It's been a while...

Rojin · 28 Jun 2013 at 13:57

...5 years or so since I last setup my water cooling. I was surprised that Danger Den have gone, I favoured their kit back in the day. So I am we'll out of the loop!

My Q6600 @ 3.6GHZ has been motoring along nicely under water for 5 years, but the time has come to put it into retirement. I only tend to water cool the CPU as it got boring breaking down the loop to swap the GPU out. Currently it's running a Thermochill 120.3 with what I think is a Laing D4, a bay res and possibly a DD TDX CPU block. It's been that long I'm not too sure! The PC is behind a TV unit and I haven't pulled it out to start the new build yet.

I've just picked up an i5-3570k and a Gigabyte Z77X-D3H, and I'll be sorting out a new GPU shortly. I'm still looking to only cool the CPU though. Now I think I can get a mounting kit to re-use the TDX, but has tech and performance moved on massively since then? I see that EK are popular now but I'm only just catching up. I will probably try out the TDX if I can, but if anyone has prior experience and think it definitely worth trying a more modern block I'd like to know.

BluD · 28 Jun 2013 at 15:46

I would just grab a EK Supremacy block, ive been my thermochill rads for about 10 years so they seem to last for ever, and my d5 has been going for about 7 years, so i would just giv it all a good clean out maybe stick some new pipes in if ya wanna tart it up a bit.

I think ya might need to buy sum fittings to attach ya pipes to that block, my last rig had 6 EK water blocks on so i had a dozen fittings kicking around so i dunno if i got new or used some old ones.

Rojin · 28 Jun 2013 at 16:09

Cheers. It looks like I'll need a new top for the TDX so I'll be picking up a new block. I've been looking at the Supremacy and also the Koolance 380i. I'll redo all the tubing, I might even still have some unused tygon knocking around somewhere. I'm not fussed about looks at all just has to be functional.

The rad currently has Akasa Amber fans which I have never really liked that much, so I think I might look into replacing those if I have to get the whole loop out. The case is an old Lian Li PC75B, I've thought about replacing it but it kinda defeats my whole cheap upgrade thing that I've sold to the wife!

Rojin · 29 Jun 2013 at 10:09

So, it looks like the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850rpm fans are well liked for rad use now? I might look into modding the front of the case to replace the twin 80's with a 120. I've never ever got round to that though as it looks quite fiddly...

murah · 29 Jun 2013 at 14:11

you can go with the 1850 and tune them down or get the slightly smaller 1400ish rpms both perform excellent

BluD · 29 Jun 2013 at 18:28

Yeah i would get a 120 to fit if ya can, i did the same, im using a 12 year old Chieftec Tower case, 80mm was all the rage back then, so had to adapt it a little to get 120s in.

Them Gentle Typhoons are the ones people normally recommend yeah so i guess they're good stuff.

Rojin · 1 Jul 2013 at 16:32

I dragged the PC out to have a look today. I was surprised to see a D-TEK Fuzion CPU block, I had completely forgotten about that! Whilst it looks like I can mod it, I might still just get a new block. I think I'm going to be lazy and just swap the block and leave all the rest though!