Worklog: Project Thief - Fully Watercooled Dual PC

stren

Senior member
Jul 20, 2011
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Alright LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, TROLLS, HATERS AND PEASANTS!

Project Thief is COMPLETE. Cue Drums..... Cue trumpet fanfare....

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Project thief is based around the enormous, nay monstrous, CaseLabs TX10-D case, and if that wasn't enough, there's a pedestal to make it even bigger.

The build features two full size gaming computers in one case along with custom wood panelling and powder coating. The name thief comes from the this build stealing an awful lot of my disposable income. The Thief symbology is integrated through the use of Skyrim Thief's guild symbols as well as two different themes representing the duality of the thief's life. The "light" side of the case represents the Thief's role by day as an ordinary hard working member of society and features my workstation. The "dark" side of the case represent's the Thief's role by night and features my gaming rig. The ability to fit so many radiators and fans means that the fans can be turned down to be almost silent while still being able to perform at the top of their game.

The idea was really to build a no hold's barred setup with the best of the best that was not only hardcore but easy to maintain. One computer would be my linux based workstation that I use for my day to day work. The other would be my windows based entertainment/gaming battlestation.

Light side:
- Rampage IV Extreme + 4930K + 32GB Corsair Dominator GT 2133 + 2x 7990s + 1TB SSD
- Fully watercooled with 2 loops: cpu, memory, motherboard, gpus

Dark side:
- EVGA X79 Dark + 4820K + 16GB Corsair Dominator GT 2133 + 4xR9-290s + 1TB SSD
- Fully watercooled with 2 loops: cpu, memory, motherboard, gpus

Final Pics here

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stren

Senior member
Jul 20, 2011
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The project name is not finalized so suggestions are welcome - I thought of thief because it dual wields and it steals all my money!

I am working on a huge monster build that will showcase CaseLabs newest case - the monster TX10. This monster case can fit two SR-2 (HPTX) systems with full water cooling. As shown it could fit multiple Mo-Ra 140x9 raditors, or 6 140.4 radiators. It can even fit front mounted 140.5 radiators.

The main feature will be two giant custom waterfall reservoirs that will occupy the front bays.

Here is the current hardware that I have to go in, as well as the minimum upgrades that I wish to put in:

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Unboxing Videos and Pics

I picked up the case directly from Jim - so the packing was reduced in order to fit in my car. If you buy one of these it will come in two boxes as it's packed a lot more securely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqwGFFfPLQ4&context=C3322918ADOEgsToPDskI2H2Nz8m3_IbQaLgVUrd0R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqPqH7rvIZA&context=C3953b0bADOEgsToPDskI8m9W8hEnOrEc9aEr83gWw

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Lots of Parts

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Building the case

As Jim knew the case was going to be powder coated by FTWPC he saved FTW the hassle of sandblasting it by skipping the CaseLabs normal black/white powder coat. Because of this the case is not only in it's raw bare aluminum state, but it also is less assembled than normal in order to save on time taking everything apart.

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The Pedestal frame consist of top, bottom, front and back that are screwed together with countersunk screws

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Screwing the casters in

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These are the spring clips that hold the panels on - they hold the panels tight, while still be pretty easy to remove for changing your loop up

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Pedestal frame with one of the clipped side panel and the back plate screwed on

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Pedestal with all panels attached except the top/bottom cover

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Main case frame coming together, this is the view from the back showing the holes for the dual vertical motherboard trays
 
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stren

Senior member
Jul 20, 2011
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T0NZ3h.jpg

Case + Pedestal with XXL window fitted on one side

Here's a quick video showing the case partially assembled:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwrso0sehdo&context=C3773919ADOEgsToPDskJgx8bloxEVpne2XhAzGKgU

Choosing colors for the powder coat

To make sure I was making the right choice on the color I decided to get some card and tape it to the frame. I removed the acrylic window and used a grey piece of card to model the motherboard:

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Metallic Charcoal Grey and Metallic Crimson Red

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Metallic Charcoal Grey, Pearl White and Crimson Red

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Metallic Charcoal Grey with Metallic Pearl White

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That's it for now - let me know what colors you like!
 
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thilanliyan

Lifer
Jun 21, 2005
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That's a computer case??!!! It's HUGE!! I hope that guy is a midget. :p If he is I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make fun of him.
 
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Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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The main feature will be two giant custom waterfall reservoirs that will occupy the front bays. These will be made by FTWPC, however they have design input from cyberdruid who was famous for his waterfall reservoirs (you can find some videos on youtube). Here's a rough sketch of the build:

Why? You want to keep your reservoirs calm and nearly full. Dissolved oxygen in your coolant is bad.

Register over at this forum and start a build log. Those guys will set you straight! ;)

http://www.realredraider.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=11
 
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stren

Senior member
Jul 20, 2011
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Why? You want to keep your reservoirs calm and nearly full. Dissolved oxygen in your coolant is bad.

They're designed in a way to minimize bubbles getting in the loop. Yes there will be some effect but hopefully small. CyberDruid has done plenty of waterfall reservoirs and no one's seen a problem yet AFAIK. We'll see how it works out. FTW are doing a trial with an 8 bay. Maybe I'll do a comparison of long term temps vs a normal reservoir to see.

As for why, well to look cool of course :)
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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Yes they do look good then again I'm biased as I can see the ocean any time I please. ;)

It will be interesting to see how this stacks up - literally. I have a system build in progress using four MORA3 140x9s in a separate frame. (external cooler) It's quite heavy and that hardware is definitely heavier than the PC hardware so you don't want it top heavy. On land I suppose it's not nearly as much of a hazard as it would be on a ship @ sea.
 

stren

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Jul 20, 2011
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Yeah I'm hoping that the bottom rads will weigh more than the top so at least the centre of gravity isn't too high. The reservoirs will have a decent chunk of water at the bottom too that should help.

4x140.9?? On one system? What are you running and is it completely passive?
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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Yeah I'm hoping that the bottom rads will weigh more than the top so at least the centre of gravity isn't too high. The reservoirs will have a decent chunk of water at the bottom too that should help.

4x140.9?? On one system? What are you running and is it completely passive?

Nope it has 36 140mm fans.
It cools an SR2, two X5690, two 590GTX cards.
It has Iwaki RD30 prime mover and four reservoirs holding about 1/2 liter each with balancing manifolds. The water from the system comes into the bottom fills each rad then drains into the reservoirs. This is collected at the bottom of the reservoirs and summed into a manifold that runs to the suction side of the pump. Under testing with full 1,5 kilowatt load the water temperature matches the ambient temperature. The fans are run around 9V off a dedicated switching power supply. The pump has its own dedicated PSU as well that can supply 18V to 30VDC. It's run between 19 and 24V in normal operation and is very quiet due to isolators.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
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that thing is a beast... looks like my system is going to be decrowned when yours is up.
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
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I gotta ask, how much does that thing weight empty? And how many HD's can it hold? I'm going to guess a lot :D Hell you could put my Corsair 600t in it and you'd still have room for another full computer or 2.

A case inside your case, hummm sounds like Pimp My Ride the pc modders edition.
 
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aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
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Sep 28, 2005
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My current case is probably half his size.. and its already considered Overkill Large..

His is most definitely a MAN CASE... *Tim Allen Grunt*
There is no other word then that in my vocabulary to describe that case.
 

stren

Senior member
Jul 20, 2011
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I gotta ask, how much does that thing weight empty? And how many HD's can it hold? I'm going to guess a lot :D Hell you could put my Corsair 600t in it and you'd still have room for another full computer or 2.

A case inside your case, hummm sounds like Pimp My Ride the pc modders edition.

I believe Jim said it weighs 70 lbs which isn't bad considering how thick the aluminum is. It's built like a tank.

Also I updated the first two posts :)

As for hard drives - the TX10 could conceivably hold 32 flex bay mounts if you don't use any radiators and use the side mount hard drive mounts. Each flex bay can hold 4 hard drives. So it could hold 128 drives in the case itself, however you can add multiple pedestals each of which can take another 10 flexbays i.e. 40 hard drives.
 
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sod16

Junior Member
Dec 17, 2011
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The depressing thing is, no matter what you do or say in at most 10 YEARS, time
(not long) a single desk mobile phone will dwarf the power this pc has.

2001 Pentium 2? 3?4? 400mhz, to 3Ghz now

PS Vita quad, galaxy s2 is dual, + more ram + Defo more power then a system from that era.
It will happen and its weird.
 

stren

Senior member
Jul 20, 2011
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The depressing thing is, no matter what you do or say in at most 10 YEARS, time
(not long) a single desk mobile phone will dwarf the power this pc has.

2001 Pentium 2? 3?4? 400mhz, to 3Ghz now

PS Vita quad, galaxy s2 is dual, + more ram + Defo more power then a system from that era.
It will happen and its weird.

I'm not expecting the hardware in the case to last 10 years, that'll be upgraded frequently, but I'm hoping the case will last that long and that we haven't gone to some weird cooling system that no longer works with this case.

Yes a phone in ten years may be more powerful than this build, but by then hopefully this will contain something even more powerful :)
 

stren

Senior member
Jul 20, 2011
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Paint samples came in today - it looks like "Galaxy Grey II" will be the exterior and "Silver/White" will be the interior. It's hard to show the texture, but those two are both similarly smooth, with a bit of shine but not much.

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