Spartanaco

Yeah, but at the prices the AIBs were going for and the scarcity of reference 6800 XT's, I was fine with the added cost for the 6900 XT. I just hope there's not a long wait since it's been about a month since the launch of 6800 XT. 🤞

Same! I have my reference 6900 XT and deciding whether or not to wait for the waterblock or just run it on air is killing me lol.

When you say you flushed it did you just run distilled water through the loop? Did you have to disassemble the blocks at all to remove the debris? I'm thinking to maybe drain the system and run distilled water through the blocks in the reverse order to see if it will dislodge the debris without needing to open up the blocks.

I would recommend flushing the radiators out thoroughly. I thought I did a good job, but I realized I didn't do enough flushing after filling the loop and leak testing, I started to see debris caught on the micro-fins on the XG7 and XC7 blocks. I did 2-3 flushes with distilled water and then a flush with a warm distilled white vinegar + distilled water solution (let it rest and shook it around a bit while it was capped), and then 2-3 more flushes with distilled water, I saw plenty of debris coming out but didn't think to keep going until the water came out clear. My blocks now look like this: Is this a cause for immediate concern? Should I drain the loop and try to clean out the blocks and re-assemble? I am fully aware that the flow won't be as good as it could/should be with this debris caught in the blocks, but is it going to cause any long term damage to the blocks if left like this? I am under the impression this is manufacturing debris/flux from the radiator manufacturing process, but I am still not 100% certain that's what I'm seeing. Any guidance or advice would be greatly appreciated, this is my first ever watercooling loop and I will admit I was a bit eager to get it done and didn't think to spend more time and effort on flushing out the radiators. Thanks in advance!

Just wanted to update the thread with my completed build. I more or less went the route of the "reference build guide" for the 680X. You can see the photos below, I didn't have room for the XD5 pump in the main chamber mainly because of the front XR5 360mm radiator. I ended up putting the XD5 in the "ugly" side of the case (realized I should have maybe used a 45° fitting on the outlet after I filled the loop, also cable management wasn't done at the time of the photo). And now for the sad part, I don't think I flushed my radiators well enough and didn't bother flushing with a pump or filtration system before installing them, and now I believe my XG7 and XC7 are acting as filters for whatever was left in the radiators. I flushed several times with distilled water (2-3 times) and a vinegar/distilled water solution (once) and a few more distilled water flushes, but didn't use any real force/pump, just filled and shook them around a bit, but now my blocks have this green looking residue caught on the micro-fins. Is this a cause for immediate concern? I know they are partially obstructed and aren't getting as good of flow as they could, but should I be rushing to disassemble the loop to clean the blocks out? And for that matter should the XG7 and XC7 be disassembled to be cleaned internally? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Any update on this? I just got my custom loop finished with all Hydro X components and I am not seeing any Hydro X Performance profiles available in iCUE for the Commander Pro (only the defaults of Quiet, Balanced, and Extreme). I also have my Hydro X LED components plugged into a Lighting Node Pro due to the short length of the cables, but my XD5+XG7 are daisy chained on one of the Node Pro ports and the other port is the XC7. I have it configured properly for the lighting channels for the Node Pro, and also have the XD5 temp sensor plugged into the temp 1 channel, and the PWM for the XD5 is in port 6 of the PWM ports. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. I don't seem to have the cable length to connect the XD5+XG7 to the Commander Pro directly.

Welp, my wallet is significantly lighter now! Thanks for entertaining us GregX! P.S. I really wish there was a coupon available :bigeyes:

I just hope it's for a good reason, I put off my custom loop for a while waiting on the GPU block to be released. I could have grabbed an EKWB block by this point... I wonder if there will be details released regarding the delay. If it's for better quality control or something I can totally understand, and would be happy to not be sold a sub-par product.

I ended up ordering a 20cm riser cable with a 90 degree right angle in it, hopefully it ends up being PCI-E 4.0 compatible and is the right combination of length and format. I am eagerly awaiting the availability of the XG7 for the 5700 XT to buy the rest of the components and start planning/building my loop. I think I am going to try and get the XD5 in the main chamber with the vertical card mount, it may be tight, but should work. If not I will revert back to something close to the reference design, albeit without the 120mm radiator on the bottom and the vertical GPU. Also, I am refreshing the store page every day, waiting for it to show up, but it's funny, even though the product page is built out for the 5700 XT XG7 there is no listing for it when you look at all of the available products in the Hydro X product catalog. Is this intentional because it's not available yet? I wonder if there are other parts out there that aren't listed? For example some plugs and a male-to-male adapter for adding the drain valve to the XD5 directly would be nice. Are these parts in the future of Hydro X at all?

Hey Scruffer87, Thanks for the response and the input. I appreciate your insight and you showing your loop off, it looks great! :biggrin: A few things to note, I wasn't sold on the vertical mounting of the GPU, but I love the way it looks in your setup, what kind of PCIe Riser Cable are you using? I want one that will be compatible with PCIe 4.0 since I have it and wouldn't want to abandon it for aesthetics only. Also, I am planning on using soft tubing, only because it is my first build and I want to make it easier on myself, and I believe it allows for a little wiggle room here and there. So I am still not 100% sure on the pump being up front, because I don't want it to look too crowded, but it's good to know that I have that option! Thanks again for your input and sharing! :)

c-attack, thanks for the response and input, it's appreciated. I think what I will end up doing is putting the XD5 pump/res in the "dark" compartment as suggested, and then run it to GPU -> CPU -> 240mm rad on top (exhaust) -> front 360mm (exhaust to avoid having radiator interfere with top rad fans) -> XD5 pump/res. And I will likely just put the one intake fan on the back and throw the extra non-rgb case fan that came with it as exhaust on the bottom to keep the "reverse flow" intact as per the recommended build guide. I think this will give me adequate cooling and still look fairly clean. I am not worried about showing off the three LL120's on the front of the case, I would rather the cooling be optimal than have better aesthetics. And I'm definitely not too worried about the vertical mounting now, unless it helps in other ways (card sag?) I will probably avoid it for now. Thanks so much for the reply and insight!

Thanks so much for the response! Great advice, it's appreciated!

Hello there, I am wanting to do my first ever custom water cooling loop with Hydro X in my Crystal 680X RGB case. I have been using the configurator but have had problems with it providing the GPU block for my 5700 XT Anniversary Edition, so I am not confident my plans will work. My plan is to have one 360mm (XR5 or XR7, not sure which) radiator on the front of the case with the XD5 pump/res combo attached on the front of the case. I would then ideally like to have the pump feed to the GPU on the XG7, then on to the CPU XC7 block, then finally to the radiator. I see that on the reference build guide (attached) this is very different from what is recommended, my main questions boil down to: First, do I need the 3 different radiators? I was under the impression the general rule was 120mm of rad per component (so 240mm ?) Is this recommendation due to the thickness of radiators used? Second, will vertically mounting the GPU allow for any additional room or configurations to have the pump mounted in the "hot" chamber with a 360mm radiator on the front? I would love to show off the XG7 block, so I am really considering going with a vertical mount. I am worried that the 5700 XT not showing any cooling options in the configurator means there's no room for that block in my system with the 5700 XT. Thanks for any advice offered!

Great! Thanks so much for the reply! :biggrin:

Will the AMD Radeon 5700 XT Anniversary Edition be supported by the same XG7 block used on the non-anniversary edition? I don't see any options for the anniversary edition when using the configurator. Thanks in advance!