I have ordered my water cooling kit

no_1_dave

no_1_dave

no_1_dave

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Joined
7 Jul 2004
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Gloucester
Corsair Obsidian 700D Full Tower Case

EK Supreme i7 High FlowClear Top CPU Water Block
2 x EK GTX 470 Full Cover VGA Water Block - Nickel Plexi
2 x EK GTX 470 Backplate - Nickel
Phobya Variable SLI VGA Connector 1 Slot SLI

EK CoolStream Radiator XT 360 (120.3)
EK CoolStream Radiator XT 120 (120.1)
4 x Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 120mm Fan

EK Multioption Reservoir X2 150 Advanced
Swiftech MCP655 Laing D5 Vario Water Pump
EK D5 X-Top - Black Acetal G1/4" Rev2

3 x Fluid XP+ Ultra with z-7 Clear 944ml (32oz)
3 Metres Masterkleer tubing PVC 13/10mm (3/8"ID) UV-active white
20 x TFC Compression Fitting G1/4" Thread 3/8" ID/1/2" OD - High Flow

I plan to put the 120.3 rad at the top exhaust as the main rad
Then the 120.1 rad as a rear intake to cool the water a bit after the CPU but before the 470s.

I hope this works as its my first time :confused:
What do you think?
 
That you'll regret buying ek radiators, and that the d5 is a poor choice for your loop. Acrylic is too fragile for waterblocks imo/e, acetal all the way.

You dont appear to have researched things before buying. Good luck.
 
JonJ678 said:
That you'll regret buying ek radiators, and that the d5 is a poor choice for your loop. Acrylic is too fragile for waterblocks imo/e, acetal all the way.

You dont appear to have researched things before buying. Good luck.
Click to expand...

I did a lot of research and asked on here (with only one or two replys).
I was advised the ek rad's are good, just not top of the range and I was on a budget.
Why is Acrylic too fragile? I'll probably only have the 470s a year to 18 months anyway...
Why was the D5 with top not a good choice? What would you suggest? It would be nice to know so I can change if I need to before the weekend bearing in mind i'm at work from now till 6ish with no internet access.
 
JonJ678 said:
That you'll regret buying ek radiators, and that the d5 is a poor choice for your loop. Acrylic is too fragile for waterblocks imo/e, acetal all the way.

You dont appear to have researched things before buying. Good luck.
Click to expand...

I understand what you've said about the EK radiators, as they aren't top of the range like the Thermochill radiators.

But what is wrong with the plexi on a waterblock? A lot of people seem to use it, so why is it a huge problem? Also, why is the D5 not a good pump? As far as I was aware, there is nothing wrong with the D5 pump. Isn't it the one of the best DC pump you can buy?

Just curious as to what you have to say JonJ, as I am looking at the same pump and the nickel/plexi blocks for my setup when I get round to it.

I'm only basing what I'm asking on what I've read about watercooling so far, so please don't shoot me down.
 
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He says the D5 is a poor choice because the D5 is sometimes touted as a block to give high flows against a low system pressure. You have a cpu block, 2 gpu blocks and 2 rads in your system so *could* be described as a high resistance loop and therefore more suited to a pump like the 18W DDC which is more suited to high resistance loops. It is always hard to say for sure though as these days allot of components are designed with low resistance so its not so cut and dried to just tot up the number of components in a loop.

Tbh though, I don't think you will have a problem with the D5 myself, though you may have to run it at its higher speeds, and thus create more noise.

Plexi has been shown to develop fatigue cracks around the port threads. How long these take to appear is very hard to estimate. The cracks come from cyclic thermal expansion. With plexi these cracks are pretty obvious as they are visible in the clear plastic. Acetal looks to be a more ductile material and so *may* take longer to develop these cracks. But being black, when they do appear you won't be able to easily see them anyway, so I remain to be convinced that acetal is the order of magnitude better than plexi as most appear to think it is. I don't see plexi being that much of an issue myself, especially on a full cover gpu block as you are likely to ditch it after a couple of years anyway when you upgrade.

BTW is all this gear coming from OCUK? If so I'd be interested to hear if they supply your tube as either a single 3m length or 3x 1m chopped lengths. Also keep an eye on whether the res they supply actually is the advanced version. A chap on here bought the 250 advanced recently and got a bog standard old design delivered, he didn't seem bothered about it though, though I would have been.
 
Ah ok. Thanks for the information Bubo. That's good to hear :)

I didn't know that about the D5, but I haven't read about anyone actually having problems with it anywhere. I know Rich has one, and he doesn't appear to have any problems. But hey, what do I know :p
 
D5 is great for simpler loops and i think it's quieter. If your just cooling a cpu and 1 graphics card it's great beyond that i'd be looking at a ddc as the head pressure is greater which is more important on a higher restriction loop than flow rate. I noticed a big drop in flow rate when i added my gpu, the cyclone (not good to have but i kinda liked it) disappeared from my res!
 
It has a much higher flow rate but lower head pressure, so in a restrictive loop the ddc will have a higher flow due to the pressure drop on the d5.
 
I have a Laing D5 serving the following and it manages to pump everything round the loop to sufficiently cool it even at the low speed setting. That said I'm using 1/2" ID tubing and it's a fairly simple loop. This is my first and only WC loop so I don't have anything to compare it to.

5970 with EK block
Q9550 with EK supreme Hi flow copper block
Swifttech MCR 320 rad
Swiftech MCR 240 rad
 
Sli or crossfire + cpu setup is probably about where the d5 will drop off. Will try to find the threads i read about it.
 
Its only a problem if it is such that the central vortex drags air back in to the loop. Apart from that there is nothing to worry about.
 
Interesting for sure. You've made me have a little think about my setup that I am planning :D

I was going to go for a D5 Vario, but thinking about it now, I might be tempted to SLI in future, so maybe the DDC will work better :)

Thanks for the help.

As for no 1 dave's parts, they still look good mate :)

I hope you enjoy your watercooling setup :)
 
Thanks for the replys

I had the swirl when I first set up my CPU loop, but it disappeared after a short time along with the condensation affect that appeared on the inside of the res (EK250). Within a day it looked like the res was empty it was so calm in there. Is that preferable?
 
What you describe is fairly natural. The initial swirling would have been made more obvious as air bubbles are bled from other parts of the loop and get back to the res, some of which will be dragged back for another go round the loop. Eventually you should be left with a swirl of sorts but without the air bubbles spinning in it. It shouldn't actualy be dead calm though, unless the 250 res is filled to near the top then it won't move much mainly due to the large column of water.
 
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