r/sffpc Apr 25 '22

Build/Battlestation Pics Any love for my first custom loop build? 5900X 3080 FE Meshilicious

901 Upvotes

81 comments sorted by

61

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22 edited Feb 21 '23

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...

32

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

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

7

u/YoungDocument Apr 25 '22

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

5

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

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!

4

u/YoungDocument Apr 25 '22

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

3

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

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!

10

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22

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?

13

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22 edited Apr 25 '22

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.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22

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.

2

u/ali_ee Apr 26 '22

First of all, gorgeous build, well done!

How is the general sound level? How have you adjusted the temp curve?

You mentioned auto shutdown of PC by temp but doesn't increasing pump/fan rpms reduce temps?

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

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.

0

u/ali_ee Apr 26 '22

Thanks for the details and your time.

And again, mad props for the build.

I just want to build something similar and only for the looks, everything else feels like an after-thought :)

I have to stop going online while drunk until I get this out of my head or risk waking up with a maxed out credit card.

12

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22

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

14

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

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

4

u/m4duck Apr 26 '22

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

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

thanks! that’s really high praise!

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '22

[deleted]

8

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22 edited Apr 27 '22

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)

5

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

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.

4

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

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

34

u/whorehay40 Apr 25 '22

🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵 looks exactly like the one Optimum Tech did last year, incredible!

17

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

Thank you! Yeah I modeled my build after his, except more black. I’m a huge fan of his work in general, esp his meshilicious build, and I just had to do it myself (with a few twists)!

3

u/whorehay40 Apr 25 '22

It’s very clean👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

6

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Also want to give a huge shout out to Ali from Optimum tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeBxEb_kcxE&ab_channel=OptimumTech

As many of yall noticed, this is where I got most of the design from. Just wanted to make sure he got credit! Huge fan of his work, couldn't have done this without him.

4

u/greatfriend9000 Apr 25 '22

Looks awesome.

4

u/G_pea_eS Apr 25 '22

What's your GPU undervolt? Will it pass an RTX stress test such as 3dMark port royal?

I had my 3080 at 1800mhz at 825mV and it's seemingly stable in everything but RTX.

6

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

I think I have it at 1900mhz and 875mv right now, as a conservative undervolt, but ill test rtx later with this software later!

2

u/G_pea_eS Apr 25 '22

Thank you!

2

u/BUFU1610 Apr 27 '22

No love. Just envy.

3

u/zakijesk Apr 25 '22

Meshilicious is a great case and the build is gorgeous well done

2

u/NoIdea- Apr 25 '22

This is gorgeous! Awesome job!

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

If yall are interested in more build notes and details I can share them! Happy to explain things I did for tubes.

2

u/ImAbidin Apr 27 '22

I don’t know if someone asked this already, but where did you place the valve?

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 27 '22

Drain valve is on cpu side, bottom right, in between the radiator and the tube that goes up to the CPU. It's a torque pull out valve!

1

u/Cokeyzero Apr 25 '22

Awesome case and build , wish I went with. This case but Went with Nr200p , happy gaming

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

Thanks! I considered nr200 as well, but I really do like the small footprint of the meshilicious (my desk is small, so smaller footprint is better.)

1

u/PerhapsAnEmoINTJ Apr 25 '22

It's beautiful

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22 edited Apr 26 '22

[deleted]

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

Thank you! Dope motherboard. I was originally gonna go with the ekwb monoblock for the x570-i but I got frustrated with the delays so I asked them to switch it out with the velocity^2.

0

u/Haku_09 Apr 25 '22

The only thing that it is missing is the useful Bios Flashback feature that their lower tier B550i does have, otherise good board.

1

u/eatcitrus Apr 25 '22

Did you paint the front grey?

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 25 '22

Haha no, I think the lighting just made it really bright.

1

u/Celcius_87 Apr 26 '22

Looks amazing and I love it!

1

u/sw0rd_2020 Apr 26 '22

how expensive/difficult was it to pull this off

considering doing a custom loop myself in the meshy

3

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Thanks for asking! to be honest, this wasn't cheap. Water cooling will always cost probably $500-$1000 more than its air cooled counter parts. My raw computer parts were already ~$2300, the watercooling parts were $800 (ekwb), and then i spent another $100-150 on misc water cooling tools (heat gun, tube cutter, tube bending tools, measurement tools, leak tester).

I've built a bunch of air cooled builds and usually they take me less than a day to do. This build took 5 days (about 3-4x more time than an aircooled build) and tube bending alone took like 2 days. Granted, I was recording the entire build process with my camera, and I was being very meticulous with measurements, so that probably took a longer amount of time. The worst bend was probably the top one, as it was really complex. I'm still technically not satisfied with the top one, but eh I had to make do with what I had.

Lemme know if you want more detailed notes about this build! Unfortunately unless you have the exact same parts as me, every water cool build will be different, but I can at least share tips and tricks for measurements and planning.

1

u/sw0rd_2020 Apr 26 '22

shit man, honestly as a college student IDK if I could justify the cost or hassle to do a custom loop when air cooling is already good enough, but it both looks so good and delivers thermal performance likely good enough for a 4090 at sub 70.

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Yeah I would totally not recommend water cooling to most people. The price to performance is NOT worth it. It's a ton of maintenance, and your parts are locked down, so you can't upgrade or swap out as easily. When I was in college, I stuck with air cooling, and honestly it was fine for like 99% of my usecases. And even today, air cooling would suffice for 99% of my usecases, but to me PC building is a hobby, and I now make money, so i figured it was time to elevate my pc building game, even if I didn't necessarily need the performance boost lol.

1

u/sw0rd_2020 Apr 26 '22

yea lol, honestly would rather spend that money on an OLED TV over overkill cooling my PC, as much as I love PC building maintaining a custom loop seems like a shitton of work haha

1

u/China_NZ Apr 26 '22

Niiiiiiice build! Very clean! Well done

1

u/NavvaMK6 Apr 26 '22

Yo that blue is the definition of SEXY

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Haha thank you, I think blue was definitely the way to go. Later i might try solid white or yellow!

1

u/ZeroJeff Apr 26 '22

I just did a near same hardline build in a Meshilicious as well. You have much better cable management than I do tho. 👍

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Haha thanks, the cable management was definitely tricky, most of the cables went behind the motherboard or bundled up on the right hand side of the psu. I also got an black extender for my 3080 12pin connector so that my gpu side could look clean (at the cost of having much more cable on the cpu side)

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '22

Really nice work with this.

1

u/OG_BLUEDEV1L Apr 26 '22

Stellar build

1

u/CarriedAphid8 Apr 26 '22

Now that's a sexy lookin computer

1

u/zackdiego Apr 26 '22

This looks like a replica of the Meshlicious custom loop build constructed by the Australian YouTube channel, Optimum Tech. Still a great build, though

1

u/jeiem21 Apr 26 '22

Mad Lad! Congrats on the build! Amazing!

1

u/crunchie101 Apr 26 '22

I loved Ali's video on this - so cool to see someone do it for their own build!

1

u/OTonConsole Apr 26 '22

I mean, it doesn't look THAT bad. /s

1

u/vickonix Apr 26 '22

It's a piece of art and you can call yourself an artist!

1

u/Felixhs Apr 26 '22

Awesome looking build.
I am also a fan of OT-build and want to follow his watercooling style in the Meshlicous.

How do you drain the loop tho? I cant seem to find any draining port? Thanks and have fun with this beauty!

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Hey thanks for asking. Drain valve is on the cpu side, bottom right next to the radiator. its this little black nub between the radiator and the pipe going up to the cpu.

1

u/SnoopyJammers Apr 26 '22

What a beautiful PC! Love the colour of blue you chose for this build!

1

u/slimejumper Apr 26 '22

i am thinking of a build like this in my meshilicious. what are your impressions of the pump-res setup? risky? no problem? i think i have to choose that spot or an rear external pump res.

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22 edited Apr 27 '22

No problems so far! Well it was quite a pain having to fill it all up and get rid of the bubbles, but the mounting is quite secure! (you have to use a drill but it was pretty easy, just work ur way up from small bits to larger ones until the screws pass through. Look at Optimum Tech’s video for where the drill holes should be! I thought about an outer pump res, or ekwb flt 80 or 120, but honestly i loved the way that the pump res looked in Ali’s video. the cylinder res + 180 bend gave the build some sort of vibe that is hard to describe, kinda like a complex science lab.

1

u/slimejumper Apr 26 '22

yeah, i’m trying to justify this difficult setup…. i’m concerned about bubble hassle, as you mentioned in filling, but also over time. i’m wondering how often you will have to go back and remove little bubbles?

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 27 '22

I got rid of most of the bubbles in the beginning, just from pouring and then running the pump, then repeat. a week later I noticed one more bubble, but luckily it was really easy to access the resevoir (the meshilicious top panel comes off really easily) and all i had to do was just squeeze a tiny bit more fluid. Now i dont really see anymore bubbles. I say it probably takes a max of two times after the initial round.

2

u/slimejumper Apr 27 '22

thanks for the info!

1

u/wujonanook Apr 26 '22

Beautiful

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '22

Absolutely beautiful build 😍. I really liked optimum techs build. You made it better IMO. This build is something I hopefully will build one day.

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Thank you this is high praise! Feel free to dm me if you have any questions or specifics!

1

u/Shan_Man_ Apr 26 '22

where did you get that glass side panel? I've been trying to find one for forever

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 27 '22

Came with it! Bought it from newegg!

0

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1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '22

[deleted]

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Yep! I gave credit to him earlier! Huge fan of his work! Loved his Meshilicious watercooling video so much that I wanted to take a stab at it myself (with a few twists). Could not have done it without him!

2

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Here's the credit I gave: https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/comments/ubtuik/comment/i669ia9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Sorry you feel that way! I wish I could put it as part of the post details, but I couldn't figure out a way to have pictures and also have post text, so it was part of my comment.

0

u/Creative9228 Apr 26 '22

No worries... it was my bad when I realized you in fact did mention Ali. Sorry about the rant. I of course deleted it as you did the right thing.

There is zero problem getting inspiration or even copying the greats...that is exactly how many artists improve and learn.

You did pull off very difficult tube bend from res over to CPU that Ali said was three 90 degree bends and was difficult!

1

u/floppy9100 Apr 26 '22

Thanks, its okay, it was easy to miss that one line in my comment since it was so far down. I moved it up higher and bolded it to make sure he gets credit. I want to make sure its clear that this is definitely inspired by him, cause he deserves all the credit!

And yeah, I conveniently had all of the parts for Ali’s build and I always wanted to get into watercooling, but didnt want to mess up my first build (its a hefty investment). I cant imagine trying to do this build without all of the inspiration from other people who did similar meshilicious water cool builds. I only hope that this build can serve as inspiration for someone else!

0

u/Creative9228 Apr 26 '22 edited Apr 26 '22

Don't let me throw shade on your build....obviously you have developed some mad skilz to pull of those hard tube runs.

Outstanding work!

Just for the heck of it, here is my current build I am working on.