New to watercooling

altrewin

altrewin

altrewin

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Joined
14 Sep 2011
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720
So watercooling is something I've wanted to do for a while now, and I've been steadily doing some research over the last week to get my head around what parts I'll need and how to do it. I'll be watercooling the system in my signature

Rough loop plan:
fMfPLP3.png


Loop going Res>Pump>GPU>CPU>360>240>Res (there will also be a drain port/valve)

Looking at using the following parts:
Blocks:



Total: £194.03
(includes shipping: £11.10)
​
Fans|Radiators|Reservoir:



Total: £239.27
(includes shipping: £10.50)
​
Tubing|Fluids|Fittings:



Total: £137.37
(includes shipping: £10.50)
​

Red/Blue dye is for making a nice purple (hopefully). I'll likely be doing a build log and adding/modifying parts for aesthetics later on (LEDs, PSU shroud, spray/wrap backplate and motherboard heatsinks etc.)

So now I guess a few questions:
Will it work?
Am I needlessly overspending anywhere? (It's already going to take a little while to save up for the parts needed, I'll be getting them gradually when I have funds.)
Is the Mayhems Blitz Pro necessary?
 
EK Water Blocks EK-UNI Pump Bracket (120mm FAN) Vertical
WC-890-EK
£14 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Noctua NF-F12 IndustrialPPC 2000RPM IP67 PWM 120mm High Performance Fan
FG-024-NC
£31 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Noctua NF-A14 IndustrialPPC 2000RPM PWM 140mm High Performance Fan
FG-026-NC
£29 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Mayhems - Coolant Dye - Original Series - Intense Colour, 15 ml - Electric Ocean Blue
WC-072-MH
£10 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
I did watercooling on a budget for a similar system.

First and foremost, easiest way to save money is to buy second hand. Stuff can be gotten with HUGE markdowns 2nd hand. I bought my GPU block and radiator 2nd hand which saved me about £50. I wish I had access to the member's market (1000 posts) cause there are some stupid deals in there.

I'll go through the parts list and highlight places that you can save money.
GPU Block, only way to save money is 2nd hand or universal block like the EK Thermosphere.
Backplate, not necessary but I really like them.
EK Supremacy MX - £35; Will perform within a degree or 2 of the EVO at half the price.

For pump I splurged and bought the D5 Vario XRes and haven't regretted it at all. Great bits of kit.

£25 Fans? Bloody hell noctua. I had some NF-F12s already and wanted a matching set but wasn't will to spend £45 for 3 more so looked elsewhere. What I found was that everyone else had caught up in terms of temps to noise.
I initially started with the Arctic Cooling F12 which were really good for £3.50 each and still recommend them, they were on par with the NF-F12.
I then bought 9 of the OcUK & Silverstone FQ121WC when they were 3 for £6 which are a bit better. Now they want £12 each they aren't such great value anymore.
The Silverstone FQ121 is £6 each and are the same with a different colour scheme and PWM.

I use a NZXT Grid+ V2 for fan control - it's brilliant and means I don't have to use the crappy motherboard software.

Radiators are a bit of a much of muchness with performance not really varying much. Low FPI is better for a quiet system. I went with 240mm over 280mm due to a lack of well price rad fans.

Fittings I use barbs and angled rotary barbs for the parts you can't see as they are a lot cheaper. EK compressions make up the rest. For some reason there is a cheaper version of the Black ACF 10/16. Plan your tubing runs and buy angled fittings as necessary.

Drain ports seem really popular and really expensive for something you might use less than once a year. The one you have specced up is going to cost over £40. There is already on your GPU waterblock. Just put a bowl under an unused port and open it.

Blitz shouldn't be necessary unless there is something wrong. Flush your rads when you get them and pastel coolant is really good for anti bacterial and corrosion inhibitors.

I can't help with dyes, ask Mayhems if it will work.

Tubing is fine.

I use a knife for cutting hose. Good scissors work well too.

I genuinely have no idea what that fill port is for. Or why it costs £5.59. Just use the plugs supplied with the blocks and pump/res.

I'd strongly recommend grabbing an XSPC LCD water temp sensor. They are hugely useful for diagnosing temp issues and ensuring your water temps aren't too high for your pump.
 
Thanks for the advice Disco :)

Regarding the temp sensor, where would be the best place to put it in a loop? I'm assuming on one of the spare ports on the GPU? Or would somewhere closer to the res be better? On a related note are there any temp sensors that can be monitored from within windows? I'm wondering if the LCD display might look a tad naff in my build, although I suppose I could only have it fully connected while testing :)

Glad to know Mayhems Blitz isn't necessary as it's rather expensive, and as far as I know I can mix dyes with Mayhems Pastel as they've made some custom colours on their YouTube channel :) Also is 1L going to be enough to fill the loop or should I get a bit more?

I'll probably be buying rads, tubing and some fitting first to see how well my plans will work in the case, I reckon running tubes behind the top rad could be tricky without any 90 degree fittings :p
 
altrewin said:
Thanks for the advice Disco :)

Regarding the temp sensor, where would be the best place to put it in a loop? I'm assuming on one of the spare ports on the GPU? Or would somewhere closer to the res be better? On a related note are there any temp sensors that can be monitored from within windows? I'm wondering if the LCD display might look a tad naff in my build, although I suppose I could only have it fully connected while testing :)
Click to expand...

You can get a fan controller that supports temp monitoring, i.e. Aqauero 5 LT as the cheapest one.

I think Aquacomputer temp sensor are pretty cheap and should be compatible with Aquaero.

However, I have to disagree with Disco on drain port. 1st you can get a drainage assembly for significantly less, XSPC 3-way port & some aquacomputer tap should make it cost something like 15? And for quick drainage when you want to swap out parts for diagnosis, change fluid, or even stop a lack by quickly draining the system before its too late, those are reason behind a drainage port. The only build that I didn't use a drainage port is my first one, thereafter there is no build that I did without a drainage port coz that makes life so much easier.
 
deFiniLoGy said:
You can get a fan controller that supports temp monitoring, i.e. Aqauero 5 LT as the cheapest one.

I think Aquacomputer temp sensor are pretty cheap and should be compatible with Aquaero.

However, I have to disagree with Disco on drain port. 1st you can get a drainage assembly for significantly less, XSPC 3-way port & some aquacomputer tap should make it cost something like 15? And for quick drainage when you want to swap out parts for diagnosis, change fluid, or even stop a lack by quickly draining the system before its too late, those are reason behind a drainage port. The only build that I didn't use a drainage port is my first one, thereafter there is no build that I did without a drainage port coz that makes life so much easier.
Click to expand...

I'll definitely be keeping a drain port of some kind, don't think I quite have the balls to open up a port and hope for the best :p

Realised I can still get purple dye direct from Mayhems, so that chops another ~£5 or so off, is there anything else you guys would recommend before I start ordering things?
 
Disco_P said:
I use a NZXT Grid+ V2 for fan control - it's brilliant and means I don't have to use the crappy motherboard software.
Click to expand...

I use this as well, whilst its a great bit of kit a word of warning it does not (and cannot without hardware updates) support certain higher voltage fans. When I say support it means run at a stable RPM, for example some of the nice looking corsair fans will randomly rev up at intervals - which is not what you want. I've since replaced my fans because of this which wasn't cheap.

This is officially recognised by NZXT ("So unfortunately we can’t do a quick revision of the GRID+ V2 hardware to accommodate higher voltage PWM fans") as a compatibility issue, so be warned you'll want to check thoroughly before making a purchase... Although a quick Google reveals thats quite tough so it may better to buy, try, return immediately if not fit for purpose. Presume a Grid V3 would resolve if/when it materialised.
 
Smffy said:
Any ideas if you get the same level of control as with the CAM (NZXT) software?
Click to expand...
From what I can tell it seems to be like a more advanced PWM splitter instead of a fan controller. You plug it into a PWM header on your motherboard, and the fans into the hub, and then control it through the bios. You may be able to control speeds through something like speedfan too
 
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