I'm soooo jealous right now.

Well I certainly am not trying to rub it in anyone's face, but I'm pretty excited to have some stuff to work on this weekend! Going to be so much fun...

SavageNFS wrote:Well I certainly am not trying to rub it in anyone's face, but I'm pretty excited to have some stuff to work on this weekend! Going to be so much fun...

Noooo Savage, no rubbing intended whatsoever! When someone builds an awesome PC and shares it with pics & info it's as if the observer (me and others here I'm sure) are getting to do the build with you from afar. :D:

Looks great I like looking at piles of comp stuff LOL, if you find that the case is over crowded and you need me to take one of those 580's off your hands let me know

Every time I look at this thread i have to get the bucket for my chin as I cannot stop drooling. :Nicethread:

Going to get worse, Joel...these turned out FANTASTIC!

Just pulled the first 580 apart...I thought this was going to be intimidating. It is not at all and was very easy to do. Take your time and you are fine.

All cleaned up. I noticed the thermal grease dabs on the IC controllers after I took this picture...I got them off, but almost missed them!

Pads/Arctic Sliver 5 in place

Before and after...

Before and after...

Next card...you can kind of see my ugly mug in the finish of that EK Block. These blocks are absolutely stunning!

Complete!

I am so glad I decided to go this route over buying the completed hydros. I like the way these look much better and the EK Blocks and back plates just do it for me over the EVGA's. Not knocking the hydro's at all...just think these meet my personal taste more. Plus I got to assemble them and it was so much fun. Anyone who ever sees this thread and is intimidated taking apart a video card, DON'T BE. It's easy.

LOL good to see you enjoying yourself, job well done it is a pretty easy task stripping down the cards. Looks like you need to trim the nose hairs a bit LOL it's beginning to look like a goatee.

Duff is always on it. LMFAO

my wife says the same thing...

Gee, I'm not on for a few days and savage goes wild with his build. You are doing one hell of a job on this build. The 580's look great.

I have not installed the new 3.0 front panel in mine yet, waiting for the SATA 6 backplane to do both at the same time. But I noticed the same thing with the short extension to connect to the headers instead of the rear ports. Not sure if the shortness of the cable means they won't be a problem. I'll take a look on the Corsair forum.

Have fun this weekend savage, looking great.

LMAO... When I saw that reflection I thought it was me... Seriously!

Looks fantastic Savage!

Man now I have to take another trip outside to empty this drool bucket... LOL

I had a Den meeting with one of my sons tonight and then I gamed so just did some easy stuff tonight. I mounted the SSD and HDD's in the hot swap trays.

Note: I've read some concerns that the OCZ ssd needs special screws and I found this to be no problem. Standard HDD screws worked no problem for me.

The twins...

Also mounted the LG drives

I also checked out the ram sticks a bit closer. I was a little surprised to see actual paint on the red heat sinks. I would have thought these would be anodized on $350 sticks of ram. Not that heat is a major issue with ram, but the paint is thick and paint holds in heat. Who paints heat sinks? I don't really care, but in case anyone is interested. They come off tomorrow after I mount them in the MB and install the Mipps block where the stock red heat sinks mount.

I'm off to bed for now. Pretty excited for another delivery tomorrow from Koolance. Should be dropping off some goodies...

Hope the Delivery comes on time for ya today!
And hope the young lad did not get himself in too much trouble... :help:

Trouble? Sorry, I thought most of you new from Ultimate that our family is a big scouting family. Both my sons are in Cub Scouts (one a Bear, the other a Webelos) and I am their Cub Master. So Thursday evenings are pretty much tied up with scouts. My daughter wants to join a Venturing troop as soon as she is old enough (about 6 months). Soccer starts in a couple of weeks, so that will make, Mon, Tues, Wed evenings and Sat mornings shot. My sons play on the same traveling team, but my daughter plays on a Rec league team. So between Soccer and Scouts, it gets pretty busy in the Spring around here. I am blessed with "good" kids and a wonderful wife that deserves most (if not all) the credit.

I don't think I will be able to install the optical drives at the top as I want them. The reservoir has plugs on the top for the fill ports and I need to be able to access them. We'll see how everything fits once it arrives, but worst comes to worst, I'll move the reservoir to the top and the optical bays to the bottom two bay. The middle will be reserved for the controller board for the cooling system.

It is the smaller OCZ SSD drives that need different screws. Yours seems the same size as the WD drives. By moving the optical drive down the cables with fit better.

That is kind of what I was thinking. Great minds think alike!

Does it matter where the Reservoir goes? It should just slide out for easy filling if needed. Maybe use quick connects right at the back of the Reservoir...

Quick disconnects are 2 expensive 13 bucks a side so you would spend 52 for a set of 2. The bay res will fit anywhere and slide out with some extra slack on the hoses, however it should be the highest point in the system.

I hate those quick disconnects. They are effing HUGE. Technically, I don't even need to slide it out. There are plugs on the front face I could use if I wanted to. I may end up going that route too. Plus having it at the top will allow for better drainage and help the pumps to a certain degree. We'll see...a little progress this morning and then I am busy with work for a little while.

I present the heart of the build for the very first time...

All nestled in her bed...

Um, Savage, your RAM is nekkid...

So happy I went with the block. It just looks fantastic!

Well that's it for a little while. Duty calls...

Looks good, have you planed out your plumbing yet? Are you using a bridge between the GPU's?

Res>Pump>Rad>CPU>RAM>Rad>GPU>GPU>Res

There are plenty of ways to do it

I actually made a plumbing drawing...believe it or not. It's the engineer in me coming out. I'll give you a peak and feel free to comment on anything except my sloppy writing and sketch. I didn't intend on showing the freaking world. I just scribbled some stuff down so I could order what I needed and had a plan of attack putting it together.

If you see something that is an obvious faux pas, please let me know. The long pieces of tubing from the reservoir to the CPU and the video cards will be run behind the MB tray as will the returns to the reservoir. The drains will just be long pieces of tubing tucked behind the MB tray at the bottom as well. The fill ports will also be long pieces of tubing left in the side of the MB tray towards the top.

P.S. The thermal tape/paste crap that ASUS uses on the MB blocks is a nightmare to get off! Suggestions? I have used alcohol, but don't have any AS 1&2 on hand.

Thermal paste remover

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm

yeah...I know, but I don't have any on hand lol. I'll run up to the store this afternoon, but I may past over that crap if I can't find any. I have stuff to build and that certainly isn't a deal breaker I wouldn't think.

What do you think of the plumbing plan?

Edit: I located some AS 1&2 locally...I'll pick some up later.

Ok so 2 loops had to double check, makes it easier for you LOL.

CPU LOOP I would hook up like this:

Res>Pump>Double Rad>CPU>MOBO>Ram>Res

GPU LOOP is obviously even easier

Res>Pump>Tripple Rad>GPU's>Res

I would also look at getting a bridge for the GPU's instead of just the connector pipes it makes hooking them up far more secure you get multiple option on how the get run and it looks better IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0_sXSB5ZiA

Whoa...that isn't even close to what I had planned to do. Why would you use the triple rad for the GPU's? I have been planning on using the double on the GPU's the entire time. Also, I've seen the EK block for connecting the Video Cards for a while and considered getting it, but not sure if it is really necessary. It would certainly make it easier to install the cards and look great. It may be ordered in the future, but I may go ahead and run plumbing to test everything.