Antec 900 "Tardis" Project

Antec 900 "Tardis" Gaming Case

Date Log: August 12, 2007

Part One

This year has been a very exciting time for us computer enthusiasts.So far we have seen an unexpected drop in price of the Quad cores from Intel and now we eagerly await the quad core offering from AMD.

Its not often that we see such a rapid rate of introduction of new technology. As a result we here at Radiical are getting pretty excited at the prospect of a couple of years of four and even eight cored CPU development.

We have already sampled the Intel quad core performance in our Torture Rack testing so now we are very keen to compare the AMD offering.

Keeping in mind that the AMD quad core has not been released yet we thought that if we prepared our test bed unit, that's how we excuse buying the latest and greatest technology, then we would be ready for the big day. Alright not very convincing for the wife or girlfriend but it works for us.

AMD Quad Core

Some of the thermal data coming out from AMD for their quad core indicates a wattage range of about 89-94 Watts. This is a bit down on Intel's offering for the BR stepping at 105W and closer to the GO stepping at 95W. This is very encouraging information for our preparations as we are now able to mimic in some sense the thermal output for testing purposes. Keeping in mind of course Murphy's third law of interaction which states "Whatever you make public is just as likely to come back later and bite you on the arse" we hold our breath for the final wattages.

The Plan

Looking around at the current AM2 and older Socket 939 AMD offerings there seems to be very little wattage difference from some of the AMD socket 939 dual cores and the yet to be released Barcelona core. Certainly the core area will be different and the heat output at load may well be greater.

Of course the issue with trying to predict functional heat output for a "yet to be released CPU" is fraught with danger so we have taken the view "when in doubt guesstimate it out". First off we will use our stopgap Socket 939 AMD X2 4200 CPU which has a wattage rating of 89 Watts. When we overclock this we expect to see some parity with the predicted quad core wattage values. This will form our basic guesstimate.

As a general rule a twin fan dual radiator functions well with CPU only water cooling. We expect in a gaming machine, however, that the mandatory addition of a high end graphics card heat input suggests that we should aim for a triple cored radiator version to provide additional cooling capacity.

The Antec 900 "Tardis" Case Project.

Obviously in a case this size if we wish to retain a triple core radiator capacity inside the case, which is what we want to do, there is a need to be conservative as space is at a premium. On this point of space saving we will be giving consideration to reducing tubing size from 1/2" to 7/16" or 3/8" ID tubing. The radius capacity of the two tubing sizes mentioned will provide tighter tubing curves to be made with only a minimal impact on flow rate over the larger 1/2" tubing. We will also be using some "zone" cooling in this case to get the project together.

Alright then the question is can we put together in this Antec 900 case a fully internal "real gamers" triple radiator cored water cooled system suitably provisioned for bigger and better components down the track. Lets see.

The Case

For those of you looking for a fully external radiator setup Antec have very kindly fitted two grommet holes in the rear of the case for liquid coolers. This goes a long way towards assisting people who wish to liquid cool this case using an external radiator. As simple as this solution is it remains somewhat unacceptable to some liquid coolers who wish to adopt a minimalist external appearance using a fully internalized liquid cooling system. It is to this group that this project may have the greater application.

There are, however, sacrifices to be made in the application of full internal liquid cooling system when using such a small case. After all we are not yet able to make our "Tardis" the same as Dr Who's where the inside of his "Tardis" is considerably larger than the outside.

Radiator placement

Before we go to radiator placement we will have to address some issues. For example on the inside of the case we have a number of hard drive enclosures which are going to present problems.

You can see in this picture that the black fan housing on the hard drive caddy sits directly in line with any prospective large video card such as the very popular Nvidia 8800 series. The obvious suggestion is just remove the black housing and its all good. Not so. The larger 8800 cards with a length of some 27cm protrudes into the caddy space to the extent that the hard drive may not be able to be removed if any service is required without first removing the graphics card. Add to this the cable fouling that would occur with an Sli application and the drive caddy becomes a real problem. Complete removal of the caddy is probably the likely option here.

Not a good start considering that we may have to reduce our hard drive carrying capacity. Having to rely on the lower hard drive caddy isn't really an immediate solution to our liquid cooling as it reduces to zero the readily available points to front mount a radiator.

Okay, so thinking outside of the box how do we fix this. Lets face it how many drives do we require in our kick ass gamers box....... the answer is really we need only the one. Mind you playing the devils advocate we have to admit that we are greedy and hate to throw away the capacity to add a second or even third hard drive. So its bite the bullet time and go for broke with a dual radiator in the two vacant drive caddy bays.

Then a retro fit of the lower hard drive caddy with new mounting points and whumpa whumpa the problem is solved.

Capacity for three hard drives that's plenty for us. It is important to point out that clearances to fit two cards in a Sli configuration may well depend upon the motherboard used. Still at that stage we could go back to single hard drive in a mounting frame (pictured below) to fit the hard drive/s and do away with the space occupying caddies altogether.

With the dual radiator fitting point out of the way its onto our small radiator placement to make the system triple cored. Looking around the case there is one 120 mm fan on the rear wall of the case which could be used for a single radiator. This would allow us to "zone" cool the CPU coolant before it gets to the graphics card or cards. Looking at this solution you would think that this would be the end of the problem with three cores completely encased inside the case. Not so. This case continues to resist.

The problem with fitting a 120 mm radiator to the rear wall is the space available for a radiator is the same as the width of a 120mm fan no more and no less. What this means is the standard sized single fan radiators, which are larger than 120mm wide, will contact parts of the motherboard in the I/O slot area. When the fan is placed first against the external fan housing mounting point there is contact and obstruction of this motherboards ram slots.

The second problem is the length of the radiator and the shape of the header tanks on the radiator. The header tank must be shaped so that it can slide into the very narrow case structures above the 120 mm fan mounting point. Mindful of this we settled on one of our smaller radiators and with very little clearance managed finally to fit the radiator. From the picture below the clearances around the ram slots is maintained giving the minimalist look we are after.

With the radiators in place we have reached our primary project objective of Part One in "fitting the big bits" and its time to look at what is in store in Part Two.

Part Two........Pumps and Tubing and other things.