Readers Drives - Stellar Material

Posted at: Wednesday 23rd July 2008 by Marcus Dandy

System builder Marcus Dandy takes us into orbit with Supernova, a water-cooled triple SLI monster PC.

As a system builder for WaterCooling UK, I have the opportunity to play with a wide range of high-performance PC hardware. However, I'd never needed to put together a triple SLI rig before, not to mention water-cooling all three cards, while attempting to house the entire system in a single case - until I was asked to build this PC. The name and theme for the build, Supernova, came from early discussions about which power supply to use, when someone commented that with three GeForce 8800s, it would need a 'supernova' to power them, and the name stuck.

The biggest problem with attempting to build a PC of this size is finding a case big enough to house the components without it looking cluttered, and having wires tangled up like spaghetti junction. Although the Lian Li V series is being replaced by newer models, I was able to get hold of an original Lian Li V2000, a gigantic case that I consider to be one of the best for housing a large custom water-cooling setup. It can easily hold a triple 120mm-fan radiator in the lower half of the case while the motherboard is placed at the top.

I spent some time considering the water-cooling requirements and how this would work. At one point, I considered buying custom waterblocks for the Nvidia 790i motherboard from a German manufacturer called An-Fi Tech, but unfortunately, there was none available at the time. It's probably just as well that I didn't water-cool the motherboard, as it was already crowded enough with two water-cooling loops squeezed inside the case.  

The first loop cools the CPU with a Thermochill PA120.3 triple 120mm-fan radiator, while the second uses another Thermochill PA120.3 and a PA120.1 single 120mm-fan radiator to keep the graphics cards cool. Each loop has a DDC Ultra Pump with the standard top replaced by an EK top so that it matches the colour of the case. The choice of waterblocks was fairly easy: full-cover EK blocks for the graphics cards and an EK Supreme for the CPU.

Once I knew which components I had to fit inside the case, I had to mod it accordingly. The first unnecessary part to go was the PSU support plate in the bottom of the case, followed by the hard drive rails. Since the drive rails were secured by screws, it only took ten minutes to remove these. I also decided to place 120mm fans underneath the case to help prevent hot air being trapped between the two radiators. I used a 114mm holesaw and cut out three fan holes for fans that would pull in air from underneath the case and then blow it between the two radiators. After that, I drilled another hole in the roof of the case, at the top of the 5.25in bays, which is where the PA120.1 radiator would be installed.

The next problem to address was the side panels. The stock side panels of the V2000 are rather plain, so we needed to make them more exciting. What better tool for the job than a laser cutter?

After finding some suitable graphics for a logo, I drew the designs to scale in Illustrator, then tweaked the lettering to make it suitable for laser cutting. It's pointless to install flashy hardware without having a window to show it all off, so I cut a large window into the upper half of the side panel, along with a smaller rectangle in the lower half to provide the fans with better airflow.