Gadgetory

we just posted our alpha cool ice wolf build-up and then following that post the review of it but the big thing there is we still needed something similar to compare against and that is what we're building up today this is an ek solution that hooks into the ek 280 predator XL c cooler and it's also just like the Alpha : a semi custom loop solution with quick-release tubes so we're gonna be looking at that today we're building it and then the review will come pretty immediately after this content though is brought to you by AMD and there are X 480 conveniently ek also makes an Rx 480 water block that you can buy and hook into the same predator X I'll see so if you want to liquid cool your 480 then there is an option for that and just to remind everyone we did a liquid cold for 80 some months ago and saw that there was actually an overclocking potential increase that we got out of it and that's pretty standard with these solutions whether it's a 480 or a 1080 or whatever with the GT X 1080 here in front of me founders Edition card and the ice wolf cooler from alpha cool we were able to get not much but about a 10 megahertz extra overclock on the thing and then and that's over another liquid solution mind you so the overclock over reference is actually quite substantial but over another liquid solution it was 10 megahertz we were hitting something like 21 13 megahertz max clock rate in gaming scenarios it's pretty damn high and that was thanks to liquid with air it can't do nearly as well unless he blasts the VR I'm fan at a hundred percent so that's what these things help with of course the value is always what we talked about in the review because value is not necessarily great with this type of project but it is an enthusiast project and that means that you're doing it at least partly because you want to and that's as good a reason as any so we're installing this one just to kind of point it out the 481 right here and the 1080 one in my right hand that's what we've got to work with I'll probably be doing that one shortly but we're starting with a 1080 today just because I've already got data on it for other cooling solutions so that's what they've got these are the same overall design and basically we end up with the contact plate here and this is all just gonna conduct completely from the inductors here we've got inductor contact we have MOSFET contact we have a VRAM contact here around the GPU of course GPU contact and then capacitor bank contact so this will it's it's a full-coverage water block basically this is a proper full-coverage water block and it's a bit different from alpha cools ice wolf in that regard so we're gonna connect this to 1080 the hardware it's been done it's already torn down it's been torn down a million times now there's probably feeling a little bit beaten up at this point so we're attaching this things to note as previously I've got thermocouples attached to the card to the PCB it's one of the backside here it's not really going to interfere with the conductivity that much to a backplate if we install one and then on the front side this one kind of needs to be risa cured obviously it's a bit loose but that's gonna touch the third mosfet up from the bottom and that'll give us our mouse by reading so that'll go right there the adhesives getting a bit dry though but I will I'll fix that as we go through just to show off the tube system before we get into installation this is what I was talking about in our alpha cool ice wolf coverage when I said that they're tubes which I have right here just to show you and remind you I said their tubes were pretty bad this is what I was working with you unscrew this to do the disconnect it's not exactly a quick disconnect it's kind of a quick disconnect that's more prone to leaking by accidents than the EK version and it's got some quality control issues EK is version is the one that I said is far better but also you pay a bit more for them and we'll cover this more in the review but just to really quickly show you how it works it's pretty damn cool hit the switch and there it is the disconnect it's not gonna leak there's like one tiny drop of liquid on there but that's it there's no real risk of leaking at all disconnect it and then we would disconnect this one over here on the CPU cooler so this if when we're done with the insulation you take this cooler and we would disconnect just like that and then you hook them together and you end up with a semi-custom loop so that's pretty cool now not quite as effective as a custom open loop but also much easier and probably a bit more accessible for some people ok so let's get started for this we've got thermal pads from ek these are the blue pads that came with it it's a few things here these are cut to size a bit better than the Alpha cool ice wolf ones these pads go on the vram and then the rest of the pads that we have will go on the vrm components so to apply these we peel off the plastic from both sides and then you just drop it onto the vram module and we're going to do that seven more times I'm going to tap my anti-static wrist strap that's grounded to the ESD mat and then into the wall just for good measure working with this stuff and cold and dry weather it's just not good for a static electricity like a better way to peel this yes they are a bit stickier yeah yeah they're better so these are stickier than the Alpha coil ones which is nice big fan of that okay that's the vram thermal pads down you should expect these to take about one hour per thermal pad to get off of the blue sticky stuff apparently it's it's pretty adhesive but next we're gonna be installing I have to cut this to size this one well install here what we're covering here if you're not familiar with the basics of the PCB VRAM VRMs up here we've got MOSFETs here and then doctors or chokes if you've heard that word the same thing and then the capacitor bank over here so we are covering with thermal pads the MOSFETs which pretty much become the hottest they can withstand about a hundred fifty C well depends but 150 C t.j.maxx is not unheard of for these things so we put that there that'll conduct with the plate you'll see here that when I set this down this channel in the plate is going to align with the inductors those will go in there and then on this side we've got the fat's contacting via the thermal pad so that provides a thermal interface which improves our transfer by I say liquid on T oh where did that come out of probably the tubes not fully connected oke there's some there's some drops on the tube right there yeah J so let me make sure that's fully sealed it's really only a few points of failure for these so alright so I was saying uh yeah it all lines up we're gonna go ahead and put that second thermal pad on there you need to cut it the size I need to make sure this kind of stays in place to which the pad and the tension should hold it all where I want it to be which is on top of that MOSFET as we found out last time box cutters work pretty well for this because my iFixit tray as a cutting board a sweet extra always nice to have extra thermal pads oh these are sticky that's good so position this right want it just on top of the FET very nice and that is so much better than we were working with the other day I'm not sure what the thermal conductivity is but we will find out in testing how good the thermal performance is which is really all that matters application though far better than the ice wall so far just by using a better pad now this one for the FETs or sorry for the inductors all right nice very nice now the best part that everyone likes to talk about thermal paste I put a bit here in the middle oh that comes out very fast okay that should be that should be Apple and because it needs to be said every time you can be a bit more generous with this thermal paste on a video card because that's the wrong way because you are not dealing with my age as like on a CPU so don't be as concerned about that so that's gonna go right there I think we've taken care of everything we're not gonna need the LED or the fan headers so now it's just a matter of putting this down and then tightening it all okay that's a Polish that later all this fingerprints okay nice nicely done if I do say so myself now begins the Emporium of screws this is what they give you it's a little bit overkill and washers little tiny washers so there's actually a bit easier then they make it look you need the 2.5 by 4 screw which is that one everywhere and a washer with each one my Deeley just to kind of prevent scratching and for spacing and then there's going to be a longer screw in the back which is the 5 by 6 that will be the 2.5 by 6 it's a 2.5 by 6 is what we're gonna be using for the i/o area once we get there need a screwdriver washers ok you want to make sure there's even pressure from all those to avoid cracking any silicon now we can start doing all the other ones I think there's 13 screws in this step if we can line up that would be great okay there's your classic error don't screw everything in until you got them all in the right spot don't don't follow you screw them down trying to go halfway on all these and then go through and finish them on the way if I mentioned that I hate washers I never put this last screw and I always just use the DVI ones to hold this in place but I guess we'll just go ahead and do it for this sake of being complete nothing for that to mount into so these if you really wanted to use one of these little washer nut things to go on the other side of the 2.5 by 6 screws or and secure them around that that expansion plate but I'm not gonna do it because I don't want to okay so I think we're basically done here now I could mom actually I guess we couldn't do that I was gonna say we could remount the back plate that comes with the card but actually we can't we would have to use the other end set screws that it comes with to do that I will do it as quickly as mount the rest of the i/o shield though all right so we're done this is the finished product just need to get it installed in the system and the loop test it out why is that screw there we need to we need to tighten these all down remember when I said we're you're gonna do them all halfway and then finish it at the end well you need to need to actually do that part okay hey let's try that again so there we go there's our finished product now with screws secured it looks pretty good where you see how it performs but I am definitely interested in this one so we've got the full coverage front side complete with fingerprints that need to be wiped off and then these will simply as I already sort of demonstrated simply connect to this after I've already mounted it to the system so it's not quite ready yet I need to mount it to the rest of the system first but I am loving these quick releases because there's really no we're not losing any liquid here which is great because that means better usability long term no real needs refill but there is a refill port on the giant radiator here the exile sea 280 so we could actually fill it if we needed to but we don't so this is what we end up with we got our CPU cooler and we've got our GPU 1080 cooled by the block and that cools the VRMs also pretty fun project I don't know off the top of my head what this cost but we'll be talking about that in the review so I like to kind of build these as blind as possible when I can quick thoughts I suppose throw these in here for once they're all pads far easier on this to work with then with one I just worked with the Alpha cool that's not the slight alpha cool and their ice wolf it was a fine product but small things here are a lot better and those two main small things would just be again quick release and the thermal pads we'll see how it cools though I haven't tested it yet but we've got a lot of work to do so as always patreon link in the post roll video to help us that directly subscribe for more we will have the review going up within a few days of this video so do you subscribe for that links in the description below for more information including links to these products if you're interested but do wait for our review before purchasing anything they'll be down there though if you want them I'll see you all next time you