CORSAIR Carbide 678c Build.

678C Build Log 2019/2020

There are quite a few builds that utilize the Corsair 1000D. It is an amazing case and I would love to have one someday, but my budget just didn’t allow for anything that big.. And by budget.. I mean my wife.

If I spent that kind of money on a case I would have to move into it and live there… permanently. And since I like hot food, running water and sleeping in-doors. I decided that I would do a build in a CORSAIR Carbide 678c. =)

My old case was great.. a CORSAIR 600T. in fact I considered keeping it longer, but I just wanted something a bit more modern and everyone seemed to be moving to the nicer looking glass side panel cases and since I had decided to upgrade to better hardware it was just time for a fresh case.

I liked the fact it looked sleek and had a nice side panel window, lots of room for storage, a Optical Drive Bay and sound deadening material to help keep things quiet. The removeable dust filters were also a nice touch and are easy to clean. This would be where the adventure started..

The build consists of the following when it was initially built and some added later when I moved to Hydro X.

Corsair Carbide 678c Case.

EVGA z390 Dark Motherboard

EVGA RTX 2080Ti XC

Intel i9 9900k

32GB CORSAIR Dominator Platinum RAM

CORSAIR Commander Pro

CORSAIR ML120 PRO LED fans (x3 in RED)

CORSAIR ML140 PRO LED fans (x3 in RED)

CORSAIR H150i PRO AIO (to start)

CORSAIR RED custom cables to fit my HX1200i (now AX1200i)

CORSAIR RED SATA cables and Premium Sleeved Front Panel Extension Kit in Red

CORSAIR Premium PCIe 3.0 x16 Extension Cable 300mm

CORSAIR RGB LED Lighting PRO Expansion Kit

CORSAIR and BITSPOWER Fittings.

Samsung EVO PLUS 500GB M.2 SSD

Western Digital 14TB HDD for mass storage and games.

2 Western Digital 2TB HDD for Games (later removed)

SONY Blu-Ray Burner (yes I still have Blu-Ray’s I want to play =P )

The initial build went well. No issues and everything went great in early 2019. Then summer hit. Ambient temps went up and so did my GPU temps. Anyone who owns a 2080Ti knows it is a small furnace that warms up case interiors like no GPU before it. Temperature on the GPU would quickly jump up to 80c and I just was not comfortable with that.

CORSAIR had just dropped HYDRO X about a week after I finished my build with the AIO. I knew then and there I was going to eventually move to HYDRO X. It was just a matter of finding a way to afford it and not have to upset the significant other.

In efforts to keep the peace at home and help my overly HOT GPU issue I decided to try a Hybrid cooler from EVGA to tame its temps. This was a great success and the GPU temp dropped from 80c gaming to the 50c range. And with CORSAIR’s great H150i PRO 360mm AIO my CPU temps were already great!

Things were finally at good temps and I was happy. Except I was not a fan of how my PC looked. Having two AIO’s in this case made it very cramped looking inside. Airflow also suffered a bit due to all the added bulk.

This is how it looked the day before my HYDRO X conversion started.

I decided to pull the trigger on Hydro X. I loved the look and always wanted to do water cooling but was nervous about doing it. CORSAIR’s HYDRO X line made me feel like I could maybe pull this off finally and build a PC that not only performed how I liked but looked just as good.

The first step was tear down and removal of the added Hybrid cooler. I ordered an EVGA HYDRO COPPER block from EVGA to fit my EVGA RTX 2080Ti XC. I liked the look of that block and I knew it would be an easy installation as it was designed to fit my card. Here is the card with Hydro Copper installed. I loved how it looked except the aluminum color on it.

My plan was a RED and Black theme for my build so I decided the trim on the GPU had to be painted black. I took it apart and painted the silver trim flat black. It made it look much better in my opinion.

I was excited at how well things were looking. I had spent about the last 4 months buying parts each week to do my HYDRO X conversion. CPU block one week, Radiators the next and so on until I had all the parts. This was the easiest way for me to get the result I wanted. It took awhile but I am happy with how it came out.

Next was figuring out where everything would mount and installing the CPU blocks and radiators and fans, finding a location for the pump and then tube runs.

I added an XR5 280mm Radiator to the top of the case with two 140mm ML PRO LED fans in red. And an XR5 360mm Radiator to the front of the case with 3 ML PRO LED fans also in red.

This allowed me to still utilize an HDD bay in the front of the case to hold the 14TB HDD and allowed room for the pump to mount below it. I then began adding my fittings and tubes, a Barrowch Digital Flow Meter and Bitspower Digital Temp Sensor to help monitor flow rate and fluid temps.

I next addressed the Vertical GPU. Once mounted it had a bit of sag to it. And I didn’t like how that looked. I decided to build a support for the GPU riser from aluminum. It helped level out the card and it looked better.

This fits between the PSU shroud and GPU to level it out. It worked perfectly. I built a couple other custom brackets to help hold the GPU cables and 24 Pin Mainboard power connector wiring. I added in a custom drain port so I can more easily drain the loop when I need to do any type of maintenance.

Here is the Drain Valve and back of the drain port in the basement of the 678c

Here is the drain port. I can attach a fitting and hose here and drain the entire loop easily.

This is the front side completed.

I cleaned up the wiring the best I could and tried to keep things tidy. Not a lot of room back here so keeping it tidy is a necessity. The back side does not allow for much room for wiring but if you can keep it clean and tight it all fits great.

This is it all lit up and working as it should. I am very pleased with how it came out and the quality and look of the Hydro X parts.

After mounting everything and filling the loop, Great components from CORSAIR, Lots of help from Zotty, DevBiker and USNA92 over at the Corsair Case Owners Club Discord this is the end result. I received a lot of help there and if you have questions or need assistance with building it is a great place to check out on Discord. I have since upgraded PSU to an AX1200i and added an additional Samsung 2TB SSD for game storage.

Temps are great now on both CPU and GPU. Air flow is much better and I love how it looks now. This is my first water cooled PC build but it definitely won’t be my last.

newfiend~

Great detail there. Thanks for the in-depth look.

Thank You. And Thanks for all your assistance during my build. Much Appreciated!

newfiend~

That's nice work mate.

I love the paint job on the GPU block - I agree with you, it looks way nicer. Good job

678C Build Log 2019/2020

 

There are quite a few builds that utilize the Corsair 1000D. It is an amazing case and I would love to have one someday, but my budget just didn’t allow for anything that big.. And by budget.. I mean my wife.

If I spent that kind of money on a case I would have to move into it and live there… permanently. And since I like hot food, running water and sleeping in-doors. I decided that I would do a build in a CORSAIR Carbide 678c. =)

 

My old case was great.. a CORSAIR 600T. in fact I considered keeping it longer, but I just wanted something a bit more modern and everyone seemed to be moving to the nicer looking glass side panel cases and since I had decided to upgrade to better hardware it was just time for a fresh case.

 

I liked the fact it looked sleek and had a nice side panel window, lots of room for storage, a Optical Drive Bay and sound deadening material to help keep things quiet. The removeable dust filters were also a nice touch and are easy to clean. This would be where the adventure started..

The build consists of the following when it was initially built and some added later when I moved to Hydro X.

 

Corsair Carbide 678c Case.

EVGA z390 Dark Motherboard

EVGA RTX 2080Ti XC

Intel i9 9900k

32GB CORSAIR Dominator Platinum RAM

CORSAIR Commander Pro

CORSAIR ML120 PRO LED fans (x3 in RED)

CORSAIR ML140 PRO LED fans (x3 in RED)

CORSAIR H150i PRO AIO (to start)

CORSAIR RED custom cables to fit my HX1200i (now AX1200i)

CORSAIR RED SATA cables and Premium Sleeved Front Panel Extension Kit in Red

CORSAIR Premium PCIe 3.0 x16 Extension Cable 300mm

CORSAIR RGB LED Lighting PRO Expansion Kit

CORSAIR and BITSPOWER Fittings.

Samsung EVO PLUS 500GB M.2 SSD

Western Digital 14TB HDD for mass storage and games.

2 Western Digital 2TB HDD for Games (later removed)

SONY Blu-Ray Burner (yes I still have Blu-Ray’s I want to play =P )

 

The initial build went well. No issues and everything went great in early 2019. Then summer hit. Ambient temps went up and so did my GPU temps. Anyone who owns a 2080Ti knows it is a small furnace that warms up case interiors like no GPU before it. Temperature on the GPU would quickly jump up to 80c and I just was not comfortable with that.

 

CORSAIR had just dropped HYDRO X about a week after I finished my build with the AIO. I knew then and there I was going to eventually move to HYDRO X. It was just a matter of finding a way to afford it and not have to upset the significant other.

 

In efforts to keep the peace at home and help my overly HOT GPU issue I decided to try a Hybrid cooler from EVGA to tame its temps. This was a great success and the GPU temp dropped from 80c gaming to the 50c range. And with CORSAIR’s great H150i PRO 360mm AIO my CPU temps were already great!

Things were finally at good temps and I was happy. Except I was not a fan of how my PC looked. Having two AIO’s in this case made it very cramped looking inside. Airflow also suffered a bit due to all the added bulk.

This is how it looked the day before my HYDRO X conversion started.

 

 

 

I decided to pull the trigger on Hydro X. I loved the look and always wanted to do water cooling but was nervous about doing it. CORSAIR’s HYDRO X line made me feel like I could maybe pull this off finally and build a PC that not only performed how I liked but looked just as good.

 

The first step was tear down and removal of the added Hybrid cooler. I ordered an EVGA HYDRO COPPER block from EVGA to fit my EVGA RTX 2080Ti XC. I liked the look of that block and I knew it would be an easy installation as it was designed to fit my card. Here is the card with Hydro Copper installed. I loved how it looked except the aluminum color on it.

 

 

My plan was a RED and Black theme for my build so I decided the trim on the GPU had to be painted black. I took it apart and painted the silver trim flat black. It made it look much better in my opinion.

 

 

I was excited at how well things were looking. I had spent about the last 4 months buying parts each week to do my HYDRO X conversion. CPU block one week, Radiators the next and so on until I had all the parts. This was the easiest way for me to get the result I wanted. It took awhile but I am happy with how it came out.

 

Next was figuring out where everything would mount and installing the CPU blocks and radiators and fans, finding a location for the pump and then tube runs.

I added an XR5 280mm Radiator to the top of the case with two 140mm ML PRO LED fans in red. And an XR5 360mm Radiator to the front of the case with 3 ML PRO LED fans also in red.

 

This allowed me to still utilize an HDD bay in the front of the case to hold the 14TB HDD and allowed room for the pump to mount below it. I then began adding my fittings and tubes, a Barrowch Digital Flow Meter and Bitspower Digital Temp Sensor to help monitor flow rate and fluid temps.

 

 

I next addressed the Vertical GPU. Once mounted it had a bit of sag to it. And I didn’t like how that looked. I decided to build a support for the GPU riser from aluminum. It helped level out the card and it looked better.

 

 

This fits between the PSU shroud and GPU to level it out. It worked perfectly. I built a couple other custom brackets to help hold the GPU cables and 24 Pin Mainboard power connector wiring. I added in a custom drain port so I can more easily drain the loop when I need to do any type of maintenance.

 

Here is the Drain Valve and back of the drain port in the basement of the 678c

 

Here is the drain port. I can attach a fitting and hose here and drain the entire loop easily.

 

This is the front side completed.

 

I cleaned up the wiring the best I could and tried to keep things tidy. Not a lot of room back here so keeping it tidy is a necessity. The back side does not allow for much room for wiring but if you can keep it clean and tight it all fits great.

 

This is it all lit up and working as it should. I am very pleased with how it came out and the quality and look of the Hydro X parts.

 

After mounting everything and filling the loop, Great components from CORSAIR, Lots of help from Zotty, DevBiker and USNA92 over at the Corsair Case Owners Club Discord this is the end result. I received a lot of help there and if you have questions or need assistance with building it is a great place to check out on Discord. I have since upgraded PSU to an AX1200i and added an additional Samsung 2TB SSD for game storage.

 

Temps are great now on both CPU and GPU. Air flow is much better and I love how it looks now. This is my first water cooled PC build but it definitely won’t be my last.

newfiend~

I just seen your post, nice build BTW. Quick question I saw in one of the pics you was using a optical drive with your radiator was you able to fit ok. Also with your res/pump how did you mount it? And lastly was you able to fit RGB lights around the side of the case?

I just seen your post, nice build BTW. Quick question I saw in one of the pics you was using a optical drive with your radiator was you able to fit ok. Also with your res/pump how did you mount it? And lastly was you able to fit RGB lights around the side of the case?

Thank You =). Yes I have a Asus Optical Drive in the case now (had an old Sony before) I have a Corsair 280mm Rad top mounted with the optical drive installed and everything fits perfectly. I used the Corsair Mounting brackets that came with the pump and mounted them to the back of the radiator. I just turned the pump so the inlet / outlet is facing the glass on the 678c and Yes I was able to install Corsair LED strips along the inside edge of the case for edge lighting.