As most of you know, I was one of the few Striker Extreme owners that had no issues. My Stiker was solid, stable, fast and served me well for 14 months. However it was time for an upgrade. Along with a few others in here, I went with the Maximus Extreme and a kit of SuperTalent DDR3 memory. One nice thing about the MaxExt is it's Fusion Block cooling system. This hybrid watercooling and heatpipe design is suppose to work very well in cooling the NB, SB and vregs.

I currently have my cpu and gpu watercooled using a PA 120.3 radiator. I didn't want to add the Fusion Block system to that loop as it had smaller barbs than my others. I decided to set up a second loop. It might be overkill but I already had a extra swiftech mcp350 pump and micro res so all I needed was another radiator.

I picked one up online for $32 from Petra's Tech shop, the Swiftech MCR 120 "Quiet Power" radiator. http://www.petrastechshop.com/swmcqposerab2.html

Here is what my system currently looks like sans the second GTX .


After taking out the Striker and such, and putting in the Maximus Extreme, this is what I have to work with.


The MCR120 fit nicely in the empty bottom 5 1/2" bays.



The MCP350 pump also was a nice fit in the 3 1/2 bays.




Now, I had a vision of how I wanted the tubing to run and where the two micro-reseviors would be which looked good on paper too.

Here is the 2nd loop with the tubing connected to the Fusion Block, res, rad and pump.


I used Masterkleer 3/8" ID and 5/8" OD with 3/8" barbs on this FB(fusion block) loop. The other loop uses 7/16" ID and 5/8" OD with 1/2" barbs (this makes for a very tight fit over the barbs).

With the thicker walled tubing, making the bends weren't a problem at all.



So after the tubing was setup, it was alot more cramped then I visioned. My plan was to have both reseviors setting spaced apart on the hd cage next with the tubing running imbetween. That was not possible, but I moved on.

My plan was to have both loops setup and leak -*test*-('")ing overnight. However I was short on clamps and only one hardware store in the area carries the clamps I like, but was already closed.

So I just had the FB loop leak -*test*-('")ing.


My first intial thoughts were OMG. It has some extreme flow rate going on. This is good for future add-ons to this loop so I'm good,

Leak -*test*-('")ing went great last night with no issues. When I got up this morning, I still did't feel good about how the tubing route was on the FB loop. So after conversing with Coolcase, I decided to redue that loop. I went with a t-line instead of the micro res.
FYI, the actual t-adapter is 1/2" in size and I fit the 3/8" tubing over it. Boiling water is your fried in situations like this.

Very easy process and has a much cleaner look with alot less tubing clutter.


After I filled the tubing with distilled water and the additive, and was able keep the pump on, the result was almost total foam, as it appeared. I don't know if it was due to the high flow rate or what. It didn't seem right, but after about 30 minutes it cleared up.

Here is the semi-finished product while leak -*test*-('")ing again, zero issues. The Lian-Li G70 is truely a great case. High quality build with plenty of room.


Overall I'm very happy with the outcome. I really like the two different colors in the case too.

I'll follow up with the cooling results after I connect everyting up Sunday night.

Please share any comments or ideas along with questions.

Woot! Looking good, buddy! Nice and clean with that T-line.

Beautiful job, Chuck! You kept the nice clean lines you had before even after adding the 2nd look. The t- looks great!

The rising line that's only half full is your fill line, right? What kind of fitting do you have on that?

Are you going to leave the reservoir on the floor or put it back where you had it before. I think it looks better on the floor, actually. The layout's a little different too because of only one card - nicer.

Thanks! Your masterpiece has been an inspiration.

Thanks David!


Yes, that is the fill line. I currently have a 3/8" plug on the top.


I do plan on leaving the reservior on the floor for now. When I had it on the hd cage, there was alot of tension in the bend. Plus I havn't seen any ill effect keeping it that low.

That looks outstanding Chuck! Really nice job. I know dual loops are overkill but I too hated the thought of choking my 1/2" loop down to 3/8" even though Jason has shown the difference is minimal. the 120 rad is a perfect fit and keeping those two chipsets cool and two Vregs nice and cool will surely help you down the road. Great job.

Got everything connected and cleaned up. XP pro installed without a hitch along with all the usual drivers and such.

The Maximus Extreme is one heck of a mobo, the best I've ever used. Lots of bios tweaking that can be done, a true overclocker's dream.

I installed the e8400 and have the same temp issue as Merc and most others are reporting. CoreTemp shows both cores at 42 degrees, but PC Probe II shows the cpu at 28 degrees.

I'll let the AS5 cure a bit overnight and start playing around with it tomorrow. Will post some screenshots then.

I posted the following over at Overclockers.net on the Tankguy thread. I had asked what, if anything, they planned to say or do re. the Thermal diode issue. Good info I believe after a lot of research and following threads all over the place. His snippy response and my rebuttal:

I understand the issues with returns and would have the same policy in place as Tankguys. You guys give exact stepping and preorders which is most appreciated. I just think TG's should state that there are issues with the thermal diodes in these chips. TankGuys has a unique relationship with the overclocking community and I believe that their customer base would both appreciate and understand an in-depth statement regarding the Wolfale Tj thermal diode issue.

Just so everyone knows, these Wolfdales are incredible overclockers but there is an issue with the Tj (T Junction or coretemp) temperature diodes. This problem manifests itself across different chipsets and many different manufacturer's boards which points to the Wolfdales themselves, the common denominator, being the problem.

The problem comes in three different varieties which follow in order of most common to least common, all related to the thermal diodes:

1. Regardless of cooling, the Tj thermal diodes report a set temperature until a certain threshold is reached. In my case at idle stock speeds and voltage, my core temps are reported as 49c. Raise the voltage to 1.46 and the freq to 4500Mhz and the temp at idle is...49c. As the temperature climbs past 49c the core temps seem to read correctly.
2. One core reads radically different than the other. Lapping leveling etc. have no effect.
3. Some Tj diodes are stuck. In other words, they read the same no matter what you do to the chip.
4. Many Tj diodes work just fine so it is not an across the board problem.

In all cases, the Tc (T-case) diodes seem to be reading correctly so the CPU temperature is correct, within the bounds of the inherent inaccuracy of all thermal diodes, and can be used to track temperature.

Thermal diodes are used to protect the CPU from thermal damage. That is their main function in life. All thermal diodes are inaccurate. In the case of the Wolfdales, the inaccuracies are much greater than we have seen before. These chips do run very cool, however, and despite massive abuse by overclockers (why I agree with Tankguys CPU return policy) there has been no report of a Wolfdale "burning up". Some report degradation after exceeding 1.5v Vcore but I believe that is RAM related abuse from inexperienced O/Cers.

If you can live with this issue then you can have a truly outstanding chip that will blow you away with its speed. Clock for clock, the Wolfdale is about 15% faster than the 65nm generation. At $200 from Tankguys, a 3.0Ghz CPU with 6MB cache is an incredible deal, possibly the best ever IMHO. Persoanlly, I am preordering a Q9450 as I miss the quad core experience and will migrate this incredibly fast e8400 to my wife's rig as she is due for an upgrade.

Looking great Chuck!

Alrighty, had alittle time to clean it up some a bit.






The memory I'm using is the new SuperTalent W1800UX2GP PC314400 1800MHz.


Nice timings of 7-7-7-21 for high speed ddr3

Wow - a beautiful sight: sharp, clean and elegant!

Just started to play around with the bios and the e8400. As previously stated, the e8400 is a breeze to overclock.

This just might be my daily speed/settings.



I can honestly say with the e8400 and the ddr3 at these speeds, the computer feels extremely fast with alot of pep. I can tell a big difference between this and my old Striker Extreme.

Excellent work, Chuck! Very clean layout and nice overclocking. Great photos too.

It looks like the Q9450 might be the successor to the Q6600, if its little brother is any indication.

Only thing that is going to limit the Q9450 is its 8x multiplier. May not be the all out quad overclocker, but that at 3600 should be very quick.

Yes, that seems the big 'bugaboo' everyone is talking about.