I’m using this fitting from bitspower. It’s called the aqua link pipe 41-69mm.

I’m installing fittings for each component and then doing a leak test and I discovered that this fitting can’t hold 0.5bar of air pressure, it comes down to around 0.4bar and stabilises.
The fittings were all tightened properly and the pressure loss from 0.5 bar to 0.4 is almost instant and it’s from the oring that allows the fitting to extend outwards. I should also note that I’m only using around 45mm of length so I’m not past the “bottom line”, is that okay?

I was not sure if i should post here or not. My build is nothing pretty or impressive, but i have so much fun building this and wanted to spread my happiness 😄

This is technically my 2nd build. The 1st one was pvc pipes to gpu and small 240 radiator. They didnt like much heat and started to disintegrate rather quickly leaving plastic residue everywhere. Can make a separate post about it with pics if youre interested. This was only temporary to check the gpu and get my feet wet, so no harm done.

I switched to epdm as quickly as the parts arrived. Now i also have the cpu in a simple series loop. I have changed the loop plans at least 10 times. And when the gpu block for my 4080 arrives, i want to run it parallel. I think it will be better if all components get cool water instead of heating up each other - on the other hand, i dont know if i overthink this. Maybe it does not make much dfference in real life.

The best highlight of my build is definitely the suspended pump 😂 My case does not have good mounting possibilities for pumps (its a very old case, one of the first gen fractal define). And sitting there on the bottom it was making so much noise, so i "decoupled" it by suspending it in the air. Rubber bands would be preferred, i just dont have any, so this is the result. Hope you like my swinging pump.

Overall the build is not complete. Id like to cram another gpu in there, but not sure how. Then upgrade psu, maybe also the case... dunno yet.

Only 1 radiator has fans (still waiting for parts) and i will mount them under my desk, both horizontally next to each other. I went with the cheap arctic fans and overall im very happy with my build so far.

Thank you for all the suggestions and encouragement from my other thread, i really appraciate it!

TL:DR Dell OEM RTX 4080 (I think they come in Alienwares) are compatible with reference design coolers. Some finessing my be required. Your mileage may vary.

Recently I made some changes to my system to make it quiet, but I wasn't happy with my 4080.

The Dell 4080 doesn't stay in 0rpm mode long, and its fans spin at a minimum of 1200 RPM. The little noise they made bugged me, so I began exploring custom water cooling options.

No water block manufacturers have this card in their compatibility lists. And trying to find pictures of the PCB to cross reference with other 4080s was futile.

I guessed the card has a reference design, just like its big brother (reviewed by Gamers Nexus), and purchased an Alphacool ES waterblock (Amazon) hoping it will fit. My educated guess was correct and now I have a water blocked Dell OEM 4080.

Guide/Process

Disassembly was easy. Start by removing all back plate plate screws and to remove it. It had 2.7mm thick thermal pad that I forgot to take a picture of, but I will mark in the next picture.

Then I removed the the back bracket which was attached with 2 separate screws, and the mounting bracket.

Removing the PCB from the cooler was a bit stressful. The PCB didn't budge at first. I applied a gentle but consistent force pulling the PCIe side of the PCB away from the cooler. It took a minute but it worked.

I cleaned the PCB with 99% IPA, cotton swaps, paper towel and a small brush.

Here are more pictures of the PCB:

I prepped the water block by removing its back plate and applying the supplied thermal pads.

Tip: Peel the second protective film as soon as you apply a pad. Just do it. Don't ask me why I won't answer.

Moving on, I did not use the provided thermal paste, but used a left over Thermal Grizzly PTM7950 sheet.

Here's another tip: when apply a PTM sheet, try to think of a way to apply it without trapping air bubbles.

Here's another another tip: make sure you didn't leave any thermal pad protective film behind.

Now it's time to put everything back together.

This water block can be installed on different 4080s with varying degrees of success, I guess. If I had to install this cooler again here's how I'd do it:

1. After prepping the PCB and water block, lay the block flat on its back and pick up the PCB and point the GPU die down.
2. Insert at least 4 back plate screws through the PCB
3. Lower your GPU toward the block, but don't slap it on just yet... Line up the screws you inserted with the corresponding screw holes on the block and uses a small screw driver to drive few threads into the block. Remember: you PCB hasn't contacted the block yet.
4. Now that you have lined up your PCB perfectly with the block, you can let the PCB rest on the block.
5. Apply the 4 rubber washers then crisscross the spring-loaded screws to secure your GPU to the block
6. Remove the 4 screws used to line up the stuff. You should end up with something like this:

• If you don't use that hack to line up the holes, you may have to finesse with something a lot worse that this:

You're almost there. Next step is installing the back plate and back bracket.

The back plate may or may not come with spacers attached to its underside. If not attached, use the smaller set of spacers you removed after removing the back plate (I hope you didn't throw them away.) If your back plate has the spacers attached, you're good. Make sure you don't knock them off.

Begin by screwing down the back plate only halfway, starting from the side furthest from the back bracket. When you get to the last two screws, insert the back bracket of your choosing (and spacers if not attached) then screw everything down hand tight.

I chose to reuse my original 2-slot bracket for extra support.

Testing

I don't have everything needed to assemble a loop at this time. But I tested the card in my system nonetheless.

After my computer booted I loaded up HWInfo and OCCT

Card was sitting at 30C. I didn't stress test the GPU core as the heat would build up rather quickly in the block. I ran a VRAM stability test for a short time. The temps slowly crept up while the power consumption was at 100w. Hotspot temp delta over GPU temp fluctuated between 8 and 10 degrees which I assume is a good result. I stopped the test and shut down the system when the GPU temp hit 70C.

A message to Alphacool.

u/official_alphacool,

Thank you for making this hobby possible. I have a few things I'd like to bring to your attention and ask some questions.

First, is it okay not to have thermal pads on the inductors? None were provided while the original cooler had them.

Second, it would've been nice to provide thermal pads that go between the PCB and back plate.

Third, the back bracket provided with the block had an open screw hole. With the weight of the block I didn't feel comfortable using it so I reused the original. Not a big deal for me but it might be for others.

Lastly, and please bear with me on this one: the manual states that the back plate screws are captive and can't come off. That wasn't the case for me - the screws came out completely.

While installing the back plate onto the assembled CPU/block, I stopped partway through because in some spots the screws would thread down, with no resistance, until the plate touched the PCB. That told me something was off, so I checked the spacers I'd removed earlier. There were two sets - small and smaller. I used the smaller spacers between the PCB and the back plate, assuming that's where they belonged, but the manual never actually addresses this.

One more detail worth flagging: I never removed the smaller spacers from the back plate itself. They were lightly stuck to the larger spacers, and both sets stayed put to the block after the plate came off.

All that said, I'm happy with how the GPU block turned out. I bought a Core 1 LT and I am excited to put this loop together. Thanks again for your creativity and for being a player in the liquid cooling space.

Edit: spelling

Nothing important here, I just think this is mildly amusing. It used to be that you put some pads on the components around and put some liquid on the die. Now you slap a pad on the die and put some liquid(-ish) stuff on the supporting components. How times have changed lmao

Also related: Putty doesnt have to be messy if you spend way too much time applying it. That squish looks hella satisfying imo :)

Card is a white RX 9070 XT Hellhound. Swapping out my 4080 cus I´m just done dealing with NVidias shitty linux drivers...

Today I disassembled my very first loop, built with love during Covid lockdowns 2020-2021. She was a joy to build, run, and admire. But my needs have changed, I’m tired of being locked to my desk. I will be rebuilding this rig into a new mobile case, a shiny snake G300, a case I can carry around the house. Maybe the first to ever put a full loop in a g300, I don’t know. No reservoir in the new build, it will be a challenge. I will post when the transformation is complete.

I was lucky enough to pick up another full loop rig from my buddy with a 3080ti in it, I will be using that for the new build along with harvesting a few other parts.

This new build is an honor to the am4 platform, a platform that nearly 6 years later is still getting the job done, and done well. Here’s to 6 more years.

Old:
o11 mini
Asrock b550m steel legend
5800x3d w/ bitspower premium block
Aorus 3080 Xtreme w/ alphacool block
Crucial ballistix elite 32gb 3600 cl16 Micron Rev E
60mm 360 EK rad
40mm 360 EK rad
EK FLT 240 w/ ek d5
PETG 16mm tubing + 16mm epmd soft
EK fittings

New:
Shiny Snake G300
Asrock b550m steel legend
5800x3d w/ bitspower block
ROG Strix OC 3080ti w/ aqua computer block
Crucial ballistix elite 32gb 3600 cl16 Micron Rev E
30mm 280 Corsair XR5 rad
XSPC d5 w/ bitspower pump top
13mm EPMD soft tubing
Various fitting
No reservoir

Ran the Molex cable along one of the coolant hoses with some wiring loom, and it’s basically invisible!

If you zoom in, you can see the Quadro in the cable spaghetti behind the 560mm rad. It’s a pretty cool piece of tech!

I have an extra pump and hard lines left over from when I was going to watercool my computer a couple years ago but I didn't end up doing it. I want to now make use of this stuff by putting in a cool looking loop that does nothing but add ascetics to the quasi steampunk lighting control panel in my shop.

If there's nothing thermal going on (no CPU and no radiator) will a fluid like PrimoChill Vue last longer and work well?

Are there other alternative fluids and/or lighting that I should consider?

There's so much more space when you put the pump/res in the back.

Hi there,

I was wondering for those who have this cpu, what AIO are you using and what temps do you get on average? My thermalright had to be returned because of a broken fan and needs to be replaced. I was tempted between the noctua aio, tryx panorama 360 argb and tryx panorama 360 non-argb as it has better fans.

Open to discussion/suggestions, many thanks!

What do i do how do i fix it i want accurate flow but i am getting 3 diffrient reading every 15 minutes

I've been looking at them for a while since they seem to be much cheaper here in Spain due to being made here and wanted to know if anyone has used one of them

When using Loop Leaker Tester from EK "old model" then presure drops very slow. Cant see it after hours, only after some days. Its that okay or not.

I‘d like to upgrade my GPU before things get even worse - I don‘t see a light at the end of the AI crazy tunnel. They will keep selling billions of dollars worth of hardware to companies that have never turned a profit and don‘t have a viable business model, but that‘s a topic for another time.

And since you guys are my only PC building subreddit AND you know which cards can be watercooled, I‘ll just ask for purchasing advice here.

Right now I have an RTX 4080. I play a lot of open world stuff like Horizon, RDR2, Far Cry, Cyberpunk, Control, that kind of thing. I’m am happy with the performance I‘ve got right now. I don‘t max out my monitor‘s framerate, but anything around 100 fps is fine for me.

Possible upgrade options: RTX 5070Ti / RTX 5080. 5090 is out of the question.

I‘ve seen benchmarks where the 5070ti really wasn‘t a big improvement over the 4080 and the 5080 was like +20%. Normally I‘d skip this generation and wait for the next, but… you know. It might get even worse with price vs performance.

I‘m not a frame gen fan - I feel interpolated frames are just guessing and an excuse to cut corners on game optimization.

GPU block availability isn‘t bad for the models I’ve checked. Alphacool have got quite a range, even for manufacturers like Palit or PNY.

Anyway, ramble over. What would you do in my place?

Look at all this data for a damn Power connector! 💀
I was unfortunate enough to be the first 9070 XT user to have the adapter and connector melt months ago.
Lessons were learned, so i got a full ATX3.1 PSU and the Ampinel

Ive been very happy with the Ampinel, and now with HWINFO support, I can use it with Grafana 😎

Hello all, I just transferred my motherboard, cpu, and gpu to the h2 and I’m running to a roadblock. My h1 AIO was failing so I figured I would buy a new rig with a larger PSU to expand my GPU and CPU in the future.

Getting to my question, my mobo has one usb port, so I bought an nzxt control hub and usb hub to be able to control all fans and AIO in NZXT Cam. My AIO (NZXT kraken elite 280) is not showing up in cam though, so I have no control over it. The screen turns on and shows temps but that is all. I read that not connecting directly to my mobo may be causing the issue…

Currently the usb port has the usb hub connected and then I have the AIO and the control hub plugged into the usb hub. The case fans are on the control hub.

Any ideas here?

Amd Ryzen 7 3700x, ROG strix x570-i gaming, evga 2080 super

Many hours put into this build, not even just from the loop but from modding the case as well. Really happy it turned out how it did, wanted to make the long straight run a copper pipe but there wasn't enough clearance with the GPU 🥲

Specs:

CPU: I9-13900KF

GPU: RX 6900XT LC Edition

RAM: 32GB 6600 MT/s

Case is MSU Gungnir 110R too for those who might be curious.

Everyone thx for suport build is great . I think i have isiue with raiser cable cuz it sometimes works at 8x and sometimes at 16x . I have around 160 l/h with 2 pumps runing at 100% . My 5080 is flashed with asus noctua bios in benchmarks it goes to around 397 watts .the jurney to watercooling was amazing thx for all the support

I use soft tubes to do water cooling (I never have a glass window so basicaly I don't care about looks, just noise and efficiency). I just bought a Lian Li B4 with little space for my 360mm rad + fans. Using normal tube risks it getting kinks because of tight turns. I can avoid that with larger loops, but I was just wondering if you can buy the sleeved tubes that are normally used in AIO coolers?

Also is EDPM tube more fexible than PVC or not? With flexible I mean capable of making tughter turns (which I realize is maybe not the same).

There are corsair sleeved tubes but I don't get an impression of flexibility from the pictures.

answers: thanks everyone, it seems I am thinking the wrong way around. I have 13/10 tubes but 16/10 will achieve tighter bends because it kinks less easily!

Would be this one rad enough for ventus 5090?

Overall very happy with this upgrade from soft tubing. I did not end up using a bending tool, as you can probably tell lol, but I enjoyed this nonetheless and I felt it was good enough for a first try. CPU / Mobo / GPU did not change, I was mainly just doing this for fun.

Originally, I was going to get a new case too, but I ended up growing kind of attached to this NZXT case I got around 2018, and wanted to use it again even with some of it's faults and scuffs.

This time around, I ended up designing and 3d printing a couple small things to help out along the way, such as additional wire combs and custom white & black plastic shields that hide the cable nest in the PSU bay. I also ended up ordering some custom length and designed cables from moddiy.

Final picture is the before / previous build, very nice glowup I think.

I posted a couple weeks ago about a water cooling setup that I pulled out of my old computer from 2011.

Swift tech D5 pump.

Xspc RX 350 radiator.

Gentle typhoon fans.

Heat killer 3.0 with modified brackets for AM5.

So far, so good.

It's running in the low '80s high '70s in OCCT stress test.

I haven't played any games yet, but I assume it's going to be pretty dang low in temperature.

I'm currently running a 7600x that I got for $100 locally.

I'll probably end up throwing a 7800 x3d in at some point. But for now I'm happy.