Asus MarsII QuadSLI Watercooled

[Conker]

Asus MarsII QuadSLI Watercooled

by ConkersGrillforce1337

Let's resurrect the graphic gods...

Here it is, my next project, a self-designed watercooler especially for my Asus MarsII cards.

Waterblock Design

The existing heat sink of the Asus MarsII will be slightly modified so that the two watercoolers can be connected to the TwinConnect bridge respectively the circulation. The original look of the Asus MarsII is kept, because the design is awesome.

As mentioned earlier, removing the IHSs of both GTX580s on each Asus MarsII has brought some benefits in terms of cooler design. I have been able to reduce the copper block of 1cm to 6mm, the thickness of the cover remains the same, because I want to hide the screws. The reduction of the height of the copper block makes itself felt especially in weight.

Flow Simulations

using Solidworks Flow Simulation 2013 (with 1000 flow lines)

Stage 1: 1800RPM

Stage 2: 2550RPM

Stage 3: 3300RPM

Stage 4: 4050RPM

Stage 5: 4800RPM

FullRes: Click here

Hardware components

Case: Xigmatek Elysium

PSU: Enermax MaxRevo1500 + Corsair A850

Mainboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme

CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X

RAM: 4x2Gb G.Skill RipjawsX 1866Mhz

GPU: 2x Asus MarsII in QuadSLI

Cooling components

CPU: Corsair H100

RAM: Kingston HyperX Coolers

GPU: self-designed watercooler

Watercooling components

Pump: Alphacool VPP655-T12

Reservoir: Phobya Balancer 250

Radiator: Watercool Mo-Ra3 360 PRO

Tubing: Masterkleer 19/13mm

Disassembly

During the months of May and June, I got my Xigmatek Elysium case disassembled piece by piece. On one hand, it was necessary to clean the case completely after nearly two years of operation, on the other hand to get access to all the cables, which I wanted to sleeve.

In addition, the mounting holes for the radiator and the reservoir had to be drilled.

FullRes: Click here

Sleeving + front door modding

This I had never done before and it was a tedious piece of work. Two power supplies, various internal cables, pump cables, fan connectors,…everything should shine with red and black sleeving, respectively the 24pin ATX cables in red, black and silver sleeving .

In addition, I removed the fan grill on the front door of the Xigmatek Elysium case and replaced it with clear plexiglass.

FullRes: Click here

Reassembly

After the sleeving process was complete and everything was cleaned, I started the reassembly. At this time, the two MarsII waterblocks had not yet been delivered, so I installed my two GTX Titans to test the system and clean install Windows.

FullRes: Click here

Asus MarsII waterblocks

A few days later it was time, the two water coolers were delivered. I made some checks and fortunately everything seemed to fit. In the production, there was a difference of 4/10mm in the direction of the inputs/ outlets, fortunately, this difference is not a problem provided.

However, I noticed that one VRam-„isle“ was missing, I contacted Liquid-Extasy what went wrong, I have received no answer until now.

This production error was also not a problem, as I still had excess 2mm pads from the rear Vrams.

FullRes: Click here

Looptest

The time had come, the two GTX Titans were on temporary retirement.

The first loop test I made with complete installation, the first test was pretty promising. Basically everything was tight after 8 hours of continuous operation of the loop except one of the two water blocks. The fact that one was dry, let me suggest that the second was not screwed on correctly. I made a second loop test with a rather unconventional installation, which was over 6 hours in operation. The result was convincing, no leaks.

FullRes: Click here

Let's resurrect the gods

Now there was no holding back, the gods are not to rest on. I assembled both Asus MarsII cards, at the last check, I noticed that one graphics card had only partially contact between the 580 dies and the copper surface. I disassembled the card and used thermal pads instead of thermal compound as a temporary solution.

I installed everything and after solving some BIOS error messages, I managed to get the system up and running.

At idle, all four chips run at temperatures between 30-37 °C, that’s ok with a roomtemperature of 24°C.

Under full load, the weakness of thermal pads makes massively noticeable, while the chips with MX-4 paste run at max 48°C, the chips with thermal pads heat up to 78°C.

Btw, the entire system weighs 37,6kg.

FullRes: Click here

It's not over yet...thin copper plates are on the way to replace the thermal pads...

[Michael]

that's some impressive shit!!

[StamatisX]

Impressive indeed!

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

[Brian]

Very good choices with the components, all top notch. Who's going to mill out for you?

Sent from my GT-N7000

[Khenglish]

I'm concerned that you have too little surface area near the GPU dies to pick up heat. Copper conducts heat a lot more slowly than most people think despite being the 2nd most conductive metal. I assume that since you did flow rate simulations that you also did heat transfer simulations?

Also are you going to take off the IHSs? It dropped temps around 4C for my 580 on water, but I expect less power draw per GPU for you though so it should make less of a difference.

[Conker]

@Khenglish: No, I haven't run temperature simulation, it's pretty hard to choose the correct values in the correct places to get nearly accurate data.

I will not remove the IHS, the watercooler is adapted to the height of the two IHS.

Do you think that a copper fin design, as in the picture below, will improve the cooling a lot?

(Fullsize on SkyDrive folder)

@Brian: I can't tell it at the moment, I expect a few more quotes from different companies.

[Khenglish]

@Khenglish: No, I haven't run temperature simulation, it's pretty hard to choose the correct values in the correct places to get nearly accurate data.

I will not remove the IHS, the watercooler is adapted to the height of the two IHS.

Do you think that a copper fin design, as in the picture below, will improve the cooling a lot?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6568[/ATTACH]

(Fullsize on SkyDrive folder)

@Brian: I can't tell it at the moment, I expect a few more quotes from different companies.

That is absolutely better. I think my 580 GPU block had over 30 fins.

[Conker]

That is absolutely better. I think my 580 GPU block had over 30 fins.

Yeah, I know, the waterblocks from AquaComputer have an insane amount of copper fins. In a custom-made, this has an influence on the production costs, so I have to keep an eye on the value for money.

[Khenglish]

Yeah, I know, the waterblocks from AquaComputer have an insane amount of copper fins. In a custom-made, this has an influence on the production costs, so I have to keep an eye on the value for money.

How thick is the copper base under the fins? Maybe you can trim it down some for more fin height? And it would be a big redesign, but another possibility is to remove the IHSs just so you can have the base plate lower for taller fins. IHS removal is a bit dangerous though and messing it up is a great way to add a lot to your costs, but the combined effect of IHS removal and the taller fins would make a big difference in temperatures as long as you're careful (don't pull on one side of the razor when pulling it back out so that the other end spins in and knocks off a resistor like someone I know very well did).

I understand that having a high number a fins for surface area is difficult when using a milling machine to make them. What about making the whole liquid cooler thicker to increase fin height for more area? This will certainly add to costs but I think as things are now you have plenty of room for it.

I'm just concerned that you might spend all this time and money on a cooler, but then it's basically wasted because the cooler performance is not good. I did just that when making a new internal laptop air cooler 3 years ago. My GPU block has around twice your number of fins and I think they are also around twice as tall. I really think you should increase surface area significantly more than by what you already have. My feelings are that you spent thousands on hardware, so why cheap out $40 on cooling?

[Conker]

@Khenglish: The watercooler has the following dimensions: 263mm x 134mm x 14mm with TwinConnectConnector included and 263mm x 116mm x 14mm without.

The copper base is 1.5mmm above both GPUs and the fins are 4.5mm high and 1mm thick and have a distance of 1.5mm to each other.

I'm going to form an opinion over Easter, regarding the idea of removing the heat spreader.

btw we are not talking about double-digit amounts

[Conker]

Update 28.03.2013:

Pictures updated to the latest version and added a sketch with dimensions in millimeters.

To get a better idea of ​​how the water cooler will look like in the end, I added all required screws with approximate dimension entities.

First I wanted to use this M4 screws.

When I saw the rendered results, I thought I must have been taken leave of his thoughts at the time of purchase. It just looks crappy.

So I went to a local craft store and ordered smaller black M3 screws.

In the same step I have raised the height of the cover to 5mm to hide the new M3 screws completely. The new results look better many times.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6739[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]6740[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]6741[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]6742[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]6743[/ATTACH]

As always everything at full resolution available on my SkyDrive folder.

[Conker]

Update 02.04.2013

All pictures and video updated to the latest version.

Older pictures are still available on the SkyDrive folder.

The Monsoon Fittings, which I'll use, are now designed almost faithfully, to reveal the final look better and to identify compatibility issues.

I have cleaned the file of unnecessary steps, so that changes can be implemented more quickly.

[Conker]

Update 10th April 2013

The main post is updated with a completely revised version of the water cooler.:cool: This model is now almost ready for production, some small things still need to be corrected or edited.

You know where to find the images.

[Khenglish]

So did you make the coolers yet? I'm wondering how things turned out.

[Conker]

Asus MarsII Watercooler Final Edition:

Flow Simulations

using Solidworks Flow Simulation 2013 (with 1000 flow lines)

Stage 1: 1800RPM

Stage 2: 2550RPM

Stage 3: 3300RPM

Stage 4: 4050RPM

Stage 5: 4800RPM

The two water coolers have been ordered and are expected to be made ​​until late May.

FullRes: Click here

[Khenglish]

Good luck. I hope it turns out well.

[Brian]

Looks awesome man, can't wait to see the final hardware in action. BTW you should design a full Titan block too and put the blocks up for sale.

[capchaos]

Pretty sweet I have a mo-ra 1080 for my tri sli titans

[Conker]

Watercooling components:

A few days ago the package with the majority of the components arrived, followed by two smaller packages this week.

I ordered a new fan controller, the NZXT Sentry Mix, very powerful 50W per channel:p a dream:love-struck: with this controller it should be no problem to connect multiple fans to one channel.

In the next few days I will remove everything that is currently mounted in the Xigmatek Elysium Case. I will make some modifications to the case to allow the installation of all components.

At the moment I'm preparing the cables for the resleeving.

FullRes: Click here

keep you guys up to date

@Khenglish: I don't hope, I'm convinced;)

@capchaos: Nice Which temperatures reach your cards? Do you cool only the graphics cards with water cooling or processor, mb,...too?

[MENTION=5]5150 Joker[/MENTION]: The design of a water block for the GTX TITAN would be no problem, but there are already many models available and it would be difficult to offer the water blocks for a reasonable price.

[svl7]

Awesome radiator....

[Brian]

Looking real good @ConkersGrillforce1337 that is a massive radiator! So you're going to do sleeving by hand? That's some real dedication! Look forward to the continued build log.

[Conker]

[MENTION=5]5150 Joker[/MENTION]: Yes,I do the sleeving by hand First I had some problems, because the Corsair pins are very hard to remove, the ATX pin remover in the Phobya set is crap, so I ordered this Tool and now it works I will sleeve the 24pin connectors in red, black, silver and all other cables in black, red.

Maybe I can show first results tomorrow

[Conker]

First impressions of the new sleeved cables:dribble:

More on sunday

[Conker]

Cable sleeving for the Corsair AX850 PSU and the Dual-PSU connector done:D

Corsair AX850 Cable Look before sleeving

Now I turn to the PSU from Enermax, which requires more extensive work.

[angerthosenear]

Those cables look amazing.

Is the dual PSU connector to turn on two PSUs at once? Are the two wires going into the auxiliary plug the ATX switch wire (aka the green wire) and a ground?