My first foray into watercooling.

Kronos

Kronos

Kronos

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I have yet to dabble in the dark arts of watercooling and wonder if it would be better getting a kit rather than individual components? At the moment I have a Carbide 300R case but I am not absolutely sure if this will be the case I will be using if and when I try my hand at the aforementioned method of cooling.

Any and all advice on products ETC would be extremely helpful
 
depends what you want to watercool, if just a CPU then kits can be fine and take a lot of the guess work out of it

if you want to expand it later to include graphics cards etc. then you may well end up replacing a lot of what comes in a kit

you can either do loads of research before even starting - or you can buy the kit first and then learn what you need to replace later :)

the carbide 300R isn't a particularly great case for watercooling as I understand it
 
Unless you go external you're not going to fit much of anything wc wise in a 300r.

The xspc kits are fantastic quality kits and should you go the d5 raystorm route you won't need to change much of anything when expanding the loop at a later date, only adding gpu blocks and possibly more radiator space.

Do you have a budget set out you would like to work to?
 
andybird123 said:
depends what you want to watercool, if just a CPU then kits can be fine and take a lot of the guess work out of it

if you want to expand it later to include graphics cards etc. then you may well end up replacing a lot of what comes in a kit

you can either do loads of research before even starting - or you can buy the kit first and then learn what you need to replace later :)

the carbide 300R isn't a particularly great case for watercooling as I understand it
Click to expand...

I will probably leave the watecooling until my next build which will probably mean a new case. I think that I would include the GPU, only doing the CPU seems,in my opinion anyway, half the job.

But as you say research is a must.
 
pgi947 said:
Unless you go external you're not going to fit much of anything wc wise in a 300r.

The xspc kits are fantastic quality kits and should you go the d5 raystorm route you won't need to change much of anything when expanding the loop at a later date, only adding gpu blocks and possibly more radiator space.

Do you have a budget set out you would like to work to?
Click to expand...

Was replying to the first response so missed yours. As previously stated I probably will wait to my next build before trying out watercooling so my current case will not be an issue.

I will have a look at the Raystorm D5 and no I have not really got a budget, I am purely in the planning/research stage but I will be looking to watercool my 670 at the same time as my CPU.
 
As a rough estimate you'll be looking just over the £600 mark I would say, that would be xspc rx360 d5 raystorm kit, single rx240, nzxt switch case, 670 block and then misc items like fluid extra fittings on top :)

A good case is the base for a good wc setup, set your heart on what case you want first and then work out what wc you can fit in it :)
 
pgi947 said:
As a rough estimate you'll be looking just over the £600 mark I would say, that would be xspc rx360 d5 raystorm kit, single rx240, nzxt switch case, 670 block and then misc items like fluid extra fittings on top :)

A good case is the base for a good wc setup, set your heart on what case you want first and then work out what wc you can fit in it :)
Click to expand...

A fair bit of cash is involved then. Hmmm perhaps my wish to dabble is not as strong as I thought it was. I will have to give this a tad more thought.
 
it doesn't have to be all that expensive, I've spent about £300 on my watercooling build but then I have begged borrowed stolen or won a couple of the major components for mine

the expensive stuff just usually looks better (an issue I'm side stepping by making backlit acrylic covers for my GPU setup)

(CPU, 2 GPU's with GPU only blocks and a rad big enough to fit 12 120mm fans on and a 24v pump running at 19V)

a CPU only kit will run you about £150-200 for a decent one
 
andybird123 said:
it doesn't have to be all that expensive, I've spent about £300 on my watercooling build but then I have begged borrowed stolen or won a couple of the major components for mine

the expensive stuff just usually looks better (an issue I'm side stepping by making backlit acrylic covers for my GPU setup)

(CPU, 2 GPU's with GPU only blocks and a rad big enough to fit 12 120mm fans on and a 24v pump running at 19V)

a CPU only kit will run you about £150-200 for a decent one
Click to expand...

As I say I have plenty of time as I am not looking to do anything till late this year or more likely early next year so plenty of time to research components.
 
thats fine then, just do a gradual build, start with the case and then work through.

As Andy said, you can do it cheaper, my basis on price was for higher end components, you'd save nearly £100 alone dropping the CPU block to an LTX/RASA and pump down to something like a DCP, watercooling on a budget is very do-able.
 
pgi947 said:
thats fine then, just do a gradual build, start with the case and then work through.

As Andy said, you can do it cheaper, my basis on price was for higher end components, you'd save nearly £100 alone dropping the CPU block to an LTX/RASA and pump down to something like a DCP, watercooling on a budget is very do-able.
Click to expand...

Thanks again but I would appreciate if you could possibly provide just a little more info other than LTX/RASA and DCP, you might as well be speaking latin.LOL.
 
Supreme LTX is a good CPU cooling block
price / performance wise it's very close to some of the top performing blocks but much cheaper on price

XSPC Rasa is another good / cheap CPU block

pump: EK DCP 4.0 pump... again, a good pump, not quite as good as a D5 pump but half the price - if you started building up your loop bit by bit then you could buy 1 DCP 4.0 and then add a 2nd later if you found that 1 wasn't quite up to the job - 2 DCP 4.0's in series would give you a much stronger setup than a single D5 for about the same money - not sure what they are like noise wise though as I've not used them personally
 
Just sorting a spec out now, I'm going to include a case into the spec as well to give you an idea of what will fit, presuming this is just a two component loop (CPU+GPU) so will be running it as a 360 rad system.
Edit: Hows this look for you? Could still get this down even cheaper if you wish.


YOUR BASKET
1 x XSPC RayStorm 750 RS360 WaterCooling Kit £157.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Case - Black £104.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC670 GTX - Acetal CSQ £64.99
1 x OcUK Tube Cutter Aluminum 3-14mm £8.5
2 x Mayhems X1 Clear Premixed Watercooling Fluid 1L £7.99 (£15.98)
1 x OcUK Value PSU Bridging Connector (24 Pin) £1.3
8 x OcUK Value 16/13mm 1/2"ID- 5/8"OD Compact Compression Fitting G/4" Thread - Silver £1.2 (£9.60)
Total : £381.05 (includes shipping : £14.75).



Edit2: Its worth noting that I included 8 compressions as I feel they are easier to use for a first time user than the supplied barbs in the XSPC kit.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Case - Black £104.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC670 GTX - Acetal CSQ £64.99
1 x XSPC RS360 120mm Radiator - Black £49
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Supreme LTX - Plexi £29.99
1 x EK Reservoir Combo DCP 4.0 £24.98
1 x OcUK Tube Cutter Aluminum 3-14mm £8.5
2 x Mayhems X1 Clear Premixed Watercooling Fluid 1L £7.99 (£15.98)
2 x XSPC 7/16" ID [16/11mm] High Flex Hose - Clear £2.99 (£5.98)
1 x OcUK Value PSU Bridging Connector (24 Pin) £1.3
8 x OcUK Value 16/13mm 1/2"ID- 5/8"OD Compact Compression Fitting G/4" Thread - Silver £1.2 (£9.60)
Total : £333.00 (includes shipping : £14.75).

Great,not keen on the case but I have no doubt there are plenty others to choose from.
 
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pgi947 said:
Just sorting a spec out now, I'm going to include a case into the spec as well to give you an idea of what will fit, presuming this is just a two component loop (CPU+GPU) so will be running it as a 360 rad system.
Edit: Hows this look for you? Could still get this down even cheaper if you wish.


YOUR BASKET
1 x XSPC RayStorm 750 RS360 WaterCooling Kit £157.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Case - Black £104.99
1 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC670 GTX - Acetal CSQ £64.99
1 x OcUK Tube Cutter Aluminum 3-14mm £8.5
2 x Mayhems X1 Clear Premixed Watercooling Fluid 1L £7.99 (£15.98)
1 x OcUK Value PSU Bridging Connector (24 Pin) £1.3
8 x OcUK Value 16/13mm 1/2"ID- 5/8"OD Compact Compression Fitting G/4" Thread - Silver £1.2 (£9.60)
Total : £381.05 (includes shipping : £14.75).



Edit2: Its worth noting that I included 8 compressions as I feel they are easier to use for a first time user than the supplied barbs in the XSPC kit.
Click to expand...

Your a star, I will give these a good look at. Thanks for taking the time. Not keen on the case I must add.
 
I wouldn't look at the OcUK Value fittings mate.

Have a look in my build log. All the fittings I received had the same problem.

edit... to save you the hassle....


6E020D2A-BA47-4B34-9F1F-49BBA68D344C-6792-000002AFB607B4E2.jpg


18E4DFFC-8759-4DEE-B488-1FA1672DFD60-6792-000002AFBACDE473.jpg
 
My apologies, they look different to the ones I got, just judged from the picture in the item description they were the same - which they aren't. The fittings I got were a dark nickel. Those look like they have either been stored poorly or the plating is of a poor finish.

The value fittings I got had a really course thread on them, made getting a bite on the thread really easy which is why I suggested them.

In which case, I would suggest going for the EK fittings :)
 
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