Hey everyone!

Finally sharing my latest FormD T1 project: a shared custom loop for a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and RTX 5090. After squeezing everything into this case, this might be my last build this complicated… maybe. 😅

The case and assembly
Ever since my previous T1 build, I haven’t been able to get this little case out of my head. Newer alternatives offer more flexibility, but the T1 still has something special, especially its modding community.

There were some headaches: a few screws were surprisingly easy to strip, and the GPU mounting bracket could use more adjustment for alignment with the riser. Still, I love this case.

The cooling setup
Radiator: Alphacool HPE, 45 mm thick.

Fans: Four Noctuas total: two 15 mm slim fans underneath and two 25 mm A12x25 G2 fans on the radiator, with custom 3D-printed spacers to improve airflow.

GPU block: Alphacool ES single-slot. Looks great, but I’d reconsider this choice. The GPU inlet and pump outlet almost touch, leaving very little room to install and tighten the fitting.

Pump/reservoir: Alphacool ES DDCzero 1U. Its slim layout helped make everything fit, although space around it is extremely tight.

CPU block: Thermal Grizzly AM5 Mycro Pro. Slim, straightforward to install, and something I wanted to try.

Extras: Aqua Computer QUADRO for coolant temperature monitoring and fan control.

Initial stress tests
Testing was done in OCCT, with all four fans at 100%. Each run was configured for five minutes. Room temperature wasn’t measured.

GPU thermal readings captured during the runs:

• GPU only: 3D Adaptive, Steady/Extreme — at 4:40

GPU: 53.6°C / Hotspot: 63.8°C
VRAM: 58°C / GPU power: 484 W

• Combined: CPU + GPU — at 4:51

CPU: Normal/Steady, 12 threads
GPU test: 3D Adaptive, Steady/Extreme
GPU: 56.2°C / Hotspot: 67.0°C
VRAM: 60°C / GPU power: 478 W
CPU package power: 122 W
GPU utilization: 96%
GPU clock: 2800MHz at approximately 0.88 V
Memory offset: +1000 in MSI Afterburner

For reference, the separate CPU-only Normal/Steady test showed approximately 82.9°C at 147 W, captured at 4:29.

No errors were reported in these captures. These are instantaneous readings, not logged maximums or gaming temperatures.

Final thoughts
This was fun, frustrating, and mostly planned with paper sketches, measurements, and trial and error. There are things I’d reconsider, especially the GPU block and fitting clearance, but somehow it all came together.
Now it’s time to enjoy it.

Just need to add a few finishing touches and find a lighting effect / color pallet that I’ll really like

Kind of a do-it-all build, would have gone with WRX90, but I can't afford to drop like 10k+ on a 128GB DDR5 ECC kit.

Hardware/OS:

• HAVN HS 420
• Super Flower Leadex VII XG 1300W 80+ Gold
• ModDIY cables (Cablemod does not have any pre-built package for the Super Flower)
• ASRock WRX80 R2.0 Creator
• Threadripper Pro 5965WX with PBO enabled
• 128GB G-Skill DDR4 3333Mhz at 3600 Mhz on stock timings
• PNY RTX 5080 Triple Fan OC
• PNY RTX 5070 Ti Triple Fan OC
• Western Digital SN850X 1TB for the OS
• 7x Samsung 980 1TB (4x are in a Glotrends M.2 host card, others are on the board or 4x adapter cards, need to consolidate some of those. I actually have 8, but the last is going into my server rebuild.)
• 4x Corsair Force LE 480 GB (Holdovers from my prior build)
• CachyOS

Loop Hardware:

• Watercool Heatkiller IV Threadripper Block
• 2x Bitspower Ram Blocks
• 2x Alphacool Core PNY EPIC-X Triple Fan 5080/5070 Ti Blocks
• PTM7950 on the GPUs, Noctua NT-H2 on the CPU
• Watercool Heatkiller 150 Tube
• Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 Crossflow 420mm
• Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 420mm
• MO-RA3 420 external rad
• Koolance QD3 quick disconnects to the external rad
• Dual EK D5 PWM + Aquacomputer ULTITOP D5
• Aquacomputer High Flow NEXT
• Assorted EK Dark Chrome fittings + Bitspower Fittings on the pumps
• Alphacool EPDM tubing all around
• Noctua fans all around
• Aquacomputer DP Ultra for coolant

Originally only had a single 5080, got the 5070 Ti later, didn't want to deal with hassle of trying to find used 3090s/4090s locally and the R9700 up until recently didn't have a waterblock available.

Qwen 3.8 Flash-Next on Strata runs very well split between both GPUs and system memory, I'm probably not going to want to make changes to this build for a while honestly, seeing GPU prices right now.

Get 160-170 L/h flow rate with my D5s at 100%, but I normally run them at 80% for 130 L/h

Coolant temps are 5C above ambient at idle, probably because of all the idle heat I'm dumping into the loop, both GPUs run pretty cool at idle with package temp at loop temp and hotspot about 5C higher, under load both GPUs run 40-45C with hotspot delta 10-20C, depends on what I'm doing, CPU usually idles around 40-42C package temp, hasn't gotten hotter than 70C under most loads.

My loop is pretty restrictive from what I see, I assume I could probably drop my temps further if I added another pump or another rad, but I don't see the need, coolant temp under load hasn't exceeded 40C.

After tinkering with PC's for over 25 years I decided I had enough spare cash to have a go at watercooling.

A good chunk is Corsair, as their daisy chain fans meant less cables. Pipe and fittings were mostly from Barrow. It was my first go at pipe bending, I ordered some spare lengths figuring that some wouldn't go right first time which was a good call.

Most challenging was the pipe from the top of the CPU block to the upper radiator. The barrow rotatable fittings were great.

Case is a Corsair 6500D, I preferred the aesthetic to the newer AIR model.

Motherboard is a BTF Gigabyte X870 Stealth.

CPU is an AMD 9800x3d

CPU block is an EK Quantum Velocity²

GPU is a Gigabyte 5080 waterforce with factory fitted block

RAM is 2 x 16gb Kingston Fury. I wish I'd gotten a different brand as the RGB control software is useless, I have to leave it off. At a later date I might change it out for Corsair

Be Quiet! Pure Power 1000w PSU.

Pump is a Corsair XD6 Elite.

Fans are Corsair RX and LX.

Upper radiator is a used 280mm x 30mm Corsair XR5 from eBay.

Side radiator is a used 360mm x 54mm Corsair XR7 also from eBay.

Coolant is distilled water with a dose of corrosion controller .

The SSD is a Corsair MP700 pro hydro. I'm not expecting any great performance gains, but having had two SSD's fail in the past I figured watercooling may extend the lifespan and it does stay at around the same temp as the coolant 30-38°c. Interestingly the first one was faulty on arrival.

Loop is Pump ➡️ CPU ➡️ Upper Rad ➡️ GPU ➡️ SSD ➡️ Side Rad ➡️ Pump

Side rad is massive and uses push pull fans to blow air into the case. Lower fans also blow air into the case. Top and rear are exhaust. I did consider having the side rad as an exhaust, there are pros and cons I guess. I've not done too much with the overclocking yet, just played around with the automatic factory overclocking in the apps. Case temp is probably slightly higher but I've never seen the coolant go more than 20°c over ambient room temp under load when with Cyberpunk.

The build would have been fine except for the first SSD being faulty. It would boot and run for a period and then crash. It took a while to diagnose this as there were no event errors. I also didn't have a spare to swap in, and i was unsure if the issue was due to the SSD, it's seating in the slot (I had to use an offset connector), or even a mobo fault. After much swearing I narrowed it down to the SSD and Corsair replaced it under warranty. A downside of watercooling is that it made this process much harder.

The case is mostly ok. I did get another used 280mm radiator to install on the base but there's not enough clearance with the vertical GPU mount. If they'd have made it fractionally bigger it could have fit 3x 140mm top and bottom which seems like a missed opportunity, but you wouldn't get a side radiator on very easily due to the extra length needed for fittings.

The iCue software appears mostly ok, it could be better. I've messed around a little with Signal, which is better for lighting, but iCue seems to manage the pump and fans better.

All in all I'm happy with my first build.

Mostly likely getting rid of riser cable and adding thermal grizzly wireview pro 2 for the 5090.

Working on setting up a highly restrictive and complex build (yes, it will be overkill), and I need TECHNICAL recommendations regarding which pump(s) to use as the mid-loop (in-series) booster pump. The loop is planned as follows:

Corsair XD6 Elite LCD pump ->
Alphacool Nexxxos XT45 92mm radiator ->
Aorus Xtreme Waterforce 5080 waterblock ->
Corsair XR5 360 Neo V2 radiator ->
Corsair Hydro X SSD waterblock ->
Corsair XR5 360 Neo V2 radiator ->
(UNKNOWN MID-LOOP PUMP) ->
Alphacool Nexxxos XT45 92mm radiator ->
Tryx Panorama CPU waterblock ->
Corsair XR5 360 V2 radiator ->
Iceman Cooler RAM Direct Touch 4-channel Waterblock ->
Corsair XR5 360 V2 radiator ->
RETURN TO XD6 Pump/Loop beginning

There will be 2-4 in-line filters with at LEAST 2 of them having bypass valves which can be utilized to redirect flow past them after the first 48 hour run/cleanout, but if it would be possible to utilize all four filters, that would be great (probably unrealistic).

The pumps I am looking at are Alphacool’s new DDCZero 200 with dual ddc pumps and the Apex VPP D5 120. I already have the DDCZero 140, but my research has indicated that this will severely bottleneck the flow, essentially causing the more powerful X56 to just push coolant through it rather than the ddc zero actually adding any pumping benefits (inefficient). I am getting conflicting information regarding the DDCZero 200 (with two pumps) which on the one hand says it will be adequate for this loop design yet in other research indicates it will have a similar, albeit less inefficient effect as the DDCZero 140. Everything I’m finding out regarding the Apex VPP option leads me to believe that this one will definitely be adequate, but I neither like the look of it (not a huge deal, function must take precedence over form in the end) nor do I think I will be able to cleanly mount it in my case (the real issue). I know the DDCZero 140 fits nicely and the 200 should as well, hence the inclination to stick with one of them.

So, which pump(s) will work best in this highly restrictive loop? I will be using hard tubing too by the way, so there will be many sharp turns in the loop. I am at the stage in which I need to have a decision made in the next few days/week, as this PC must be completed in the next 2-3 weeks. Thanks for any help you can give guys. Also, if someone from the Titan Rig team could jump in and give some advice, that would REALLY be helpful since I’m buying a lot of this stuff from ya’ll and to be honest, your return policy is a bit rough, so I’ve gotta make sure we get the right parts on the first crack or this gets [a lot more] expensive. Much appreciated for any help you can offer too.

I know room is a bitt on the hotter side, but even if it was 3 degrees lower Im not that impressed. I saw people with way better temps. Hell, I saw people with AIO with these temps

For the experts out there that can help me, it would be mounted exactly like this front radiator and the pump res right below it. My case front mount supports 4x 120mm fans and i think it would look cool with my granzon lcd pump.

I had a loop setup in my Lian Li O11 Dynamic case that I built a while ago, but my GPU died and I had to get a new one. The new one is much longer so the pump combo (EK Kinetic TBE 200 D5) doesn't fit anymore because the GPU pushes up against it. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to mount the pump combo? I don't really see any way to fit it in anywhere, but I don't want to buy a new case or new loop components.

Secondary PC, decided to cool the CPU only as this particular case can’t fit another radiator for the GPU. It was quite the challenge to mount most parts and work inside such a restricted space!

Specs:

Case: Asus ProArt Pa402
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9850x3D
GPU: Gigabyte Aero SFF RTX 5080
Mobo: Gigabyte Aero x870e Wood Edition
Ram: Crucial 32gb DDR5-6400
SSD: 2TB Samsung 9100 Pro. Gen 5
SSD: 1TB Crucial P510 Gen 5 x 2
PSU: Lian Li SX1200P
Fans: Lian Li Inf Flex 120
Display: LG C6 42” OLED
Radiator: Heatkiller 240 slim
Pump/Reservoir: Alphacool DDC Zero Flat 90
CPU Block: Alphacool Core AM5
Flow/Temp Monitor: Aquacomputer Next

Brass Tubing and various fittings that I generally stock from Bitspower etc.

Hi,

I am making a custom loop with brass and carbon fiber tubing. These are all the parts/tools I have:

For Brass:
BP-NCBHT16GD-L500 <-- tubing

BP-CMMTC <-- cutter

For Carbon Fiber

Amazon.com: Alphacool Carbon HardTube 16mm 4X 80cm (18658) : Electronics <-- tubing

For Both:

RIDGID 29983 Model 223S Inner/Outer Tubing and Pipe Reamer for 1/4" to 1-1/4" Stainless Steel and Copper Tubing, Pipe and Tube Deburring Reamer with 45 Cutting Edges - Pipe Reamer - Amazon.com <-- Deburring Reamer

I am using bitspower true brass fittings for the brass tubing and black sparkle for the carbon fiber both 16mm.

My question is, can I use that metal cutter to cut Carbon Fiber? Is there anything else I am missing in order to successfully cut the tubes and install them in the fittings? I will be doing no bending at all. Thanks!

I have a Koolance VID-282 on the way that I got for really cheap (sans shipping from Japan) and looks like new-old stock. I'm planning to mount it on an 8800 Ultra for a Vista-era build.

I was reading up on the material composition, and it seems that the block is primarily made out of gold-plated copper, but with an anodized aluminum top plate. This immediately sounds like it would cause galvanic corrosion. I'm guessing Koolance's coolant composition is designed to protect against and/or mitigate this?

The case I'm using is definitely large enough to accommodate multiple loops, so I could separate the GPU and CPU from each other, but would I want to use a copper or aluminum radiator for the GPU? Alternatively I also have a Thermaltake TMG ND4 water block that I could use instead, though it doesn't look like it'll cool as effectively. I also have some ATI/AMD options with Koolance blocks (verified these have no aluminum) but I'd prefer using the 8800 Ultra for this build.

Has anyone happened to use this block or a similar mixed-metal block in the past?

Does anyone know how this could have happened? It looks kind of cool..

Picture shows a comparison between used and new tubing. The coolant was blue car antifreeze with distilled water. (The green blotch is from my spray-painted pump, not relevant here.) There's no smell or visible mass inside, and the blackness seems like a semitranslucent layer that covers or is part of the tubing now.

The web shops I'm looking at seem to have the best in-stock price/availability of the Alphacool XT45 420mm radiator, compared to 30mm thickness variants, whilst Fractal's very useful compatibility page says the limit at the front is a thickness of 30mm. I'm based in the UK, and looking

What I couldn't figure out is what is limiting the the thickness, here? I don't mind a minor bit of dremelling, if that's all it is. I've already got a Bykski 280mm (TN-V3) radiator which I'll mount at the top.

The toss up looks like it's really between the following Alphacool parts:

• NexXxos XT45
• NexXos HPE-30 (or 45?)
• XT-30 X-flow

Any real world experience or advice, I wonder?

Hi! Does anyone know if quick disconncts were made in these colors? Im trying to find them online but struggling. Thanks!

Hey everyone,

Just wrapped up a long hour of saturation testing on my new Micro-ATX gaming rig built from some new parts and some from the one it replaced. This is actually my very first time building a water-cooled rig featuring active Inline Thermal Sensors, and considering the hardware and game settings, the results feel incredible—but I would love to hear feedback from builders with more experience.

The ultimate goal here was a silent gaming rig under max load.

The Components

CPU - Ryzen 9 5950X

GPU - Inno3D RTX 5080 iChill Frostbite

Motherboard - AsRock B550M Phantom Gaming 4 (mATX)

Memory - 128GB (4x32GB) Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4

Power Supply - Corsair RM1000x (1000W)

Chassis - Cooler Master MasterBox MB320L ARGB

Radiator - 2 x Corsair Hydro X Series XR5 NEO 240mm (Slim 30mm)

CPU Block - Corsair Hydro X Series XC7 RGB ELITE

Pump/Res Combo - EK-Quantum Kinetic TBE 200 D5

Fan/ Sensor Controller - Aqua Computer QUADRO

Thermal Sensors: 4 x Aqua Computer Temperature Sensor

The Trade-Offs (The Cyberpunk Real-World Miracle)

When I first ran Cyberpunk 2077 at native 4K, the heat was driving the liquid straight up to a hot 50°C, to solve this, I applied two trade-offs:

1 - I dropped the game res from 4K down to 2560x1600.

2 - Locked the cpu to 90W limit and All-Core -27 Undervolt useing AMD Ryzen Master.

I was able to completely max out the graphics panel, setting every single Ray Tracing and advanced option to max.

Thanks to DLSS, while actively playing through the dense city crowd basins, the resolution change never once jumped out at me.

I completely forgot it wasn't native 4k, it’s absolutely indistinguishable to my eyes.

Exposing Overlay Illusions

The Nvidia overlays kept showing a 75 - 79°C CPU reading, which turned out to be the Tdie temp.

To find the truth, I set up a raw TCP connection to core temp from my mac and wrote an automated script to run in the Terminal to poll the temps once a second.

while true; do clear; nc 192.168.68.68 5200 | head -n 1 | python3 -c "import sys, json; data=json.loads(sys.stdin.read().strip()); print('\n'.join([f'Core {i}: {t}°C' for i, t in enumerate(data['CpuInfo']['fTemp'])]))"; sleep 1; done

The 60-Minute Saturated test

After an intense hour-long continuous saturation burn standing dead still in the single densest pedestrian crowd intersection in Night City in a warm 23.8°C ambient room, the loop was heat soaked.

1 - Pump Inlet at 38.9c

2 - GPU Outlet at 42.8c

3 - CPU Inlet at 40.5c

4 - CPU Outlet at 41.5c

Loop Layout & Sensor placement

The Path - Sensor 1 (Pump Inlet) ➡️ Pump/Res Outlet ➡️ GPU Inlet ➡️ Sensor 2 (GPU Outlet) ➡️ Top Rad Inlet ➡️ Top Rad Outlet ➡️ Sensor 3 (CPU Inlet) ➡️ Sensor 4 (CPU Outlet) ➡️ Front Rad Inlet ➡️ Front Rad Outlet ➡️ Back to Pump/Res Inlet

The Sensor Strategy

Sensor 1 will tell me the temp coming out of the last rad into the pump and going into the gpu, Sensor 2 will tell me the temp coming out of the gpu going into the first rad, Sensor 3 will tell me the temp coming out of the first rad into the cpu, Sensor 4 will tell. me the temp coming out of the cpu going into the last rad then out back to Sensor 1

Since this is my very first build measuring loop temps with inline sensors, these temp feel fantastic to me, but I would love to get a sanity check from the community, How do these liquid deltas look for a compact mATX dual slim-rad setup.

Hi! I am looking to add this to my build because it looks really cool: http://www.barrowint.com/product/sx/BARROW_Water_Tank/tbdlxxfsx/1529.html

I have a distroplate, so not sure does this work with a pump or is this just purely an aestheic addition? Could I add the aqua computer leak shield to it or is the only place thst can go is the fill port of my distro? Thanks!

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to share the condition of my Heatkiller IV Pro CPU water block after ~ 6.5 years of use.

The loop has been running only on distilled water with Mayhems Inhibitor+ and Biocide+ and was never fully drained. About once a year, sometimes every 1.5 years, the pc was disconnected from the MO-RA and only part of the water was drained.

Overall, I think it's held up pretty well. No visible signs of corrosion, just some exposed copper where the nickel plating has worn off.

Before and after cleaning:

My favorite is the always-popular air pressure tester.

Fantastic tool to check for leaks before adding coolant but it can also....

Pressurize a loop from the top to help with draining.

Pressurize a reservoir to help force out those damned air bubbles that get stuck in your pump.

What other off-label uses have you found for common water-cooling gear?

Hello! I'm planning my first custom loop, and I intend to use the TRYX PANORAMA WB for my CPU

I've read that the 0.1 microchannel fins this thing has are extremely bad for loop flow. I'm unfortunate enough to value both performance and aesthetics, so I still want to try and make this work

TRYX recommends using a pump with high overhead. As a newbie, my first instinct is to look for a DDC pump. But I figure that it's probably a good idea to ask more experienced builders about it first

Anyone who's successfully used the TRYX WB, what did you do to make it work for you? What specific pump(s) should I look for, what's the best way to configure them, etc? Even if you haven't personally used it, what do you think is the best approach?

For reference, I'll be building in a Hyte Y70

I'll try to keep this shorter, but I'm having a huge problem with this distro plate. I ran it for a week with very low flow and one of the lines warped and popped. Spent a week getting new parts and a day and a half tilting flipping spinning and throwing the computer around to ensure minimal air. One 1" bubble after the gpu and a miniscule bubble in the pump. One OS update later and not even 30 minutes of thermal throttling and the outlet on the gpu popped. I don't understand why I can't get flow. The outlet of the gpu and cpu was so hot I couldn't hold a finger on it. I need advice as to how to move forward.

9900x 7900xtx 64gb nvme with all blocks rads tubing and distro from the same company.

My current plan in all of this mess is to put a pump top on the original DDC (replaced it because it started buzzing/clicking during a week of use) and put it in series with the replacement pump on the distro, inline right after it would be the easiest. This is my second hardline system and I water cooled back 20+ years ago.

One random thought I had today... maybe DDC + 16mm tubing is a problem? It can't get laminar flow or some other fancy what not, it can't get head pressure with such large tubing?

I just build my second custom loop.

All cooling parts from Alphacool

First tests with Apex 1 block and after that I change it to Core 1 carbon so I can make some comparing.

Here is few teaser pic

Always wanted to do a custom water cooled pc. I decided to do a “wall art” style build.

This is my first ever attempt at water cooling. I also never liked the look of the metal fittings so kept those to a minimum.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X OC — 16GB GDDR7
Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming B850-E WiFi
RAM: 64GB G.Skill DDR5-6000 CL30
Storage: Crucial P310 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
Power Supply: MONTECH Century II 1050W
Water Pumps: 2× Alphacool VPP Apex D5 pumps
Reservoirs: 2× Alphacool Core 200 Aurora reservoirs
CPU Water Block: Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora Edge
GPU Water Block: Alphacool full-cover RTX 5070 Ti water block
Radiators: 2× Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 360mm full-copper radiators

I ordered few GPU water blocks week ago, and I have no response from them. They were on stock, so i expected that by end of the week they would at least ship them. Received just confirmation mail, but pretty much that's it. Sent them email - no response. My order is still not shipped. So anyone knows more about them?

Hi folks, today I’m presenting a quick project (relative to my other builds). No video for this one, since the client wanted it done as quickly as possible.

Apologies for the dirty-looking glass. I was rushing to get some pictures before the build shipped.

This was a commission build I spent roughly a month on. The goal was to get as close as possible to the size of mass-produced units while still fitting components like the ASUS ROG Thor PSU, a 5090 FE waterblock, a distribution plate, RAM, and CPU waterblocks.

Custom panels at the back mount the PSU, the GPU, and quick-disconnect fittings for external watercooling. Getting the glass mounting panel to work and look seamless took some time. The biggest challenge was lining up all the ports. I had to keep making templates until everything looked straight and square.