Friday, May 25, 2012

Disc07's NES PC Build: Part 1.5b (Watercooling!?)

Okay, this may be a little bit of an overkill in a system so small, but I want this system to be different than all of the others out there, even if it mean squeezing a radiator and cooling block into the classic Nintendo console. As of yet, I have not seen any NES HTPC Build with a liquid cooling system, so here is where my system will stand out in the crowd!

I have been toying with the idea of integrating water cooling into another system of mine, but now that I have a brand new toy to play with, I figured that I may as well squeeze it in to this NES, what is turning out to be a beast of a system. After shopping around, I decided on choosing the Antec Kuhler H2O 620 mainly because of its low profile size when compared to the competitors. It comes paired with a 120mm x 25mm intake fan, but I went ahead and ordered a slim 120mm x 12mm Scyth fan to save the extra 13mm of height within the box.
Big box, tiny package. 
Like I mentioned before, I had never heard of anybody putting a cooler in their NES PC, mainly because of room issues. I took the challenge and immediately found some flaws in my reasoning. 1) The tubing is 13 inches long. Despite being kink free with the setup I have, I would like to modify the tubes to make them about 5 inches, relieving a lot of space in the NES. 2) There is also a lot of tension created when placing the cooling block upside-down like below; hopefully after the tubing is shortened this tension will be relieved.

TOO MANY TUBES! 
I did find a spectacular tutorial online on dismantling the 620 which will be helping me immensely when it comes to cutting these tubes. If you want to check it out, it's over on the Tomorrow's Gaming forums here. As per the rest of the build, as always, I will continue after the weekend on Monday; and I hope that you continue to follow the build then. Monday's will showcase some more of the case, and various mods that have been going on on that front. So far here is how it is coming pricewise:


  • Intel i5 3550 ($189.99)
  • Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2x4GB) Memory Module ($42.49)
  • The NES Case, Hardware, and Paint (<$10)
  • Patriot Pyro 2.5" 120GB Solid State Drive ($99.99)
  • Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooler ($61.99)
  • Scyth 120mm x 12mm Case Fan ($10.39)

  • Total Savings: $100.10 

  • Total Price: $414.85
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