Project: parallel HEX (completed!)

Intro:


It has come that time again to build another computer; my 3-year-old pc is showing it’s age in the latest games. Familiar story huh? This pc had to be a damn site quieter than my previous, and last me another 3 years in to the future. Well, perhaps not 3 years…

Making a powerful computer to play the latest games and be the general workhorse is the easy bit. Add in a good dose of overclocking to squeeze out that extra boost and the challenge then becomes to keep the pc cool and stable. That extra heat means an increased necessity to remove it from the pc and its components, but I don’t want it sounding like I'm living in a wind tunnel experiment. Water cooling was the answer for me.

There’s not many readily available cases that I liked the look of, and the one’s I did like were made or modded by people in this and other forums. I obviously can’t have theirs, so I decided to make my own. I like clear pc’s, just something about them. So my case was to be made from clear acrylic. I’m considering adding mirrored film to the inside of the case, so it reflects the outside world – until I switch the computer on! I’ll see how it looks in clear acrylic/perspex first. I’ll get to the case lighting later.

There are some very knowledgeable folk in these [H]ardforums, and I have used their opinions and insights to think up parallel HEX. I thank those of you that helped me, even though you didn’t know it at the time With the sucking up done, it’s time for the bad news. There was some advice I didn’t take , that being the parallel loops of the water cooling cicuit.

parallel HEX – The water cooling loop is a series circuit with six parallel branches in the middle of the series loop. The majority of water cooling circuits I’ve seen are series, and perhaps some with one or two parallel loops from it. I wondered if it would be better for all waterblocks to be in parallel with each other, as it works with resistors and that’s what waterblocks are to the water when you think about it. Will it work? I don’t know but there’s only one way to find out..

The waterblocks being fitted are:
GPU –1 & 2: Aquacomputer Aquagratix [X1800XT 512MB] [X1800XT 512MB master]
CPU: Cooler Master AquaTrident [AMD X2 4400+]
NB: Aquacomputer Twinplex Pro [DFI RDX200]
HD – 1 & 2: Cooler Master AquaTurtle [WD Raptor 74Gb] [WD SE400KD]

Other hardware:
P1 & 2: Swiftech D5 pumps
Radiator – ThermoChill PA120.2
Radiator Fans – 2x Cooler Master Aluminium 120mm fans
Manifold – custom
Manifold/Reservoir – custom



I was going to water cool the RAM too, as the Crucial Ballistix (PC4000 1Gb x2) get pretty hot with a good overclock, even at their specified voltage of 2.8V. I’ve decided to air cool the RAM, for now anyway.

parallel HEX – This came about by the shape of the manifold I designed to split the water into six circuits.



A straight manifold may not give equal flow to all outlets, so a circular manifold would be great, however curved flats aren’t good to make a leak free seal with pipe connectors. So the circle turned into a hexagon because of the six circuits. Simple evolution. Talking of evolution, the manifold has changed slightly, with the addition of an o ring, to ensure the lid is water tight. I will only be using one of the manifolds shown above.

Enough history, lets see the designs for the case!

Here’s the Virtual Tour

The case is going to be made out of 9mm plywood first, to check it all fits. Any modifications made here will be carried over to when it is made out of acrylic. The mockup also allows me to compare the computers performance to see if I need a second radiator with the six blocks, and if all this was really worth it!

I’m going to take a step-by-step approach here to show you the gradual build up.

Here’s the HEX from the front page:


Add in a few motherboard mounts and you’ll get an idea…



The motherboard standoffs are on the reverse side of the HEX so the motherboard can be mounted like thus:



The motherboard is mounted 180 degrees from the norm to allow heat from any blocks to rise unimpeded. Well that’s the theory!

The motherboard backplate needs a base. What shape would suit better… HEX of course!



What’s next? Some power would be nice….enter a Tagan TG580-U15. A modular psu that means I don’t have power cables trailing everywhere that I don’t use. Plus it has the high power that this pc requires:



Slot in some RAM and a X1800XT Crossfire set up:



The models aren’t perfect, but you get the idea!

The AC Aquagratix have backlit perspex windows on the side that be changed to suit your taste. I’m thinking ‘master’ and ‘slave’, or perhaps ‘parallel’ and ‘HEX’. I’ll change the backlighting LED from red to blue or UV to see how it looks (the water in the pipes will be blue UV reactive).

Before I can boot this pc up , I need some hard drives, CPU and optical drives…



Another waterblock has crept in above, the Cooler Master AquaTrident for the CPU, although badly drawn above!

The hard drives seem to be in mid air, but they will be firmly held in place, and cooled too. Two Cooler Master AquaTurtles doing that job:



Mental Note: The WD hard drives have air holes on the side that the ‘turtles fit to, so that must be worked around.

Here’s the North Bridge waterblock and two Swiftech D5 pumps included. I’m not 100% sure the Aquacomputer Twinplex Pro will fit, I need to wait until it arrives. I decided on two pumps because of the possible need to balance this system and if one fails, I have the other as backup. The speeds of the D5’s will be controlled from the front of the case by removing the internal potentiometers and wiring new ones out to a modified Sunbeam fan controller. Pretty convenient that they both have 10K linear pots!



Next, add some side panels for construction strength and an I/O panel for the motherboard and slots. This is a bit of a dark area at the moment, as I don’t have that part. I’m hopefully getting hold of an old case soon to butcher and shape it to fit.



More in a bit...

You're going crossfire? Everything I've read says SLI ownz Crossfire...

Looks very nice! I think I missed the O-ring thing in the w/c forum. You gonna be using screws to secure the lid?

looks awesome.

Now, even water cooled pc’s need some airflow, especially over the RAM and power regulators. Here I have added two Cooler Master Crossflow fans at either side:



These crossflow fans are great if you can position them where it counts. They are quite quiet when run at 7V too. I am going to make some sort of mounting bracket that will allow me to position them to target areas of the motherboard. This will mean sealing the sides somehow; I’ll look into that on the plywood mockup. I also think filters fitted to the fans is prudent as I can imagine the amount of dust that will be drawn into the case.
The image below shows how the blanket of air can be targeted:



The fan on the left cools the power regs, north and south bridges and provides movement of air around the CPU, between the graphics cards. The fan on the right side cools the RAM and provides movement of air to the graphics and other cards that may be added later. Both fans provide clean cool air to the PSU below which is extracted out the rear of the case. What you can see below is the radiator that will also benefit from these fans:



Add some fans to the radiator (Cooler Master Aluminium 120mm)



Here’s a picture of the back of the pc, just in case you forgot what it was called! Even the Tagan PSU has little hexagons….



The two rear panels added:



The source of parallel HEX:



The hex shaped object at the bottom of the image above is the manifold. This takes the water from the first pump (½” inlet) and splits it into six ¼” outlets.
The other object at the top of the image is the reservoir and manifold in one, a ‘collector’ of sorts. This takes the ‘hot’ returns of all six waterblocks and brings them all together again. There are six mini ball valves attached to this to allow me to regulate the flow in those loops, to allow more or less flow in other loops. I was going to attach the valves to the manifold, but it I can actually see the amount of water passing through the collector, plus it looks cooler!
There are two ½” fittings at the bottom of the collector; one for the feed to one of the pumps, and the other has a ½” ball valve to drain the system easily whenever it’s required. Hopefully not that often!
The collector isn’t made yet, just finalising the case dimensions before it’s made.

Here you can see where the collector and manifold will be positioned:



Below, I have added the top of the case with holes for the fans. Haven’t decided on fan guards yet. Also, you will see a Danger Den Fill Port right above the collector. This should make topping up with coolant so much easier. The collector has an o-ring on the top to seal with the case lid.



Finally, all the covers are on and all the buttons and control knobs. I haven’t finalised this part of the build yet and will probably change. The buttons are LED lit vandal proof type for all the usual stuff (power, reset) and one for pump override for flushing the system without the pc actually running. The last one is a spare, perhaps a turbo button?



The control knobs are two Sunbeam fan controllers, for all the fans and the two pumps. This way I can adjust each individually to see what balance of quietness versus case temperatures I can get without taking the case apart. It may be that I find that right away, and never adjust them. If that’s the case I’ll just hard wire them and not use them.

The virtual(y) finished article:





There you go. That’s the easy version. Now I have to do it for real.

/subscribed

Originally Posted by qbackin

/subscribed

I love the plans.

That is cool, lets hope you can do it on real now!

Supscribed, watching this

wow. that's a really interesting and unique design.

Looks very impressive, on the rendering at least.
It looks like space is tight between the PSU and optical drives with the cables, have you considered moving them?
Are the radiators fans blowing in? If so, wont that give you too much airflow into the case that goes through the PSU, it could be limiting. But don't let that stop you, I have never seen crossflow fans in a computer before.

Originally Posted by penguin

You're going crossfire? Everything I've read says SLI ownz Crossfire...

Looks very nice! I think I missed the O-ring thing in the w/c forum. You gonna be using screws to secure the lid?

Even NV fanb0ys are welcome to watch! Thanks, the mockup is going to use screws of some sort to hold it together, and I may adapt fixings as I go along.

Glad you like it guys, those pictures don't show all the pipework or wires, so it will look a bit different, but not much.

Originally Posted by Lundis

Looks very impressive, on the rendering at least.
It looks like space is tight between the PSU and optical drives with the cables, have you considered moving them?
Are the radiators fans blowing in? If so, wont that give you too much airflow into the case that goes through the PSU, it could be limiting. But don't let that stop you, I have never seen crossflow fans in a computer before.

The idea of the airflow for the case:

- 2x 120mm fans on top of the rad extracting, taking the heat from the radiator with them, pulling upwards if you like.
- the psu has a fan that pulls air downwards and out the back of the psu and case.
- 2 crossflow fans are taking air from outside and directing it towards the motherboard, and feeding the rad and psu with cool/ambient air too. Note, the crossflow fans intake and exhaust are at 90 degree of each other.

The art is to balance the air coming in with the air and going out - so it never sits still.

Intresting..I love the design , *subscribed*.

Man I love the non-box case mods /subscribed

Would a 2x120MM radiator be enough for a loop containing all this? I know people usually run 2+ loops when they have to cool more then just 1 GPU and CPU. Sorry if this was answered in this whole parrellel structure, but I'm not exactly getting how this stuff works, and if your going 3/8" for the CPU, why wouldn't you go with a Storm or Apogee over the AquaTrident?

Looks like a crazy project non the less, I'm just having a little trouble understand some of this

Originally Posted by Hexus0

Would a 2x120MM radiator be enough for a loop containing all this? I know people usually run 2+ loops when they have to cool more then just 1 GPU and CPU. Sorry if this was answered in this whole parrellel structure, but I'm not exactly getting how this stuff works, and if your going 3/8" for the CPU, why wouldn't you go with a Storm or Apogee over the AquaTrident?

Looks like a crazy project non the less, I'm just having a little trouble understand some of this

The radiator size has been discussed here, and the consensus is a mixed bag. This is the first time I've water cooled so don't pretend to know if it will work. That's one of the reasons for the first build, and if it turns out I do need another rad, I'll move on to Plan B!

As for my choice of waterblock, I like the idea of 1 inlet and 2 outlets. It's fin design looks efficient, it's top is clear so I can see if it's gunked. Of the few reviews I read of it worked pretty good. It has 1/4"BSP, 6/8mm connectors that suit my plan. I'll find out if it was a wise decision or not soon enough!

SUBSCRIBED!
This looks amazing!

If you do as good of a job on the actual work as you did on the planning this will be on the main page for sure.

hmm... have you considered putting a second and smaller res inbetween the rad and p1?

should be an incredible rig...