The Dreadnaught - A Dark Themed Build by OneFastStagea

[OneFastStagea]

I've finally decided to start building and documenting my new/upgrade build for my second PC! I gathered the majority of the parts on Black Friday and Boxing day late last year, and have just now had the time to start throwing everything together.

The main parts of this build will be as follows:

Main Hardware
Ryzen R7 1700X
Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming K7
32GB of G Skill Trident Z RGB 3600MHz (Samsung B-Die, low latency)
Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Waterforce
EVGA Supernova 1300w G2 PSU
Thermaltake View 71 Full Tower Acrylic Glass Case
Many SSDs (5 SATA, 1 M.2 PCIe)
4TB HDD
14 Thermaltake Riing Premium RGB Fans

Watercooling Components
420mm Hardware Labs Nemesis GTS 420 Radiator
360mm XSPC Slim Radiator
Thermaltake Premium W4 Pacific RGB CPU Block
EKWB 10/12mm hard tube fittings and adapters
EKWB EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM Res+Pump Combo
10/12mm Bitspower Crystal Link Acrylic tubing
Aorus 1080 Ti RGB water block and back plate (came with the card)
Mayhems Pastel coolant

I may/may not be doing a Star Wars Empire theme with this depending on funds and the amount of time I have to do some custom work. Pictures to follow soon, stay tuned!

[OneFastStagea]

Pictures as promised!

The hardware:











Case all stripped down and ready to start figuring out the loop and mounting positions of components:

[Hooded]

Nice bit of kit.
That GPU must have cost a pretty penny. Looks awesome.

[OneFastStagea]

Nice bit of kit.
That GPU must have cost a pretty penny. Looks awesome.

Thanks Hooded. Luckily I got it before the rates of GPUs skyrocketed... And it was on sale! Only $40 more than the regular Aorus Xtreme 1080 Ti at the time. I love the way it looks also.

[OneFastStagea]

With most of the hardware accumulated, it was time to strip down the case completely and plan the tube routes and component locations. The Thermaltake View 71 allows you to mount your GPU vertically if you so desire which is a cool option. I was toying with the idea, however decided to keep the standard layout as I would prefer to be able to see the motherboard, and have easier access to the M.2 drive in case I ever need to get to it.








With that out of the way, it was time to start planning the rad location and orientation. Originally in my second PC I was running only the XSPC 360mm rad, now that I decided to add another 420mm in there it became a little more difficult to plan the routing to/from the major components while trying to keep it appealing for both form and function. I could've done an easier loop if I decided to run the rads in series, and then go to the CPU and finally the GPU before returning to the res, however I like a challenge (please bear with my godly MS Paint skills, I have no idea how to use photoshop or anything similar lmao). I had to keep enough room between the tubes and the rads to allow me to fit in a set of fans, but at the same time keep the RAM easily accessible. This proved quite difficult and there was very little room for error.

With this setup however, I would have one rad in between each major component (CPU & GPU) and hopefully keep temps a bit lower than if I were to run the rads in series. Whether or not this will actually have a positive effect I have no idea, but it did make for a very cool tube route!









Thus began my tube bending!


First one (started off easy):









Next, something a little harder (talk about a tight fit!):

[Hooded]

Is there not enough room above the rad to fit the fans in a pull setup?
Looking good.

[OneFastStagea]

Is there not enough room above the rad to fit the fans in a pull setup?
Looking good.

Indeed there is! I just wanted a push+pull config cause I'm a ricer and like having lots of LEDs and fans Lots of room in this case actually, and very modular. It's awesome to work on:

[fingerz1]

is that 12mm tubing?

[OneFastStagea]

is that 12mm tubing?

Yup, 12mm OD/10mm ID acrylic.

[DazMode]

Nice looking block on Gigabyte GPU.

[OneFastStagea]

Nice looking block on Gigabyte GPU.

Definitely one of the nicest I've seen, and stands out from the usual EK or Heat Killer blocks.

[OneFastStagea]

My original plan to make a simple 90* tube bend straight to the GPU from the reservoir ended up taking an interesting turn as I forgot about needing to add the drain valve there. With a little help from some more fittings and adapters (thanks Daz ) I managed to make it all work with a simple bend after all and ended up making a cool-looking route. In case you're wondering about the black and silver mixed hard fittings, I decided to make it a bit easier for myself and put black fittings for the entrance tube, and silver ones for the exit for each component (except the GPU, I fixed that one later on to match though):













Next was another simple 90* from the second rad to the CPU block outlet:










With that done, there was only 1 tube left to make; arguably the trickiest one. Luckily I managed to hammer it out first try and the results were great. Just enough clearance everywhere:












And with that, the water loop is finally complete! Next up is redoing the GPU power supply extensions to support 8+8 pin connectors vs the 8+6 pin ones I had on my previous build, as well as adding in some clear closed cable combs everywhere.

[Grinder]

Looks great so far.

Nice job on the bends. Loved the knob on the drain in your diagram

[OneFastStagea]

Looks great so far.

Nice job on the bends. Loved the knob on the drain in your diagram

Thanks! Hahah yea I figured I'd depict it more literally to get the point across

I just had a great idea on how to make it more Empire/Star Wars themed using some Lego... just gotta dig up my old stash.

[OneFastStagea]

Had some time to tackle the wiring/cabling today. Started out by converting the 6-pin PCIe power cable to an 8-pin one, as well as adding some closed cable combs to help tame all these wires with the help of some supplies from Daz. I messed up the connector orientation a couple of times thanks to me being kinda out of it from to the cold medicine I took earlier :












Connected in the case:








Added the rest of the cable extensions and hooked up all my SATA cables from my drives:










That's it for tonight, tomorrow I'm hoping to finish up all the wiring for the drives and start on organizing all the fan cables on the back. If I have enough time, I'll hopefully get everything wired up well enough to start flushing the loop with Mayhems Blitz solution to prep for the pastel coolant.