Mini-Splash, about a Gallon water cooled SFF gaming PC

Goatee

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jun 22, 2018
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I have decided to crack on with another build after my last one ended so unsatisfactorily.

Rather than continue with attempting to passively cool my gaming PC I will take the simpler option and watercool. My plan is to end up with a small, compact fully watercooled PC. I am hoping to stay under a completely arbitrary 1 gallon limit. (1 UK gallon is ~4.55L).

So I start out with a sheet of 3mm aluminium



With a bit of drilling, some tapping and some amazing little cubes it can stand up all on its own.



Some measuring, a bit more drilling and tapping plus some stand-offs may give you an idea of whats coming up shortly.



Ahhh, look a little donor board for playing around with.



Isnt it soo pretty.




Why are you taking the heatsink off you may ask?




Its now all starting to take shape. However I dont like the fact the ram will block all airflow across the board.



So its time to swap the donor board for an alternative and we have something a bit more interesting! Obviously as we are talking about liquid volumes we need some water cooling in there.



Added to the board is a CPU block / pump from a Fractal Design Kelvin CLC.

If im using a CPU block I also need a radiator! Given the size of the build I will be using a dual 80mm rad.





And thats where I am up to.

I have a GPU waterblock in the post and the rest of the pieces for the case is on order.

Questions, thoughts, feedback?
 

owliwar

Master of Cramming
Lazer3D
Apr 7, 2017
586
1,082
first, I've been thinking about 2x80 watercooling setups recently so nice! I'm subbed

is the hdplex 400w necessary with this build? are you planning on adding a gpu later?
also how tall is that fractal cpu block?
 

Goatee

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jun 22, 2018
738
1,512
first, I've been thinking about 2x80 watercooling setups recently so nice! I'm subbed

is the hdplex 400w necessary with this build? are you planning on adding a gpu later?
also how tall is that fractal cpu block?

Its a lovely little radiator.

It will be needed to power the 1070 that's being added as soon as the water block arrives from China. I'm wondering how well the dual 80mm will cool the 1070 but I guess we will find out at some point. CPU is a i7-7700T, so only adds a little heat over the GPU.



Block sits ~45mm off the board.



330ml can for scale ;)
 

owliwar

Master of Cramming
Lazer3D
Apr 7, 2017
586
1,082
Its a lovely little radiator.

It will be needed to power the 1070 that's being added as soon as the water block arrives from China. I'm wondering how well the dual 80mm will cool the 1070 but I guess we will find out at some point. CPU is a i7-7700T, so only adds a little heat over the GPU.
oh nice! cant wait for this one :)
the use of thin itx is a really good choice for this then as well because of the i/o shield, good move
Block sits ~45mm off the board.
Thanks!
 

Aux

Cable-Tie Ninja
Dec 5, 2018
179
155
you are going to use the CPU block / pump from a Fractal Design Kelvin CLC to push water through the graphics card as well?
 

bichael

Average Stuffer
Dec 17, 2017
58
50
Cool!
Pump will be fine, it uses the alphacool dc-Lt which I used before with a 4790 and r9 290, with quick disconnects as well.
Rad I think should be okay (I remember seeing 780's on single 120's) just nothing special in terms of temps.
 

Goatee

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jun 22, 2018
738
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you are going to use the CPU block / pump from a Fractal Design Kelvin CLC to push water through the graphics card as well?

Yep, that’s the plan. I understand the pump performs pretty well when running at about 90%.

Cool!
Pump will be fine, it uses the alphacool dc-Lt which I used before with a 4790 and r9 290, with quick disconnects as well.
Rad I think should be okay (I remember seeing 780's on single 120's) just nothing special in terms of temps.

That’s what I’m hoping. I’m not expecting arctic temperatures, so hopeful it will turn out ok. No room for quick disconnects here!
 
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Goatee

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jun 22, 2018
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Some more work today using some HAD (Hardboard Aided Design).

First thing was to add a back plate.


Then cut a PCIE slot behind the motherboard tray.


I need some way of getting the PCIE cable through the main "spine plate" so I added some stand-offs and drilled and expanded (not shown) to allow the PCIE x4 cable to pass through.


I drilled a secondary hole to bring the 19V power off the board. The 6 pin connector is trimmed to allow the cable to bend up into the hole closer to the PSU. I will sleeve this in future.


Here is a few more shots of where I ended up for the day.
 
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Goatee

King of Cable Management
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Jun 22, 2018
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The actual base plate I use will be slightly larger (3mm) wider than the one I am showing, but at the front not the back.

So here is update 3!

I put my single slot GPU in there to show what I'm trying to achieve. My expectation is that once the block arrives I can put it on this GPU to get the single slot I need. Nothing has really progressed on the build just some multi angle shots.

I will be swapping out the long x4 for a shorter cable thanks to @aquelito







 

Scott

Caliper Novice
Nov 29, 2016
29
17
Have you been able to run the GTX 1070 off the thin mITX PCIe slot? I have some memory of reading about a lower power limit on thin mITX PCIe slots. Could be a problem if I am remembering correctly. I also could be totally wrong.
 

Goatee

King of Cable Management
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Jun 22, 2018
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Have you been able to run the GTX 1070 off the thin mITX PCIe slot? I have some memory of reading about a lower power limit on thin mITX PCIe slots. Could be a problem if I am remembering correctly. I also could be totally wrong.

The riser is powered. I will need to run the power (from the hdplex). I have a shorter riser cable coming, so will likely solder that up when it arrives.
 
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Aux

Cable-Tie Ninja
Dec 5, 2018
179
155
I've tested a GTX970 on a thin mITX board and that worked out completely fine, it seems like that just drew most of its power through the PEG connectors.
For safety reasons, I would either cut all 12V power connections from the PCIe slot to not overload the Mainboards VRMs, or use a powered riser, like QinX did. The one you link seems absolutely fine, too, though you might get EMI problems with it.

There is a discussion here from 2016 on SFF,
 

aquelito

King of Cable Management
Piccolo PC
Feb 16, 2016
952
1,122
@Goatee : riser shipped ! I'll send you the tracking number later on.

Indeed, the +12v tracks of these risers are not cut.
You might try to cover the +12v pins with some insulating material to see if that change anything.

Anyway, glad to see an other watercooled thin-mini ITX build !
 

Goatee

King of Cable Management
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Jun 22, 2018
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Thanks @aquelito

I'm not that worried about the 75W coming from the x4 board connector (25W) and hdplex (50W). The sata power connection is only good for 50W on the 12V rail from the sata spec. But I might have a play around at some point.
 
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Goatee

King of Cable Management
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Jun 22, 2018
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So update 4! I finished building the main external frame using some more HAD.



Its accurate to around 2mm in terms of the final size, which is enough for what I'm doing at the moment.

I have noticed a problem with where I plan to put the GPU. The inlet side of the GPU does not make it easy to run from the outlet of the CPU pump block.



This will require me to have a think about routing the tubing to avoid cross over, I will worry about that in the next update. What do you think could be going in the section in white? 40mm x 58mm x 181mm ..........