Watercooling for a relatively uneducated person...

[paradigm]

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not completely devoid of watercooling experience, I've helped configure and repair friends systems before (back in the days when we were always up to date with technology, running beyond the norm, I'm talking pre Core 2 days here and anywhere far as back as running dual Celeron 400MHz in an Abit BP6). But one thing I've never really done is tweak every single aspect of a watercooling system. Personally I was always a phase-change guy, and have owned my share of vapochills and prometheas.

Previous dabbles with (other peoples) watercooling systems have always been simple 120.1 or 120.2 affairs with a simple pump/res combo and whatever barbs/fittings came with the thing. It was also always plexi based blocks (which by the way always seem to crack, so I'd prefer to stay away from those), and hose size is also something I'm not exactly au fait with the differences and the repercussions of making an ill-formed decision.

I know which blocks (EK blocks) fit my board, CPU and cards, but that's about it (EK-FB ASUS X58 for the board, EK-MOSFET ASUS X58 KIT for the PWR MOSFETs). What I really need is some advice as to what rad (or rads) to fit, what kind of res, pump, and crucially tubing and fittings to use!

My ultimate aim is to have the CPU and GPU cooled more aggressively than how they are currently cooled (stock reference cooler for the GPU which idles at 33ºc, and Antec Kuhler 620 for the CPU which idles between 30ºc and 35ºc with loads of around 70ºc), noise isn't really a concern, but obviously the quieter the better.

I'm shoving this in my Lian-Li PC-A71F (full tower), so plenty of space. And I've got the optional top panel for a 120.3 rad on its way.

So, ideas, thoughts, ramblings?

Cheers guys.

 

[SeraphX]

how much are you planning on spending? more money buys better temps for the most part.

 

[paradigm]

I'm really not sure. I've had to source the top panel from the US, spending as much on postage as the item cost in the first place! I'm not adversed to spending on the system, but I've got no idea how much a typical loop will cost anyway, so I'm all ears!

Obviously, spending on items that are future proof (res, pump, rads, tubing, fixings etc) is better than spending a fortunte on one use items like the mobo blocks.

 

[SeraphX]

hmm ok,

i'd go with this for starters, you can obviously get even more for you money if you buy 2nd hand from the MM.

as for Radiators, reservoirs etc etc, i went with XSPC for my 360 Rad, it's does the job nicely for quite a good price, other bigger rads are obviously better but bang for buck, it does the job,

Reservoirs, they all do the same job, so thats pretty much down to your personal preference.

Fittings, some people say Comp fittings, i say Barbs, comp fittings are very expensive ( for the best ones ) but barbs do exactly the same job, unless your going for a show build

as for tubing, not overly sure, tygon is one of the best but ouch it's pricey, the 7/16 tubing from XSPC matched to some 3/8 Barbs makes for a good simple system that wont ever leak, it's not the best looking but it does the job

 

[paradigm]

I do tend to like things to look good as well as perform, so I'm not against spending just to get "pretty", as long as it doesn't harm the performance. For instance, here is my build before I changed to i7.

Would running a single 120.1 rad in the loop also help (in addition to the 120.3), or would it just hinder flow for no real gain?

I was thinking about using a bay res (although mounted a few mm back to keep the normal front plates in place (don't want to actually see it from the front of the case), are they worth the money?

Also, bleeding/fillport? I know I need to bleed from the highest point in the system, but what's the best way to go about it? Should I be adding a fitting at the highest point specifically for bleeding/filling?

 

[SeraphX]

if your machine is currently in your sig with a single 6950 then i'd just stick with a single 360 rad, adding a 120 wouldn't do much.

Bay reservoirs work fine, bit more fiddly to fill and drain but it's not too hard lol, bleeding is easy just play with tilting your case this way and that.

Not overly sure on fillports, i filled my loop from the drive bay res, simple enough you just need to allow slightly more tubing so you can slide it out a little ways

 

[Frozennova]

Seraphs list looks good however a couple of things I would change.

Get an after market top for the D5 they make a world of difference to flow rates and ease of tube routing.

Ditch the EK rad and get something that performs better, while good for the money the Blackice SR-1 and Thermochill rads perform better.

I'm using a bay res/pump combo myself and its easy enough to fill and drain. Just leave enough tubing to pull it fowards to give access to the fill port, to drain it I take the fill port cap off and tilt the system fowards over the bath or a sink.

1/2" barbs and 7/16" tubing gives a very tight fit for that piece of mind, generally you have to warm the tubing in hot water to get it on and cut it off.

Compressions are nice but be sure to buy quality items such as EK or Bitspower, both of which are an expensive item.

Don't use premix coolants they're not worth the money, distilled water, purified water or deionized water are much cheaper and do the job equally well when combined with a silver kill coil. Distilled/purfied can be found at your local chemist for £3 or so for 5 litres, or battery top-up water from halfords. If you want to use dyes, Mayhems dye is highly recommended by myself and RJKoneill although you may have difficulty sourcing any as he stopped producing it at the beggining of the year.

Anyway enough of the rambling and I hope I've covered everything.

 

[Scon]

I'd be inclined to get a much better rad, something like a XSPC RX or thermochill rad, they look better aswell as giving far better performance. I used to own one of those rads and always wished i had saved up that little bit longer to get a proper one.

There are other places that have much more variety in their water cooling products which give you more of a choice, which is good if you care about the aesthetics.

I'll start with the pump, the D5 is a must really for any proper WC build due it's huge output, reliability and capability to add more rads and blocks to the loop as you wish without flow dropping that much.

Water blocks, the EK HF series seem perform very well, and look pretty good too. Have a look at the all black ones, they look sweet and would work well with your setup.

Tubing wise you got to decide what colour scheme you want, them you got to decide whether you want the tubing or the coolant to be that desired colour. Nowadays people always recommend going coloured tubing with distilled water and a kill coil as that limits chances of staining, blockages and colour fade.

Rads, as i said before go the deepest as possible, 60mm is the standard for the big boys these days and is the best option. Just check you have enough room inside, you'll need 60mm for the rad +25mm for the fans. As long as that doesn't entrude on your RAM or cpu area you will be fine.

Fans, Gentle typhoons are usually regarded as the best noise/performance these days, and don't look too bad either unlike those horrid noctuas. don't cheap out on th fans, what's the point in spending £300 on bits then whacking £9 of cheap fans on the rads that will rattle after 3 months. Whatever fans you buy, get a fan controller so you can adjust their noise output.

Reservoirs, more of a personal choice this one, i hate those cylinder type ones as they are a pain to install, a pain to fill and a pain to drain! They do look good though and with coloured coolant they really finish off a neat rig. The other option is drive bay res, you could even get a combo res and whack the D5 in that if you are struggling for space to put the pump, or if it will look neater with the pump in the drive bay.

Fittings, you said you want looks, so it's compressions all the way, go for the new XSPC ones, they have a groove that you can put a coin in to tighten (makes things a hell of a lot easier when installing) , they are good quality and don't look bad at all either. I suppose if you really wanted you could go with Bitspower fittings, they do look the nuts but have a sever price tag to go with. If you are still reading this, i salute you and good luck.

 

[paradigm]

Cheers guys, read it all and lots to mull over.

With regards to a "custom top" for the D5, is there anything in particular I should be googling for (a name perhaps)?

I've got over 140mm of space between the top panel and the top-edge of the motherboard, so space certainly isn't an issue.

With regards to coloured tubing, how can you tell if there are air bubbles in the system (assuming the tubing is opaque)?

And is there a definitive guide to bleeding?

Cheers

 

[SeraphX]

Fans, Gentle typhoons are usually regarded as the best noise/performance these days, and don't look too bad either unlike those horrid noctuas. don't cheap out on th fans, what's the point in spending £300 on bits then whacking £9 of cheap fans on the rads that will rattle after 3 months. Whatever fans you buy, get a fan controller so you can adjust their noise output.

Yate loons are also very good for the money

Cheers guys, read it all and lots to mull over.

With regards to a "custom top" for the D5, is there anything in particular I should be googling for (a name perhaps)?

I've got over 140mm of space between the top panel and the top-edge of the motherboard, so space certainly isn't an issue.

With regards to coloured tubing, how can you tell if there are air bubbles in the system (assuming the tubing is opaque)?

And is there a definitive guide to bleeding?

Cheers

pretty sure EK do a custom top for a D5 or look on the bay or MM, heck think i might have one laying about ( will trust ya if i find it )

go for clear tubing tbh if you want colored fluid then look at Mayhems dye, avoid Feser and associated gunk, it's trash and will clog your loop with snatchgunk lol

definitive guide to bleeding? not that i know of lol

 

[Frozennova]

Bleeding your loop is a case of tilting your case with the pump running until you stop getting big wads of air coming through the system, I believe its the EK X-Top your looking for to pair with the D5

 

[Scon]

Yate loons are also very good for the money

For the money, yes. But there are MUCH better for a bit more.

go for clear tubing tbh if you want colored fluid then look at Mayhems dye, avoid Feser and associated gunk, it's trash and will clog your loop with snatchgunk lol

Mayhems was in a car crash and has lost his memory so that isn't an option. It's a shame as his dye was the only stuff i trusted.

Yeah, whatever you do don't buy fesser. without mayhems the only real safe option is coloured tubing. I think white tubing would look immense in your setup, even better if you got your case painted black

 

[Scon]

You have 140mm

Deffo get a baddass 60mm rad with push pull fans on low RPM, that will be heavenly

 

[rjk]

my honest opinion,

dont bother watercooling the motherboard.
i have done my last two boards [rampage II and UD7] and the gains were poor.
there was more of an improvement with the UD7 but still, not really worth the outlay.

i think it was W3bbo who agreed with my findings when he said that his watercooled X58 UD5 just added heat into the loop and nothing more.

i dont even think that cooling the NB is warranted in most instances. my attitude has changed a lot towards watercooling recently.
whilst aesthetics are important [lets face it, it does look epic] it is all about performance for me at the moment. my current loop layout works so well, i wouldnt even consider changing it.

depending on how much you are willint to spend, there is a lot of d5/res combos appearing, most notably the model from Koolance. these are good drive bay reservoirs that fit one or two d5 pumps in the rear.
easy bleeding and easy filling and they look good, but they are expensive due to how they are manufactured.

depends what it is exactly you want.

is this a silence/performance orientated build or just looking to try out WC?

 

[paradigm]

Well I know it's cliché'd but I'm going for red tubing (or dye if a suitable dye can still be found these days?) to match the sata cables (of which there are now 8, all red), and the lighting (not shown in pic above, that's my old Q6600 hardware in the case).

The spec is indeed as per my sig, in the above pictured case (hence the room available overhead!).

So 6 fans on the rad then? RPM? Voltage?

depends what it is exactly you want.

is this a silence/performance orientated build or just looking to try out WC?

It's more than "trying out WC" (or "testing the water" badum tish), I've wanted to go for a custom watercooled setup for years, but never really had the time, money or inclination to actually get around to doing it.

As for the board, the current passive heatsink/heatpipe setup gets increcibly hot, burning to the skin pretty much. Would it be worth a 2nd loop with a single 120 or 140 rad for that? The case has the space available.

Noise isn't really a concern as I said before, but I certainly want some of the gains to be had from moving away from air, so a reduction in overall noise would be nice (with added cooling capacity over air / aill-in-one WC), but I'm certainly not after (nor want) silent.

 

[Scon]

Well I know it's cliché'd but I'm going for red tubing (or dye if a suitable dye can still be found these days?) to match the sata cables (of which there are now 8, all red), and the lighting (not shown in pic above, that's my old Q6600 hardware in the case).

The spec is indeed as per my sig, in the above pictured case (hence the room available overhead!).

So 6 fans on the rad then? RPM? Voltage?



It's more than "trying out WC" (or "testing the water" badum tish), I've wanted to go for a custom watercooled setup for years, but never really had the time, money or inclination to actually get around to doing it.

As for the board, the current passive heatsink/heatpipe setup gets increcibly hot, burning to the skin pretty much. Would it be worth a 2nd loop with a single 120 or 140 rad for that? The case has the space available.

As said, Mayhems die is no more. There are not any alternatives i would recommend.

Get some deep red tubing (search around) it will look good.

Deffo 12v, rpm depends on what you want, 1050 rpm will be whisper quiet yet give good results with the right rad but 1600rpm will be noticable however the performance cannot be ignored. If you go gentle typhoons, get the 1400rpm versions, and put them on a fan controller if you want some super silence whilst watching a movie for eg.

It's deffo not worth a seperate loop for the mobo. As you are on x58 i would suggest a mobo block. rjk said they don't help much, just dump heat into the loop which is kinda the point as they do get hot and without a heatsink on the cpu wafting air over them they will get hot, especially when ramping up the clocks. The blocks look good too, get some EK ones.

 

[rjk]

too much is made of fans performance.

in my opinion ANY fans on a decent fan controller will allow you to make good use of watercooling radiators.
i have used the main names, gentle typhoons, yates, gelids, xigmateks, sharkoons etc and they are all decent enough. yes there are differences in performance, but most people with watercooling are like myself. get a decent controller like something made by lamptron or similar and run the fans at just enough to make them rotate upon startup.
using shrouds and 38mm fans is all well and good but it makes so little difference, you may as well just choose something you think looks good and stick it on a good controller.

you dont need 6 fans on your rad at all. three good fans would do the job.

the problem with second loops is the expense of a 2nd pump/res. if you plan on that then by all means go for it but do SERIOUSLY consider one of the dual loop koolance reservoirs. this way you will have to buy one res and it will keep the cost of components down.

 

[Scon]

you dont need 6 fans on your rad at all. three good fans would do the job.

I don't disagree that 3 fans isn't enough, bit if you had that much space then why not? It will allow for lower rpm therfor quieter operation. He'd be mad not to.

 

[JeffyB]

I agree with rjkoneill, mobo blocks just dump a lot of heat into your loop for very little discernible gain in overclocking, only use if you really like the aesthetic of them. Bear in mind your case temps will plummet when you watercool as well which should help keep those mobo heatsinks cooler anyway.

Radiator wise i'd opt for a lower fpi to keep the noise down, one of these would seve you well.
SR1-360
Pa120.3
rx360

All great performers at a wide range of fan rpm, i chose the sr1 as hwlabs build is second to none and the sr1 is the absolute low rpm fan king if you looking for near silent running.

Pump wise the d5 is a solid pump, i have one on speed 2 and it's near inaudible as well. If i were buying now i would look at the mcp35x with the optional restop though, it's getting amazing reviews.

Tubing, i only use Primochill primoflex pro LRT, great colours and the best bend radius of any hose out there without kinking. It also does not leech like a lot of the other hose.

Blocks, well i love ek blocks and use full nickel on my cpu and nickel acetal on the gpu and will always recommend the supreme hf as imo it's still the best block out there and even better with the new simple mounting kit.

 

[w3bbo]

...i think it was W3bbo who agreed with my findings when he said that his watercooled X58 UD5 just added heat into the loop and nothing more.

Yup, I found watercooling the NB was a waste of time and effort. It looks pretty but little more. Unless you are pumping excessive amounts of voltage then there really is no physical need to cool it down over what stock can handle.