SSUPD Meshroom S Build Guide & Review: LOBO + QDT Edition

This is the first part in a series we will be doing on the SSUPD Meshroom S SFF (small form factor) computer case. In this build we will be featuring an Intel Core i9-13900K + an RTX 3080 for a workstation build. In Part 1, we will be custom water cooling the CPU and GPU with a 280mm radiator using only a CPU pump block combo unit with no internal reservoir. This will be accomplished by using Koolance’s latest QDT quick disconnects in combination with the Modultra LOBO CPU block + pump heatsink. In Part 2 we will add a second radiator, with the goal of it being a 2^nd 280mm radiator if we can manage to fit it in the case.

The Meshroom S is the direct successor to the Meshlicious which has been to date, our favorite mini-ITX case. It is nearly identical in design however there have been several updates. Improvements to the original design include support for ATX and mATX motherboards, a bracket to mount a 2^nd radiator (240mm and 280mm supported) on the side and an additional USB Type-A port at the front. Because these cases are so similar, we’ll skip straight to building this time.

To begin, we installed our two M.2 SSDs into the ASUS Z690-I Strix motherboard. The process is the same as the Z490 version we used in our Meshlicious, unscrew the M.2 heatsink and put one drive on the top section and one underneath. This board has a tool-less, screw-less lever to secure the M.2 drives which is far better than the tiny screws that we’ve used in the past. Next, we installed the CPU.

Modultra LOBO CPU Waterblock + Heatsink Installation

The next component is by far one of my favorite parts of this build: the Modultra LOBO (low boy) CPU water block + heatsink. This is a completely custom, incredibly well-made CPU block that has some really interesteding features. It’s designed to house a DDC pump (not included) and it’s the only product of its type that simultaneously cools the pump and CPU! First, we’ve got the pump top/heatsink, its screws and a thermal pad with our DDC pump in the background.

You’ll need to remove the original pump top which is secured with four torque screws.

Next, remove the plastic pump housing by popping the pump out of it with a flathead screwdriver. Be sure not to lose the pump’s O-ring.

Place the pump into the LOBO, O-ring side down. Next, use the Kapton tape included with the LOBO to cover the solder joints and pump wiring like this.

Place the included thermal pad over the pump circuit board in the correct orientation.

Finally, secure the heatsink in place with the four included torque screws.

Here it is installed on our motherboard. Again, this CPU block is in a class of its own. It’s made of solid brass and you can feel every ounce of it. This is a part that you can carry over from build to build indefinitely. The block uses a Cerakote coated finish which has a very premium feel to it and is extremely resistant to corrosion.

It also looks awesome. The solid metal finish. The machined holes on the sides and its low-profile design make it a really cool looking piece of tech. Add in the fact that it actually cools a DDC pump, eliminating the largest drawback to DDC style pumps, this is a huge breakthrough and cannot be overstated.  

The only area for improvement would be the backplate. It comes with four standoffs and four O-rings which are a little difficult to install perfectly without the O-ring slipping out of place or being squeezed to one side. It was also a little difficult on our ASUS motherboard because the standoffs on the backplate did not penetrate through the holes on the motherboard, so we had to hold it together while screwing in the mounting screws on the CPU side. This was made worse by a metal bracket that ASUS uses on the back of the motherboard to hold secure the CPU socket.

We’ve been told by Modultra that they have additional products in the works, and we very much look forward to seeing what they pull off next!

GPU Waterblock Installation

The next order of business is to install the GPU waterblock which is easy if you’ve never done it before. Simply remove the backplate which is held on by about 12 screws. Then separate the GPU heatsink from the GPU itself. Be patient with this step as the old thermal paste can be a surprisingly strong adhesive. On this model GPU there are four wires which also need to be disconnected. Again, take your time and be careful here. Once the heatsink has been removed, a naked GPU is revealed with lots of old thermal paste and pads to remove.

We used a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol to remove the thermal paste and clean the GPU die (the shiny part in the middle).

Next cut and apply the included thermal pads to the GPU. Add some thermal paste to the die and place the block on the GPU.

Turn it over and use the included washers and screws to secure the block to the GPU.

Done and I’ll give EK credit, they still have the best-looking GPU blocks out there. This looks clean and industrial at the same time. This is the plexi version so you can see the water going through the block after you fill your look and run your pump.

To make things easy for a double radiator build, we will be using a rotary 90° terminal fitting on our GPU block. First remove the included terminal by unscrewing the three black torque screws.

Then install the terminal fitting, making sure the O-rings are in the correct position. Now, we have two 90° fittings coming right out of the GPU, giving us more flexibility on the GPU side of the case to run tubing.

In ATX builds, this doesn’t matter but in ITX sandwich style cases like the Meshroom S, a terminal fitting like this can make all the difference in the world.

Here’s the Meshroom S stripped down, without any side panels. I like the new power button placement. It’s very clean and hardly noticeable which is a pus to me. The first thing we did was move the spine into 4-slot mode so there will be more room on the GPU side of the case to accommodate a future 2^nd radiator.

We installed our Corsair 280mm radiator and the two 140mm Noctua chromax fans. Having installed both custom liquid cooling systems as well as AIOs in cases like the Meshroom S, Meshlicious and FormD T1, I can tell you it is so much easier to install the custom water cooling systems. You can just slide the radiator in without having to deal with the non-removable tubing and CPU block, making working around the radiator far simpler.

An improvement from the Meshlicious is the addition of a GPU hold down bracket which is very sturdy when installed.

You secure the GPU from underneath.

Here’s the motherboard installed.

Koolance QDT Quick Disconnects

Next, we started planning our tubing runs and working with the Koolance QDT3 quick disconnects. I’ll admit I was initially skeptical of using quick disconnects for several reasons. There’s a lot of talk on Reddit and other forums about how they reduce your flow, leak and are bulky and difficult to deal with. Koolance recently released their sixth generation of quick disconnects called QDT so I figured I’d take a chance with them.

I was initially set on using black colored QDs (quick disconnects) but the new QDT series is only available in nickel. They are also use hose clamps instead of compression fittings. Between the color and the hose clamps I was starting to think these would be a pain to deal with and would look terrible in my build. I couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, the hose clamps were so easy to work with, I would gladly swap all the EK compression fittings I’m using to these clamps, they are that much easier to work with…

There are two halves to a Koolance QDT quick disconnect: male and female. Each half has a barbed fitting on one side to which the included hose clamp will secure your tubing. The other half is a special fitting which plugs into its opposite (male-female). The way these work is you plug them in together and you hear the most satisfying click noise when they connect. To disconnect, you simply pull down on the female end while holding the male end, they break apart and literally one miniscule drip of coolant escapes. That’s it!

To connect the male and female ends, first align them.

Then push them together.

Here’s a close up of what they look like.

These quick disconnects have 3/8” barbed fittings. If you are using EK ZMT tubing, you will need larger hose clamps which Koolance makes and we have linked below.

As for the nickel color, I think it goes great with the GPU block and adds some much-needed color to this nearly all black build.

These things are my favorite part of the build and I’m so glad I took a chance on them. Koolance has made some incredible parts here. They have a great feel to them. You can tell these could be used on machines in a factory every day and still last forever. The team at Koolance was also extremely friendly and helpful when it came to choosing these fittings. They make them in several sizes and in threaded variants which can be directedly connected to parts such as radiators or distribution plates.

The QDTs make the sometimes-difficult task of filling the loop incredibly easy because I simply connected an external D5 pump/res combo unit and ran it on its own while my main pump was off. Here is the external setup before I connected it to the rest of the loop.

Here is the external setup before I connected it to the rest of the loop.

I disconnected the QDs from my main loop and connected them to tubes that will be installed on the external pump/res.

Here’s everything connected, ready to be filled.

I used Koolance’s LIQ-702 High Performance Liquid Coolant in this loop which is a glycol-based coolant. First, their coolant bottle is brilliantly designed. It comes with a tube you connect to the bottle and then you squeeze the bottle to fill your reservoir.

Every other manufacturer wants you to buy a separate billing bottle. My favorite quality about it though is the fact that you can run this same coolant in your loop for up to 3 years without changing it. They don’t put a bunch of crap in the coolant to make it unstable, this stuff is actually made for water cooling components and simply works well. I prefer clear coolants but it’s also available in yellow, red, blue, green and purple.

I love the way the quick disconnects stand out in the loop, they add a very industrial look which demands attention!

These are very short tubing runs but working with the ZMT tubing and EK torque compression fittings was not easy in such a confined space. I can’t imagine working with these in a smaller case like the FormD T1.

There is a temperature sensor is located on the bottom radiator port on the GPU side.

We’ve also added an Aquacomputer Octo to this computer. It is hidden in the GPU chamber on the back side right above the GPU cable hole cutout. The temperature sensor connects to the Aquacomputer Octo along with the pump and both radiator fans. If you’ve never tried an Aquacomputer Quadro or Octo, you absolutely must. The level of control they provide through the Aquasuite software is unparalleled and I now have a completely silent workstation system because of this amazing little circuit board. It is well worth the money if you are custom water cooling.

Here’s the front 280mm radiator and two Noctua NF-A14 140mm fans.

One last shot of the front with the Modultra LOBO. Along with the QDTs and Octo, the LOBO is definitely one of the highlights of this build.

Rear I/O shot.

We also tried the SSUPD braided DisplayPort 1.4 cable.

The cable is very thick and feels great. It’s angled so you can install it through the GPU cable hole for a clean look.

It’s 6.5’ length is perfect for my build which will sit on my desk next to my monitor.

Temperatures

We haven’t had much opportunity for benchmarking but for now with the current cooling setup, our temperatures are as follows. These temperatures are with one tempered glass side panel on the CPU side and no panel on the GPU side. The only component currently overclocked is the RAM to run at 5600MHz via an XMP profile.

Idle:

• 13900K: 37°C
• 3080: 26-28°C
• Coolant: 30°C
• Fans: 550 RPM

Load (45 mins – 1 hour of Witcher 3 at max settings on a 60Hz monitor):

• 13900K: 69-70°C
• 3080: 40-52°C (depending on where you are in the game, how many NPCs there are, etc.)
• Coolant: 42-43°C
• Fans: 900-1100 RPM

Conclusion

This is by far my favorite build to date. I love ITX cases and packing as much power as I can into a tiny footprint. The Meshroom S while very similar to the Meshlicious, includes several meaningful improvements and there’s no reason to choose the Meshlicious over its successor. We still believe that the Meshlicious/Meshroom are the best SFF cases for custom water cooling. They’re small enough that that they can fit on your desk while large enough to support 280mm radiators for adequate temperatures and low noise with high TDP parts.

The one thing I don’t like about the Meshroom is that the side panels are very difficult to remove compared to the Meshlicious. I felt that the Meshlicious required the perfect amount of pull to remove its side panels.

We will be doing a Part 2 where we will push this case to its limits by adding a 2^nd radiator as well as trying out the SSUPD aluminum case feet.

Purchase on Amazon

Parts:

• CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
• GPU: EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z690-I
• RAM: 64GB G.Skill RipJaws S5 Series DDR5 5600MHz
• Storage: 1TB WD Black SN850 NVMe M.2 SSD
• Storage: 1TB WD Black NVMe (2018) M.2 SSD
• PSU: Corsair SF750
• Case: SSUPD Meshroom S (Black)
• DisplayPort Cable: SSUPD Braided DisplayPort1.4 Cable

Watercooling Parts:

• CPU Pump Block: Modultra LOBO
• GPU Block: EK-Quantum Vector XC3 RTX 3080/3090 D-RGB – Nickel + Plexi
• Radiator: Corsair Hydro X Series XR5 280mm
• Fans: Noctua NF-A14 PWM chromax.Black.swap
• Quick Disconnect: QDT3 EPDM Female Quick Disconnect No-Spill Coupling, Panel Barb for ID 13mm (1/2in)
• Quick Disconnect: QDT3 EPDM Male Quick Disconnect No-Spill Coupling, Panel Barb for ID 13mm (1/2in)
• Hose Clamps: Koolance CLM-13-10P Hose Spring Clamp for OD 16mm (5/8in) – [10 Pack]
• Coolant: Koolance LIQ-702 High Performance Liquid Coolant
• Compression Fittings: EK-Quantum Torque STC 10/16
• Angled Adapters: EK-Quantum Torque Rotary 90°
• GPU Block Terminal: EK-FC Terminal Rotary 90°
• Temperature Sensor: Alphacool Eiszapfen Temperature Sensor G1/4
• Fan Controller: Aqua Computer Octo PWM Fan Controller
• Pump: EK-Loop DDC 4.2 PWM Motor
• Tubing: EK-Tube ZMT Matte Black 15,9/9,5mm