Dual Loops vs Single Loops

R-TYPE · 13 Sep 2016 at 20:15

Are dual loops significantly better than single loops? Ie one loop cooling the GPUs, one loop cooling the CPU (and potentially chipset) vs one loop cooling both GPUs and CPU. I love the look of them and the technical geekiness of them, but are there genuine benefits that outweigh the additional complexity and cost? I have a single loop system but am getting itchy to build something mad...!! Thanks

new boy · 13 Sep 2016 at 20:26

Single loop is better really.

You get to use all the rad space efficiently at all times, and you can better plan redundancy.

Maybe you might get your cooler component running a couple degrees cooler when everything is running at 100% full load in a dual loop (maybe), but when one component is running at 100% and one at 70%, the single loop is running more efficiently (and that will be a much more common scenario)

BluD · 13 Sep 2016 at 20:50

I recently switched from a dual d5 loop back to a single, the dual loop allowed me to turn both pumps to speed one instead of having a single pump on speed 2, and it also allowed me to take my GPUs or CPU out separately but in the end i went back to one loop as i noticed no better temps and all the pipes in there looked a mess.

new boy · 13 Sep 2016 at 20:55

BluD said:
I recently switched from a dual d5 loop back to a single, the dual loop allowed me to turn both pumps to speed one instead of having a single pump on speed 2, and it also allowed me to take my GPUs or CPU out separately but in the end i went back to one loop as i noticed no better temps and all the pipes in there looked a mess.

But you could single run dual pump on a single loop (probably parallel) if you wanted, that would give you all the benefits of low pump speed without the drawbacks of dual loop set up and also allow your loop to run fine if a pump died.

Though I just run a single DDC and am happy with that lol.

BluD · 13 Sep 2016 at 21:06

Yeah i just dont feel the need, my last d5 lasted 10 years at full speed and pump speed 2 is inaudible so ill leave it for now. Im thinking about making a water cooled htpc sometime in the future so ill keep the spare loop for that

new boy · 13 Sep 2016 at 21:14

BluD said:
Yeah i just dont feel the need, my last d5 lasted 10 years at full speed and pump speed 2 is inaudible so ill leave it for now. Im thinking about making a water cooled htpc sometime in the future so ill keep the spare loop for that

Yeah, I wouldn't bother either lol.

A watercooled HTPC sounds awesome. I've been thinking about doing that, but I just think air cooled makes a million times more sense

I was thinking near passive with 1x 140mm for intake at the top with RPM set via a resistor with passive ventilation down the sides in a custom made MDF case :O

Maybe stick a passive discrete card on a riser rail and stick that bad boy horizontally to the mobo to get cooled with the fan.

But thats off topic, OP, just go single unless you really like that dual loop look, then go balls out with each loop having different colour coolant and shizzle.