$3,000 PS4 Upgrade - Custom Water Cooling and More!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,315 words · ~6 min read
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The PS4 Pro costs $400, and all it's got is better graphics.
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It doesn't even have the damn 4K Blu-ray player.
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Bitch, if I wanted to spend $400 every three years for better graphics and non-cinematic
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frame rates, I'd get a PC.
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F*** this s***.
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Well, you know what I say?
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Amen, brother.
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We heard all the outraged console gamers out there and got on the phone with dbrand to
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devise a plan.
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And so, if you don't want to buy a PS4 Pro, why not just water-cool your PS4 and make
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it look dope AF while you're at it?
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So let's get down to it then.
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Welcome to PlayStation 4 water-cooling.
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So this journey began over six months ago, when my son and I sat down and tore down the
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PS4, looking for the best way to tackle this problem.
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Then I got busy with other projects.
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And handed it off to Jake, who promptly did what any sane person would do, and taped a
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thermal probe, using a non-conductive thermal paste, to the back of the main board and reassembled
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it.
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He chose this position because placing the thermal probe on the APU directly would have
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affected the contact between the heatsink and the APU itself.
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And the purpose of this disassembly-reassembly rigmarole, in total, it was completely torn
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down and put back together twice.
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And we'll need to do it one more time to get our thermal probe.
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The first step was to get baseline temperatures so we could determine how well our DIY water-cooling
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solution worked.
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So I don't expect too many people to replicate this project, and if they do, I'd imagine
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they have some idea how to go to iFixit.com and find a PS4 teardown to follow along with.
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But since we've got all the footage of taking it apart, I'll leave it to my editors to give
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you guys the highlights until we reach the good stuff.
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Ah, here we go.
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So, with the motherboard removed, we get our first good look at the thermal compound on
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the AMD APU that functions as both the CPU and GPU core for the PlayStation 4.
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So we replaced this with a pea-sized amount of IC diamond for both our before and our
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after tests.
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Let's fast forward again for a little bit here.
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Really?
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That tiny heatsink does all of the cooling for the PlayStation 4?
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So that then is what will be replaced.
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replacing with an EK Supremacy GPU block by the way shout out to EK for providing
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our liquid cooling gear by drilling through the rivets here with a couple of
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different size bits next we needed to cut away the motherboard tray with some
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aviation shears we actually ended up needing straight right and left angle
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for this but I guess you could just use a Dremel then we routed zip ties through
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the block through the motherboard and through the tray proceeding to cut a
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hole into the side of the PlayStation 4 for our tubing to route through please
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note that we don't generally recommend attaching fittings to tubing then
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screwing the whole thing into a block it is very easy to accidentally cause it to
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come loose and leak when the tubing moves but we didn't have many options
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here and it was the best way forward with the tubes installed it was time to
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reassemble the ps4 but we needed to make sure our block was securely mounted
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first hmm
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you
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foreign that single zap strap didn't really seem to cut it but with four or
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five pieces of squishy double-sided tape we were able to compress the stacks slide
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them in and let them expand giving us a surprisingly good mounting solution that
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not only held the block in place but also supplies adequate pressure between
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the block and the APU so far so good fast forward again to are they really
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gonna do that yes my friends
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they will bring our PS4 back in a bunch of pieces and we will see if we can
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do it again in the next episode while the PS4 is still a bit of a rancor
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the PS4 as it stands is just only available in the market and therefore
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it will be completely free to use and to be able to own it we will be
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providing you with a completely new PS4 and a full 퀬uit
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but first if you're interested in buying our PS4 you can go to our Google Play
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Store because we do have a free Amazon download link and you can download it
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from there
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subscribe to our channel and we'll see you in the next episode
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or reservoir inside the PS4's chassis.
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It's possible that this could be done,
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but given how cramped the PS4 already is
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with its smaller size, similar power to the Xbox One,
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and internal power supply, it wouldn't be easy.
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No problem though, Protocase to the rescue.
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So the first step was to do up an initial design
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in SketchUp, which we sent to Protocase
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to mechanically design and to manufacture.
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Those guys are great at what they do.
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The footage you're looking at now
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is from their amazing metal shop
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that they use for rapid prototyping
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and even some larger scale manufacturing.
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There was a small design oversight on our part
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that forced us to run the radiator in pull rather than push,
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but other than that, it worked great.
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We loaded up an EK X-Res 140 with a pre-attached D5 pump
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using a custom mount from our 3D printer,
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a Coolstream SE 120 millimeter slim radiator,
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a bunch of EK fittings,
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some Primochill black tubing,
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and a Scythe slim 120 millimeter fan.
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Then at this point, we sent the mostly finished system
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to Dbrand for one of their sexy vinyl skin jobs.
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Those guys mostly do phones, game consoles,
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and accessories and computers,
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but they're always up for a challenge
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and I think they did an amazing job
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of the external water cooling box.
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Let them know over on Twitter if you agree.
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We'll have that linked below
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and be sure to check out their configurator,
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which we'll have linked in the video description.
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Next time, you need to personalize and protect a device,
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whether it's an iPhone or a monstrosity such as this one.
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Anyway, surprisingly, with it all put together,
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no leaks, which leads us to moment of truth time.
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Will the PlayStation 4 boot and success?
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It still turns on, but did we improve our temperatures?
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The answer again is yes.
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Unfortunately, for those of you who legitimately,
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thought water cooling might help you avoid a PS4 Pro upgrade,
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this won't do anything for performance at all,
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but a 16 degree improvement in temps
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while staying near silent
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is still a pretty fantastic achievement.
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At least we think so.
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So thanks for watching, guys.
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If you disliked this video, I guess you could do that thing,
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but if you liked it, hit that like button, get subscribed,
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maybe even consider checking out our links
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in the video description,
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where you can learn more about Dbrand,
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you could buy a PlayStation on Amazon,
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we'll have that down there as well,
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or whatever the case may be.
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Also linked in the description is our merch store,
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which has cool shirts like this one,
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and our community forum, which you should totally join.
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Now that you're done doing all that stuff,
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you're probably wondering what to watch next,
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so click that little button in the top right corner
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to check out our latest video over on Channel Super Fun.