maximumpc.com MAY 2020 MAXIMUM PC 59
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AT THIS POINT, WE STILL hadn’t figured out that the
Silverstone power supply was no good, but it was all
about fitting that front radiator and getting the reservoir
into position. We’re actually using a separate bracket
from Alphacool for this—as it’s got channels down,
you can orient them in different ways to give you better
clearance and move the reservoir up and down as
needed. It’s not the cleanest look in the world, but it
works well when you’re trying to suss out those tubing
runs on the first pass. We’ve also installed the LED RGB
Alphacool ring. It’s quite old-school in a lot of ways, as it
isn’t compatible with motherboards, and instead plugs
in via Molex, then has a physical wired remote to control
color and illumination patterns.BY NOW, WE’VE REALIZED that having the radiator
ports facing the PSU is a no-go, so we’ve reoriented it
to the correct position, with the ports close to the glass
window. And we’ve also taken the opportunity to mount
the pump to the top of the radiator, raised off it—this
time, with the included Phanteks pump mount that came
with the case. You can mount the bracket directly to
120mm fan mounts on a case, making it perfect for our
bottom radiator. We’re still tinkering with the positioning
here, and it turns out that the pump itself is too close to
the window to allow for the 90-degree fittings that we’re
inevitably going to need to install. Fortunately, the pump
mount bracket has multiple slots to which you can attach
the pump.WITH THAT SORTED, we moved on to the graphics card.
As standard, the graphics card mounting solution,
rather bizarrely, runs the GPU with its backplate facing
the window (we’re guessing for better airflow). However,
that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for a liquid-cooled
waterblock that you want to display, so instead we had
to flip it—to do this, you need to remove the GPU bracket
entirely. It’s mounted on the back of the motherboard
tray with a couple of screws. So, take it out, flip it upside
down, remount it, and you’ll be good to go.SO, FITTINGS IN, let’s crack on with the tubing. This is
what we ended up with for the reservoir and pump setup.
As you can see, the pump is still gravity-fed (though you
do need to get past that center fountain tube in the res
first). It flows down and around into the bottom radiator,
and then up into the 240mm radiator, where it then goes
around the back into the graphics card, through the
block, around the top of the case, down into the CPU, and
then back into the reservoir to repeat the cycle again.
At least, that’s the plan. We love the look of the frosted
tubing here. Alphacool really has nailed it with this stuff,
and with the pastel pink coolant as well, this stuff will
shine. The only downside? There are no LEDs in that
pump, and it could really use some.RESERVOIR RUMBLE PUMP POSITIONING
GRAPHICS CARD INSTALLATION THE PERFECT FIX