Dual Loop, single reservoir?

Greebo

Greebo

Greebo

Caporegime
Joined
20 Jan 2005
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Location
Co Durham
I currently have the following:

Swiftech XT cpu block on a i7 950
2 x ek gtx470 block
1 x 360 XSPC RX rad
1 x 120 XSPC RX rad
1 x EK 150 reservoir

All of the above is on one loop. However the pump is struggling with flow and I have bought another identical pump with the intention of running in series. However, that has it's own issues/problems as I have noticed recently on these forums.

A dual loop is not ideal as either the twin gtx470's or the cpu would just end up being cooled by the single 120 rad.

So, I have thought about having a dual loop but using the same reservoir. The more I have thought about it, the better it seems. I would have a pump pushing the water through the cpu block and triple rad and a seperate pump pushing the water through the two gtx470 blocks and the single rad. Flow rates should be good.

With the water mixing in the reservoir, the water would reach an equilibrium wouldn't it? This would give me the cooling power of both rads over both loops? Say the water was getting hotter from the two gtx470's loop, once it hit the reservoir it would mix with the cooler water from the cpu loop. Or am I missing something?

Would this work or have I gone mad? :D

Note: Replacing the single rad is not an option as it would require case modding which I don't want to do.
 
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It's the Ek 150 advanced so has about loads of inlets and outlets. Just going to put the two returns running into the the top and feed the two pumps from the bottom.

The force of the water should mix it quite well in the reservoir.
 
shadowscotland said:
You can buy replacement tubes from ek - keep your existing top and bottom just get a larger middle section.
Click to expand...

The pumps are both laing d5 vario so should be easy on setting 1/2 to bleed.

Not sure what you mean by the tubes. I can never figure out whether I should use them or the anti turbulance widget thing. Never really figured what purpose the tubes were for?

And 150ml isn;t really that small of a res, well at least compared to my old swiftech mirco res ;)

The loop holds over a litre of water so always had to try and fill the loop as much as possible first when I had just one pump and then run the pump on slow and top up the res frequently.

And also, why woul;d bubble removing be any harder than just one? I could always bleed/fill one loop at a time? Or am I missing soemthing (again)?
 
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Glad to hear that Biffa. Wasn't sure if anybody had done it before. :)

So you reckon I will be good to go and better than going for one loop in serial with two pumps then?
 
Once my replacement mobo comes back I'll post some figures up as well. It will be interesting to see how much an improvement on the single loop/pump that the system was in.
 
Biffa said:
I think I tried every combination of pump/loop route/fan orientation/radiator order that I could think of.

I'm also running the gpu blocks in parallel as well which reduces the restriction in the loop caused by the blocks.

I've also got Scythe GT 1850's and 1450's on the radiators, push on the 120.3 and push/pull on the 120 and 240.
Click to expand...

I have often wondered about running the gpu in parallel but can never get my head round why it should work. Water will want to take the shortest, easiest path so I always imagine that one gpu block would not get as much flow as the other one?

Or is this yet another thing I am wrong with?
 
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