Going over to watercooling at last.

pastymuncher

pastymuncher

pastymuncher

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Hi guys, i have decided to bite the bullet and make the move to watercooling. I know i looked into it before for just the graphics cards but due to cost i did'nt think it was worth it. However i have now decided to watercool the lot and it comes in at under £245 which is quite reasonable. Can you please check out the parts and let me know if i should make any changes:-

CPU Block
Danger Den TDX (A64/1/2")

Chipset Block
Danger Den Maze 4 Chipset 1/2"

GPU Blocks
2x Danger Den Maze 4 Acetal Low Profile 1/2"

Pump
Danger Den D5 1200Lph 1/2"

Radiator
Alphacool Nexxxos Extreme lll (With 1/2" fittings)

Reservoir
XSPC Passive reservoir (Blue 1/2")

Have'nt decided on tubing yet but was looking at 1/2" UV blue stuff or 7/16" tubing to give a good tight fit.

Also can you please take a look at my proposed flow chart to see if it would be feasible and also to tell me if i have the bits in the right place.

Pump - Y piece - GPU 1 - GPU 2 - Y Piece - Radiator - Reservoir

Coming off the other Y piece - CPU Block - Chipset Block - back into the loop through the second Y piece.

Any feedback shall be much appreciated.
Cheers guys.
 
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What size is the rad?
You have two main issues that I can see;
1: You are using Y pieces to run a parellel loop
2: You are trying to cool 4 different components

Generally one would try to avoid using parellel loops and Y pieces (even worse are T pieces as kill flow). The reason, is that water (think of a river) takes the path of least resistance and root A from the Y piece might get a biast amount of flow and hence cooling compared to route B. In an extreme case, a particularly restrictive side of a Y piece would get such little flow that the cooling provided would be poor. Performance generally is better with a loop in series although parellel can be made to work where some components such as chipset, require less cooling. Its hassle though imo.

If you must cool CPU, Chipset and 2 GFX cards, (4 things) then have you considered constructing two loops?

You could do two smaller rads or a 120mm and a 120.2 and do a loop with chipset and 2 x GFX, and a single loop just for the CPU. This would benefit more if you were overclocking the CPU in order to get maximum cooling for it.
Just a thought.


Did you not consider the Storm G4 CPU block due to the nature of your loop being a flow killer and the Strom being impingment? Its not as much an issue as you might have been led to believe. I am running maze 4 chipset and gpu, and a strom g4 fine with a D5 pump.
 
Ditch Y piece.
T pieces do not kill flow!
Ditch the chipset block
Replace TDX with Storm / Nexus or new Aquaextreme block
Replace rad with thermochill PA120.2.
 
A lot of people tend to always say that cooling the chipset is not worth it. IMO it is worth it if you are after a silent PC. I stuck a Zalman passive on mine and it did a worse job than the standard affair. It needs GOOD active cooling to work which I would not provide so watercooled it. Never need to worry about it now and has not hampered flow rates as much as people make out. Temps on CPU have not risen when added to the loop.

When I said T pieces kill flow, I meant 90 degree elbows sorry. Dont know why I said T piece.

Why should he replace with the Storm? Its impingment and he has a potential low flow loop.
 
The radiator i picked was the Alphacool Nexxxos Extreme lll triple rad. I mistakenly put the XSPC passive reservoir as passive radiator originally but now i have changed it. The rad i picked has the same dimensions as the thermochill triple rads but is £25 cheaper and from the reviews i have seen is almost as good.

Also from the reviews i have seen i was under the impression that the DD TDX is an excellent CPU block and is also £25 cheaper than the Storm. That is where i have found the Storm to be in stock. I also have reservations about the tiny holes in the Storm getting blocked over time. As for the Nexus i have not seen or heard of that one in any of the sites i have been on. Unless you mean the Alphacool Nexxxos in which case the TDX is much better.

I was toying with two seperate loops, one for the CPU and chipset, the other for the two graphics cards, but that means two of everything and gets ridiculously expensive.

I was thinking of a parallel loop because by the time the water gets to the second GPU in an in line loop the water will be quite warmish. I did think about the problem of one loop having more flow than the other which is why i wanted opinions on it. Maybe i will ditch the chipset cooling.

The passive reservoir i have picked also aids cooling and in the couple of reviews i have found dropped the temps a futher 4-6 degrees.

The stuff i picked came from around 7 different online retailers that do have decent watercooling sections. I will be getting the components from just two of them.
 
The new Thermochill rads are a lot better. The PA120.2 can rival the older HE120.3. The Alphacool rads are the next best thing though. I *think* they are the same as the Swiftech rads.

The TDX is a good block but the Nexxos XP is better. Have a look over at Pro-cooling for the interactive waterblock chart.

The 'tiny holes' in the Storm should not get blocked over time, if they do then you are doing something seriously wrong.
 
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I did look at the Nexxxos XP block and it is even cheaper than the TDX but i was concerned about the rather narrow water channel. It did get a good reveiw though as you point out.

How loud is your DD D4? I do beleive that the D5 is a bit quieter though.
 
My D4 is too loud. It gives out a high pitched whine. I was considering selling it and getting a D5 but I'm going to put up with it as I have too much other stuff to get first.
 
you setup looks fine but i would change the radiator for a thermochill PA... or one of the gen II bixs both 120.2 when there out... i would stick with the tdx and D5 the D5 is an excellent pump and controllable the TDX is also excellent smple to use and clean if needed i have had a maze 4, swiftech storm and TDX and out of all of them i prefer the storm good flow and temps. chipset block is entirly up to personal taste i have never put a block on one never thought it necessary. :)

and keep ya loop simple pump > rad > cpu > chipste > gpu 1-2 > res

or pump > rad > chipset > cpu > gpu 1-2 > res

temps will be virtually same all in series but with better flow than paralell

1/2" all the way :D
 
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Ok then, will drop the chipset and stick with the current fan cooler, not that loud anyway, will stick everything else in-line.

Is a Thermochill rad that much better than the one i have chosen. They are more or less the same size, give or take a couple of mm, and look identical to me. Price wise i have seen them within £10 of each other at worse case, but i have found the one i chose for £29 at one shop which is why i chose it. Plus i have'nt been able to find the Thermochill in stock for less than £55.
 
the thermochil fin arangement is supposed to be better... and quiter when drawing air through it... to be honest im running a bix because there tiny and its blue lol i got it purely for astetics... and cooling wise a few degrees is nothing go for the rad that fits your budget and u think fits and suites your case the best :)
 
Pretty much agree with *** most peeps have here but have you thought about the daul heatercore, its an absolute brute and will deal with the heat from all four blocks.

Also i never used to but now i agree that watercooling the northbridge is worth it, my house mate has a watercooling rig cooling his cpu and gpu, his case temps are ridiculous, idle is like 47C. He replaced the stock lame fan hs that was already on the nb with the zalman blue passive job which is gettin so hot and inturn heatin his case up some more. NB fans are so whiny, just like gfx card fans really. Watercooling replaces the higher frequency whines of pcs air coolin replacing it with a low level hum of big fans and pumps working. Once watercooled you will really start to notice the noise from the hdds and psu, so getting quiet ones of them really adds to the silence.

Personally id run Pump - CPU - GPU - NB - RES - RAD - Pump
 
Don't forget i have two GPU's not one. I think i will leave out the chipset though as i just had a look through the case window and one of the mounting holes is right up against the top pci-e slot which might not let a block and it's mount fit.

So the flow will be Pump > CPU > GPU 1 > GPU 2 > Rad > Res > Pump.


Everything such as pump, rad and reservoir will be going in a radbox built into my custom desk.

HDD's are mounted in Vantex Vortex HDD coolers and sit in rubber mounts so they are quiet anyway. As for the psu i have a Hiper Type R 580w which is silent too.
 
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pastymuncher said:
Don't forget i have two GPU's not one. I think i will leave out the chipset though as i just had a look through the case window and one of the mounting holes is right up against the top pci-e slot which might not let a block and it's mount fit.

So the flow will be Pump > CPU > GPU 1 > GPU 2 > Rad > Res > Pump.


Everything such as pump, rad and reservoir will be going in a radbox built into my custom desk.

HDD's are mounted in Vantex Vortex HDD coolers and sit in rubber mounts so they are quiet anyway. As for the psu i have a Hiper Type R 580w which is silent too.
Click to expand...

I bought a bl00 hiper cause i wanted a quiet psu but it was too loud, even though it says on the box inaudiable, its absolute bs, as soon as ** case gets a bit hot the fan whirls up and makes a racket, this is only the case on the bl00 and red ones. I sold my bl00 one and bought the black one, the fans are diff in the black one and much quieter.

As for the nb block probs thers a water block which is very low profile but i cant advertise it here for obvious reasons. It desinged to work with very crouded sli systems so give it a look.

Even though uve got 2 gpus id still run the nb block too, itll look real tight! :D
 
It's not a problem with clearence hight wise. It's where the two mounting lugs sit that may be a problem. Look here . It looks like quite a distance to the pci-e slot in the picture but it sure does'nt look that way in real life. The thing is i can't find any dimensions on the size of the DD Maze 4 chipset block apart from the distance between the mounting holes.

I took one look at the Nexxxos Sli chipset block and wrote that one off straight away. You can fit 1/2" connections to it as it has standard G1/4" threads but it would be a waste of time to me as the water channels seem way to restrictive in my opinion. I can get the DD Maze 4 for only a fiver more anyway it it seems a much better block.

By the way, my Hiper Type R IS silent. If i turn the case fans off i can't hear it at all. I think the main problem some people have with the Hiper is that because it has thermostatically controlled fans and if the case airflow is'nt so good then it will be louder because the fans will be running at a higher speed due to the extra heat. I have a Thermaltake Aluminium Armour case and the psu does'nt sit like it does in a normal case. It sits on its side and right next to that i have a 92mm case fan and below that a 120mm case fan. I also have another 92mm case fan in the roof of the case so my case is actually very well cooled which might explain why mine is silent.
 
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