First time Water cooling (Opinions please)

Mole.

Mole.

Mole.

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10 Jun 2013
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252
Location
Ipswich
Hi Guys, I have just spent out on my new rig and decided I wanted to try water cooling for the first time, both for the aesthetics and the temps, have overclocked most of my previous rigs and plan to do the same to this one.

Components:
i7 4770k (Haswell)
Gigabyte Z87X-OC
4x Samsung 840 Pro
4x4GB Corsair Vengeance Pro series 2133
Asus Xonar D2X
Highpoint RocketRaid 2720SGL
Silverstone ST1000-G
Asus GTX 580 Direct CUII ( :( unfortunately I have to wait for next month at least to upgrade these, Am planning to watercool the new card when I get it)

All housed in a Silverstone Temjin TJ07B that is currently away being reverse ATX modded.

So far my basket contains: Stuff

I know I still need tubing, fittings, pump and reservoir.

Tubing - I was thinking clear but what makes are best for durability? and what size should I be going for really? And how much am I likely to need?

Fittings - I wanted to go with compression fittings and I was preferably looking at something with a black nickel finish, I've seen Monsoon fittings and EK PSC Fittings but to be honest I'm getting a little bit baffled with all the measurements, I guess not knowing the diameter tubing I'm going for first doesn't help here.

Pump - Seems I'm planning to overclock I presume I want to aim for something with a high flow rate? I've heard the Laing D5 is the daddy but do I really need my flow rate to be that high? and overclockers don't seem to sell it? Also I wanted to put a pump top on it so what would you suggest?

Reservoir - Here I think I'm pretty set on a Phobya Balancer 250 Black Nickel Res, Is there any down sides to this res? Is there anything you think would work a lot better?

Please feel free to comment on anything, after all I am posting here for your feedback and I really appreciate your input!
 
Tubing - the choice of coolant can affect this. If you go Mayhem's coolant, it doesn't mix with some tubing e.g. Tygon or Primochill. Masterkleer seems to be most inert.

I've got some of the EK Compression fittings. Extremely impressed for the price!

Pump wise - DDC vs D5 is always up for debate. Can't comment on D5 as I've not tried one but flow rate itself isn't everything by itself. You need the head pressure to push the water around the loop to create the flow. i.e. you can have a pump with high flow rate numbers, but when it's in a loop and no head pressure, it ain't pushing water around the system!
 
Thanks for the tip on the tubing, I did a load of reading on this and tried to find Masterkleer tubing but it seems pretty difficult to find, I did find that XSPC highflex is fine with mayhems pastel though so I've now added 2m of that to the cart, 2m should be plenty right?

After a load of deliberation I've decided to go with the monsoon fittings but in Matt black (16mm/10mm).

Pump wise I've plumped for a Laing DDC Pump with the Bitspower DDC top.

I've now added 10 Corsair AF120 Performance fans to the order as well and based off of this switched to the GT Xtreme 480 rad from Black ICE because that performs better with the 1650 RPM fans I think.

I've also dropped the Koolance ram 33 blocks, I do really like the look of them but for 4 DIMMs they come in at about £100 and then its another £70 for the 180 degree fittings to link them up so with that in the plan I don't think I was going to come in anywhere near the budget.

Thanks for your help so far, Have I missed anything or made any stupid mistakes with these current changes?
 
Mole. said:
Thanks for the tip on the tubing, I did a load of reading on this and tried to find Masterkleer tubing but it seems pretty difficult to find, I did find that XSPC highflex is fine with mayhems pastel though so I've now added 2m of that to the cart, 2m should be plenty right?

After a load of deliberation I've decided to go with the monsoon fittings but in Matt black (16mm/10mm).

Pump wise I've plumped for a Laing DDC Pump with the Bitspower DDC top.

I've now added 10 Corsair AF120 Performance fans to the order as well and based off of this switched to the GT Xtreme 480 rad from Black ICE because that performs better with the 1650 RPM fans I think.

I've also dropped the Koolance ram 33 blocks, I do really like the look of them but for 4 DIMMs they come in at about £100 and then its another £70 for the 180 degree fittings to link them up so with that in the plan I don't think I was going to come in anywhere near the budget.

Thanks for your help so far, Have I missed anything or made any stupid mistakes with these current changes?
Click to expand...

I assume that you're planning on putting some of those 10 AF fans on the rad in which case you'd be better off with the SP variant as SP fans are designed for rads/restricted airflow applications. The AF are just designed to be case fans.
 
Mole. said:
Thanks for the tip on the tubing, I did a load of reading on this and tried to find Masterkleer tubing but it seems pretty difficult to find, I did find that XSPC highflex is fine with mayhems pastel though so I've now added 2m of that to the cart, 2m should be plenty right?

After a load of deliberation I've decided to go with the monsoon fittings but in Matt black (16mm/10mm).

Pump wise I've plumped for a Laing DDC Pump with the Bitspower DDC top.

I've now added 10 Corsair AF120 Performance fans to the order as well and based off of this switched to the GT Xtreme 480 rad from Black ICE because that performs better with the 1650 RPM fans I think.

I've also dropped the Koolance ram 33 blocks, I do really like the look of them but for 4 DIMMs they come in at about £100 and then its another £70 for the 180 degree fittings to link them up so with that in the plan I don't think I was going to come in anywhere near the budget.

Thanks for your help so far, Have I missed anything or made any stupid mistakes with these current changes?
Click to expand...

2nd the SP series fans. You need the static pressure to push air through the radiator. You might also want a fan controller. Fans @1650RPM aren't that quiet and reviews suggest that the SP fans are fairly noisy, full whack
 
fairly certain the 'naked' mounting kit is not compatible with either that CPU, or that CPU block, it's for people who want to 'de-lid' an Ivy bridge CPU, meaning take the metal top off it, and run the heatsink directly against the bare silicon.
 
TrojanWhore said:
fairly certain the 'naked' mounting kit is not compatible with either that CPU, or that CPU block, it's for people who want to 'de-lid' an Ivy bridge CPU, meaning take the metal top off it, and run the heatsink directly against the bare silicon.
Click to expand...

What this guy says. Do you also really need all that cooling for memory?
 
Mole. said:
I've also dropped the Koolance ram 33 blocks, I do really like the look of them but for 4 DIMMs they come in at about £100 and then its another £70 for the 180 degree fittings to link them up so with that in the plan I don't think I was going to come in anywhere near the budget.
Click to expand...

I've allready dropped the RAM cooling :)

Inregards to the naked ivy kit, I've read elsewhere that it is compatible and that the Haswell suffers from the same issues as the Ivybridge chips did in regards to uneven core temps which was resolved by de-lidding, and thus enabled bigger more stable overclocks.

Have you seen info to the contrary or was it a presumption because the chip is a different socket?
 
OK, I'll post up the full shopping list and if no one points anything else out I'll order tonight!

EK Supremacy Clean CSQ - Nickel
EK Supremacy Naked Ivy kit
Laing 18W DDC Pump
Bitspower DDC Top
Hardware Labs Black ICE SR1 480 Rad
10x Corsair SP120 Performance series fans
2m of XSPC HighFlex Hose Clear (3/8", 5/8" - 16/10mm)
Mayhems Pastel Orange 1L
Mayhems Ultra Pure H20 1L (For flushing out all of the parts)
9x Monsoon 16/10mm Matte Black compression fittings
Phobya Balancer 250 Matt Black
Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra

Will this pump/rad setup be enough for me to happily add 1 or 2 GPUs at a later date?
 
Mole. said:
I've allready dropped the RAM cooling :)

Inregards to the naked ivy kit, I've read elsewhere that it is compatible and that the Haswell suffers from the same issues as the Ivybridge chips did in regards to uneven core temps which was resolved by de-lidding, and thus enabled bigger more stable overclocks.

Have you seen info to the contrary or was it a presumption because the chip is a different socket?
Click to expand...

there was no previous mention of intent to de-lid the haswell, wasn't sure if you were aware/willing to do so.

I see no reason it wouldn't work, as 1155 and 1150 are the same mounting holes :)
 
Nope, forgot to mention before that I was going to de-lid :D

I'm seeing reports of dropping 15-20 degrees on the Haswell chips so seems well worth doing on my 4770k.
 
daveip said:
Tubing - the choice of coolant can affect this. If you go Mayhem's coolant, it doesn't mix with some tubing e.g. Tygon or Primochill. Masterkleer seems to be most inert.
Click to expand...

This is pretty outdated info, the new Primochill stuff is fully compatible with and recommended by Mayhems hence why OcUK have started stocking it instead of Masterkleer.
 
Everything was ordered on Sunday night, a few things waiting on stock but once I get it all I'll hopefully get it all together and post up some pics, thanks for your help guys.
 
Most stuff has now arrived, still waiting on my rad, Gave up waiting on Overclockers who said it was "due soon" for 4 weeks after someone snatched the last one just before I ordered :(

But anyhow that should arrive soon and I realised I hadn't figured out how to run all the fans, I was doing some reading an Swiftech make an 8 way PWM splitter that seems like it would be perfect for my 480 rad, but I cant seem to find anyone who stocks it in the UK, is this a good idea? or should I be looking at some kind of beefy fan controller?

I did look at the Corsair Link which sounded cool but doesn't currently support Haswell and as I'm going to be running 10 fans Id need to buy an additional Cooling link it would run at nearly £80 which seems a little excessive.

Any suggestions?
 
Started putting stuff together only to find that the radiator had presumably been dropped during delivery and has a big dent at one end, so I'm now in the process of returning it.

No one has any stock of the Hardware Labs Xtreme 480, would the XSPC AX480 be a sensible substitute with my fans? (Corsair SP120 High pressure)
Or is there a better alternative or should I just wait for someone to get an Xtreme 480 back in stock?
 
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