South Africa's Smallest Liquid Cooled PC, Maybe?

[chase11111]

Good day Carbies

So I recently built an ITX build in a fractal torrent nano with a 7600X and 6950XT and seeing how much space was wasted in a conventional case I started looking at moving to something smaller in a sandwich style layout. Something similar to a Velka 3. After doing quite a bit of research and parts hunting the bug hit me and I got the crazy idea of trying to build the smallest fully liquid cooled gaming PC possible, I settled on the following goals for the build with budget pretty much flying out the window

1. Around 6L (Size was determined from a couple of the parts which I will go into detail about below).
2. No external PSU brick or Pico PSU, wanted to keep this as standard as possible for it to be recreated and built on actual PC specifications.
3. Fully custom hard tube water-cooled, this is my first water cooled PC and I wanted this to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
4.. As this is going to be my daily driver I would need to be able to play AAA titles at 1440P 144Hz.

So lets get into the parts!

Motherboard - I settled on the MSI MPG B650I Edge, I went mini ITX as it is the most supported small form factor that contains a PCIE slot and will be upgradeable in future.

Ram - XGB Lancer RGB DDR5 6000mhz, its white it has RGB , its fast.

Processor - As stated above I have sold my 7600x in favor of a 7500G due to its 65w TDP, heating is an important factor in a build this small. I could of gone with a 7600 but stock is scarce and the 7500G is a bit cheaper forgoing the integrated graphics.

GPU - This was a tough choice and took the most amount of hunting as finding a card short enough to fit while still powerful enough for my needs and a card I could find a GPU block for was tough. I settled on the MSI RTX 4070 Super Ventus 2x, with a PCB at only 170mm long it fits perfectly in a sandwich style layout alongside a mini itx board and Alpha cool makes a waterblock for its big brother the TI version that from what I can tell has an identical PCB layout.

PSU - To power all this I have gone with the best flex atx psu money can but the Enhance 7660B 600W platinum. Unfortunately I could not find a modular unit but have decided to modify all the cables myself and may do some sleeving and a custom paint job to match the white aesthetic.

Radiator - With most sandwich style layout cases being around 90-100mm in width the natural choice was to go with a dual 92mm radiator, more specifically the Alphacool NexXxoS ST25 Full Copper 92mm Dual Radiator. I paired this with a couple ID cooling slim RGB fans to keep the overall thickness at 40mm.

Blocks & Pump - So as I had to order a GPU block and radiator from Alpha cool so I stuck with them for all the water-cooling components and got a XP3 light cpu block at only 14mm high and DC-LT2 pump which is tiny.

Fittings - Due to size constraints and there are many in a build like this, I went with EK micro rotary 90 adapters and EK HDP 12mm fittings, smallest I could find. While ordering the fittings I picked up some EK Cryo Fuel as well and made sure to avoid the pastel stuff so I wouldn't gunk up the small blocks.

Reservoir - So some may have noticed I opted for the DC-LT pump and not the LT Solo unit, this is cause I plan on machining my own acrylic 2 piece dual 92mm reservoir & attaching the pump to that.

Case - Last but not least there is no case on the market around 6L that would house all the components listed above so I am designing and laser cutting my own custom case made entirely from 1.5mm 304 brushed stainless steel.

So as it stands now I have most of the components I need to get this build moving, unfortunately the Alpha Cool components are only coming in mid July as they are non stock items so there is going to be a bit of a delay in showing some real work but in the mean time I thought I would share the idea and a couple renderings of how it will all go together to wet the lips a bit. Hopefully my vision will turn out as good as I think it will be, only time will tell. Hope you like!!!

 

[M@tree2]

Hey man, this looks great!
Very keen to see the final system built!

Just a question on the custom loop side,
Where did you get the fittings from?
Are 2x Dual 92mm rads enough to cool everything properly?

[Note I do watercooling on the larger scale, processor never goes anything above 70°C at full load]

 

[chase11111]

Hey man, this looks great!
Very keen to see the final system built!

Just a question on the custom loop side,
Where did you get the fittings from?
Are 2x Dual 92mm rads enough to cool everything properly?

[Note I do watercooling on the larger scale, processor never goes anything above 70°C at full load]

Hey bud,

So all the fittings were ordered directly from EK waterblocks on their online store. Just be careful cause they do not include the import tax and vat on the order so I was hit with an additional R1200 charge on top of the R4500 order.

It is only 1 x dual 92mm radiator, this is going to be very tight with the cooling hence I went with the 4070 super @ 220W tdp and the 7500G @65W tdp. These are max figures @ 285W so I am hoping with general use and gaming that I will be seeing closer to 200W. The rad is rated at 400W but we all know they just say this for all copper rads. Worst case I will undervolt the CPU but from SFF forums I have seen guys cool much more power hungry components on less and it seems possible so I am being optimistic at this stage.

 

[rinners]

I have a single 92mm thick rad and was surprised to see they rated it at 200W. I think your 400W is based on a certain airflow though.

If I were you I would use 25mm fans with decent static pressure. It's only 10mm more but I think the benefits will be worth it.

But looking nice so far. Keen to see some more.

 

[chase11111]

I have a single 92mm thick rad and was surprised to see they rated it at 200W. I think your 400W is based on a certain airflow though.

If I were you I would use 25mm fans with decent static pressure. It's only 10mm more but I think the benefits will be worth it.

But looking nice so far. Keen to see some more.

I agree 100%. If it does not work I will redesign for slightly larger components on V2 of the case as the laser cutting should not be ridiculously priced. I have also considered delidding and getting a direct die frame. See AM5 has some substantial temperature drops by moving the cooling plate 7mm down as the heat is not centered. My plan is to share all the design files once done for the case and distro plate so people can build their own if they like.

 

[TRINITRON]

Haha, I like your title and if you can achieve your design you will beat my SFF custom loop PC

Where I used the combo Barrow CPU block + pump + reservoir with soft tubing

I even got an Enhance PSU as well which I took from an Aorus eGPU but I didn't get around to getting cables made for it (it was very limited) so used a normal SFX psu (It was only 450W as well so I was leaning towards an iGPU setup for even smaller)

Best of luck bud.

For reference these were some of my parts:

(not my pic)

(Asus EKWB 3070, which i used in the final build)

(The enhance psu I didnt use)

 

[chase11111]

Haha, I like your title and if you can achieve your design you will beat my SFF custom loop PC

Where I used the combo Barrow CPU block + pump + reservoir with soft tubing

I even got an Enhance PSU as well which I took from an Aorus eGPU but I didn't get around to getting cables made for it (it was very limited) so used a normal SFX psu (It was only 450W as well so I was leaning towards an iGPU setup for even smaller)

Best of luck bud.

For reference these were some of my parts:

(not my pic)

(Asus EKWB 3070, which i used in the final build)

(The enhance psu I didnt use)

Any chance you got some pics of the final build or is it still in progress?

 

[TRINITRON]

Any chance you got some pics of the final build or is it still in progress?

I'll have to find them, it's already been some years since I dissembled it and went the opposite direction with an Lian Li o11 XL case

 

[Rubble]

If you're willing to "compromise" on the tubing, it does cost a bit more for the fittings but pneumatic tubing makes it a dream sometimes with how thin the tubes are and from my experience DDC's have enough head pressure to deal with the smaller ID tubes. That and a CPU block like the Modultra Lobo make it nice and easy. There's a YouTube video where the creator did a build in a FormD T1 but you can get the idea. You do lose the snazzy looks of the hardline build but with the integrated pump and the thinner tubing I think you could shuffle stuff around a bit easier and get away with tighter internal gaps to make up for the extra Z-height of the CPU block.

My experience starts and ends with festo fittings but they should all be good with the insane pressures pneumatic systems are normally meant to work with

Your case design makes the most sense to me overall, it's functionally a velka 3 with a chunk of rad space on the front/top so design wise you should be golden - definitely keeping an eye out to see how this turns out

 

[Rubble]

If you're willing to "compromise" on the tubing, it does cost a bit more for the fittings but pneumatic tubing makes it a dream sometimes with how thin the tubes are and from my experience DDC's have enough head pressure to deal with the smaller ID tubes. That and a CPU block like the Modultra Lobo make it nice and easy. There's a YouTube video where the creator did a build in a FormD T1 but you can get the idea

My experience starts and ends with festo fittings but they should all be good with the insane pressures pneumatic systems are normally meant to work with

Your case design makes the most sense to me overall, it's functionally a velka 3 with a chunk of rad space on the front/top so design wise you should be golden - definitely keeping an eye out to see how this turns out

To add to this, i agree with the thicker 92mm fans. These coolers are worth grabbing for the fans alone - Takealot

Really quiet and great performing as well from the time I've used them