Gigabyte 3D Mercury Case - Get Into Liquid - 3D Merc. - Add Water, Test Setup and Info.

Add Water and Start!

Now that all the hardware is installed and appears ready to go, I stood up the case, opened the handy dandy top fill spout and added about 1.2 liters of coolant.  The specs say that the reservoir holds 600ml, so the rest of the system holds about another 600ml as well.

Gigabyte has put some effort into their coolant and they recommend using it instead of traditional (and low-tech) water.  Gigabyte says, "The Nano-scale water-oolant can effectively reduce the presence of mpurities and increase heat dissipation."  It also has "anti-freezing, anti-corrosive and water quality stabilization features."

Ready To Fill Up

Conductive Coolant

It sounds like it will be conductive, which can be harmful or fatal to your computer hardware if you spring a leak.  I checked to see if it was conductive and it is.  If you spill any on your hardware, make sure you clean it up and let it dry completely before powering on your computer.

Test Setup:

 
3DMercury = Big

As I mentioned earlier, this case is large.  Think of it as large mid-tower with a water cooling system mounted on top of it.  The picture below shows how it stands up next to the Fatal1ty FC-ZE1 case from Zalman.  Although we've covered most of the parts during installation, we'll recap:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU - Stock 2.4GHz / OC 3.2GHz - MemoryExpress
  (Cooled by Stock Intel HSF & Gigabyte 3D Mercury Pro)
  
• MSI 975X Platinum V2 PowerUp Ed. Motherboard - MemoryExpress
  
• Crucial X1900XTX 512MB Graphics Card - Crucial
• Zalman ZM600-HP 600W PSU - ZalmanUSA
• Western Digital 200GB SATA HDD
• LG GSA-H55N DVDRW
  
• 2GB Adata PC2-8500 CL5 Memory - Adata
• Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit

Here are a couple more pictures for your viewing pleasure.  The LEDs are really bright so if you want to leave this computer running in your bedroom at night, you'd better like sleeping when it's light out.  Gigabyte includes both the mesh panel and the standard clear window.  You have a choice as to what look you're going for.

Side Running LED

Window vs Mesh

We'll pull out the stops and run the benchmarks on the last page.  I promise.