Hey guys. I'm not particularly new to watercooling, but am a little hazy on conventional wisdom beyond the basics. I'm hoping for some advice from the community
Relevant hardware spec is i7 920, gigabyte UD5, corsair dominator, evga 8800gt, akasa omega.
Current watercooling kit
DDC 18W w/xspc top
Ek blocks for cpu, gpu
Feser radiators, 240 exhausting through top and two 120 stacked as intake
11/8mm linear compressions with tygon, scythe s-flex fans
Arranging airflow is a whole problem by itself, but one I think will be solved using a 120mm fan across some optical bays. Arranging water flow is something I have more trouble with.
The current loop worked fine on my q9550, but I don't know the temperatures of the i7 because I broke my block changing the mounting plate. I'm reasonably sure the radiators will be able to cope with the heat load, since a 120 is massively overkill for an 8800gt and that leaves a 120 and a 240 for the processor. If not, I can just about fit another 120, otherwise will have to move radiators externally
So, intro over. I'm now going to put ek (acetal) blocks on the motherboard, and a mips block on the ram. I know ddr3 doesn't strictly need this, but it's going to be 12gb right next to each other with very little airflow so I think it's worthwhile. My main concern is that the pump is going to unable to cope with this, Martin's excel spreadsheet doesn't think it's going to be good.
So, while any general advice or things I've missed would be appreciated, my main question is can an 18W ddc with reservoir top cope with:
Feser 240
Two (three?) feser 120s
Ek supreme
Ek full cover block
Two mosfet blocks
Combined nb/sb block
Mips ram freezer
Just to add to the fun and games, I'm wondering about 45 or even *gasp* 90 degree compression fittings, particularly for joining the motherboard blocks together. Id also quite like to add in a couple of quick-disconnect fittings, as a removable motherboard tray is lovely and it's frustrating that watercooling costs me the ability to do that. Obviously this is not going to help the restriction issue.
So, assuming the above is excessive for a single ddc, which seems probable, where should I go from here?
Dual loops with only one hot component sounds like depriving my i7 of radiator area, but running everything else from one ddc also means flow rate in that loop doesn't matter so much and flow rate through the cpu loop will be brilliant.
My current favorite is two ddcs in series, as this introduces redundancy, doesn't deprive the cpu of radiators, and lets me continue with one loop which is aethetically pleasing. Here again I'm considering being different, as the ek supreme is the part of the loop causing the most restriction, I'm inclined to put the second ddc so it outputs directly into the supreme rather than having the two pumps beside each other. I'm unsure how analogous pressure drop is to voltage drop in electronics, but am pretty certain the supreme loves head pressure.
Last and not least, is it at all practical to fill a system that holds about two litres of water through an 8mm T line? I'd quite like to do away with the xspc reservoir (it screams point of failure at me) but can't quite bring myself to do so
So yeah, lots of questions, and a very long post. if this proves too epic I'll split it up and start multiple threads.
Cheers guys
edit: Primochill D5 res/top thing looks excellent, and would probably work very well for this. I'm not sure if it'll fit, not convinced it's quiet, and also have no idea if it would perform better or worse than two ddcs. So that rather adds to my confusion
Relevant hardware spec is i7 920, gigabyte UD5, corsair dominator, evga 8800gt, akasa omega.
Current watercooling kit
DDC 18W w/xspc top
Ek blocks for cpu, gpu
Feser radiators, 240 exhausting through top and two 120 stacked as intake
11/8mm linear compressions with tygon, scythe s-flex fans
Arranging airflow is a whole problem by itself, but one I think will be solved using a 120mm fan across some optical bays. Arranging water flow is something I have more trouble with.
The current loop worked fine on my q9550, but I don't know the temperatures of the i7 because I broke my block changing the mounting plate. I'm reasonably sure the radiators will be able to cope with the heat load, since a 120 is massively overkill for an 8800gt and that leaves a 120 and a 240 for the processor. If not, I can just about fit another 120, otherwise will have to move radiators externally
So, intro over. I'm now going to put ek (acetal) blocks on the motherboard, and a mips block on the ram. I know ddr3 doesn't strictly need this, but it's going to be 12gb right next to each other with very little airflow so I think it's worthwhile. My main concern is that the pump is going to unable to cope with this, Martin's excel spreadsheet doesn't think it's going to be good.
So, while any general advice or things I've missed would be appreciated, my main question is can an 18W ddc with reservoir top cope with:
Feser 240
Two (three?) feser 120s
Ek supreme
Ek full cover block
Two mosfet blocks
Combined nb/sb block
Mips ram freezer
Just to add to the fun and games, I'm wondering about 45 or even *gasp* 90 degree compression fittings, particularly for joining the motherboard blocks together. Id also quite like to add in a couple of quick-disconnect fittings, as a removable motherboard tray is lovely and it's frustrating that watercooling costs me the ability to do that. Obviously this is not going to help the restriction issue.
So, assuming the above is excessive for a single ddc, which seems probable, where should I go from here?
Dual loops with only one hot component sounds like depriving my i7 of radiator area, but running everything else from one ddc also means flow rate in that loop doesn't matter so much and flow rate through the cpu loop will be brilliant.
My current favorite is two ddcs in series, as this introduces redundancy, doesn't deprive the cpu of radiators, and lets me continue with one loop which is aethetically pleasing. Here again I'm considering being different, as the ek supreme is the part of the loop causing the most restriction, I'm inclined to put the second ddc so it outputs directly into the supreme rather than having the two pumps beside each other. I'm unsure how analogous pressure drop is to voltage drop in electronics, but am pretty certain the supreme loves head pressure.
Last and not least, is it at all practical to fill a system that holds about two litres of water through an 8mm T line? I'd quite like to do away with the xspc reservoir (it screams point of failure at me) but can't quite bring myself to do so
So yeah, lots of questions, and a very long post. if this proves too epic I'll split it up and start multiple threads.
Cheers guys
edit: Primochill D5 res/top thing looks excellent, and would probably work very well for this. I'm not sure if it'll fit, not convinced it's quiet, and also have no idea if it would perform better or worse than two ddcs. So that rather adds to my confusion
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