Log [in progress] I'm at it again - This time with a Lian Li Q58

[thoughtfix]

I am, once again, asking for your feedback

After some time absent from this community, I decided that I am going to do another SFF rebuild. My home battlestation is now my "workspace" and has to share. I saw the white Lian Li Q58 and decided I love it.

My big hard-tube system (10700k/3080 FTW3 Ultra) is beautiful, but it can only live in one spot in my workspace, takes up a lot of space, and blows heat directly at my thermostat so my AC makes the rest of my home damn cold when I do any gaming. The PC I have in my living room (5600X/3090 TUF OC) for VR grew out of "small form factor" into a much larger O11-D Mini (while still ITX) after I had some failures in keeping it properly cool.

I need to move my massive PC to small form factor, but don't want to buy all new components. My solution: The Lian Li O11-D Mini can take a full sized ATX motherboard (if a bit squeezed in) and all the cooling required. I can move the Z590-E motherboard from my desktop into it and keep the liquid cooling esentially the same - possibly moving the GPU to a vertical mount and moving the EK FLT-240 pump/res to the back panel of the case. Then I can move the Strix B550-I motherboard into the new Lian Li Q58 case. No new motherboards, CPU, GPU, memory, or drives. Win!

What I will likely need to buy:

1. Apogee Drive 2. Neither of my GPUs are short enough (even waterblocked) to fit a pump/res beside the GPU, unless by some miracle my spare Phanteks Glacier R160 can squeeze in front of the GPU. I also have a spare Bitspower Hexagon I can probably mount hanging from the top radiator to feed water into the Apogee Drive 2.
2. 280mm radiator. Eyeballing the PrimoChill 280mm EximoSX in white to match the case. Probably the matching 120mm radiator too for the bottom. (see below)
3. Maybe some custom cables. I have a lot of spare unsleeved cables from prior pslate orders
4. A new PSU for the Lian Li case. Already ordered the EVGA 850W SFX since that 10700k is thirstier than the 5600x
5. Vertical GPU mount for the O11D Mini so I can fit the EK-FLT behind it (similar to how it fits in my Phanteks case above)

Decisions I have to make:

1. Which CPU/GPU pairing should I make? The VR PC in the O11-D Mini has the 5600X and 3090 right now, powered by a Corsair SF750. That will be getting a PSU upgrade to take the Intel chip. The desktop has a 10700k with a 3080, comfortably powered by a 1000W PSU which, of course, won't fit in the rebuild. Considerations:
   • My desktop gaming monitor is 1440p @170Hz. Most games I play wouldn't seriously benefit from the 3090 at my desk. In VR, I use a Valve Index and take advantage of supersampling, so I got the best GPU I could find for that. That said - I game on the desktop about 2-3x more than I game in VR, and very few of my VR titles max out the GPU for extended periods of time.
   • The 3090 is physically a much smaller card when waterblocked (only 270mm compared to the 3080's 330mm) so may be a better fit physically inside the Q58 case.
   • The 3090 takes more power and generates more heat. Pairing it with the hot Intel chip would require every bit of the power on the EVGA 850W PSU if I want them to both boost comfortably.
   • The SFF case will have less cooling potential than the O11D Mini. Would it be folly to have a 3090+5600X on one 280mm (and, fates be kind, an additional 120mm) or will I be fine?
2. Am I just BSing myself to think I can get a 5600x and a 3080 or 3090 in a custom loop in the Q58? I have the original air coolers for both the EVGA and the Asus cards and even ordered some of the thermal putty that EVGA uses for VRM cooling, so I can just switch back to air on the GPU side of things.
3. Soft tube or rigid?

Notes for myself (for later as this build goes on or for anyone who finds this thread)

• Reviewer-tested maximum power draw of components
  • 10700k 215W
  • 5600X 78W
  • EVGA 3080 FTW3 Ultra 467W
  • Asus TUF 3090 OC 530W
• Q58 space
  • GPU: Triple slot, 320mm
  • CPU clearance 67mm (BARELY enough to fit the Apogee Drive II and that's ONLY with low-profile fittings coming off the inlet/outlet
• 3090 TUF length (with EK block) about 270mm
• 3080 FTW3 Ultra length (with EK block) about 320mm (might not fit at all in the Q58)

Comments are welcome. The case will take a while to arrive, so I have time to ponder and hear your advice.

 

[justkeevin]

Looking forward to it! I have my eyes on a Q58 as well for my watercool build!

 

[thoughtfix]

I think you and I are going to be sharing experiences back and forth through both of our builds!

(Justkeevin's build thread starts here: https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/first-custom-loop-advice.16972/ )

 

[Valantar]

Looking forward to seeing this come together! My input on the "which parts go where" question: I'm cooling a 5800X and a 6900 XT in a Meshlicious with a single 280mm radiator, and it's fine at stock (though I mostly run an UV/UC profile on the GPU as I don't need all that performance most of the time). The 3090 is definitely more power hungry than the 6900 XT, but you'll likely be able to keep it in check with a minor UV with no performance loss. Still, stock performance should be doable. If I were you, I would keep the 3090 for VR - it's not like that 3080 is holding you back.

More in depth about my cooling: I'm running a Nouvolo Aquanaut with a Laing DDC 3.2 PWM / 1T Plus. The Aquanaut is a bit meh - being reverse-flow (pulling water through the microfins rather than pushing it through them) it doesn't perform the best, especially on off-centered chips like MCM Ryzens. At stock I could see 85°C on the CPU in all-core 100% workloads, though this isn't something that happened much. Gaming was more like ~65°C. Note that this did not mean the water got crazy hot, only that that pump-block struggles a bit to dissipate the heat from the CPU. Water temperatures while dissipating ~450W in gaming (stock power limit for my 6900 XT is 330W) never exceeded 45°C in >30°C ambient temperatures this summer. These days, running a more optimized profile on my CPU (PPT 120, TDC 75, EDC 120, Curve Optimizer -10 all cores, +100 boost override) I never exceed 75°C under long-term all core loads (video conversion etc.), and gaming temps are closer to 60°C. The GPU has never exceeded 61-62°C even at stock, though at my (rather aggressive) UV/UC profile it stays in the 40s.

Oh, btw: get some Arctic P14 fans. They are fantastic in terms of noise and performance, cheap, and come in white. The P12 is neck-and-neck with the Noctua NF-A12x25, and the P14 is the same design scaled up. Only thing to note is the non-standard 28mm thickness for the P14. AFAIK, there is no better 140mm fan on the market if you want something reasonably quiet (and perhaps not at all).

AFAIK the Apogee Drive II is pretty hard to find. If you can find it it should be decently good, though it does have a sub-optimal port solution making it a bit hard to fit in tight cases. The Aquanaut is fine, a bit worse thermally but good for flow rates - very low restriction. There are two more options to consider:
- The just-launched Aquanaut Extreme, a complete ground-up redesign with a new cold plate, conventional flow orientation, and easily accessible fill ports. For sale now, though I haven't seen any thermal results yet.
- The in-development LOBO/low boy from @Alloy Craft, found in this thread. Currently looking for beta testers. Reverse-flow design like the original Aquanaut, but a very specialized cold plate design to make up for this makes it interesting. No thermal data there either.

Hope this helps you along in some way. Good luck on the build(s)!

 

[justkeevin]

Look into a bitspower magic cube with a DDC pump. You can probably fit it into the negative space of the gpu side (Top right).

 

[Valantar]

Look into a bitspower magic cube with a DDC pump. You can probably fit it into the negative space of the gpu side (Top right).

Yeah, that's a pretty good option. There are also some seriously compact options like Alphacool's DC-LT pumps, though they aren't all that powerful. Should still be sufficient for a small loop like this though (and they're small enough to stuff two of them into the loop if you really wanted more power). One Eisbaer Solo LT on the CPU, and a DC-LT pump in something like an Eisstation 40 DC-LT elsewhere in the loop would give you plenty of head pressure, available fill ports, mounting/fitment flexibility, and near-total silence if you tune your pump speeds. A good DDC will be better, but fitting it can be more of a challenge.

 

[thoughtfix]

Thank you so much for the comments. You're helping significantly.

Updates on this with some decisions. Still waiting for the case and some parts to arrive:

• Preordered a Nouvolo Aquanaut Extreme since the Apogee Drive II looks like even it will be too tight.
• Ordered a Barrowch DDC pump (the one with the OLED display and controls on the top - could be cool?) to match either the Aquanaut or the Apogee
• I have a Bitspower Hexagon 34 reservoir on hand, but also got a Bitspower Hexagon Flow Indicator because they're tiny and could help me fill/drain if the res doesn't fit. If literally nothing else works, I'll bend a vertical piece of rigid tube and use that to feed and bleed since the Aquanaut Extreme has more fill ports. I could potentially run it to the RGB/fan door for relatively easy access.
• Found Optimum Tech's video witha 3080 Ti and 5950X running on a single 280mm rad here: This gives me some hope.
• I've seen a few posts that show EK Mystic Fog behaving quite well in the long term without gunk. I am considering that.

 

[justkeevin]

Have you looked into the R160 with a DDC? Might be skinny enough. I have considered the Aquanaut Extreme but I wanna wait for reviews.

 

[thoughtfix]

I have an R160 with a DDC but I have serious doubts it will fit in front of the GPU even with the blocked GPU. If I had a smaller GPU, I would be confident it would fit. In this particular case, I have doubts. The 3080 FTW3 Ultra will take almost every mm of the GPU side.

 

[justkeevin]

I don't know if you followed Fabios' T1 build. I think I'm gonna do what he has currently. He has a pretty long GPU as well. The Q58 has about 67mm of depth.

 

[thoughtfix]

That's an epic build.

Bad news: The case was delayed AGAIN. This time, Newegg is estimating a "release date" of 10/12 (When I bought it, the release date was 10/1) and who knows how long shipping will take once it's released. I am guessing they're on one of the container ships stuck outside LA.

 

[justkeevin]

People in Canada already got theirs.

I don't know how long the PCIe cable is, was thinking about moving the card to the outermost IO slot and using the space behind cause of the front IO port obstruction. Might open up a few more mm's.

The pump placement has been driving me nuts especially since I don't have the case on hand. I also considered forgoing the 120mm bottom fan or using a slim 120mm with fan guards and throwing the pump there somewhere.

 

[thoughtfix]

Got my tracking number! Still trying to decide if I want soft or rigid tube or if I even have room for any of that. I will know more once I have the case and start putting parts into it.

 

[justkeevin]

Mine come next Tuesday but won't have time until the weekend to start messing around. By chance, have you measured the length of the psu cables?

 

[thoughtfix]

Final specs:

• Ryzen 5600X
• Strix B550-I motherboard
• 1x2TB Samsung 970 EVO PCIE 3.0 NVMe
• 1x1TB MSI Spatium PCIE 4.0 NVMe
• 1x1TB PNY SATA 2.5" SSD (forgot the model)
• 2x16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3600
• EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra with an EK Vector block
• Nouvolo Aquanaut Extreme block with pump mount
• Barrowch 17W Intelligent pump with OLED display and manual control option
• Primochill 280mm EximoSX radiator in white
• 2x Phanteks PH-F140MP top fans
• [TBD] slim 120mm fan on bottom
• Corsair SF750
• Custom unsleeved cables (mix of pslate and cablemod - whatever I had handy and the right lengths)

Still much work to do, but

 

[thoughtfix]

Trouble log:

• 280mm radiators on the top are a TIGHT fit. Super tight. The connectors for the RGB/fans in the back keep coming undone when I close it. I may have to hot glue. The connector for the RGB is bent and may have to be replaced.
• The Nouvolo block seems to be working well, but that design there (no in-line reservoir, just a fill port in the back to the inlet port in the block) is a nightmare to bleed air from.
• The old Silverstone slim 120mm fan I have rattles. I'll be replacing it.
• The cabling especially by the pump is going to need attention too.
• The Aquanaut with that pump has literally 0.5mm between the buttons and the glass, but it closes without a problem.
• The EVGA 3080 FTW3 Ultra has no business in an SFF case. I must be insane. It's a good thing Lian Li made the PCIE bracket adjustable.
• Under no circumstances can a 120mm radiator fit in the 120mm fan area on the bottom. I could get it to slide in with custom cables and the slim fan but the inlet/outlet ports always collide with either the GPU or the front I/O.

 

[justkeevin]

Loving it! I just finished my build too! I'm waiting on a custom 150mm 24pin and a 120mm slim fan for the bottom. Currently in the process of bleeding it. Should have gotten clear tubing, would have made my life so much easier.

Did you drill a hole for the fill port?

 

[thoughtfix]

My first attempt to fill with Cryofuel Mystic Fog gunked up the GPU block a bit, but flushing with distilled water washed most of it away. I think it's a bad batch. I am going to have to re-cut some tubes to improve filling/bleeding because this design is just silly! I'll keep updating.

 

[thoughtfix]

My last fill/bleed mechanism was so awful that I cut and bent some new tubes to reroute how I was filling this and hopefully bleed air a little better. The return port back to the cpu is blocked right now because I am going to flush some cleaning/prep through the loop with an external loop.


I hope that works better. It looks a bit like a flux capacitor.

 

[justkeevin]

I love it.