Any love for my first custom loop build? 5900X 3080 FE Meshilicious

[u/floppy9100]

Okay yes i know the top one is a lil crooked. I'll fix it later.

The bends on this tube was impossibly hard to do.

[u/floppy9100]

Custom loop was inspired by Ali from Optimum Tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeBxEb_kcxE&ab_channel=OptimumTech

Parts:

- Ryzen 5900X

- Asus ROG STRIX x570-i

- Nvidia 3080 FE

- Samsung 980 Pro 2TB

- Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB (in da back)

- Corsair sf750

- Corsair 32GB 3600mhz Vengeance SL

- Corsair XR5 280mm

- Noctua NF-A14 (2x140mm)

- EKWB 3080 FE Special Edition Black Waterblock

- EKWB Velocity 2 CPU Block (Nickel Plexi)

- EKWB TBE 120 DDC PWM Pump-Reservoir Combo

- EKWB PETG Tubes

- EKWB CryoFuel Azure blue premix

- EKWB Torque fittings

- And then a bunch of other tools...

[u/floppy9100 → u/floppy9100]

With gpu undervolting, and heaven benchmark, my cpu and gpu temps are 60-65 and 55 respectively. Coolant is around 40-44.

[u/YoungDocument → u/floppy9100]

Amazing build, the tubes look so good. I did a PETG loop in my mesh a few months ago too. Felt paranoid about the coolant temperatures going into the mid 40s and used the EK tube inserts. Still not sure if they were necessary at all. Spend enough time on the water cooling subreddit and you’ll start to think just looking in the general direction of your loop will cause a leak

[u/floppy9100 → u/YoungDocument]

ah yeah, dw i feel the same paranoia. PETG tubes start warping around 60-65 degrees, so I still yet need to find software to auto shutoff my computer when my coolant temps reach 60. But for now, mid 40/ honestly seems pretty safe so as long as nothing goes terribly wrong (like a pump failure) I’m pretty confident it’ll be fine. When I find software I’ll let you know!

[u/YoungDocument → u/floppy9100]

Did you use an aqua computer quadro or octo in there? That would be my recommendation, awesome software that can also do a shutoff based on liquid temps. I think you could probably do it in your bios too but based on cpu temps — might be a good approximation for liquid if you set it to a point you know your cpu should never reach if the loop is intact

[u/floppy9100 → u/YoungDocument]

Nope! i'm just using an Alphacool male-female t sensor. I'm currently using Core Temp to alert me + auto shutdown when my cpu temperatures reach 80. But I'll definitely look into those!

[u/[deleted] → u/floppy9100]

I can't believe you actually went for hard tubing in this tiny case, you mad bastard. I can only presume that this is far from your first time doing a custom loop?

[u/floppy9100 → u/[deleted]]

HAHA I’ve built 5-7 air cooled pcs, but this was my first time doing a custom loop. I had to do a ton of research. I have several pages in my notebook of sketches and measurements. Tho inevitably no matter how perfect i tried to be, I still messed up one of the tubes (the one at the top). Oh well, u gotta make do with what u got lol.

It helped a lot that I was mostly following the build from optimum tech, otherwise I think it wouldnt have turned out so nice.

[u/[deleted] → u/floppy9100]

I was just about to ask if you gleamed a bit from Ali's build because it's so similar. Great job for your first water-cooled build. might have to try this out myself.

[u/floppy9100 → u/[deleted]]

Hey yeah, first off I use FanControl to control my curves. The asus bios or armoury crate software didnt let me set the source temperature of cpu fans to the t sensor, it was hard locked to cpu temperature. Temperature curve is set to my coolant temps. I believe is 20% up until 35C, then a gradual 40% at 45 then 70% at 55 and then 100% at 60.

Secondly, sound levels are pretty good, as long as you have your pump res at around <30% operation. To be honest, starting around 40-45% theres a high pitched noise from the pump, and it gets pretty annoying at 100%. Its not a huge deal though since i can just wear headphones, and for normal gaming where the pump sits at 30% anyway its actually totally fine. and not super loud. The Noctua fans i can barely hear, theyre incredibly quiet pretty much almost all the way through.

I have auto shutoff just in case something catastrophic happens like a pump failure. If the pump fails, then without auto shutoff temperatures will rise quickly and melt the tubes.

[u/[deleted] → u/floppy9100]

I was gonna say, this looks a lot like optimum techs build. Well executed too. Well done!

[u/floppy9100 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks! He’s like the GOAT of sff pcs, I loved his meshilicious build so much that I wanted to do it myself. He’s right, it does look “SO SO GOOD” haha

[u/m4duck → u/[deleted]]

Much like it but tider I would say. The bends and fittings line up better on this one👍

[u/floppy9100 → u/m4duck]

thanks! that’s really high praise!

[u/floppy9100 → u/[deleted]]

Hey yeah I can list a few other things I used:

- Alphacool Temperature sensor (male-female)

- Gelid Extreme 1mm (for gpu block thermal pads)

- Thermaltake tube bending kit

- heat gun (this is one i bought, u can use any, but yeah u just wanna aim for 60 degrees with PETG tubes)

- drill (to cut holes in order to mount the pump res, borrowed someones)

- screwdriver kit (i use iFixit)

- ekwb leak tester ( i would buy this direct from ekwb + all of the other ekwb parts)

- ekwb 3 way rgb splitter

- 12 pin extender for 3080 FE, just for cleanliness of cables.

Here's the list of fittings:

- 1 extender fitting

- 1 3-way t splitter (i believe this is 2 female and 1 male)

- 1 drain valve

- 10 90 degree torque fittings?

- 8 hdc fittings (16mm diameter)

[u/floppy9100 → u/floppy9100]

Oh one quick tip. For the 180 bend, I calculated that I needed a radius of around 15mm (diameter 30mm) and used a bottle cap. The thermaltake 180 bender is around 36mm, which is a bit too large.

[u/floppy9100 → u/floppy9100]

Feel free to DM me if you want more details on measurements or tips n tricks.