Can someone spec me a great watercooling kit? (*First time waterclocker*)

nogoodreason

nogoodreason

nogoodreason

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I've decided that I've wasted so much money on this rig already I might as well go the full mile and watercool the damn thing as heat keeps becoming an issue.

I have never touched watercooling before in my life, so I am placing my trust in you forumites to guide me on what components I need and which ones are best.

This will (eventually) be my rig:

Mobo: Asus Rampage II Extreme
CPU: i7 920 D0 stepping
RAM: 12GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 PC3
PCI-E Soundcard: X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro
GFX: 2x BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2OC 1792MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Watercooled Graphics Card (Single PCB) (SLi)
Primary HDD: 2x Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB in RAID 0
Case: Coolermaster HAF 932 Full Tower Case
PSU: Coolermaster 1250W Real Power Pro PSU (Modular)
OS: Windows 7 (x64)


As I'm far from rich I certainly can't afford everything in this spec at the moment, but if I can scrape together the funds for a very decent, futureproof watercooling setup then the other components can follow in due time. I do not want to buy some budget watercooling system that leaks or dies on me in a year's time.
 
How much of that have you bought? Raptor raid 0 is killed by ssds, and two 295s will make watercooling a hideous nightmare and I don't think will make any difference to games over just one of them. I don't like coolermaster psus, but that's a personal and probably irrational bias.

Got some more questions for you. Which parts do you want to watercool? Cpu is standard, graphics tends to follow shortly afterwards. Chipset is the next one, but rarer, and ram is rarer still.

Are you overclocking, and if so how high do you want to overclock? This will answer the question of whether you need a seperate loop for the graphics cards, along with whether you're actually getting two 295s.


Consider evga graphics cards, where the warranty is fine even if you watercool them, and ek blocks to go with. Significantly cheaper than the factory watercooled, and you can use your own choice of tim so likely to be a bit better.

The laing ddc 18W pump with xspc reservoir top is the standard choice for most people, with good reason. It's very good, particularly with multiple blocks. Ek supreme gets my vote for i7 waterblock but there are some other popular ones too. I like ek blocks in general, but for your ram (not needed, or sensible, but I'm going to watercool mine) it's a mips block.

Radiators are the biggest issue. They're massive. Are you aiming to keep them internal? A good dual radiator can cope with an i7, just about. You want a triple for it really. To cool two 295s in their own loop, a triple might do it but someone else would have to confirm. Everything in one loop is going to need a lot of cooling surface area to keep temperatures down, again assuming you're overclocking at least the processor. What case do you have?

Cases vary in how easy they are to mount radiators in. My one will hold a double, two 120s stacked and if absolutely needed a third 120. That's my lot without external radiators, and my case is quite big :(
 
You've linked to a £400 water cooled 285 to save 200 pounds? What on earth is your reasoning, and where have you got 200 quid saving from?
 
Thanks for the quick responses, guys. (I want to get this stuff ordered asap as I hate having a high-spec PC and being unable to game on it :p )

That Corsair H50 looks very interesting. Would I be right in assuming it's an entirely stand-alone unit? (i.e. You don't need any other watercooling gadgets and don't need to maintain it/drain it/etc/etc) If so, I'd be quite interested in that.

And JonJ678: See my sig for my current rig. I was planning to keep the original Raptors in my P182 and sell that system, then upgrade to 300GB Raptors and the HAF 932 case. I also currently have a BFG GTX295 (air cooled) but I'm thinking I'll sell it in exchange for the liquid-cooled edition. You said "two 295s will make watercooling a hideous nightmare" - why is this? I would imagine that having two of those BFG H20C cards in SLi would fit in a case considerably better than two with enormous fans, and would run at a better temperature.

I want to watercool my CPU (first and foremost), followed by the GFX cards. Everything else will still be air cooled.

The HAF 932 case I plan to get is pretty damn big so I imagine I might be able to fit a radiator inside, but if there's no disadvantage to keeping it on the floor beside the computer I'll just do that.
 
Just get Corsair H50 because it excellent performance and even cheaper and finally very easy fast installation with more roomy space inside the case to free the memory ram space - it brilliant and can cope with 4Ghz with lowest temperature (depend on your case and room temp) Mine is 78C max.
 
bulldog147 said:
Just get Corsair H50 because it excellent performance and even cheaper and finally very easy fast installation with more roomy space inside the case to free the memory ram space - it brilliant and can cope with 4Ghz with lowest temperature (depend on your case and room temp) Mine is 78C max.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering if it would fit okay with the case I'm thinking of getting... I have a suspicion it has bigger-than-normal extractor fans.

If I bought the watercooled version of the 295, what would I need to buy with it to get it to work?
 
jon

If the h50 can cool an overclocked i7 (if) then surely a 240 set up will do a better job? With capacity to spare?

Now my mobo is here i'm back to thinking about mounting a 240 rad in the roof. However if the h50 does a good job then it'll be a lot easier to mount it's 120 rad.
 
I'm pretty certain a 240 with a reasonable pump does a lot better than the corsair, but it costs more. I won't know for certain until my ram gets here and the i7 system is running.

The reason two 295s will make it a nightmare is that the amount of heat dumped into the loop will be ridiculous, so the radiators required will also have to be ridiculous. I'm sure there's an ek waterblock out for the 295, it would be a lot cheaper to buy and fit that than to sell the current one (at an inevitable loss) and then buy one with the block already attached. Loads cheaper.

Don't get two 3-00gb raptors. They've got nothing on ssds, I believe a vertex beats them in most areas and two thrash them.

Much as the corsair system is attracting a lot of love, there's just no way it makes sense if the rest of the system is water cooled. Stick a quality waterblock on the processor instead and just connect it to the rest of the loop. Sealed units worry me, no way to refill them when the water inevitably evaporates through the tubing.

External radiators work better, as they always get cool air and have no back pressure. However they're not as tidy. If my current 240 and 120 can't cope with my i7 I'm going to have to get an external radiator, but I'm really hoping to avoid it.

The HAF fits a triple in the roof, and I think a 120 in the base without modding. That won't cool two 295s and an i7, but it will cope with an i7 and one 295 if you're not overclocking it much
 
Can I not connect two radiators in the system (one after the water's passed through the GPUs, and another after the CPU)?

As I really don't know what I should order, could you please advise on some specific products (including tubes/connects/liquids etc)? I don't trust myself to choose the right components.


{I've noticed a lot of anti-corrosion liquid but no distilled water. Am I to assume that's because 'water boiled in a kettle' is all I need to make it distilled?}
 
The water in the loop is all the same temperature. To within a degree anyway, you don't heat the water with one part then pass it through a radiator, it just doesn't work like that. Even if everyone seems to assume it will do. You need radiators capable of removing the same amount of heat as the components are putting in.

A 240 radiator is the minimum just for an i7. A 295 throws out more heat than an i7. Therefore, two 295s and an i7 need more than two triple radiators. This is why it is difficult to cool two of these cards, you need a beast of a radiator set up.

Don't order anything until we've worked out what you're doing with radiators, specifically how many, which and where they're going. Tubes you want 7/16" tubing, 1/2" barbs and 1/2" jubilee clips. Feel free to research this, but it's almost certainly what you'll decide to use.

No, that's boiled water. Distilled water would be boiled in a kettle, then the steam condensed on something then collected in a bottle. You put it in cars, so you buy it from garages. About 60p to £1.20 a litre. I used a bottle of feser 1, and it filled all my blocks with nasty blue gunk which I was enraged by. I no longer use it.

As long as there's no aluminium in the loop you don't really need to worry about corrosion. If you must do UV lights then it's quite important to use a biocide, pt nuke, copper sulphate, a piece of silver are the most common. I'm using none because I don't really believe it's needed, perhaps I'll be proved wrong a few months down the line.
 
Jon, thanks for the fast response. Will you be online a while longer (or anytime tomorrow)? Would love to know what to order by the weekend.

I see what you're saying about the radiators. I suppose I could keep the GTX295's on air - if the water-cooled CPU is a sealed unit then that should protect it from the heat coming off the cards. Of course, that brings up the issue of 'is it worth setting up water cooling just for the sake of the CPU?'

What do major gamers generally do in this situation? If there is some mega-super-radiator(s) which could handle dual 295's and still allow me to overclock my 920 to about 4.5GHz then I would at least consider going down that road if you could give me a rough idea of price and practicality. Keep in mind I haven't ordered the new case and PSU yet, so that could still change if it needed to.

My main concern is getting something that is futureproof and stable. With a system that can cool a 4.5GHz 920 and dual 295's I know I won't need to spend any more money on my computer for years. That is ultimately my intention here: a damn good rig that I'll only need to open every now and then to give it some dusting.
 
I daresay I'll be here for a while yet, no worries there. Will be offline at some point while I test some hardware, but doubt it'll take long.

295s on air would work, yeah. Removed the benefit of having a quiet computer. I'd check with the graphics section if there's any point whatsoever to using two of them, I don't think there is but don't know for sure. I'd expect quad sli to be poorly implemented.

As I'm not even a minor gamer, I can only guess. Most people use two separate loops, one for cpu and one for graphics card. This lets you run the graphics card loop at 60 degree or so while the cpu loop is much cooler, as graphics cards generally don't mind heat so much. The Silverstone Tj07 takes a quad and I think a double as well in the base, so is rather loved by watercoolers. This may be a better call than the HAF, otherwise an external radiator box may be the only option.

I hope you realise 4.5ghz on the i7 is far from certain, there's very few of those around at 24/7 clocks. I'm aiming at 4ghz for my 24/7 working clockspeed.

Futureproof. Little sigh. No such thing in this field I'm afraid. A computer that will still shred anything in years to come is achievable though, everyone out there with a q6600 from launch can attest to that. I'm settling into an upgrade cycle myself after initially trying to set up one massive computer that would last for years. I'm just finishing the watercooling and case soundproofing, about to start changing the motherboard/ram/processor to an x58 system. Somewhat resigned to playing with it for years to come, and don't really mind.

Life will be easier if you stick with one 295 I think, as well as much cheaper. A quad and a dual would cool an i7 and a 295 rather well, if in single loop or dual I think. I'm not best placed to guess at the heat thrown out by graphics card's I'm afraid, as I'm not a gamer and haven't fitted a block to my i7 yet. I can certainly make educated guesses.
 
as for distilled water llyods pharmacy do purified water which is basically the same for £3.80 a gallon
This what i use in my loop with anti corosion fluid as i have a mix of copper and aluminium.
As for the components you are looking to cool i think the suggestion of having two loops would be the ideal soloution in your case.
One loop just for the cpu and the second loop for the gtx 295's
As for the radiators you are going to need for the i7 a 240 rad will be minimum
as for the gtx 295's i think either 2x 360mm rads or better still 2x 480mm rads
 
I'm trying to draw this all up in my head.

Let's pretend for the moment that I'm a millionnaire and I want the best possible cooling solution, which incorporates two loops (one for GFX and one for CPU) - ideally something which can avoid corrosion and other nasty things. The quieter the case, the better. :)

Now, in this magical world of unlimited funds I will pay you a million pounds to write me a list of exactly the components I need, along with a rough price guide.

Would anyone like to volunteer for the task? :) (If by some fluke I do actually win the lottery this weekend I'll give you the million - if not I could always send you a Corsair Dominator Airflow for your troubles!)
 
I'm going to interpret that as best possible without using peltiers, because I'm pretty sure you don't want to go down that road just now.

You'd want external radiators. Either a second box with just radiators in, two tubes and a power cable joining it to the pc, or what I'm going to do eventually. I like the idea of two triple or quad radiators, with shrouds and fans either side, inside wooden or aluminium casing. Idea is to look similar to floorstanding speakers. I think this is the ideal, since a radiator box looks ugly to me yet floorstanding radiators somehow don't.

More usefully, you want as many thermochill or feser radiators as you can fit in the case or near the case. sir-les-mp reckons a total of 8 fans, so four 240 radiators, two quad radiators. Basically you really don't want a second 295 throwing it's heat into the system, if you just have one you can keep it internal with the TJ07.

18W laing ddc with xspc reservoir top, one if one loop, otherwise you'll need two. These are 70 quid a throw but very good. Ek supreme cpu block with backplate, and ek supreme 295gtx full cover block, at around 40 quid for the former and I don't know for the latter.

Then you need two barbs per item and a fair length of 7/16 tubing. Barbs are a couple of quid each, tubing is a couple of quid a meter. Tygon is the best and worth the premium, it doesn't kink. Jubilee clips will be about 5 pence each, one per barb. And with that, you'd be done. Radiator placement is the hard bit
 
Gracias. :)

Let's say I go with external radiators - what sort of size are we talking? I noticed OCuk sell a 'radbox' which - judging from the picture - looks like it could hold 4 decent size radiators. My case is all black so I'd be happy to buy that and stick 4 black radiators in it if that would work/fit?
 
Not what I meant by radbox. That's something you screw a single 120 or 240 radiator to, in order to hang it off the back of your case. A radbox is generally a normal pc case which you've drilled holes into and just filled with radiators, and occasionally a pump and power supply.

What's your current case? The TJ07 is the easiest option for this, but there are others. Almost any big case can have holes cut in it after all. I'm using the akasa omega, which so far I haven't had to cut any holes in at all. Starting to run out of space though, considering hanging radiators off the back now.

You could instead just sit one on your desk with fans on both sides, but it wouldn't be very tidy.
 
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