Topic: My new mining rig - quad 7970 - Going for 3Gh/s (Read 9702 times)

Man Pontiacg5, it's rare I read from beginning to end on a thread. I've bookmarked this in my 'Daily Reads' so I can follow your progress. It looks like you're having fun with pushing the limits of this build. The moment when you decided to do your own water blocks just kind of blew my mind. Your machining and cad skills are seriously impressive. I'm pretty excited to see how your custom water solution works.

Very nice case there, I've worked in a machine shop and can appreciate the time it took to punch of fold that up. Once you get your cooling controlled a bit more it it'll look nice humming along.
As easy option but maybe a bit ugly would be to use risers then mount your cards spaced out more on another plate of steal.

*edit* oh, I didn't see the last page, it looks like you'll have it under control soon. 

So I haven't posted any updates in a while, I kinda got sidetracked with a V8 S10 project 

Here's a few pics of my progress though. I have everything I need now, so I hope to put it all together this weekend. Wish me luck! Custom water around ~$2800 worth of PC stuff makes me a bit nervous!

Here's my new manifold. I decided to make it out of brass instead of plastic, because drilling a ~10" deep hole perfectly straight is no fun.



The gasket is laser cut silicon .005" thick. It seals well, and it's reusable!

The manifold goes on top of the I/O panel, plus it also holds the cards steady. The CPU is now going to be in series with the cards, probably should have been done that way to begin with though.



These are VRM blocks, not so sure how well this will work yet, but it has to be better than stock!



Finally, a complete GPU block with all the mounting hardware. Those little slits are .020" thick, and were an extreme PITA! The standoffs will mount through the PCB, then the brass nut will hold the block down tight.



Going to try laser cutting some thermal pads for the RAM and VRM blocks, that ought to be interesting. The fans I'm using are stupid powerful, and the pump has complete analog control of fan speed based on coolant temperature. Going to try and make a voltage regulating circuit that uses the 5W pump analog fan signal as reference because all these fans draw 6W+ a piece and would overheat the pump's fan controller!

More to come, soon!

Got some more done on the waterblocks today, hope to get a lot more done tomorrow. Gotta love the weekends!

I have! In fact, I may have one for sale here in the next day or two 

So my radiators showed up, and I had to put half of it together to test for leaks 



I kinked the outlet pretty good to simulate the load of everything still missing.



It still moves water pretty good!

I also finished the reservoir, except for the gasket I need to cut still. I ordered some fittings for inside as well, to direct the water flow a bit better.





I managed to get a bit of the waterblocks done too, I'll have them finished tomorrow 



More to come 

Damn ever thought of selling your cases? They look awesome for mining.

Thanks!


Haha, it is fun! I love building computers, not too often I'd have a reason to need this much computer!


I've calculated pressure drop of my loop and am expecting something like 1.75 PSI of drop across the entire loop. With this pump (4.2M of head) I expect a flow rate of around 1.33 GPM. It also has a tachomoter for the pump, so if it fails I can have the bios shut the computer down.

The plumbing near the pump, res, and radiators is 1/2 OD. The tubing leaving the distribution manifold is 3/8 OD. Since I am running all of this in parallel I don't think restrictions are going to be a problem.



Haha, thanks! It sure is a lot of work and watercooling bits sure add up quickly!


I can't hold 80 at full speed, I have to downclock to 900mhz. Full speed jumps to 90-95 rather quick. I'm hoping for 70's while overclocked once watercooled.

The fans I have for my radiators are 1800RPM 103 CFM. Hopefully they will be more than enough without being too loud.




Thanks!


Thanks!

Hopefully UPS will hurry up and deliver my parts!

Edit: Looks like I found a block on my own last night, wow!

Good work on that case.

i like your case

7950s keep under 60c with 55% fan  no extra cooling

80c is a good temp for 24h mining, those cards can withstand 88c while hashing at full speed.

if you need to keep them at 70c then you have to look at those delta fans


http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=Apo_tgrSmps


Delta fan: 5000RPM~7000RPM, 256cfm
your fans: 1500rpm. 60 cfm.

[/quote]

Omg that rig is awsome, but that is a lot of work and seems very expensive...

jast a thort is that pump good enuf / reliable  i have 2 d5s in seris so if 1 pump fails / more presure that loop is guna have alot of ristriction i would say use 1/2" id 3/4" od pipe

Good work on that case.  Almost makes me want to get back into mining.

Nice rig dude!

Thanks! I did some work on the waterblocks tonight, should have them finished up completely tomorrow!


I tried swapping the fans around in several places. Oddly enough, the best I've had it was with 4 top fans pushing down and leaving the fans off of the side completely. I have a box fan behind it all, pushing air down the cards.

I should have picked up some better fans, but even with the crazy high velocity box fan pushing down on these cards I still don't see much better than 80 degrees. 


Thanks man, and good luck with litecoins! I have a feeling I'll be mining on those before much longer.



Thanks! I sure do hope so! But I'm probably never going to be able to pay this thing off with coins, not after all the watercooling expense. But, I am still doing better on my predictions than I anticipated. I figured difficulty would be much higher than it is now, hopefully that trend continues!

But, even if I can't pay it off I just swap out the processor and memory I'd have one of the baddest watercooled gaming rigs around. At least that's what I gotta tell myself!


Thanks!


Were I to do it again I think I would go for the 7950 instead. This thing is capable of 3gh/s though, I can feel it!


I paid $80 a piece for two koolance 3x140 rads. I don't think I'd be able to get good airflow to a big one like that mounted underneath, and if I mount it up top it covers the pretty pieces!

Also, I'm going to try and vent the hot air outside occasionally. I am going to have fans on the radiators pulling air in, and two fans on the end pushing air out from under the case. I'll have a small section of ducting, then vent straight out a open window.

Kinda like this, except my koolance radiators are about 1/3 as thick as those lol

So what IS coming next? (From teaser pic in post #79) 
[/quote]

Ah, nothing too big really. Here's a pic, and what I've got done so far.



I'm just waiting on two 3x140 radiators, they should be delivered tomorrow. I decided 3x120 wasn't big enough 
[/quote]




get a 1080 rad there under 120 gbp and are brill

stick with 4 7950 per rig you can easy get 2500kh runing under 60c core 80c vrm 1050mhz core 1250 ram 1.050v core ( saphire vaporx 7950 oc dualbios edition ) i have 20 rigs of 4 cards and 1 with 3 cards

Nice looking rig you got there !

dang thats a really sick rig for right now man!   hopefully the asics don't come out for a bit longer and you can hold out and make this thing profitable!