NavyChief

I took the case to Dreamhack Austin and entered it into the case mod contest held by CPU Magazine. The changes were apparently just what it needed and it took 1st place. I am in the June edition of CPU Magazine on page 46.

Finished up the build and here are some shots...

Finished installing the memory sticks onto the motherboard.

After examining the interior of the case more thoroughly, I decided that the stock memory heatsink covers were too dull compared to all the shiny chrome around them. Here is a shot of all 8 Corsair Dominator Platinum memory sticks with the light bar upgrades in their stock finish. That dull silver textured finish just couldn't do. After hours of sanding and prepping, it was time for chroming. Here is a shot of the stock and shined versions. Another shot contrasting the differences. All 8 finished pieces lined up and ready for installation. The first one is reassembled with the blue light bar insert. All complete and ready.

Received some Gosumodz Alliance Combs from MAINframe Customs. The items were shipped promptly and delivered on-time. These are some truly beautiful cable combs made out of a special aluminum alloy! I ordered the 24-pin, 12-pin, 8-pin and 4-pin versions in the natural color. I removed the clear plastic cable combs and these new combs will really complement the build more. They also have anodized versions in red and black. The sizes available are 4-pin, 6-pin, 8-pin, 12-pin, 14-pin, 16-pin and 24-pin.

I now have the interior components mostly reassembled and mounted. As you can see, the reservoirs really stand out now with the white interior. I also mounted a BAWLS bottle into the interior. The hardest part was drilling a clean 1" diameter hole in the bottom of the bottle without breaking it. I found a nice 1" diamond tipped hole saw at Home Depot and cut cleanly through without too much problem. Now the chrome pipe runs through the bottle. That area was kind of empty previously. Also, it would not have been too noticeable with the original black background. The leak testing finished with not a single drop showing on any fitting. Now to work on the wiring.

I was able to re-assemble the case with pretty much no effort at all. Here you can see all the panels have been installed and the motherboard mounted on the tray again. Definitely like the contrast that the white provides. Have replaced all the black mounting screws with chrome screws. You can see some of the screws on the bottom shelf on the left side and above the motherboard. Black screws would have broken up the white too much and the chrome actually complements the chrome tubing. One of the hardest things to reinstall was the rubber grommets on the backplate and shelves. Those things fit extremely snugly! It took some effort to get them back inside and lined up smoothly again.

Here are the interior panels with that Pearl White color. The panels include the top and bottom shelves, the front fan bracket and the complete motherboard tray assembly.

After listening to the Modders Inc video after QuakeCon, I am in agreement that my case interior did not match my theme of BAWLS. The exterior was good with the Candy Cobalt Blue and BAWLS logo, but the interior was lacking and too stock (i.e. flat black). I decided to disassemble the case and paint all the interior panels (except the back panel) a Pearl White color. The pearl color is a softer white and the sheen will emphasize the chrome nicely. After about 5 hours of draining both loops and disassembling all the components, the case is finally apart.

Here are some final shots of the build in it's current state. Contemplating some additional modifications to the mid-plate.

I kept the exterior panels in the original box for protection. The Candy Cobalt Blue came out beautifully. The finish is as smooth as silk and the reflection is like a mirror. The top 120mm Riing fans are still perfectly visible through the panels. This is a shot of the BAWLS logo on the side panel. Here is the back panel with the logo.

The one thing that was bothering me was the EVGA SLI bridge. The dull silver color was just not cutting it. Time to chrome the aluminum shell.

The leak testing went smoothly with no leaks evident anywhere. The unit was running for over 12 hours without a single drop.

Here are the two pump covers mounted in the system. The chromed tubing all lined up and ready. These are a fingerprint magnet and you can see some of mine on them. Here is a before and after of the tubing. Left is bare copper and right is chromed copper. First up is to install the small sections between the two video cards.

The chrome plating process went fairly smoothly and I decided to chrome the two D5 pump covers, the two front grills and all the copper tubing. Here you can see the two chromed pump covers. This shot shows a little more of the chrome. There are two grills on the front of this beast, a 4x120mm and a 1x120mm. You can also see the recently mounted switch plate cover with the chrome vandal switches. Close-up of grills. Another shot. The switch plate is painted Candy Cobalt Blue. This is the color that all of the exterior panels are painted.

Like to give a big 'THANKS' to Thermaltake for sending me some of their new Riing fans for this build! This box left Taiwan Friday morning and arrived this morning at 8:30am. Fourteen 120mm blue LED fans and six 140mm blue LED fans. These fans are absolutely amazing!! They run almost silent and the blue ring is spectacular! In this shot are two 120mm Riing fans (left is default, middle is with the low-noise cable) and on the right is a Cougar 120mm blue LED fan. The Riing fan lighting is subtle yet highly effective. The cougar fan are too obvious with where the LED lights are while the Riing fans have a more even distribution of lighting.

I originally was going to use an EVGA SLI bridge as shown below... This was nice in that the silver and black matched the interior case theme. That all changed when I saw the new EVGA SLI V2 bridge.. This new bridge is even more sexy than the original. Now to see what can be done with it.

I just received my new Intel 750 series PCI-E 400GB SSD! This will add some real speed to the booting of the computer and loading of programs.

Alright, I will post just a few photos of the upper tubing. This is the upper radiator area with two 480 radiators. Plenty of room to work with and everything is fully functional. Towards the front of the case is where the two reservoirs are located. In this shot you can see the two fill ports and the tubing feeding into each reservoir.

Got around to completing the cable sleeving. I used DarkSide Jet Black and Dark Blue UV HD sleeving material. I utilized the heatshrinkless methodology since the clean look is perfect for my build.

Copper tubing is complete. Finished bending and cutting all the sections required for the GPU and CPU loops.

With each build I try to do something new. The first build used vinyl tubing and the second utilized acrylic tubing. For this build I thought I would try the next step ... copper tubing. Did a lot of research and it does not sound too difficult. The 1/2" copper tubing sold in the U.S. does not bend easily, so I went with copper coils that are readily sold in most home improvement stores. The tubing comes in 3/8" ID and 1/2" OD. This is the exact size requirement for the Primochill Revolver fittings. I decided to start with the 10' roll since I know that there will be mistakes due to the learning curve of working with copper. The copper material is pliable and has a nice clean look straight out of the box. Since the tubing is coiled, I had to find a way to straighten it to my needs. I found a tool that is made in the UK by a company called Kwix UK. Their tube straightening tool is easy to use and does the job perfectly! I ordered the 1/2" OD tool. It uses 4 sets of rollers (16 in all) that straighten and align the tubing as it is passed over the length. In this shot you can see some of the tubing that has been straightened. The tools shown are the Kwix UK tool and a Rigid 36132 1/2" OD tube bender. This is a shot of the first section fitted in place. This is probably the longest section and the most obvious.

Here is the first batch of Bitspower and Primochill connectors. Twenty-four Primochill Rigid Revolver compression fittings sure do look good when lined up! Here is a close-up of these beautiful silver fittings.

With most of the components in place, now to figure out a routing scheme. Here is my first draft.... The blue loop is for the video cards and the yellow loop is for the CPU. The upper two 460mm radiators are for the video loop and the lower 560mm radiator is for the CPU.

Now to complete that motherboard... All 32GB of the Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 2666Mhz (8x4GB) memory, with the light bar upgrade kits, have been mounted onto the motherboard. Overall shot of the entire motherboard tray with everything mounted. Here is the back of the tray with all those connections! Close-up of what connectors are offered on the R5E backplate.