- Joined
- Feb 8, 2012
- Messages
- 249
- Motherboard
- Asus Z97 Sabertooth
- CPU
- i7-4790K
- Graphics
- 2x GTX 1070
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
Hard Lined Water Cooled G5
Tuf Love
Tuf Love
It's been a long 4 years of case modding and three different cases to finally have my G5 looking the way it does currently. I guess the most obvious reason why people are going to look at this mod is because its water cooled. Most people ask why water cool a i5 ivy bridge processor? My answer is why not? The reason I water cooled my system is because its super hot in California and I wanted something that cools my system and looks awesome. Further advancements in water cooling and the introduction in hardlined tubes convinced me to take a jump into water cooling for the first time. I mostly got my tips from Jay's 2 Cent's a you tuber who I have followed for a while. Although I like his modding skills, he uses way to many fittings when trying to avoid difficult bends. I wanted the least amount of fittings for looks and affordability. I will give more details of the build throughout this build log. Hope you Enjoy! I forgot to mention that I am a college student. If I had the money I would obviously upgrade my rig. And for anyone curious this water cooling loop cost me less then 300 dollars.
Upgrades to Hardware and Case
1. EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-128bit-Graphics-04G-P4-3966-KR/dp/B00UOYQ5LA
2. BCM94360CD Chip for Wifi and Bluetooth 4.0
http://www.amazon.com/Broadcom-BCM94360CD-BCM4360CD-802-11ac-Bluetooth/dp/B00L35XSMS
BCM94360CD PCI-E adapter
http://www.amazon.com/BCM94360CD-BCM94331CD-PCI-1X-Adapter/dp/B00OMU97ZI/
3. 2 Antec Bias Lighting... I only paid 10 bucks
http://www.amazon.com/Antec-HDTV-51-1-Inch-BIAS-LIGHTING/dp/B007TG5EG8/
Case upgrades
1. Rewired and heat sinked front panel harness LED, USB, and Front audio
2. Recut and painted acrylic bottom plate and replaced screws.
3. Repainted side panel flat black
4. Redesigned SATA power cable to HD and to DVD drive.
5. Re-sleeved 24 pin power cord and 8 pin PCI-E cord
6. Double strength glass cut to fit front panel.
7. Rewired Case fans to connect to motherboard.
8. Cleaned and polished outside rim of case... work in progress.
9. Added LEDs to front and back of case.
10. Painted Top of the GTX 960 semi gloss white.
The Build
Sorry about not starting out with a front shot but all the ones I took were crappy.
The HD caddy and the redesigned SATA power cable
This res is EK-DDC XRES 100 CSQ and a DDC Swiftech MCP350 Pump. I custom sleeved the pump wires to match. I purchased them separately and it saved me around 50 bucks. I did not realize this when I planned things out but the res has 1 water flow out and 3 water flow in. The problem is the water flow out because it was not made for left to right cases like a modded G5. Almost every case on the market it right to left. This meant I had to wrap around both my in and out tubes so they did not cross each other.
The waterblock is a EK-Supremacy MX again to save money. It cost prebuilt $54 and some change. The radiator is a Black Ice Pro Compact. I had to to paint it flat black to match the rest of the build.
Magicool Pro Slim Profile 2X120mm Radiator is for the front of the case. The Radiator is held on to the front panel by velcro. I had to paint this radiator 2 because they painted lightly and it looked brown.
The new Glass side panel and also a shot of the back which I am starting to not like anymore. I have something in mind with what I want to do with it but thats later down the road. Also the huge antennas from the new Broadcom adapter.
The HD caddy and the redesigned SATA power cable
This res is EK-DDC XRES 100 CSQ and a DDC Swiftech MCP350 Pump. I custom sleeved the pump wires to match. I purchased them separately and it saved me around 50 bucks. I did not realize this when I planned things out but the res has 1 water flow out and 3 water flow in. The problem is the water flow out because it was not made for left to right cases like a modded G5. Almost every case on the market it right to left. This meant I had to wrap around both my in and out tubes so they did not cross each other.
The waterblock is a EK-Supremacy MX again to save money. It cost prebuilt $54 and some change. The radiator is a Black Ice Pro Compact. I had to to paint it flat black to match the rest of the build.
Magicool Pro Slim Profile 2X120mm Radiator is for the front of the case. The Radiator is held on to the front panel by velcro. I had to paint this radiator 2 because they painted lightly and it looked brown.
The new Glass side panel and also a shot of the back which I am starting to not like anymore. I have something in mind with what I want to do with it but thats later down the road. Also the huge antennas from the new Broadcom adapter.
The new wiring harness for the Front panel. Behind the harness is another black acrylic panel that hides some cables and the grey back of the G5.
The bottom bend was the easiest because its a straight tube with a little s-bend. The one going from the block to the 120mm radiator took me 2 tries because its one of the sexiest and noticeable bends so i had to make sure the 45 degree angles were perfect.
The Tube going across the memory was by far the hardest to bend. It has 6 bends and had to be perfect in 2 spots. The first it had to be level going across the memory because if it were cricked it would bug the crap out of me and the last bend had to perfectly aligned with the res.
Water Cooling hardware I did not mention. The tubing is Clear PrimoChill 1/2in Rigid PETG. The fittings used for the build are PrimoChill Rigid Ghost Compression 8 in all. The liquid is Mayhems Pastel Coolant Ice white 1 liter.
The only tools needed to bend rigid tubing are a heat gun, deburr tool, hack saw, and a silicon insert so the tubing does not flatten when heated. Also soapy water helps to slide the silicon insert in and out of the tubing. Energy drinks also needed lol.
A picture before the leak test. If you notice the pump I had first was not the one I ended up with. I had a faulty pump which was the Alphacool Laing DDC310. It short circuited 2 days after I had it installed which scared me because of draining the loop to make an RMA to send back the pump. The draining was very simple. All I had to do was drain it from the bottom right fitting on the 120mm radiator. I funneled the liquid with a trash bad into a small bucket. Once I took the pump off it smelled terrible of burnt plastic.
Leak testing for the first time. If you notice my graphics card has a case of graphics card sag
Pictures not much comments
Used my Girlfriends Piggy bank to push down the pump and res with double stick tape.
I am not a real big fan of LEDs but I kept it light as possible. They look very blueish in pictures but they are pretty white with a blueish tint. I hope that you enjoyed my build and I am far from done with this project. My girlfriend is a registered nurse now so hopefully I can get a good birthday present! In the future I plan on re-doing the whole back panel as well as upgrading the GPU to dual waterblocks and also changing out the cpu and motherboard. I want to thank all the modders on this G5 thread as well as the Tonymac community. If you have any question about hardline tubing ask away. I will try to answer to my best ability, also, just youtube it. Also comments tearing my mod apart telling me how dumb I was to water cool my i5 cpu is cool as well. For anyone who cares I get average 34 degrees cpu package, Load I get a max of 68 degrees. I have the CPU overclocked to 4.4Ghz.
