Flexible or Hardline Tubing?

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Hi all,

Just curious to know if there are any benefits of one over the other or is it purely asthetic?

In the future I would like to fully liquid cool my 5800x and 3080 TI FE but not sure which tubing would be best.

Thanks
Steve
 
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Flexible has the benefit of being more serviceable. If you want to pull the CPU out you could just pull the block out the way and take it out. With hardline tubing you would have to drain the loop and dismantle it.

Hardline has the benefit of being less prone to discolouring and often can look better, but that's not to mean flexible can't look good.

Flexible tubing is just generally a lot easier to work with. I did hardline for my first build and have no regrets at all though.
 
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Flexible has the benefit of being more serviceable. If you want to pull the CPU out you could just pull the block out the way and take it out. With hardline tubing you would have to drain the loop and dismantle it.

Hardline has the benefit of being less prone to discolouring and often can look better, but that's not to mean flexible can't look good.

Flexible tubing is just generally a lot easier to work with. I did hardline for my first build and have no regrets at all though.
Thanks bud. Would there be any impact to temps etc by using one over the other?
 
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IMO hard line looks a country mile better when installed.

Not sure if there will be any heat related performance gains or disadvantages but to echo Andy I've read a lot about flex discolouring fairly quickly.
 
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I think hard tubing does look way better, in almost all builds

It's worth pointing out though, that to get hard tubing to look good it has to be done properly. You'll need to buy some tools, like a tube cutter, a heat gun, silicone insert for bending, and a mandrel for doing the bending - all of that's likely going to cost £100 give or take (if you don't have all of it already), whereas with flexible tubing - you literally need a knife/scissors.
 
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Discolouring massively depends on what fluid you're using. I haven't had any major problems running coloured fluids for years (minor colouration at best) in a loop but as others have said, some experience major leaching within weeks/months. I haven't seen anyone reporting on performance differences but given your heat transfer work is being done by the radiators and not the tubing I would suggest your only concern would be the number of right angles and the strain that potentially puts on your pump.

If you want to do something fancy with hardline, there is far more often a lot more 90 degree bends than if you used soft tubing. You can mitigate a lot of the hard angles which reduces resistance in your loop. However, unless you're going triple rad and some really high resistance blocks that's not likely to be a major problem anyway.
 
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Soft hose as if you can use xflow rads so the pipe work is at a minimum.
I have 2 280mm xflow rads in my loop.

Thanks all for your responses. I would go for 2 radiators xflow and a pump/res combo with GPU and CPU blocks. Go pump > GPU > CPU > Rad > Rad > Res. That sound standard or would people go Pump > GPU > Rad > Cpu > Rad > Res?
 
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Thanks all for your responses. I would go for 2 radiators xflow and a pump/res combo with GPU and CPU blocks. Go pump > GPU > CPU > Rad > Rad > Res. That sound standard or would people go Pump > GPU > Rad > Cpu > Rad > Res?

I know Linus did some testing, and the order didn't really make any difference, from what I can remember.

In my system, I go PUMP > GPU >CPU > RAD and get really good temps, (Threadripper + 3090)
 
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Yea I think I saw a similar video a while ago. Liquid temp doesnt really change much depending on the order. I am just interested to see what approach people go with. I think 2 radiators will dissipate enough heat.

Another question is do people go push pull on the rads or just one or the other?
 
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Another question is do people go push pull on the rads or just one or the other?

I've got 2x 60mm 360's in my loop and only use push mostly because of space and the amount of rad for my hardware is totally overkill anyway.
Push/pull does make some difference but it's not major enough to warrant it if you're running a double 60mm rad setup unless you're trying to cool a 3090 and a threadripper or something silly.
 
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This is my recently completed build. Order is PUMP > GPU > CPU > TOP RAD > BOTTOM RAD > RES > PUMP.

Couldn't be happier with thermal performance.

 
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Seen a few people with the rad at the front but with the fans set to pull air through it as it makes it easier to clean dust out of the rad. Anyone else done this or is there no benefit?
 
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Seen a few people with the rad at the front but with the fans set to pull air through it as it makes it easier to clean dust out of the rad. Anyone else done this or is there no benefit?

Plenty of benefit if you have a dusty/pet filled house!

The difference between push and pull is fairly minimal though, for ease of cleaning if you need it then it's worth doing.
 
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