Looking to dabble into some water cooling over the Christmas break...

Definitely don't want the hassle of changing case so can anyone advise how well incorporating something like the XSPC RX120.1 radiator would work? If its a no then any other suggestions?

Only want to cool the CPU at this stage.

Thanks

The easiest way is to contact Jerry at Akasa UK (that's pretty much his e-mail address, just add a few dots and a "co") and ask him for a £20 Omega top. That has a grill which is pre-cut for a modern 240mm radiator with 15mm spacings (that's all of them these days as far as I know). You will lose the top two drive bays but generally that's no biggie in my experience with Eclipse's.

If you look at the non-motherboard side of the case at the front you will see there is a big gap. That's a goo dplace for the pump and directly above that under the lid is a metal blanking plate about 3" x 1.25" and that's a great place to mount a fill-port. In this way you can hide almost all the components other than the CPU and GPU blocks. Have a search on here for Easyrider's Akasa Eclipse with Swiftech water cooling kit and you'll see how neatly you can install the system.

Alternatively, you can remove the 3.5" drive bays at the bottom of the case and mount the whole assembly on a UN Designs or Alphacool 120mm fan mount on the back of the front 120mm intake fan. This works really well.

I've built loads of these for people using the Alphacool bracket, DDC with a reservoir top and a good 120mm radiator (PA120.1 is my favourite).

If you have a look in the Corsair H50 thread you'll see a picture of one I built that does the same job, just rather better.

A few alternatives from me (using the omega to cool an i7 at present). Two thick 120mm radiators with a fan and two shrouds inbetween fit comfortably where the five 3.5" rack currently sits, if your graphics card is very long you might have to omit one or both shrouds. If you remove all seven 3.5" bays I believe you can fit a 140mm radiator.

The top panel from the omega is a good idea. Mine has a feser 240 fitted there, has a fan+shroud on one side and a fan on the other (can't fit a shroud on the other without cutting away a structural part of the case).

A 120mm thick radiator with fan will probably fit inside on the motherboard tray, it did for me anyway. This sits over the mosfet heatsink on some boards which might not be good, depends if the heatsinks are joined up on your board or not.

Beyond that my pump is exactly where WJA96 suggests, and I'll be putting a fill port above it soon. An i7 on a single 120mm radiator works but isn't ideal, a 240 in the roof is probably what you want. You could have course cut a hole in the roof yourself, if it goes wrong just buy the omega panel anyway.

Thanks for the advice. So many options!

I like the option of keeping it all up top and around the back. However,
I currently have two DVD drives in my case. If I put these to the lowest of the 5.25 bays would there be enough room for a 240mm radiator to get enough airflow? I figure if I can go for a radiator of this size at similar cost then I may as well, but as long its worth it in terms or performance.

Also, I was thinking the 5.25 reservoir/pump from XSPC might be the way to go. Are these any good? I notice the lph is much lower than other similarly priced pumps. If not then which is the pump that fits best in the hidden space?

Can post pictures of my current setup if that would help...

A 240 radiator and two dvd drives will fit fine, but you won't be able to fit shrouds onto the radiator and it would be better if they had more space below them. If the fans are acting as intake then this may be less important. Essentially though you don't need two dvd drives, I vote get rid of one of them. I've had zero dvd drives for ages now.

The 5.25" option fills up an optical bay which you don't really have going free, offers very low head pressure and pretty poor flow rates. It's a bit rubbish really, not recommended. This isn't to say it wont work after a fashion, just that it wont work well. Instead consider any other pump and put it behind the 5x3.5" bays, I've got a ddc with reservoir and all my spare cables in that area. The cheaper xspc non-reservoir ones will fit there fine and outperform the bay pump too.

Ok think I will probably lose one of the drives.
How important are the shrouds? The price of all this is starting to creep a bit out of my planned price range.

How does the following sound?:

XSPC Delta V3 CPU Waterblock
XSPC 450 9.5w Pump/Reservoir (to go behind the hard drive bay)
XSPC RS240 120mm Radiator - Black
Akasa AK174CB-4BLB 120mm Blue LED Fan x2
Akasa AK FC-06BK Fan Controller Junior - Black
TFC Compression Fitting G1/4" Thread 1/2" ID/3/4" OD - High Flow x6
Masterkleer 7/16" Tubing - 1m x2
Fluid XP+ Eco-Earth Midnight Blue UV 944ml (32oz)

With the Omega top as well, comes to a litte over £200. Anything I can do to cut the price a bit? Looking for a nice blue glow at the end of it all...

Also is this the right amount of tubing, connectors and fluid? Need all the advice I can get here.

Thanks

As a general rule, don't put led fans on radiators. They're built to look pretty, not to push air through radiators. There's a couple of exceptions I expect, but those Akasa's won't be one of them.

You need 1/2" tubing to go with 1/2" compression fittings, the 7/16" tubing you've picked won't work with them.

Deionised water with a little biocide performs better than the premixed things, costs far less, doesn't risk separating out and filling your blocks with crap. At 99p a litre from diy stores it's a much better buy.

If you can get a 60mm thick thermochill radiator instead you should. Shrouds are very important, though it will work without them. Two fans in push pull are about the same as one fan with a shroud. Don't have to buy one though, a dead 120mm fan w/out the hub works well or you can fold up some sheet metal.

The rest I can't comment on, as I haven't seen a review of the pump or cpu block. I'm sure other people can though.

Got the connector/tubing suggestions from one of the bundles! Corrected now with the correct tubing.

Think I'll stick to the XSPC radiator since its half the price.

I'll give it some time without the shrouds and see how it goes. If need be I can always install them at a later date.

As for the water...is it common for these mixtures to separate?