Tower 5k Build log #01

[MILKANDOREOS 4]

Hello everyone!

Build log on the tower 5k, the now named watercooled pc project!  Took me quite a while to upload this due to my break, but it is finally here, with log #02 coming close behind.

 

The tower 5k is operational, and was made operation October 1st, 2025. It took a couple of days drilling and mounting and figuring things out, in this post I'll show all the progress photos I have and explain why I designed it a specific way. 

 

Here is a picture from June 29th, where I tested the system to make sure I had to return nothing before return windows closed.  Ended up having to update the bios, which given the motherboard is high end and features a bios flash button was actually quite the breeze.

Here is the 1080mm radiator, loaded up with all EIGHTEEN 120mm fans, including two SATA powered fan hubs. These are currently controlled by the motherboard but that will soon probably change. Will expand on that later. I am especially proud of the cable management. Dated July 25th.

Here is a quick layout of where the 6 hardline fittings will be, included is the NVME waterblock which is removed from further versions. It will be installed in the final version, but right now I felt it put too much stress on the plastic NVME lock given the softline tubing would be  hanging from it, as opposed to the hardline tubing which will hold itself up. Dated August 1st.

Here is the table's started construction! I used dual pump instead of triple pump because I would rather have a spare, also for ease of building the loop. Both the pumps and radiator can be uninstalled if the need ever arises. Also featured is the drain port. Common waterlooping rules dictate that your pumps should be at the lowest point of the loop, because if they run without water they will be damaged, and the lowest point will seldom have air, and never enough to have your pumps running dry. A similar mindset exists with the drain port, since draining from the bottom of the loop works much better than the middle. Dated September 7th.

Here I'm using an EKWB loop tester in order to make sure it has no leaks, I figured testing it in parts would be easier than doing it as a whole. You can also see where I had drilled holes for the loop to feed through the drawer compartment and towards the top of the table. Dated September 8th.

Here are the holes drilled into the bottom of the tower 500, the leftmost hole is for the cables, the middle (which has a passthrough fitting placed onto it) is the return for the water, and the right hole is for the incoming water. Dated September 23rd.

Here is preliminary testing, seeing if the cables fit and what their layout should be. Note the intake and exhaust coolant ports are in place and hooked up. In retrospect I also should have physically attached the case to the table in some way, I have concerns when I move of something being damaged from being pulled.  Also notable is the Corsair 1000W SFX PSU. I ended up using the SFX power supply since it was not as long and would give me more space for the softline tubes in the future. The notable drawback is the cables are quite short, but I made that up with SATA and MOLEX extensions(which most pumps use), as well as the PCIE  and motherboard Lian Li strimer kit. Dated September 25th.

Finally , the loop is near completion! The tubing is in place, and it comes up from the pumps to the CPU, then to the GPU, then to the radiator and back through the pumps. loop order does not particularly matter, as tested by JayzTwoCents, Linus, and others. If memory serves this is when I decided against waterlooping the NVME until I switch the softline out with hardline. At this point I just wanted a desk setup, as my other pc is hooked up to my TV, more on that later.  Dated September 28th.

 Here is my first testing of the loop, please ignore my heavy breathing I couldn't find my inhaler and had no replacement. But the loop worked with a temporary pump. Next was to finish everything. Dated September 29th.

Here it is, the tower 5k working and running! Far from complete but a good basis. 

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Build log aside, she still needs a good bit of work, namely the hardline tubing. I also really regret not buying all the RAM at once. We have all seen the RAM prices, especially for corsair kits, and for a project that has already lived up to the name '5K' I have little interest in spending a couple hundred dollars on more RAM. My current plan is to get RGB RAM with no memory, since that's $35 and I still have 48GB of RAM. Speaking of, here are the final specs!

 

Hardware---------------

9800X3D CPU

7900XT GPU* 

2X24GB RGB Corsair Vengeance RAM

MSI X670e Carbon Wi-fi

Corsair MP700 Gen5 1TB NVME**

Kingston NV3 Gen4 2TB  NVME***

Seagate BarraCuda 8 TB 5400RPM HDD****

Seagate (Recertified) 12TB IronWolf HDD*****

Corsair SF1000 platinum PSU 

 

*I plan to try to snag a 9070XT (a tiny bit less powerful than the 5080) before the prices start to skyrocket for VRAM. The only reason I did not use a 9070XT in the original construction is because there were no waterblocks for it yet. 

**This is the boot NVME, my pc boots up so fast it can be hard to access BIOS.

*** This NVME stores games with long loading times like black ops, GTA, Mass effect, Security Breach, etc.

**** This is for miscellaneous files like pictures or programs.

***** This 12tb HDD is for games so I have my ENTIRE steam library at my fingertips, which is actually pretty nice.

 

Waterloop parts---------------

Corsair Hydro X Series XC7 (CPU waterblock)*

Bykski GPU waterblock

Corsair Hydro X Series XM2 (NVME waterblock)

2x Alphacool core D5/VPP pumps**

Alphacool NeXXos 1080mm Nova (the 18 fan radiator)

Corsair XR7 240 radiator***

XSPC Softline chrome fittings

7/16th-/-5/8ths sotfline black/clear tubing
Corsair Hydro X Series XF Ball valve

Thermaltake P1000 white coolant

 

*I am considering replacing this with a different CPU block, we shall see.

**I have a third spare in case one fails

***This has yet to be installed, I received it for Christmas, more later

 

Miscellaneous parts---------------

ThermalTake Tower 500 EATX case

Lian Li Strimer Plus V2 24 Pin (PW24-PV2) 

LIAN LI Strimer Plus V2 8 Pin (PW8-PV2)

4x AsiaHorse COSMIQ 120mm fans (2 forward. 2 reverse)

14x Darkrock 120mm fans

6s Okinos ARGB 120mm fans

2x Thermalright Integrated Fan Hub

EZDIY-FAB Vertical GPU Mount 

Airgoo 16-Port Signal RGB controller

AsiaHorse 12VHPWR Cable Extension Kit*

 

*This was used for the EPS connection since the SFX PSU didn't have the cable length

 

External parts---------------

CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD3 Uninterruptible power supply

SANSUI 27 Inch WQHD 2560 x 1440 IPS*

2x KTC 27 Inch WQHD 2560 x 1440 100Hz IPS**

Yxk Portable Monitor 15.6 Inch 1080P***

G.SKILL WigiDash PC Command Panel

2x WALI Single Monitor Mount (for the KTC monitors)

Powered USB Hub, atolla 7-Port USB 3.0 hub

Corsair MM700 RGB Mouse pad

Amazon Basics USB-Powered Computer Speakers****

CORSAIR K70 CORE RGB keyboard

Redragon M908 Impact RGB mouse

ManbaOne Wireless Xbox controller

TONOR USB Podcast Microphone*****

HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless

USB Foot Pedal PC 3 Key

 

*Main monitor, games are played here

**Side monitors

***Bottom discord monitor

****they suck, but I never use speakers.

*****Microphone courtesy of Halo

 

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This project has been months in the making, and I'm glad to have such a good final product, complete setup pictures will come tomorrow with the new radiator. I will say watercooling is crazy for temperatures, my 9800X3D has never gone above 54C, and my GPU basically never goes above 40, no matter how hard I push it. I have done no overclocking, nor do I need to if I'm honest, the only game I have struggled with was beamng drive, which is of course a simulator. I am considering a dual GPU setup using the steam lossless scaling. I have to do more research, but what I have now is the most powerful PC on the server! My near future plans also include a Aqua Computer Quadro Lüftersteuerung, which is a small controller for fans and PC thermal sensors, my current notable problem is noise, and I hope this will be able to lower the 18 radiator fans, especially once the 240mm is in, since that will lighten the cooling load. Also obviously I still plan to do hardline tubing, but who knows when that will happen. Next update will be the 240mm radiator, followed by the aqua computer controller and false RAM most likely.

 

The current cost is sitting over $5,000, closer to $6k once you factor in everything else. I will maintain what I said in the last post, DO NOT WATERCOOL. I only did it because I have always longed for a looped build, but it added many points of failure, a lot of frustration, and frankly, around $1500 to the budget.