Ds340-e

[10e]

Hehe,

I wanted to do a black/gold or black/yellow build for a while. When I found out I can put a Monsta 280mm radiator in an NZXT S340 case I figure that the Monsta with a 120mm radiator would sufficiently cool a CPU plus GPU.

So the reason I call this DS340-E is:

DarkSide 340 (for the NZXT S340 case) and -E for "Excuse" > an excuse to build something with some Darkside cool stuffs

The components:

1 x I7 3770K CPU (used to be in the old lil' bit and can do 4.4Ghz on -0.01 volt offset of VCore)
1 Adata XPG V2 gold kit DDR3-2400 16 GB
1 Asrock Z77 Extreme3 motherboard (with BROWN PCB and black heatsinks with gold writing)
1 WD 1TB Dual drive on the PSU shroud in shiny black and gold
1 WD 3TB Green drive under the PSU shroud
1 XFX Double Dissipation R9 290 (reviewed by SKYMTL at HWC and does 1.25Ghz on air!)
1 Corsair AX760i with a CableMod C-series black/yellow cable kit and Darkside clear acrylic cable combs (I glued an 8 and 6-pin together for the GPU PCI cables)
2 Noctua NF-F14 PWM Industrial 3000 RPM PWM fans for the Monsta
1 SilenX Effizio yellow 12-12 (1100 RPM) fan for the back radiator (not pictured below yet). Not a bad fan and quiet

WC components:

10 BP-MBEML fittings
1 Bitspower black/gold Q-connector (to replace the output fitting on the pump, not shown here)
500mm EK HD tubing bent with my heat gun (ouch!)
1 Dazmode 3.1 DDC medium speed pump re-cabled to a 3-pin fan plug and connected to the mobo (hopefully won't blow anything)
1 Bitspower DDC Top
1 Bitspower DDC Top upgrade kit with 80mm Z-Tube
1 Bitspower black sparkle DDC heatsink assembly
1 Bitspower black reservoir clamp set
1 UNDesigns Z3 fan mount (140mm)
3 Darkside stop plugs
1 XSPC EX120 (I know these rads don't add much but I had space in the back so why not)
1 Alphacool Monsta 280mm radiator

I don't do a lot of build photos because of lack of time. Case-in-point I was up 'till 3:30 AM bending, cutting, filing, and reaming the tubes and then leak-testing. The Alphacool Monsta 280mm top port is used strategically as a fill port. It's really cool watching the fluid rush past that top port, and because the fluid is not going upward here, I don't have to worry about a white pastel volcano shooting into the atmosphere. I didn't want to mess up the nice black matte paint on the top panel by drilling a fill port and I will have drain through the pump output 3 way Q-connector, or even the top ports of the radiator, maintain a clean appearance, and still have flexible drainage options.

I will be switching the fluid to Mayhem yellow Pastel with some Aurora 2 thrown in for good measure. I only used a bit of leftover Mayhem White Pastel to be able to spot leaks against the black paint of the case. So far, so good.

The pump output pipe going to the GPU will be switched to a single right angle bend with a Bitspower Q-connector and Darkside stop plugs to show off the golden maple leaf and Darkside logos through the window. The end near the pump is off by a millimetre or two and due to the sharpness of the bend, is causing the pump to twist a tiny bit. Once bled the pump is quiet and fairly vibration free. I used the black sparkle dress-up kit because I love black sparkle and I didn't feel like buying another (!!!!) DDC kit, and my D5 pumps are a bit too big to fit above the GPU. The GPU is not being touched by the pump.

Cheap cell phone pic:

[DazMode]

Yellow will be very interesting!

[10e]

Yeah that with the Darkside stop plugs will add some needed contrast. I may also replace the video card stop plugs on the bottom with them even though they won't be highly visible except viewed from below.

I actually have gold/yellow vinyl for the R9 backplate that I mght use to add some luster.

[snef]

WOAH! wow its tight ,.......meh, i talk about the case

NICE

yep i think yellow will pop a lot

[Grinder]

Hehe,

I wanted to do a black/gold or black/yellow build for a while.

Don't you mean white/gold or black/blue

That rad looks huge in there! I'm anxious to see what the Mayhem's looks like when you finish leak testing.

[10e]

Don't you mean white/gold or black/blue

That rad looks huge in there! I'm anxious to see what the Mayhem's looks like when you finish leak testing.

You'll see and I think you will like it. No, gdesmo is the white/gold specialist. I found my Daz purchased sunset yellow Mayhem Pastel. Leak testing went flawlessly.

Surprisingly there is approximately 13mm of clearance between the video card and the radiator.

No the black/blue is for another build. For once the stock backplate on these cards will be usable with the EK water blocks with some custom M3 screws methinks. The CPU will get 16GB of RAM, and the cards each have 8GB.

It's too bad my two MSI GTX 970 Golden Editions' backplates with their golden dragons are not compatible with the TF5 blocks I got, but I can work on that at some point.

[gdesmo]

Nope ! "snef is the white and gold master, I would get the white dirty in no time.

[Grinder]

I was going for the viral "what colour is this dress?" angle. I crack myself up sometimes

[10e]

I was going for the viral "what colour is this dress?" angle. I crack myself up sometimes

Too many inferences in one short post, Grinder

[10e]

One thing I have to say with the Bitspower BP-MBEML (or any EML type fitting), they grip like super glue. Without loosening the collar with the outside o-ring, getting the pipe out would possibly break something.

Update.

I changed out the pump-to-GPU pipe to a new single bent tube and put in a 3-way fitting with a 10mm spacer on the outlet port of the pump, and it turned out straight. I also raised up the pump and rotated it back to be parallel with the surface of the radiator and mounting brackets.

And of course the piece de resistance, the Darkside Stop plug on the 3-way fitting which I almost got straight, and now with yellow pastel, with a bit of orange pastel thrown in to match the RAM and upcoming rear fan:



I have a feeling that I'll have to bite the bullet and get the last R9 290 golden backplate from Daz for this, as it matches so nicely with the RAM and small amount of golden writing on the top Mobo heatsink.

Always happy to spend at Daz's shop hehe.

Next is an LED strip in the roof, which is not on the case right now, and since I have some yellow LEDs from Sayal and a couple of hacked up XSPC sleeved LED cables (the LEDs failed of course) I'll probably solder in some 3mm and 5mm lights to those cables and install in the CPU block and rez.

Not sure about cabling. That Golden rod sleeving is looking pretty good right now. But I hate sleeving, err, I hate the time it takes.

[DazMode]

Yellow liquid loos so much better over white!

Nice stop plug

[10e]

WD Dual Black drive, nice match for the fittings and Darkside stop plug

I made the fins on the pump heat sink/dress-up kit parallel with the airflow of the front fans to effectively cool the pump during operation, and I doubt there will be heat soak from the video card backplate due to the fact that those front Noctua NF-F14 (up to) 3000 RPM PWM fans have some massive static pressure even at 1000RPM. But at 3000 RPM I can feel air more than 2 feet away from the rear of the case. Holy.

[snef]

how do you like this WD dual drive??

not the cheapest but really like idea for tiny build

[10e]

I really like this drive. In Windows originally only the SSD portion shows up, and then when the driver is installed the 1TB portion appears like magic.

I then move my user profile to the D: drive after initial install and create a link afterwards by using the MKLink command on my C:\users\<username> directory to re-map to the 1TB, as well as for Steam games.

[snef]

Thanks

I think I will order one for EK Vulture build