Estimates?!

Fanaticjam

Fanaticjam

Fanaticjam

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25 Sep 2011
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Hey all =]

I'm looking to start water-cooling in the new year if I have the cash, I'm totally new to it and I'm wondering what sort of cost I'd be looking at for it?

I'm asking now as I'm probably going to buy a new case soonish and need to know whether water-cooling is actually for me financially!

As to what case I get: time will tell!


So, would anyone be able to give me an estimate as to what sort of cost the following set ups would be, and any idea of actual components would be great, though not expected! Any advice on PC case also appreciated, mainly looking at NZXT Phantom and Fractal Define XL at the moment!

1: Just CPU
2: CPU + 1 GPU
3: CPU + 2 GPU's

Colour coded set ups ofc. (: (If you're really bored, feel free to spec me a case + cooling to go with my Tracer ram (Green/Red ver) :D )
One last thing; is it worth considering cooling mobo/ram as I've heard that is possible?

Thanks! :D
 
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you can pay anything from about £100 to £500 depending on how important looks are to you and whether you want to go with lots of smaller rads that all fit inside a case or one massive external rad

I have the phantom and it's a brilliant case in general but doesn't fit a lot of raddage internally so I've gone with a large external mounted to the back my desk
 
Would need to have it all internally mounted, I've seen rear mounted rads and they really don't appeal to me!

I was thinking you could get a very decent amount of airflow if you had a rad side mounted long the bottom so it's fans line up with the two on the side; then mod the other side to have two outflow fans... What do you reckon? :D

Maybe with that in mind I should just stick to CPU? What sort of price am I looking at for that?
 
Just cpu you'd be looking in the region of £150 for a decent setup, £100 for budget loop and £200+ for the very high end.
 
It depends if you need to buy a case or not tbh. For top end on dual cards no cpu you'd be looking around the £400 mark yes.

For cases have a peak at the switch 810, shinobi xl and elysium, all will have the rad space you need at £150 & under.
 
I was thinking the waterblocks for GPU would be the main cost!

The case I am buying soon and not taking that into account for watercooling costs.

Cards are GTX 670 Windforce btw, so they already have pretty decent cooling, might not even be worth it taking that into mind?
 
When I watercooled my old 670 Winforce I found the only benefit to be noise reduction, didn't offer me anything on the OC side of things as with a custom fan profile the card wouldn't go above the 70c threshold. I would say do it regardless :D

The 670 Windforce uses 680 full cover blocks, looking around £80 each for those.
 
Ahhh tempting as it is I don't think I could justify it to even myself if performance was almost the same... Need to buy lenses for my camera and a bike to get to uni etc :P
 
Thats fine, but it wouldn't hurt to buy a case that can house enough radiator space incase you change your mind in the future :)

Steal a bike and break some milk bottles for lenses :p
 
I reckon the Phantom could house two if needed, what do you think? (:

As for stealing a bike, had that option not too long ago, walking home at 4am, thirty minute walk still and I saw a sloppily locked one I could have nabbed... :P Wasn't worth the Karma I think though :)
 
Haha fair play :)

The Phantoms DO hold a decent amount of radiator, though I think the majority requires some level of modding, do a little googling, you're bound to find some project logs telling you what modding is required should you choose the Phantom.
 
Aye, been looking, I have a nice idea for a bot mounted rad by removing the HDD bays (should have JUST enough room for all my drives!)

Really looking forward to modding the case though, will be the first time I've tried anything like it! I'm fairly practical, so I should be okay at it, just might need more tools D:
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Corsair Professional Series AX850 High Performance 850W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply (CMPSU-850AXUK) £154.99
1 x NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Black £109.98
1 x Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850/AX750/AX650 Individually Sleeved Modular Cables - Red (CP-8920012) £52.99
1 x XSPC RayStorm CPU WaterBlock (Intel) £49.98
1 x Hardware Labs Black ICE Radiator GT Stealth 240 £35.99
1 x Foam Silencing Kit - NZXT Phantom Cases £29.99
1 x BitFenix Spectre PRO 230mm Green LED - Black £16.99
2 x BitFenix Spectre PRO 200mm Green LED - Black £14.99 (£29.98)
1 x Mayhems Pastel - Mint Green Coolant 1L £14.99
1 x BitFenix Spectre PRO 140mm Green LED - Black £13.99
3 x BitFenix Spectre PRO 120mm Fan Green LED - Black £11.99 (£35.97)
4 x Acousti Ultra-Soft Arrowhead Fan Mounts - 8 Pack £3.59 (£14.36)
Total : £576.68 (includes shipping : £13.75).





Sooo... What else would I need? :D Wish they had green cables for psu.. :[

Pump and tubing, I guess thin as possible tubing for maximum speed? And a reservoir? No idea what I would need. If anyone could recommend a pump that'd be cool!
 
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Given that case you using doesn't have a window your spending a a ton of cash on superfluous items like red aleeved cables, green fans and green coolant. Also thats a huge psu your buying are sure you're going to need all of that? If your building an overclocked system with a single high end video card the 650 watt model in that range would more then surfice. If you want a green theme invest in some green cold cathodes or green led strips.

Noise reduction foam..............I had this in my old case it works to a point and is for keeping hard drive rumble to a quite hum but I wouldn't use it again. It's expensive , increases the twmlreturea inside your case, adds a ton weight and you can better results by hooking your cans up to a fan controller.
 
Freddie1980 said:
Given that case you using doesn't have a window your spending a a ton of cash on superfluous items like red aleeved cables, green fans and green coolant. Also thats a huge psu your buying are sure you're going to need all of that? If your building an overclocked system with a single high end video card the 650 watt model in that range would more then surfice. If you want a green theme invest in some green cold cathodes or green led strips.

Noise reduction foam..............I had this in my old case it works to a point and is for keeping hard drive rumble to a quite hum but I wouldn't use it again. It's expensive , increases the twmlreturea inside your case, adds a ton weight and you can better results by hooking your cans up to a fan controller.
Click to expand...

DSC_0654.jpg


Hmmm... I guess the window ain't the largest :/

The PSU I wanted advice about, the idea of it is to power atleast cpu watercooled, and 2 670's watercooled(Unlikely I will WC them, but if I change my mind it'd be great to not have to upgrade the PSU another 100 watts if I needed that extra power, among the all the other stuff in the case, 3 SSD 3/2 HDD.

Although I'm only likely to add watercooling to the cpu, I am intending to sli with this rig though, although I'm starting to think I won't be able to afford it until mid next year, so might be worth getting PSU then, although I do want the sexy cables now :P


The foam increases the what inside your case? :D Yeah I guess it's overkill, I jsut want the PC to be silent at night due to a combo of good fans and whatever else... And if it helps in the day than that's great too
 
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