help with first hardline build

sypherian · 11 Aug 2019 at 13:04

I've already done a watercooling build with soft tubing and have most of my bases covered, but there are some points that I'd be grateful if you could assist me on.

Build will consist of a 3900X Ryzen (unless new threadripper arrives before parts are bought in the new year) along with a EVGA 2080TI watercooled either EK or EVGA block, I'm hoping some monoblocks will arrive for the 570X motherboards as I'd prefer to cool that as well with water.

from what I could gather doing research mixing and matching hardline tubing and fittings manufacturers is not advisable due to slight deviations in fitting/tubing sizes can anyone confirm/deny this?

I know this subject is very much like religion but what are the best radiators, I'll be running a 420 and a 360 in this loop front and top mounted depending on clearance the 360 might be swapped out for a 420 but I will have to measure if that will fit. thickness will be between 30 - 60 mm.

Reservoir will be a WC Heatkiller tube reservoir, I have not decided yet if I wanna do the RES/pump combo or not if I remember correctly doing combo can give slight degradation in performance or at least that is what I understood from reading up on it a few years back, res will be mounted on radiator.

The fans I've chosen to go with is Arctic's Bionix p120/140 or their p120/140 PST PWM, my biggest gripe is their thickness is 27mm which makes it a pain to find mounting screws for the radiators. I'm guessing my best option is to buy them 5mm longer and then applying a washer to make them the correct size or can some of you give a better suggestion?

your help is greatly appreciated.

Sypherian

Holst1981 · 11 Aug 2019 at 13:48

It sounds like you have a pretty good plan already.

I would stick with one manufacturer for tuning and fittings, at least that way you only have one person to blame if something wont fit.
If you really want to mis-match I would buy one fitting and one length of tube and test it.

You have plenty of rad area there so any decent rad will work.
Think about your tubing runs and where you would prefer the fittings to be as this might impact rad choice.

Same story with the pump/res.
I would buy something that will give you neat tubing runs.
There is nothing wrong with pump/res combo or mounting the res to the rad.

Remember to add a drain and fill port.

You can cut the screws down, but a washer will work fine.
You could fit a rubber gasket (5mm thick) that might dampen a little vibration.

sypherian · 11 Aug 2019 at 18:53

Holst1981 said:
It sounds like you have a pretty good plan already.

I would stick with one manufacturer for tuning and fittings, at least that way you only have one person to blame if something wont fit.
If you really want to mis-match I would buy one fitting and one length of tube and test it.

You have plenty of rad area there so any decent rad will work.
Think about your tubing runs and where you would prefer the fittings to be as this might impact rad choice.

Same story with the pump/res.
I would buy something that will give you neat tubing runs.
There is nothing wrong with pump/res combo or mounting the res to the rad.

Remember to add a drain and fill port.

You can cut the screws down, but a washer will work fine.
You could fit a rubber gasket (5mm thick) that might dampen a little vibration.

Thank you so much for the reply much appreciated

To give myself as much flexibility regarding tube runs, diverse radiators like Black Ice or Nexxos where you can choose to run from the end or side might be an excellent idea. I asked a owner of the case I'm buying (Cosmos C700M) regarding fitting two 420 mm radiators in front and top at the same time which is doable.

The reason why I chose the heatkiller tube res was that I like the look of the tube and I'm a huge fan of borosilicate glass reason being that I do not particularly like the idea of acrylic reservoirs, back in the day they were prone to cracking and some had issues with the glue used. I'm not sure how much that is an issue anymore but I guess that stuck with me. Also that I can mount it almost anywhere again helps with tube runs

I absolutely love primochill's Kawa Green and UV green SX revolver fittings but they are quite expensive and I would need to order PETG tubing from there as well. I can't seem to find any retailers in EU that has them so ordering directly from Primochill is gonna end up real expensive with import and taxes in Denmark :'( So I'll have to decide whether it is worth the extra expenses.

Holst1981 · 14 Aug 2019 at 19:53

I would go with some more easily available fittings.
You always forget some fittings, or you waste money buying too many.

Its not worth the extra expense if your compromising elsewhere.
Otherwise its your £££

That looks like a nice res.
I have a big EK tube res but I think they are reliable enough.

I have black ice rads (port either end) and I bought them as it made my tubing runs better and I can attach a fill port to the top of the rads (mine are both vertical) and bleed the air easily.

sypherian · 27 Aug 2019 at 18:34

Holst1981 said:
I would go with some more easily available fittings.
You always forget some fittings, or you waste money buying too many.

Its not worth the extra expense if your compromising elsewhere.
Otherwise its your £££

That looks like a nice res.
I have a big EK tube res but I think they are reliable enough.

I have black ice rads (port either end) and I bought them as it made my tubing runs better and I can attach a fill port to the top of the rads (mine are both vertical) and bleed the air easily.

Funny thing is I've actually been doing a lot of research as to what radiator to get and Black ice has been coming up as the best choice several times. I'm still debating the choices between the SR2 or GTS rads. My biggest gripe is that since I'm choosing fans with a different thickness then 25 (the ones mentioned is 27) this makes me a little hesitant as using longer screws means a likely chance of puncturing the rads unless I either cut them or use washers to shorten them to the specific length needed.

Since repairs had to come on both my car and motorcycle (too many expensive hobbies :mad:

) I've had to postpone this a bit but that means I can wait for the threadripper 3000 series, and my new dream case Lian Li PC-011 dynamic XL. Also on the fittings side I decided to use Barrows 12/16 petg tubing and fittings, I've just ordered some clear and green tubing so I can test sand the tubing to give it a satin look I know how clear looks from pictures, but I'd like to see what it does to colored petg I'm guessing it won't really end up that good compared to clear but time will tell.

Thanks a lot for chipping in your help is much appreciated

MikeTimbers · 28 Aug 2019 at 13:46

One of my first ever rads was a Black Ice. Nothing wrong with them at all.

red eye · 4 Oct 2019 at 17:09

Get some soft tube for emergencies.
I had Xfire 290 had to remove one.....guess what? The lovely hard tube I spent hrs getting right is not in the right place now. And also you can’t move any component with out draining like you can with soft but hard tube looks good and stays clear so meh.

Soft tube for emergencies and plan good I had to remove the res to get the gpu out.

LePhuronn · 15 Oct 2019 at 17:09

red eye said:
Get some soft tube for emergencies.

Which would necessitate having a stock of soft compression fittings sat in a drawer

red eye · 16 Oct 2019 at 08:20

LePhuronn said:
Which would necessitate having a stock of soft compression fittings sat in a drawer

When you need to swap something out. Like I found when I was running xfire, one gpu decided to give up.
Lucky I had some soft fittings and tube from when I swapped to hardline I was back gaming in less then 30mins.

LePhuronn · 16 Oct 2019 at 09:27

red eye said:
When you need to swap something out. Like I found when I was running xfire, one gpu decided to give up.
Lucky I had some soft fittings and tube from when I swapped to hardline I was back gaming in less then 30mins.

You were lucky to have some compression fittings lying around so it's trivial to get some soft tube as well just in case. Fortunately the OP is in the same position as he has a soft loop already, but since soft and hard tube compression fittings work differently, it's not just a case of "grab some soft tube just in case".

red eye · 16 Oct 2019 at 10:03

LePhuronn said:
You were lucky to have some compression fittings lying around so it's trivial to get some soft tube as well just in case. Fortunately the OP is in the same position as he has a soft loop already, but since soft and hard tube compression fittings work differently, it's not just a case of "grab some soft tube just in case".

I should have said keep the fittings and tube, my bad.
For me all I need is tube as my hardline and soft just need to swap the barb bits the screw on bits are the same, but I would need to cut the hard line to get my screw bit back.

MikeTimbers · 16 Oct 2019 at 13:47

Having two or three barbs and a metre of soft tube is a trivial extra expense compared to the cost of hardline