Debating a custom loop!

[nuzik]

Morning guys, im wondering whether to do a custom loop, for two reasons to cool the cpu better than my existing AIO and the other they look cool as!
Ive never done one before, ive got an i9 13900 with a Lian Li O11D Mini case.
Where to start? Any advice would be cool (pun on purpose)

 

[haaammit]

First decide if you want to cool just the CPU or GPU as well
Work out if there's enough space in your case for the required radiators
Decide if you want to go soft or hard tube
Decide which brand you like/prefer the look of
Decide how loud/quiet you want it to be
Decide if you want to use a distro-plate or if you're going res/pump combo
Work out if there's enough space in the case for all the bits (rads, fans, blocks, tubing, reservoir, pump/distro plate, flow sensor, thermometers (min of 1 imho))
Work out if your Mobo has any thermometer headers, if not budget for a minimum of an AquaComputer Quadro for temp/fan control
Plan the layout - include an easy way of draining the system
Source all the bits, including a leak detector pump thing. It will be expensive if you're starting fresh.
Start building. Leak test. Fill with fluid. Take pics and put it in the case gallery!
Decide you're not totally happy with the layout/design so start getting into case modification/fabrication/making your own leads/sleeving. Disappear down a rabbit hole.
I *think* that's about it.......

 

[Webzta]

EK have a configurator, I found this useful to see a rough cost and what was needed etc.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Where to start?
By checking your bank balance lol
Custom loops (from scratch with no parts you have
Laying around to re-use)
Is expensive nowadays

If you have MM access
You can save a load of cash getting used stuff
If you don't have MM
You're close to the 1,000 posts required
Unless they changed the requirements
So get posting

Seriously though
Decide whether cpu only
Or gpu too
Just cpu you may not see a huge difference
If your AIO is a decent one
Not every gpu has a waterblock
That's stopped a lot of people in their tracks
Before Now

I would search the water cooled gallery
And project logs section of
The forums
For people who have same case as you do
Since a smaller pc case there's less room for error
With sizes you pick

 

[oldbanana]

Just my 5 cents, dont bother, even with watercooling cpus are hittin crazy temps, same with the gpus, water or air doesnt really matter, just use the money for better parts.

 

[Jay85]

Where to start?
By checking your bank balance lol
Custom loops (from scratch with no parts you have
Laying around to re-use)
Is expensive nowadays

If you have MM access
You can save a load of cash getting used stuff
If you don't have MM
You're close to the 1,000 posts required
Unless they changed the requirements
So get posting

Seriously though
Decide whether cpu only
Or gpu too
Just cpu you may not see a huge difference
If your AIO is a decent one
Not every gpu has a waterblock
That's stopped a lot of people in their tracks
Before Now

I would search the water cooled gallery
And project logs section of
The forums
For people who have same case as you do
Since a smaller pc case there's less room for error
With sizes you pick

I usually check my bank balance then quickly go back into my hidey hole and cry

 

[Drumroll]

As you already have the case, search for custom loops builds using the same case. That would give you an idea what is possible.
For a first custom loop, I would strongly recommend avoiding crowded builds (three or four radiators build, for example).
For every variant of the O11D, you can easily use top and bottom radiator, just check thickness as that will change from model to model. Distro can make things easier. Soft tubing easier, but as fittings are expensive, and you can’t use them for both types of tubings (hard and soft) and for different tubing thickness, choose wisely.
Most people nowadays love symmetrical hard tubing. I prefer ZMT and chrome/Nickel fittings. 16/10. But for a smaller case, would be wiser and more subtle slimmer tubing.
After all that, don’t forget to decide how you’ll run your tubing and airflow. But that’s a next step and if you go ahead, plenty of very knowledgeable people around to advise.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

"the other they look cool as!"

See those words right there are what
Get you in trouble
If you don't care what it looks like
It's a lot cheaper
My last build I have a load of old fittings
Look tatty but work fine
Got some old radiators too
And pumps/reservoir
But no I wanted some nice ek torque fittings
£200 later just for the fittings ####
Another £200 for some "nice looking" ek quantum Surface rads
And think I will stop adding it all up right there
Before I start crying

Putting aesthetics over functionality
Can definitely put major hurt
On your wallet

Build didn't even come out right
After buying all that
Went to build it at Xmas
Only to find everything I bought was ek matrix 7
But my distro is version one and isn't matrix 7 compatible ####
Ended up just bodged the whole thing together
As not much you can do over Xmas and new year
To RMA everything and go back to the drawing board
So definitely watch out for that matrix 7 ####
If using ek stuff

 

[Vidar]

I remember being really nervous about doing my first custom loop and now I can't bring myself to build a system for myself without one.

It's an addictive and expensive drug that will run away with your dignity just as much as its runs away with your bank balance, just check out my cursed build log to see a prime example of the rabbit hole

That said if you've got the cash, and want to do something new in a hobby you love, go for it! It does look way better, it is less noisy and temps are usually significantly less. Plus, you've got us lot to blame when the missus complains. It's win win lol

 

[WJA96]

I wouldn’t stop anyone going for a water-cooled system and after a decade of hurling money at British, German, US and Slovenian companies I just run air cooling now. Maybe I could drop a temperature here or there or reduce the noise by a couple of dB(A) and that might make it worth it for you. I bought noise cancelling headphones and a really big air cooler.

It‘s huge fun, no doubt but it’s fundamentally a right pain in the backside when you need to swap components or even just pick it up and move it.

If I had once piece of advice - fit a fill port and a drain port.

 

[decto]

I've just removed all my WC from a fractal define 6. I had 3 rads in it and the plumbing was a pain to assemble as very tight in places with short bits of tube you can only get the ends of your fingers too.
Even more of a pain when I wanted to strip and clean fans, radiators etc. Basically a full day to clean every 6 months even though I had dust filters.

If I was doing it again, I'd pay a lot more attention to ease of maintenance and likely use a larger case to make it more accessible.

I think I tried to be too clever with the install, performance was good with it almost silent .... No windows or RGB.

There are some great looking builds out there, though I'm more of a under the desk black box guy these days and with the oversize GPU coolers, noise is way less than it used to be.

Fun project though.

 

[Jay85]

I wouldn’t stop anyone going for a water-cooled system and after a decade of hurling money at British, German, US and Slovenian companies I just run air cooling now. Maybe I could drop a temperature here or there or reduce the noise by a couple of dB(A) and that might make it worth it for you. I bought noise cancelling headphones and a really big air cooler.

It‘s huge fun, no doubt but it’s fundamentally a right pain in the backside when you need to swap components or even just pick it up and move it.

If I had once piece of advice - fit a fill port and a drain port.

One thing i learnt is to fit more than one drain poirt lol, especially in areas where you know coolant isn't just gonna drain out. Going by the size of some of these rigs these days it can be really back breaking stuff.

 

[TangoEchoAlpha]

Here's a list of random thoughts from me:

• Stick with flexible tubing to start with - arguably cheaper, easier to cut and work with.
• Don't bother with pastel / opaque coolant - from what I understand, most are really intended for 'show use' and to be in the loop a limited time. Get a simple coloured coolant - personally I like the XSPC coolant
• Fit a couple of drain ports
• Start simple - single 360 radiator rather than going in complete to start with. Maybe start with watercooling the CPU to begin with?
• Highly recommended to build the loop out of the system and 'dry run' it out of the case to begin with. Dry run in this instance means test, NOT to run the pump without any coolant in it!
• Use paper towels around all tube/fittings connections to see if any leaks and catch coolant
• Consider a pump/reservoir combo
• Find someone local to you who has experience if possible
• Get one of the filling bottles - mine's from EK, search SKU WC-0CN-AC on OCUK for an example
• Try and get a radiator with an 'internal ledge' that prevents you from over tightening screws and puncturing the radiator by accident
• Do not mix metals - stick with all copper

Building your first ever loop with a mini case is going to be a challenge!

 

[Caracus2k]

I run a customer loop but only for my CPU.

GPU cooling looks cool but it's often very expensive and a bit of a pain in the backside to install and maintain vs just CPU cooling especially if you swap out your GPU fairly regularly.

I have water cooled GPU's before, think the last one was a pair of Nvidia 980's and used QDC's in the GPU loop to make mainatance and swapping GPU's more bearable otherwise its often a complete loop disassembly just because you want to swap a graphics card.

Compare this to CPU cooling.... where for example I recently changed from an AM4 system to an AM5 one and all I had to do was un bolt the CPU cooler from the motherboard. Remove the old motherboard and CPU, put the new one in and clean, re paste and bolt the CPU cooler back onto the new CPU and motherboard without ever having to touch the rest of the loop or drain any part of it.

Obviously this is reliant on compatibility with CPU sockets but they are pretty stable on AMD and my current water block will obviously see me through AM5 and maybe beyond.

Most GPU water cooling is however is done these days with 'full cover' blocks that are expensive, have a low resale value;* (few people want to pick up a last gen card with a water block on it) and that require draining of loops to be removed/ replaced from systems.

Even on the MM cards without blocks generally sell easier and people will often ask the seller to re attach the old air colling block/ fan and shrouds for sale.

Hence why if you must WC graphics cards I suggest looking into getting some good QDC's.

 

[SirConfused]

It massively depends on how often you're switching out components though. I don't change GPU or CPU more than every 3-4 years at the moment and I only have to do maintenance maybe once in that period, so for me the time input is very low. For the noise difference I can get, along with the fact that I picked up my rads and pump 10 years ago, it makes sense. Everyone has to make their own value judgement though.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

All this is my opinion, not fact, so treat accordingly!

There's no point doing a custom loop just to cool the CPU, you may as well use an AIO. Gotta get in on that GPU love!

As others have said, start with soft tubing. It's pretty easy to work with, especially if you use a hairdryer to warm the tubing as you're sliding it onto the fittings (OK, that bit is a fact).

My loop was around £700, I suspect a new one would be more than that now. However, you can buy used components, and you can sell any excess fittings that you buy. I sold a bunch of fittings that I over-bought for around 80% of what I paid for them.

Test all your components on the stock air coolers first.

Enjoy it. Yes, it's very expensive, and some of the gains can be marginal (as the naysayers are so fond of constantly pointing out) but it's a challenge and you'll be proud of the outcome. And there's joy in that. Whether the joy justifies the cost is something only you can answer. I love mine. I also really like that it needs some maintenance and I will spend a whole day on it each year, pulling it apart, cleaning it, and putting it back together again. I find that a very relaxing activity, something to focus on and quiet my brain for a few hours.

 

[Freddie1980]

Been there and done it, I won't be doing one again in hurry. It's expensive, time consuming, requires maintenance and if you want to upgrade a component it means taking it apart, draining it (try doing that and not making a mess).

I remember I once had to replace the motherboard and when I put everything back I ended up with an air bubble in the loop, this caused the fluid to boil which made the tubing ultra soft and it eventually came loose from the compression fitting and I ended up with red coolant all over case and desk, I eventually got it working again but after that I decided I was going to stick old fashioned air cooling. Here's a link to my old thread (LINK).

 

[Tom B]

As others have said, start with soft tubing. It's pretty easy to work with, especially if you use a hairdryer to warm the tubing as you're sliding it onto the fittings (OK, that bit is a fact).

I don't know, I went all in with hard tubing with my first watercooled build, it just looks better. If you're going to go to the trouble of watercooling what's the point in doing it in a less than optimal way and if you're planning to use soft tubing to experiment then intend upgrade to hard tubing later you're just making more work for yourself in the long run.

I would say create a loop first with just a pump, rad and block in an empty case completely unattached and out of reach of any real components first just to get a feel for it and how the various parts fit together (it's really not that hard but there are things that aren't obvious)

Is it worth it? On a purely economic factor almost certainly not. But neither is a 4090 and plenty of people buy those. For me it's something I have sat on my desk in my home office and see all day every day so I want it to look good. I'm going to build a PC anyway so I'd rather have something I can have fun and take pride in.

Keep in mind too that a lot of WC stuff, while expensive, will see you through more upgrade cycles than any GPU. Fittings, radiators, pumps, reservoirs will all be transferable to your next build. Though probably a false economy as your next GPU will be more expensive as you'll have to buy a block.

As for maintenance, I had my last loop running for 4 years without needing to drain it, would have been longer but it was time for a new build. Using clear fluid and properly flushing the components to begin with avoids the need to drain regularly.

Here's one downside I don't see mentioned is the upfront time needed:

• Planning the loop his can take quite a bit of time if it's not simple ahem it requires a lot of thinking through to work out how you're going to position/connect everything. Personally I enjoy the challenge but it does add time to the build
• The actual build takes longer. Where you can easily do an air cooled build in an afternoon, a watercooled build will take a lot longer. Both mine took around 3-4 days on and off (bending tubes, air pressure testing, filling, etc)
• You will need a fitting you don't have. For both my water cooled builds I ended up having to order fittings I hadn't planned for due to space requirements in the case forcing me to route the tubing in a slightly different way so you end up waiting at least a day assuming you get it on next day delivery.

 

[cjgardens]

I've always put the end of the tube in a cut of hot water to get it over a barb.

 

[tomcoleman]

Morning guys, im wondering whether to do a custom loop, for two reasons to cool the cpu better than my existing AIO and the other they look cool as!
Ive never done one before, ive got an i9 13900 with a Lian Li O11D Mini case.
Where to start? Any advice would be cool (pun on purpose)

go for it!

it looks cool