Advice for a liquid cooling solution please

castingflame

castingflame

castingflame

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11 Oct 2012
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Hello everyone. Been looking into some liquid cooling solutions but I thought I would come to the experts.

I have the following hardware;

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz SKT1155
GPU: Asus AMD Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC Graphics Card 4GB
CASE: Corsair CC-9011012-WW Carbide Series 500R Windowed Mid-Tower ATX


At the moment I have several case fans including some Corsair CO-9050002-WW Air Series AF120 Quiet Edition 120mm type. I am just using a 5 1/4 bay for the fan speed control.


I am hoping to use liquid cooling to cool my CPU & GPU to help with Over Clocking. At the moment my CPU is clocked to 4.5Ghz but the temps hit just under 90 when doing a burn in test. Regardless of CPU ceeling temp im not very happy with that as I am using my machine for developing so stability is obviously important. I would also be looking for a decent fan controller solution as I do not like the touch panel type. A pot fan controller would be more my style.


So, I am asking for advice for;

1. A liquid cooling solution for my CPU,GPU which will fit inside my case.
2. A fan controller solution which would accommodate the water cooling + case fans.


Thanks in advance for any advice you give

Kind Regards

Paul
 
For fan controller I'd go either with an aquaero 5 LT or (if you are okay with using only 3-pin fans) the NZXT Grid, both of whcih are controlled using software.

If it is your first time watercooling then I strongly recommend looking at LinusTechTips and Jayztwocents YouTube videos on watercooling builds, and for parts I also recommend the EKWB L360 kit. It has everything you need for such a system (except a GPU block and 2 fittings for it) and a draining system (I'd order yet another fitting and use it to run an extra bit of tubing from the res to a valve). I've linked the kit and extra parts below.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-w...0-performance-watercooling-kit-wc-892-ek.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-fc-r9-290x-acetal-nickel-rev.2.0-wc-549-ek.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-acf-fitting-10-16mm-nickel-wc-779-ek.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aqua...-thread-g-1-4-without-fittings-wc-060-aq.html
 
If you GPU temps are getting too high though, it would be far more cost effective to either get the L240 kit and just watercool the CPU.

And in that case it would be far more effective to not bother with custom cooling and just getting a 240mm radiator AIO cooler. But that is more personal preference, if you are happy spending the case then you will get better performance out of a custom loop.
 
I'd agree with the above - close loop watercoolers are cheap and "do the job"... custom is an enthusiast thing - you will unlikely see much performance increase, its just fun to do!

In terms of controllers, the Aquaero 6 is amazing
 
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