X1 Watercooled 10Lt SFF - RTX 3080/R5-3600/Aquanaut DDC

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Build
AMD R5 3600
Asus ROG Strix B450-I
G.Skill Trident Z Neo 32GB 3600c16
Corsair SF750 Platinum /w custom cabling + J-Hack M2426
EVGA XC3 Ultra RTX 3080 + EKWB Vector XC3 3080 Waterblock
Nouvolo Aquanaut CPU Block
Alphacool DDC310 Pump
12mm OD/10mm ID Clear Tubing
Alphacool NexXxoS ST25 240mm Radiator
2x Noctua NF-A12x25
Aquacomputer QUADRO Controller

2TB 970 Evo Plus M2 SSD
1TB 970 Evo Plus M2 SSD
1TB 860 Evo SSD

Audiotrak Prodigy DAC
Douk Audio G3 Amp
Q Acoustics 3010i Bookshelf Speakers
Sennheiser Game-One Headset

Logitech G Pro Wireless
Keychron K2 v2 Keyboard

Case Info
Cube X1 From TaoBao - (Kyle's Studio)

Cost:
$235 AUD + $80 AUD Shipping. This includes riser cable which was an extra cost.

Buying:
This was my first purchase using Super Buy. Really simple, You pick what you want - Paypal some cash over to them. The agent goes and buys it on your behalf (There was a small local shipping adjustment which I again PayPal'd over) - Once it arrives at the Superbuy Warehouse there was a few photos taken of the product. You then select your shipping method, PayPal the shipping over (Mine was estimated, it actually ended up being cheaper so they refunded the portion back to my Super Buy account) - Then once that is all done..My package arrived via AusPost 9 business days later..

30th April - Paid
6th May - Superbuy received
7th May - Paid for EMS Shipping
20th May - Delivered (China > Australia)

Quality:
Build is pretty solid. As usual with these Chinese cases there were some scratches/nicks but not much you can do about that using this buying process. Nothing major that I'm annoyed about.

Panels are thick - 3mm aluminium, anodized. Seems to scratch a little too easy but overall not bad.

Riser is 18.5cm long. Fits great over the spine, didn't have to push it through. Gives a bit more breathing room for the rear mounted SSD.

I've seen some previous builds where it came flat packed - I got mine fully assembled already. The button I specified was the metal/white LED one. It's a 16mm round momentary switch that you could switch out later for something else if you wanted - There's plenty online.

Feet are plastic.

Holes are cut pretty well.

Defects:
Small light scratches around the panels
Can see cutting marks on edge of top covers.
Slight colour variation between corners and face plates.
Holes in corners for windows to screw into aren't properly centered

There seem to be a number of the same case but with different vent holes (hexagon vs round) and also bottom vents - I think there are some prototype builds out there but this one seems to be the current release at this stage.


Measurements:
31cm Deep
13.8cm Wide
24cm High
10 litres

GPU Max thickness: 54.5mm (2.7 Slot)
GPU Max Length: 300mm
GPU Max Width: 136mm

Radiator support: 240mm with a max 30mm thickness.. Fan + Rad max thickness is 58mm.

Misc:
DIY 3mm Acrylic sidepanels with cutout for GPU and PSU, designed in Fusion 360 and then cut at a local lasercutter workshop.
Barrows Water temperature sensor installed in LT Solo Fill Port.

 

I have also bought some custom cable supplies to do some fun cable work. Probably the most time consuming, frustrating and fiddly thing you could decide to do...



Will probably not use this because its super stiff and the lengths need to be perfect..of which these are not.

 

Interesting little case, subscribed, looking forward to the rest of the build.

 

Cheers. Still waiting on pins to arrive in order to finish cables.

In the mean time I had some vinyl wrap lying around and tried a few different looks..hides the seam lines nicely.

 

Are you using a custom water cooler?

 

Its an Alphacool Eisbaer LT240 - Its basically packaged as an AIO but I could easily pull it apart as it uses standard fittings on the pump and the rad. Easily go custom if I want.

 

Kinda digging the acrylic cut out for the PSU haha - great build and good part selection!

 

Swapped out the stock LT240 tubing with clear tubing cut to the perfect length. No twisting as well like I had to do with the stock one which crossed the tubes over in this setup.

Re-used the fittings that came with the LT240. What a pain in the arse job it is to fill this loop with no res, Think I will have to get a barb fitting to go onto the fill port to make it easier next time. Thinking I might even use one of the little 3 port flow meters too for the job as a mini res.


These circlip pliers I had made working with the stock fittings WAY easier..




Filling took FOREVER. Pretty happy in the end though. The stock LT240 I could hear some bubbles rattling around in the rad, i'm pretty sure its now fuller than it came..




All Done.
Before and after:

 

Finally made my own PSU shorty cable. Scrapped the sleeving because its too much of a pain in the ass to get such a small cable with the bends I wanted in the space... Have room for an extra slim fan under the PSU now when I can be bothered to move the HDD somewhere.

 

Neat little build man

 

Thanks mate, it’s a great size that pretty much has everything I need. Not too small or big. Fits my desk nicely and cleared up a lot of room.

New speakers + amp added to the desk setup:

 

Haha smaller than your bloody speakers

 

Ive been waiting to go full NVME and get this big Sata air blocker out of the way on the bottom of my case...found an alternative mod for the meantime..
Good to know that the Samsung 860 EVOs have a tiny PCB.

I pulled it out, used some thermal adhesive tape to mount it to the front aluminium panel of my case and then remade a new power cable for it..and now its neatly tucked out of the way of EVERYTHING perfectly.

Also It means I can finally install the Noctua A12x15 I've had lying around for awhile.

 

Also, apologies for the huge images..I'm not sure if theres a way to set max width to scale them down a bit here..

 

Updated main post with new pics, using PIX now instead of huge imgur.

 

Put a Barrow water temp sensor into the fill port, connected to the T_SENSOR header on the mobo.. Because was bored.


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Also ordered a EVGA RTX 3080 FC3 Ultra, watch this space.

 

Thanks for the build log - where did you get the bits for making the power cable from? I'm considering making one myself

 

Combination of Singularity computers and Aliexpress...you can get everything pretty quickly from Singularity. I bought some spare connectors and such from Ali as I knew it'd take awhile to arrive.

I ended up trying some crimpers from jaycar which ended up sucking and bought the proper ones off Singularity and it was a quality of life improvement.

Sleeving ended up being an absolute pain for small/short cables so I didn't even bother using it all in the end.

If you end up trying to sleeve small cables it ends up taking at least 70% longer to do in my experience.

Also buy spare pins... A good tool to de-pin the plugs might be worth while too, im not sure how good the Singularity one is but the ali one I bought is garbage.

Ended up using staples straightened out.

 

Alphacool waterblock arrived..the thought here is to try it with just the 240mm rad and the LT solo pump. If it sucks, I can always go back to the stock heatsink/shroud (hence the reason of getting this EVGA model..it'll fit)

Not to worried about the overhang on the card's PCB on this waterblock...(Yet)

If it ends up working out OK I may look to swap to a proper reference board later ..but seems a bit pointless unless I go to some sort of separate pump/cpu block and need the room.


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RTX 3080 finally came! Good thing is since it is shorter, my M2 SSD in the rear of the mobo isn't getting sandwiched in now and as a tiny bit more air to breath.


Sold alphacool block since there were some incompatibilities with the XC3 (drill a hole) and have ordered the EKWB Vector XC3 Plexi and backplate.