkill.

Buuut, if you're looking to get rid of a 670 anytime soon, hit me up.

 

[Phobos223]

Well today is going to be a big day! Got pretty much everything else I was waiting for in yesterday... so today I will begin putting all the pieces together!

Got me some Cool Lab Liquid Ultra TIM to try out, as well a a new fan controller, a Lian Li SSD bay, some LED strips, and a couple other odds and ends..





Can't wait to get it all together!

 

[superj1977]

Im so subbing this....i love CM Stackers and obvioulsy they are thin on the ground nowadays.....i have a black 832 thats in need of some love, needs new mobo tray after i made some silly bad cuts in a rush

Cant wait to see more of the case itself

Anyway, speaking of mobo tray....is that vinyl you stuck on? looks sweet whatever it is, i must do that some time, my case just need tidying up a bit and it scrubs up well with a bit of Wet N' Dry and a brillo pad, aluminium certainly has its good points.

 

[Phobos223]

Quote:

Originally Posted by superj1977

Im so subbing this....i love CM Stackers and obvioulsy they are thin on the ground nowadays.....i have a black 832 thats in need of some love, needs new mobo tray after i made some silly bad cuts in a rush

Cant wait to see more of the case itself

Anyway, speaking of mobo tray....is that vinyl you stuck on? looks sweet whatever it is, i must do that some time, my case just need tidying up a bit and it scrubs up well with a bit of Wet N' Dry and a brillo pad, aluminium certainly has its good points.

Thanks! I'll have some pics of the case itself here in a bit! The MB tray is covered in 3M DiNoc carbon fiber. Stuff is great. If you click the "4th incarnation" link in my sig you can see the case, the carbon fiber install, everything.

 

[superj1977]

Am gona take a look at that build log now, cheers buddy

 

[Phobos223]

Heatkiller SLI Bridge installed. This is the "1 slot" bridge, if anyone is trying to figure out which one to use on this board. This guy fits perfectly. This thing comes with a parallel flow configuration by default, we will see how that does.



Installed elbows and Koolance QDC nozzles, will be much easier to maintain this way

 

[zrollo]

Subscribed, can't wait to see this finished.

 

[Phobos223]

Went ahead and de-lidded my CPU... Got rid of that junk Intel TIM and replaced with Cool Labs Ultra Liquid Metal


While CPU running prime (to make sure I did not damage during de-lid!), Started to get the case ready for surgery!


This time around I sleeved all the cables


Now it's time to start putting it all together!

 

[Phobos223]

Well got most of the case related stuff done... got the fan controller installed along with the SSD bay



Got most of the tubing run and connected. All set up for some leak testing


Was hoping to fire this guy up tonight but am having some leaking issues with the Heatkiller SLI bridge..

The O-ring on the bottome card doesn't want to make a perfect seal... almost got it now.. but still seems to be leaking ever so slowly.

 

[Phobos223]

Ok so still have a tiny drip coming from the SLI bridge! Argh.. may have to use some kind of gasket sealer or something.. Anyway, I couldn't let a little leak keep me down I have been dying to overclock this thing, especially since de-lidding it earlier today.



So I decided to just go ahead and get some basic testing done with Turbo EVO within windows before really getting after it in the BIOS... so far the temps are great.. the de-lid + LP Ultra really shines.

This is stock with 3.9GHz turbo


4.6 Ghz with voltage set to 1.3 in Turbo EVO... seems to creep up a bit under load


Something to note is that I am currently only running a single Black Ice GTX120 on the CPU. Usually I run the 360 on the CPU, but I decided to use that for the GPUs this time, and upgrade the CPU with an external rad in a few weeks. (This is why the crazy hoses are poking out of the back of the case). But after seeing these results.. not sure if I need to!

These are just 10 min test runs, but the temps still seem to be looking really good. Another thing to note is it is pretty warm in my room right now... probably about ~25C ambient!

 

[Phobos223]

Temps after 4.8 Ghz @ 1.344V - 15min Prime 95 25C ambient



Going for 5Ghz next

 

[cam51037]

Wow, I'm jealous of your temperatures.

Someday I'll have to fiddle around with water cooling. Not now though, it's too expensive and it seems prone to disaster if it looks.

Electronics and water aren't a good combination.

 

[Phobos223]

Well this is my personal best OC... Finally broke the 5Ghz barrier! Amazing that I can do this with the noob program in Windows! Man I can't wait to get the time to tweak this for real in the BIOS!



Temps still looking great, even for 1.472V

This was stable enough to crack 10.05 on Cinebench 11.5, and I ran on Prime for about 18 min. The temps are straight though as the water had already bee heated up from 4 previous runs! It was Prime stable @ 5Ghz with just under 1.4V, but wouldn't finish Cinebench until I bumped up the juice. Will be fun to fine tune this guy in the days to come.

Simply fantastic!

These were the temps I was getting @ 4.6 before the de-lid, using the exact same block and rad!

 

[PCModderMike]

Wow those are great temps. I'm very impressed considering the clock and volts running through that chip. guess it goes to show how much of a benefit delidding can be.

 

[superj1977]

Amazing temps you got there my friend, needless to say im very very jealous

I soon have funds for more hardware and its either a 2nd low end rig or new CPU and mobo for me....decision time soon