Temporal Snow - INWIN 303 Mod

[Stealth80]

Hi there, I just stumbled across these forums whilst looking at other 303 mods and thought why not add mine here too. It started out last year as a red/black/white build based around Asus RoG, 4790k, 32gb Hyper X DDR3 ram. However earlier this year I decided to revamp the whole thing whilst also jumping on the Ryzen bandwagon, this included switching the colours over to predominantly Blue and White.

Specs

Ryzen 7 1700 @ 3.95ghz
Gigabyte AX370 Gaming 5
16gb Gskill 3200mhz RGB
Samsung XP941 m.2 SSD
Crucial MX300 525gb SSD
Palit 1080 GTX Gamerock Premium
Fractal Design Newton R3 1000W Snow Edition

Cooling

EK Supremacy (about to be swapped for EK AX370 monoblock)
60mm 240mm Alphacool Radiator
120 + 360mm Alphacool Crossflow radiators
EK DDC 3.2 PWM Pump with 250mm EK Tube Reservoir
4x EK 120 Varder F4 fans + 3x 120 Thermaltake Riing 12

Ok so this may take a while, ill try and post things in order, but keep in mind things will change around half way through, aka red to blue haha

So the first thing I wanted to do was get some parts painted, obviously most parts arrive black, I seem to have spent a lot of time spray painting during this project as you are about to see.

First up, the EK pump and reservoir





Radiators!







Then the backplate for the GPU



I painted the SoundBlaster Z, but once it came to fitting everything in the case I couldn't fit in, the plan was to vertically mount the soundcard



No happy!



Painting of the (was) black Thermaltake Rinng 12 fans



Drain point added



LCD screen. I used a Logitech G15 for temp and usage monitoring that was starting to show its age next to everything else. I wanted RGB + mechanical but wanted to retain that functionality



Its simply a USB powered HDMI LCD that uses Sensor panel from Aida 64






So at this point, it sort of ended up like this, this was back in November and finished 3rd in Bit-tech's Mod of the Month

[Stealth80]

Ok so fast forward around 4 months and think of Ryzen's announcement. I sold my ram, board and CPU which made a CONSIDERABLE donation to the platform jump. I was fully aware of teething issues surrounding the Ryzen launch, but 6900k performance for what ended up costing me around the sale of these components + £100 wasn't to be sniffed at. I actually ran benchmarks on the i7 rig prior to dismantling to compare to the Ryzen once built and continued to update. On initial build the Ryzen was around 10% slower in gaming, but once the updates and ram support came it was actually around 6 - 7% faster, with a newer platform (full speed m.2 and DDR4) and more cores where needed.

So here we go.

First thing I removed the CPU block and polished it up




I removed and stripped down the Crucial MX300, painted it and customised it (Pun intended!!)




Updated the GPU backplate to reflect the colour scheme change




Spent what felt like 57 years re-sleeving all my extension cables!










Updated the Sensor Panel to reflect the colour scheme change




The initial build complete





However, many tweaks to follow!

[Stealth80]

First thing, I didn't like that rear fan or that tubing from the CPU to the top radiator. I also emailed Thermaltake about "blue" fan mounting pads for the top fans and they very kindly sent me a set out free of charge.

So rear 120mm Radiator and EK Varder fan added






It also became apparent at this time that the airflow wasn't great and the tempered glass was loving the heat so much it kept hold of it, so out came the Dremmel




Get spraying!

Front intake added!







Ok here's the good thing (Thermaltake did exactly the same to me with the X9, only I sprayed it white prior to Snow Edition release) I seen over on OCN that INWIN would be announcing a 303C at CES, all white and it looked sick!

Out came the spray paint!

Unfortunately I didn't take any mid spray/strip photos, so it just "appears" white!




Still not happy, I moved onto the ram! This was a pain in the rear, painting anodised aluminium ...

But it came out good!





This showing what the rear side looks like (not 4 sticks)



I took the powered up pictures before the vinyls arrived








And .... Guess what? Nope not finished. Currently waiting on delivery of the EK monoblock which will need painting and today I got to work on the acrylic for the inside/front of the case to give it a cleaner look. Will do this over the next week or so. I'm also considering moving the LCD display up into the acrylic "shrouding"



More updates to come

[Administrator Johnny Gomez]

This is a sexy build!

[Stealth80]

This is a sexy build!

Haha thanks, it's now complete


Right everything is painted and I have spent the last 24 hours or so leak checking and bleeding. It aint finished yet, there's a stubborn bubble in the Monoblock, but elsewhere is all good.





So time for the glamour shots I guess!







































































Thanks for viewing all - I guess I will have more ideas for this in the future!

[Administrator Johnny Gomez]

Looks really clean! Love it!

[Guest]

Thank you for taking the time to look at everything; I'm sure I'll have more ideas for this in the future! 2 player games