Project Mercury - An internal watercooled Skyreach 4 Mini

[1461748123]

The goal of this project is to watercool the CPU internally inside the S4M. Thanks to the new Skyreach 4 MINI, there will finally be space for me to achieve this goal.

In order to fit everything into such a tight package, I created a custom waterblock with an Alphacool DC-LT pump and a tiny reservoir integrated into it. G-Unique's Plug&Play unit saved the space for an extra DC-DC converter, allowing me to fit two Alphacool Tripple 40mm radiator into my S4M.

Specs:

• Intel i7 8700k
• Gigabyte GTX 1080 mini
• Asus Z370i Strix
• 2x 16G G.Skill TridentZ RGB
• 2x 1TB Samsung 850 EVO
• 250GB Samsung 960 EVO
• G-Unique 500w Plug&Play unit

Watercooling parts:

• Custom made monoblock
• Alphacool DC-LT pump
• 2x Alphacool 40mm Triple Radiators
• 4x Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX fan
• 2x Bitspower 90° Rotary Fittings
• 2x Bitspower 1/4" ID 3/8" OD Compression Fittings
• Tygon 1/4" ID 3/8" OD Clear Tubing
• Koolance 702 Clear Coolant

I will continue to update this thread, and when everything is done, I will do a final write up to sum everything into one post.

Updates:

Spoiler: Updates

• April 15, 2018
• April 8, 2018
• April 3, 2018
• March 26, 2018
• March 22, 2018 #2
• March 22, 2018
• March 18, 2018 #2
• March 18, 2018
• March 17, 2018 #2
• March 17, 2018
• March 15, 2018
• March 13, 2018
• March 11, 2018
• March 10, 2018 #3
• March 10, 2018 #2
• March 10, 2018
• March 6, 2018
• March 3, 2018
• March 2, 2018 #2
• March 2, 2018
• February 28, 2018
• February 27, 2018
• February 26, 2018
• February 24, 2018
• February 23, 2018 #2
• February 23, 2018
• February 22, 2018
• February 19, 2018
• February 9, 2018
• January 31, 2018

Spoiler: Old thread

The goal of this project is to watercool the CPU internally inside the S4M. Thanks to the new Skyreach 4 MINI, there will finally be space for me to achieve this goal.

There will be t̶w̶o̶ three stage of this build:

• The first stage, using only one Alphacool 40mm triple radiator in combination with a DC-LT pump and a custom pump-top reservoir to water cool the CPU.
• The second stage, using two Alphacool 40mm triple radiator in combination with a custom made motherboard monoblock that has both the pump and reservoir integrated into it.
• The third stage, in addition to everything in the second stage, water cool the GPU using a custom-made GPU hybrid cooler!

I'm splitting this build into two stages because I'm not sure if this idea will work or not, I need something cheaper to verify it before I put all my money into the custom-made parts

Specs:

• Intel i7 8700k
• Gigabyte GTX 1080 mini
• Asus Z370i Strix
• 2x 16G G.Skill TridentZ RGB
• 2x 1TB Samsung 850 EVO
• 250GB Samsung 960 EVO

Watercooling parts:

• Custom made monoblock
• Alphacool DC-LT pump
• 2x Alphacool 40mm Triple Radiators
• 2x Bitspower 90° Rotary Fittings
• 2x Bitspower 1/4" ID 3/8" OD Compression Fittings
• Tygon 1/4" ID 3/8" OD Clear Tubing
• Koolance 702 Clear Coolant

(↑ These will be the final parts I use (hopefully) in the second stage)

Stay tuned for more updates! I will update this thread regularly.

 

[|||]

So your going to try to squeeze all of the radiator into a narrow space? You'll be wasting a lot of surface area available to you. If you are making a custom block, why not make it as a hybrid cooler with both water and air cooling, like Asus does with their Poseidon GPU, to utilize all of the volume above the processor, too?

 

[1461748123]

So your going to try to squeeze all of the radiator into a narrow space? You'll be wasting a lot of surface area available to you. If you are making a custom block, why not make it as a hybrid cooler with both water and air cooling, like Asus does with their Poseidon GPU, to utilize all of the volume above the processor, too?

That's actually a very valid point! For the CPU part, I'm afraid there won't be enough space to fit an extra heat sink with fans due to the pump, fittings and exetra. Adding a passive block on top won't help much either as well. But for the GPU part, this might be the key to have both the GPU and CPU watercooled (or hybrid cooled) in such a tight space!

But also, making a hybrid cooler will be really expensive. I mean reallllly expensive. With only water block, the only cost is really the material and the CNC time. But for an air cooler, I can't imagine how expensive that will be hiring someone soldering the fins one by one for you..

 

[|||]

How about putting the pump on the GPU? http://www.alphacool.com/shopware.php?sViewport=campaign&emotionId=2646

 

[1461748123]

How about putting the pump on the GPU? http://www.alphacool.com/shopware.php?sViewport=campaign&emotionId=2646

The problem is, I don't have enough radiators to cool both the CPU and the GPU at the same time
Base on some builds that are done by others, a single 40mm triple radiator might be able to handle up to 200w with the help of three 30mm think fans on full rpm (5000+). Because I don't have much space, the only fans that I can fit in there will be the 10mm thick ones, and I'm hoping that each of the radiator in my build can at least handle 60-70w.. Good enough for a 8700k, but definetly not enough for 8700k + 1080.

This might be possible if I'm able to find a 120mm radiator that is under 15mm thickness... then the radiator + fan thickness will be around 30mm, leaving maybe enough space to fit the waterblock.

 

[Runamok81]

You have my attention. Please, go on ...

 

[Josh | NFC]

I can make that bracket for you. Nice work on it.

 

[|||]

The cheap way to do a hybrid air-water cooled heatsink would be to do what Zotac did, where they put a thin water block that transferred a fair amount of heat to the outside side of it and mounted a finned array to that.

Having the additional surface area there may very well give you the desired thermal dissipation needed for both the CPU and GPU.

 

[1461748123]

The cheap way to do a hybrid air-water cooled heatsink would be to do what Zotac did, where they put a thin water block that transferred a fair amount of heat to the outside side of it and mounted a finned array to that.

Having the additional surface area there may very well give you the desired thermal dissipation needed for both the CPU and GPU.

The problem is the heat sink, it is basically impossible to custom make such heatsink.. I would love to experiment if I know a place that can make them for me!
Using an aftermarket heatsink won't be ideal since they will likely only have a really small contact plate design to only touch the die...

 

[1461748123]

I can make that bracket for you. Nice work on it.

Thanks a lot! I'm currently trying to mill them out in my local makerspace to see if my design is correct!

 

[|||]

The problem is the heat sink, it is basically impossible to custom make such heatsink.. I would love to experiment if I know a place that can make them for me!
Using an aftermarket heatsink won't be ideal since they will likely only have a really small contact plate design to only touch the die...

If you have a flat surface to mount a heat sink on, you can find plenty of off-the-shelf heat sinks to use. You do not need a heat pipe...the water flowing through the block will already function as a working fluid distributing the heat around, in addition to the conduction through the metals already.

 

[1461748123]

If you have a flat surface to mount a heat sink on, you can find plenty of off-the-shelf heat sinks to use. You do not need a heat pipe...the water flowing through the block will already function as a working fluid distributing the heat around, in addition to the conduction through the metals already.

I'm guessing something like this might be possible:

Basically a 10mm or even slimer waterblock with a polished top, and a off-the-shelf copper heatsink on top with a cut out for a 120mm slim fan.
I wonder how well this will perform, but I have a feeling this might not be good enough to handle a 1080, considering the only adition to the cooling is two triple 40mm rad, and that two rad have to cool a hot 8700k as well..

 

[eme]

Would it be easier just make custom fullcover mobo heatsink and/or mono cpu+gpu custom heatsink than stuff watercooling blocks/radiators/pump in?

Something like this:https://d2t1xqejof9utc.cloudfront.net/screenshots/pics/5f6600771d5f70761e7e2ba78e0fcd4f/large.png

 

[1461748123]

Would it be easier just make custom fullcover mobo heatsink and/or mono cpu+gpu custom heatsink than stuff watercooling blocks/radiators/pump in?

Something like this:https://d2t1xqejof9utc.cloudfront.net/screenshots/pics/5f6600771d5f70761e7e2ba78e0fcd4f/large.png

The problem is, with a hybrid system, the waterblock need to have as much contact with the radiator as possible...

 

[AleksandarK]

I am going to believe that this will work, as i want it to work.

The triple 40mm radiators has the same surface area as 3/4 of a 80mm radiator.
The 80mm radiator can dissapate~200W of heat, meaning that triple 40mm can do ~150W. And you have two of them, so theoreticly, you have 300W of cooling, which is enough for 8700K and GTX 1080.
Remember that DigitalStorm put just one 92mm radiator to cool 8700K and GTX 1080 and it is enough. So i dont see why this will not work.

Do you have any renders of custom motherboard monoblock?

 

[1461748123]

I am going to believe that this will work, as i want it to work.

The triple 40mm radiators has the same surface area as 3/4 of a 80mm radiator.
The 80mm radiator can dissapate~200W of heat, meaning that triple 40mm can do ~150W. And you have two of them, so theoreticly, you have 300W of cooling, which is enough for 8700K and GTX 1080.
Remember that DigitalStorm put just one 92mm radiator to cool 8700K and GTX 1080 and it is enough. So i dont see why this will not work.

Do you have any renders of custom motherboard monoblock?

Good info! I guess I will give gpu watercool a try as well.
No, I don't have a render for the CPU block yet, in fact, I still haven't started to design it yet haha. I was initially planning on just using the EK waterblock and one radiator, with a seperate pump+resivior assembly. I know for a fact that making a waterblock with pump intergrated is possible, multiple AIO coolers actually uses alphacools DC-LT pump in their block!

 

[1461748123]

I did some math and figure out my idea on how to watercool the GPU will be crazy expensive...
The material alone is expensive, accounting CNC time and nickle plating... hell we are looking at ~300$ again...

 

[1461748123]

Update 1/31/2018:

Ayy! The single radiator mount is done! Waiting it to arrive... and I can test out the fit!

 

[1461748123]

More on the hybrid GPU idea

 

[owliwar]

this is crazy.
I like this