"
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
-Sydney J. Harris
I'll start with the progress I made before the great rage-quit.
I put a lot of time into the project over the weekend. I replaced the Prodigy's front panel with a 5mm sheet of white perspex.
Measure twice, cut once:
Not perfect but it matched up to the fan so I figured it's not worth trimming and potentially creating a gap:
The Prodigy has convenient large holes on the front of the chassis. I drilled matching holes in the white and clear perspex sheets, screwed the 200mm radiator to the inside of the chassis first, then bolted the whole fan assembly to the front of the case.
...leaving just enough of a gap in front of the fan not to impede intake air flow
The smaller, rectangular holes normally used for the stock front panel clips were just the right size for the fan plug and cable to sneak through. No drilling required
I got about 80% of the way through routing the tubing. All that's left is connecting the pump and figuring out a fill port.
Note that those are not the fans I was planning on using. There was a mix-up with the two SP120s I ordered so I had to improvise in the interim.
I didn't have enough 90deg fittings so I had to use 45deg compression fittings on the top of the 200mm rad. This was a serious squeeze, but the upside is that it sort of holds the tubing up, keeping things reasonably tidy.
Clearance between the end of the res and the CPU ports was...tight. None of my 45deg or 90deg fittings were compact enough to help either.
An even bigger issue was, predictably, the godzilla graphics card. With the fittings on the window side of the block I had an issue with the side panel fitting, so I had to put them on the other side. This then had them pushed up against the 240mm radiator, but they went in without too much swearing.
The tube coming towards the camera leads to the CPU:
And the other tube follows a fairly tight bend to the 45deg fitting coming off the 200mm rad:
I then poured a whiskey and stopped to admire my handywork. My thoughts drifted to fitting the PSU, and how I'd have to mount the PSU backplate on motherboard stand-offs because it's a full length modular unit and the Prodigy's PSU bay is small.
I then noticed how the card was being pushed out at an angle because of the tubing pushing up against the 240 rad.
I also noticed how the white perspex panel wasn't sitting flush against the front of the case.
It then slowly started to sink it that too many compromises were being made for the sake of squeezing a budget custom loop and 7990 into this case. Mounting the res on the back of the case and the rad on top would create a lot more room and solve my graphics card issues, but that's too much of a hack build for my liking. I'd rather do it right or not do it at all.
So the 7990 is on the market again. The case (modded or unmodded) and all the water stuff will follow shortly. If anyone's keen, drop me a PM.
The plan now is to go with an air cooled card and closed loop CPU cooler in an Elite 130 or Corsair 250D...probably the former but the latter is sooo sexy and there's one for sale here at a reasonable price.
Sorry to let you down guys. The build was entertaining, if not very fruitful. Thanks to [MENTION=8569]Poizyn[/MENTION], [MENTION=654]placid[/MENTION], [MENTION=13091]CUDweiser Lite[/MENTION], [MENTION=18288]shimmie[/MENTION], [MENTION=25842]KurryBoomba[/MENTION], [MENTION=24547]ockert[/MENTION], [MENTION=28465]AztekSA[/MENTION], [MENTION=8442]Off-The-Chart[/MENTION] and [MENTION=25697]Duck_bomb[/MENTION] for being awesome sellers, giving great advice and support, offering assistance and making this experience a positive one. If I'd bought this stuff off Gumtree I would be miserable right now.
