Retirement Present to Myself

[Pudgie]

Update:

My EKWB custom watercooling loop kit has come in for my box so I now have all these parts in hand.

Waiting on the dust to settle down on the AMD Rx Vega 64 graphics card (price-wise) to pick 1 of these up then will install the water cooling loop.

Getting closer.....................

 

[Spikes]

Why not just get a 1080 or a 1080ti?

[ACE]

Pudgie what GCard do you have in your current system.

[Pudgie]

Pudgie what GCard do you have in your current system.

Hi ACE,

Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury X 4Gb HBM1 mem graphics card (made by AMD).

Had this since 9-29-15 (listed in sig below).

Hope this helps.

 

[Pudgie]

Update:

If anyone is considering 1 of these cases for their build, please be aware of using the front USB 3.0 ports on this case as the retainer clips in the sockets will actually hook into the 2 square slots on each side of the USB connector that is inserted into the port & retain the connector, especially the USB connectors that don't have the plastic backing that will prevent these clips from actually hooking the metal........like an original Apple I-Phone charging\interface cable for I-Phone 5 series & up.

Once the USB port hooks this piece there ain't no removing it w\o tearing up the USB port & cable USB connector as it latches in that well. I was lucky in that this particular I-Phone USB cable's USB connector was just under the dimensions of the USB port hole thru the front bezel so I was able to pull the front bezel to expose the 3 Phillips screws to remove these USB ports from the bezel threading the stuck cable thru the USB port hole to expose the USB socket retainer clips so I could use a jeweler's flat-blade screwdriver to pry the retainer clips back enough to release the I-Phone cable then reassembled all back in the front bezel & reattach the front bezel back on the case.

If this had been a USB stick then it would have been a "permanently attached" part.

FYI.......................... ..

I've sent an inquiry detailing this issue to Fractal so hopefully this will get fixed going forward.

 

[Pudgie]

Update:

As of yesterday I have acquired the last part of this present........a shiny new XFX Radeon Rx Vega 64 8Gb vid card.

Ordered it from Newegg & got a nice surprise as it actually cost me only $55.00 over the MSRP of $499.99 (the AMD Black Pack that gets you 2 free games..Wolfenstein & Prey...along w\ a $129.99 price discount off listed price @ $679.99 + $4.95 shipping) so I was able to maintain my goal of paying less for the new flagship graphics card than what I paid for the prior 1 (paid $649.99 + shipping for the Fury X back on 9-29-15) which was what I was holding out for.

Learned this the hard way back in the day when I bought the GeForce GTX Titan for $999.99 only to have Nvidia undercut it within 1 1\2 months w\ the GeForce 780Ti which outperformed the Titan for a lot less money...............

Installed it as is to test all out to ensure all is good before I start surgery to install my custom watercooling loop system.

 

[Gman]

Be interested to see how this comes together and performs, I've been thinking of building an AMD cpu/gpu system for interests sake in a month or two.

[Pudgie]

Ok folks the time has arrived..................

Going off line to install my custom watercooling loop.........this may take me a couple of days to complete as I'll be slowly installing all parts to configure the best layout for all parts in this Fractal Design Meshify C case as it's gonna be a snug fit once done.

 

[Pudgie]

Team Red is back in business!

Got the custom watercooling loop installed, filled, leak tested, purged all out & online w\o issue.

All is working peachy as expected..........

Ran a few sorties in AHIII to heat up the Rx Vega 64 graphics card along w\ the Ryzen 7 1800X to work in the thermal paste that I used that was supplied by EKWB for the EKWB Supremacy EVO CPU waterblock & the EKWB Rx Vega full coverage GPU waterblock w\ EKWB Rx Vega back plate w\ thermal tape (back plate serves as passive cooling plate as well).

With rad fans set for low speed (120mm rear rad fan @ 812 rpms, both front 240mm rad fans @ 737 rpm's w\ water pump speed @ 1712 rpm's) the highest temps on the Rx Vega 64 graphics card reached 58*C @ 1603 MHz GPU\945 MHz HBM2 mem locked at 90 FPS thruout (upper AMD FreeSynch range for my Asus MG279Q Gaming monitor) w\ CPU hitting 62*C (coolant goes thru vid card 1st then thru 120mm rear rad then thru CPU then thru 240mm front rad then reservoir then pump...repeat) w\ Crimson driver & all in-game settings set at max except tree detail (left at default setting level) on purpose to heat this GPU\mem up as much as I could to test loop & all is looking good at this time.

Will be making some fan speed adjustments to get it all optimized as I like then I will record a video of all this running w\ overlay up to show all in operation.

There is no mistaking it, these Radeon Rx Vega series need water to consistently get their max performance.....just as the Fury series did as well (prior graphics card was a Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury X w\ AIO).

Project is now done & complete.......will post a couple of pictures of the loop as soon as I install my spare Belkin 4-port USB hub to my box to download the pictures from my phone (ain't gonna risk using the front 2 USB case ports again....got cable hung the last time). I'm also gonna install a white LED RGB strip along the outer bottom of the PSU shroud to light up the BitsPower flow indicator so I can see it better thru the tempered glass side panel (can barely see it turning thru the red backlighting & red cooling fluid).............

Cross off another task on the retirement bucket list......................... .....

  

 

PS--FWIW, just read GPU\HBM2 mem power draw off HWINFO32 as 218.456 W peak power while playing AHIII.

 

 

[oboe]

Very cool Pudgie, thanks for the update.

[Pudgie]

Here are the pictures provided below of Pudgie's very 1st custom watercooling loop install in this compact Fractal Design Meshify C case......

Wasn't half bad but I took the time to think this thru before starting to do anything as I didn't want to waste much of the soft hose material (even though I had 3 meters of the stuff). Came out very well for a 1st.....no runs, drips, leaks or errors....went like clockwork.....and I was GLAD of that!

 

The red coils around the hoses are PrimoChill Anti-Kink coils that will keep the soft hose from kinking when making very tight bends (of course they add a little bling to my red\black case theme). These pictures were taken while I was putting the system thru leak testing & purge out (was using a spare cheapo PSU to run the pump....was simply too little room to disconnect\connect the necessary PSU connections to use my existing Corsair TX850 V2 PSU w\ all the loop assembled inside this case).

Gonna enjoy this setup for the long haul. After watching too many You-Tube videos of folks building, using & elaborating on custom watercooling loops for PC's (and reading\hearing others giving negative reviews\assessments on them as well), I decided to do what ole Pudgie does best...............build 1 & find out for yourself from 1st hand experience.

 

If there was anything w\ this build I would change now it would be 1.) to go w\ a DDC pump instead of this D5 (small enough to have fit under my Radeon Rx Vega graphics card mounted directly to the PSU shroud front hole cover w\ plenty of room to spare w\ more than enough fluid volume output to handle the components....could have mounted this D5 there as well but it would have taken up too much room so I pulled the front PSU shroud cover & put it in the basement along w\ a 120mm PWM fan blowing cool air thru the front bezel below the 240 mm radiator on the D5 pump & into the lower case as well to ensure positive pressure inside the case as I had to remove both of my vaunted Noctua NF-A14 fans as there was no room for my 240mm radiator to go in the top of this case w\ a rear-mounted 120mm radiator (measurements came out 1" off...long)which brings me to 2.) have gone w\ a 280mm radiator instead of the 240mm radiator if I was going to install a front radiator to been able to keep the 2 Noctua fans in the case as they would've made this setup a killer setup indeed........but oh well.......not bad for a beginner as it is. The beauty of the 280 mm option is that I wouldn't have to change not 1 part of my existing loop layout on potential swapout if desired..........may be a while though as these EKWB Vardar EVO 120mm radiator fans are very nice kit & get the job done very well....w\ 0 RPM\DB capability to boot which makes for a very quiet startup!

 

 

[Pudgie]

Here is a You-Tube video of this box running AHIII Version 3.02 Patch 11 under this custom watercooling loop w\ the overlay up to show the running vitals of my system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L063i3QRVI

Provided below are snippets of the AMD Crimson 17.9.2 Global Driver Settings for graphics and power control that were being used during this video run.

Didn't dawn on me until after this video run that since the advent of this AMD Radeon Rx Vega series gaming graphics card (Vega 10 GPU was 1st launched as an AI, deep machine learning accelerator--AMD Radeon Instinct MI25) using the same Vega 10 GPU architectural layout in tandem w\ this AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU (which has the AMD SenseMI deep learning coding embedded) that maybe these 2 parts have the capability of some logical ability to interface w\ each other to better optimize as an intergrated "system" where they "read" each others operation then make adjustments to interact together in harmony to provide a seamless output............

Hhhmmm............now that would be an interesting subject topic to check into...........

Enjoy!

 

[Pudgie]

Here are some snippets provided below of the HWINFO32 sensor recordings of my Ryzen 7 1800X CPU and Radeon Rx Vega 64 graphics card snipped right after making the video run in the prior post.

Please note in the maximum column where HWINFO32 shows where both CPU & GPU\Mem reached peak performance\power outputs along w\ temps according to the highest peak game loads my system saw at some point.

Very interesting.................. ....

 

[Pudgie]

Update:

Well ole Pudgie just couldn't stand it any longer so I went ahead and got me an EKWB DDC 3.2 Elite PWM pump, drained the loop (I had initially installed a loop drain valve...makes this very easy... ), pulled the D5 pump, measured the dimensions and marked\drilled the PSU front shroud cover, mounted the DDC pump to the cover, removed the lower 120mm fan and remounted it in the bottom case fan mount (where I had the D5 pump mounted) to draw air in from the bottom of the case then installed a restrictor plate over the lower 120mm fan section in the front case section (to not allow any air drawn in from the bottom of the case to escape out the front of the case), installed the PSU shroud cover w\ DDC pump and fittings attached (dropped in w\o issue....didn't even have to move the 240mm radiator..... ) then retubed all back up w\ drain valve mounted in DDC pump outlet section (lowest place in the loop), refilled, purged & leak-tested loop then fired all back up and all is working well so I've got that behind me now.............

 

Now it looks good to me when I look thru the TG of this Fractal Meshify C to see the PSU shroud looking sleek instead of the hole so I'm happy now. Without touching anything the DDC pump speed came out to be at 2103 rpms vs the D5's 1385 rpms but I noticed that the operating temps were holding in the same range so left as set.

The 120\240 radiator combo is proving to be more than up to the job of keeping all cooled w\o a lot of fan RPM's so the 240 radiator will be in for the long haul.

Now I can really say it's done!

 

 

[oboe]

Pudgie, curious - what's your total power draw with that system?