K99 ITX build with "custom" aio (240mm radiator with GPU+CPU water cooler)

[joerg83]

Hey SFF Community,

Now that my K99 case arrived in healthy condition I can start completing my build. So far I got these parts:
- Ryzen 5 2600 + B450 ITX Mainboard (will be arriving on monday)
- 16GB DDR4 RAM (from old build)
- 500 GB M.2 Samsung SSD (from old build)
- Alphacool LT240 water cooler
- My good old trusty MSI GTX 1070 Mini
- Corsair SF450 SFX psu (had to return it because the 8pin Mainboard cable was missing)

After ensuring the watercooler is able to fit in the K99 I am seriously considering shortening the tubes for esthetic reasons (CPU side will be the visible side on my desk). Since the Alphacool Eisbaer LT240 is expandable and has a dedicated fill port this should be easily doable.
Now in the shop i also found a dedicated GPU Cooler for 30 Euros which got me thinking. The MSI GTX 1070 Mini was by no means a silent card in my old MATX case under the desk. When sitting above the desk it will be a lot more noticeable. The GPU Side will not be starved on air flow. The case has good opening on the bottom and the 2 120mm fans from the radiator should move a lot of air.

a.) Would the 25mm thick 240mm radiator be enough to cool the CPU and GPU under load in a quiet condition?
b.) Would I be better of investing the 50 Euros (fittings, new tubes, gpu cooler, cooling liquid) into a GPU with a bigger cooler? (Maximum graphics card length should be around 300mm)

Attached some fotos after fitting the aio. Really loving the quality of the K99 build so far. Now with the rad fitted it feels really sturdy

 

[joerg83]

Quick Update from my side:
I just ordered the GPU cooler + the matching eisbaer extension kit (with another set of quick connectors) + some additional connectors, tubing and coolant fluid. That way i should be able to empty the original loop, shorten the tubing and prefill the two loop parts (1 for radiator + cpu/pump station + 1 for the gpu part) outside of the case to safe a lot of hassle. If any maintenance / work has to be done on the parts I can just disconnect the quick connectors and take out the required parts. That way I can also do the the whole leak testing outside of the case and be much more flexible when trying to get rid of most air leftovers. Here is hoping the quick connectors dont affect the throughput of the small pump on the cpu block too much

Im also thinking of replacing the original 120mm fans to Noctua fans, but will catch back on that later

 

[joerg83]

First assembly is done. Everything is working. Even Windows 10 managed to boot from my old Intel install
Naturally cable management is a mess but i wont bother until I redo the tubing. I did some stability tests on a light 4.0 Ghz Overclock im sitting around 65°C avg on all cores after 1 hour of cpu/gpu burn in at fixed fan speed (1400rpm). If the gpu panel is closed under gpu/cpu load temps on the cpu block increase by quite a bit. Seems like glass is not always the best thermal soluition . There is is still loads of air in the loop.
The Corsair SF450 is really adorable; its inaudible at full cpu load, dead silent on idle, and very silent on full system load. The "plastic sleeving" is very easy to bend and fit around tighter spots. The Stock fans on the Alphacool water cooler are one of the worst I have encountered so far. Running noise is way louder than my old Noctuas where on the same rpm level and the motors produce a noticeable noise even around 800 rpm. I will replace those immediately.

 

[dreadrockstar]

Where you get case from? Looks slick.

 

[joerg83]

Its a K99 from Taobao. Took about 2 weeks to deliver (1 1/2 weeks for delivering to the superbuy warehouse + inspection). Costs ~400 yuan without delivery. I ended up paying 97 Euros inlcuding delivery to Austria.

The watercooling addons are on their way now. I will probably post another Update on the weekend with the Water cooled GPU temps.

 

[joerg83]

Well, I went through a lot of feelings yesterday:
1.) Assembled the GPU Water cooler just to notice that most of the screws are not long enough to go through the backplate to the front cooling part. Talked to the Alphacool suppored; they will sent me some replacements. I did not want to refit the old GPU cooler again so I drove to the local hardware store and got some replacement screws.
2.) Tested my new Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans and got amazed. Even around 1000 rpm these things are almost inaudible when running outside the case.
3.) I did line up the whole water loop on my desk afterwards and hat it run for 3 hours to check for any leaks. None. Off to shorting the tubing it is
4.) The quick connectors supplied by Alphacool are way to tight. Well with some brute force you could open them. After another two hours I had all the tubing shortened though and prefilled the loop outside the case and repeated the leak testing.
5.) After leak testing and refitting everything to the case i noticed I had made a big error. The Idea was to have the graphics card "replaceable" on the backside. So one quickconnector has to sit before the inlet, one afterwards around the cpu area. Well size wise this is not really possible; thats not even talking about unscrewing the 5 cm long connector inside the tiny 9,9l case.
6.) Back to disassembling and opening the factory mounted Alphacool fittings aka the quick connectors have to go. I honestly have never encountered such strong tightened fittings. Yeah these are "official" water cooling parts but it seems Alphacool does not want me to mess with those. Well two hours later i had everything cut down to the desired length and was thinking about leak testing again but honestly I could not be bothered this time around. If my poor hardware wants to drown itself after all these hours I could understand that
7.) Well it did work out somehow. Another two hours later I had everything fitted without quick connectors and the cable lengths are tight enough to fit everything without squeezing; long enough to unscrew the cpu and gpu cooler without having to empty the loop. I did leave enough headroom to be able to unscrew the GPU/Pump unit and connect to the inlet. Refilling and removing all air within the radiator is a one hour operation now.

Stress tests on the cpu (ryzen 5 2600 @ 4,1 Ghz and 1.2 V) and gpu (GTX 1070 @ Full power limit ca 1,95 Ghz) look good. CPU and GPU did not go over 65°C after 4 hours. Plus when idle the system is dead silent 30cm from my ears with the pump around 1500 rpm and the fans around 700 rpm.

Lessons learned this time around:
1.) Dont go with preassembled water cooling parts; the hours of messing around with the tubing especially in such a tight build is not worth the few euros saved. If I had bought the parts seperately I would have saved a lot of time and more important rage. Plus if the DC-LT Pump inside the CPU cooler ever dies I dont know if Im covered under warranty.
2.) Quick connectors are not worth the effort in a tight ITX build. I would even say they stressed the pump a lot more.
3.) Never go with stock fans (except they are from a remarkable brand).
4.) Alphacool leaves way to much air and dirt in the preassembled LT240 unit. Do yourself a favor and empty it completely and clean it. Refilling the factory loop should only take around 30 minutes. Your pump noise and your build temperatures will be much better afterwards.
5.) Stock thermal paste, as usual, is garbage.
6.) The GPU Backplate on the Alphacool NexXxos GPX Cooler is quite large, the graphics card does not sit completely straight in the case; but its ok.
7.) I'll probabyl reapply the tube protection again sometime later, the tube is bound to kinking on two spaces. By then I will get something a different 90°C fittingfor the left connection on the cpu cooler. The screws from the am4 mount interfere with the fitting there

In total i paid around 580 euros for this build:
- Used Ryzen 5 2600 + ITX Mainboard 210 €
- K99 ITX Case from taobao with delivery to austria 95 €
- Corsair SF450 75€
- Alphacool Eisbaer LT240 85 €
- Alphacool NexXxos GPX 1070 M09 (for my msi gtx 1070 mini) 30 €
- Additonal Fittings, tubing, cooling liquid etc 33 €
- 2x Noctua NF-A12x25 fans 50 €


Cable managment is still a mess of course

the left fitting on the cpu block is interfering with the am4 mount screws. Will probabyl replace that in given time.

The Alphacool fittings had to suffer a bit. I could only unscrew these with brute force

On last look before the pc will be moved behind the monitor

 

[guisess93]

does this case support 3.5" drive?

 

[cj360]

So I'm summarizing your posts correctly, the temperatures of the build with the Alphacool parts are great but the cable & hose magament is huge hassle in the tight space. How does the pump hold up? is the entire loop just powered by a pump in the cpu block or is there one on the cpu and gpu?

 

[joerg83]

does this case support 3.5" drive?

You could mount a 3,5" drivebelow the psu; however its an alumium case and there are no vibration pads or anything similar. I would not advise on doing that.

So I'm summarizing your posts correctly, the temperatures of the build with the Alphacool parts are great but the cable & hose magament is huge hassle in the tight space. How does the pump hold up? is the entire loop just powered by a pump in the cpu block or is there one on the cpu and gpu?

Temps are ok i'd say: I undervolted my Ryzen cpu (1,225V @ 3,9Ghz at all cores ~64°C Package Temp after 5 hours of burn in) and the GTX 1070 (85% Power Limit + 230 Mhz on Coreclock = Jumping between 1850-1950 Mhz ~60°C after 5 hours burn in). Its only the Small Pump in the CPU Block running around 1600 rpm. I did some more overclocking: 6 Cores at 4,25 Ghz @ 1,45 Volts + 120% Power Limit @ 2050 Mhz on the GPU. Temps are well above 70°C GPU block; CPU Package Temps peaking up to 80°C. Not worth the 5-10% Increase in fps especially thinking about rising temperatures in summer). The gpu starts to downvolt above 70°C anyways.

Integrating more CPU Cores (8 Core CPUs like Ryzen 2700x or Intel i7 9700k) or a higher wattage GPU (GTX 1080ti or vega units) would be too much for the slim 240mm rad. Pump stress is not that high, the whole loop can only hold around around 400ml of fluid; above 1800 rpm the pump produces a noticeable "whiny" noise.

I swapped the motherboard (to msi b450i because of better vrm cooling) and RAM (16GB Samsung B-Die Kit overclocked to 3333 Mhz 14/14/14/14/28/42 and the fastest possible timings). Now all stutters and framedrops in games are gone. Ryzen does definately suffer on low RAM settings. VRM Temps stay well below 50°C with my undervolt. Cable Managment is ok; since the GPU part sits right next to a wall i stuffed all cables back there.

 

[Wintermute]

joerg83

Which agent did you use for Taobao, how did all that go? I live in Serbia and I'm considering getting some case from Taobao, but I'm not sure which agent to go through and how much would that cost me...

Also, is it possible to get this case with vented aluminium side panels instead of that glass, at least on the GPU side?

 

[psycho88]

joerg83

Which agent did you use for Taobao, how did all that go? I live in Serbia and I'm considering getting some case from Taobao, but I'm not sure which agent to go through and how much would that cost me...

Also, is it possible to get this case with vented aluminium side panels instead of that glass, at least on the GPU side?

Same Question here, I also want to buy a case from taobao, but i dont know which agent is good?

 

[Nikosan79]

Hi!! Great job! Great case!! where did you buy it?
thanks

 

[thorcik]

That case is slick. Did you get the riser cable separately or it come with case? Also, what length it is? Thanks

 

[joerg83]

Sorry for the late answer. I followed a guide on reddit to get some coupons (link). I picked no particular agent. Think the agent took something like 18 yuan for his effort, ordered the case, sent some photos, gave me the best shipping method (DHL to avoid customs), sent me that "decreased" invoice of 20 Euros and attached it to the package. Thats fair.

The case has a length of 310mm. Can fit Graphics cards up to 300mm. I bought the riser cable together with the case (299 yuan for the case 99 for the riser cable). The link is still the same; although the case has gotten a new revision (mine is still v1). There are also some fotos with ventilated side panels on the homepage. Although i would shy away from ordering too many parts. The case came in a 30-40cm square box with good foam packaging. Shipping did cost almost as much as the whole case though. There is also the option to repackage on tao bao, but i did not want to risk that on a case with glass panels.

 

[thorcik]

Thanks, looks just like what I need. Which agent did you choose (I'd like to evate EU customs as well lol)? Superbuy like that redditor? Also, how tall is your GPU with that AiO mounts? I need to fit a 1080 Ti FTW3

Thanks

 

[Curiosity]

How do you like the Pump portion of the eisbaer block?

I was thinking of buying an eisbaer lt solo for an upcoming upgrade, but there aren't a ton a reviews out for it.

Particularly i'm interested in potential pump noise..

 

[arnoldalfox]

hello sorry for digging this thread, I just want to know if I can fit corsair H100i inside K99 case

 

[janusdd]

First i want to thank joerg83 for this thread, he made me want to build the same thing.
So i did with these Spec sheet:

• Asus Strix b450i
• Ryzen 5 3600
• GSKILL AEGIS 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz
• Alphacool Eisbär 240LT
• Corsair SF450
• RX 480 8GB XFX (WIP watercooling in Progress)

and somehow i figured out some diffs between my case and Joerg83´s

• no gap below the mainboard tray (for cablemanagement)
• no USB Ports at the top or elsewhere
• more clearance on the upper section (below the radiator)

to purchase the case i used superbuy and got the case within 3 Weeks to Germany

To Do

• watercool the gpu
• retube the whole AIO
• replace fans

 

[janusdd]

retubing as to do for the next week

there is no gap on the bottom

 

[janusdd]

GPU finalized
turn PSU