New to watercooling

demon8991 · 2 Jul 2013 at 04:08

Hi guys,

I have never water-cooled a system and I am looking for some advice as I would love to get the system listed in my signature under water. Moving to Australia sees temperatures soar to 38 degrees in summer and adding an 80-90 degree graphics card to the mix makes the room boil especially as it’s the only room in the house not to have air conditioning!

It doesn’t help my current case is rubbish for all types of cooling and is cramped with 5 drives so I am looking to move to a new case that can house the radiators/reservoir and all my drives.

I know cases are a personal taste so I have listed some of the ones I like below.

Corsair Obsidian 650D
Corsair Obsidian 800D
Corsair Obsidian 900D
Corsair Carbide 540
Cooler Master Cosmos II Ultra Tower

I want to cool my CPU and GPU and so I am looking for some advice as to which of these cases would be the best and what water-cooling parts I would need to get to achieve the best results.

My GPU is a Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB GDDR5.

OLDPHART · 2 Jul 2013 at 11:30

Hi, yes it does get a tad hot down under, you might want to consider having one big radiator free standing externally with quick disconnects for moving + servicing and gaining better temp's. If it was me l would go for a water chiller far better again, but it all come's down to the size of your wallet.

Admiral Huddy · 2 Jul 2013 at 11:40

Some of those are big cases and despite being a lovely case, the Cosmos ii is expensive for what it is. I have the Xigmatek Elysium Full Tower Windowed Case which is a huge case and ideal for nearly all watercooling configurations so you get more for your cash but it lacks quality in the build. My personal favorite at the moment is the NZXT Switch 810 Big Tower which i'm thinking of switching too (no pun intended).

Shadow-King · 3 Jul 2013 at 00:04

I just ordered the NZXT Switch 810 big.

Watch the review by TinyTimLogan on youtube. Channel name is TimeToLive. BEWARE REVIEW IS OVER AN HOUR LONG! Enjoy

daveip · 3 Jul 2013 at 16:27

Tom Logan does some really good case reviews. Goes really into the nitty gritty of the case although he does get a bit personal about them some times. Understandable though as he's reviewing them from a perspective as if he was to use the case.

Switch 810 seems like a nice case, but of the list of cases you have above, the 900D would be best, but it is a premium and you have to ask if you can justify getting it.

Need to sit back, plan the rig i.e. number of radiators, reservoir you want to use, where you're going to put it etc etc, then consider then case?

Plus, water cooling the computer isn't going to make your room any cooler! Heat is being produced and putting water cooling into your computer isn't going to cool your room down.

Mynight · 3 Jul 2013 at 16:57

If anything my rooms become hotter since getting water cooling

I presume the more efficient the cooling is at keeping the chip cool the hotter the surrounding area will become. All the heats got to go somewhere

.

I can vouch for the 900d but mine still looks empty running an e-atx 840mm full loop and other bits and bobs. It sucks at air cooling in my opinion though

Might be cheaper/more efficient to get the room aircooled like the rest of the house. If the ambient is that high you'll never get below it doesn't matter how good your cooling is

(Damn physics!

)

Jokester · 3 Jul 2013 at 19:19

Watercooling will make your room slightly hotter because of the heat from the pump and additional fans.

demon8991 · 3 Jul 2013 at 23:17

Mynight said:
If anything my rooms become hotter since getting water cooling I presume the more efficient the cooling is at keeping the chip cool the hotter the surrounding area will become. All the heats got to go somewhere .

I can vouch for the 900d but mine still looks empty running an e-atx 840mm full loop and other bits and bobs. It sucks at air cooling in my opinion though

Might be cheaper/more efficient to get the room aircooled like the rest of the house. If the ambient is that high you'll never get below it doesn't matter how good your cooling is (Damn physics! )

That’s the problem I keep coming back to with the 900d. In my opinion Corsair make some of the best looking cases and some of the most functional too but I don’t think I have the equipment to make the 900d look anything but empty!

What are your thoughts on the 650d as I love the look of this case? Is there enough room for a rad or two? Also I have 4 hardrives and was thinking of having them mounted in the 5.25" bays is there a good solution to this without changing the front of the case?

I cannot for the life of me understand why case makers still feel the need to have 4+ x 5.25" drive bays surely more people have hardrives now than optical bays and fan controllers? If it were me I would have all the hardrives at the top to allow for a big fan/heatsink at the bottom to drive a good airflow towards the GPU where the heat is being created!

Jokester said:
Watercooling will make your room slightly hotter because of the heat from the pump and additional fans.

With the amount of fans i have in there at the moment i doubt it.

3 x GPU
2 x Front Intakes
1 x Bottom Intake
2 x CPU
1 x Rear Exhaust
1 x Top Exhaust

scotsdragon · 4 Jul 2013 at 14:31

GO with the 900d its a beast and will allow you to continue to expand without thinking "oh can this fit" instead youll be thinking "how much will it coste me to fit " you can fit 5 rads out of the box there is currently not built that i know of that would generate that much heat.

Mynight · 4 Jul 2013 at 15:06

I'd go with the 900d if you want to put 3x GPUs under water I don't think you could fit enough rads in a 650 to provide adequate cooling.

I understand what you mean about the 5.25" bays for the majority its a waste these days I've filled mine up with a fan controller, blu ray burner and the bay res but not many people use optical media anymore apparantly.

You can purchase 3.5 to 5.25 converters really cheaply I brought a pack of 4 for £5 they have rubber mounts which almost silence my hard drives (added bonus) or you can use the bun-jee cord method which is around the net which works just as well

With the 900 you can remove the HDD bays which would give you room for a 360x2 480 and a 240 without any mods. It may look empty but it does have amazing build quality and water cooling support.

In comparison the 650d also has amazing build quality but you won't get anywhere near the same rad space

but apparently is much better at air cooling. If you want to install more than one rad you'll have to mod the case by the look of it

quite the trade off.

WC is the way to go to bring down your temps and I'd honestly push the 900 at that point. If you decide to go with air the 650 would be better but not in the same league for cooling.

How much is an aircon unit out there? You could save loads and produce much better temps than WC.

demon8991 · 5 Jul 2013 at 03:03

Mynight said:
I'd go with the 900d if you want to put 3x GPUs under water I don't think you could fit enough rads in a 650 to provide adequate cooling.

I understand what you mean about the 5.25" bays for the majority its a waste these days I've filled mine up with a fan controller, blu ray burner and the bay res but not many people use optical media anymore apparantly.

You can purchase 3.5 to 5.25 converters really cheaply I brought a pack of 4 for £5 they have rubber mounts which almost silence my hard drives (added bonus) or you can use the bun-jee cord method which is around the net which works just as well

With the 900 you can remove the HDD bays which would give you room for a 360x2 480 and a 240 without any mods. It may look empty but it does have amazing build quality and water cooling support.

In comparison the 650d also has amazing build quality but you won't get anywhere near the same rad space but apparently is much better at air cooling. If you want to install more than one rad you'll have to mod the case by the look of it quite the trade off.

WC is the way to go to bring down your temps and I'd honestly push the 900 at that point. If you decide to go with air the 650 would be better but not in the same league for cooling.

How much is an aircon unit out there? You could save loads and produce much better temps than WC.

Thanks some good advice there.

Problem is I am just not sure if I will end up watercooling I’m just try to weigh up whether it’s worth it so. A 900d could be a complete overkill, the 540 looks like an amazing case if only it were from the Obsidian range and had better HDD options.

But yeah as stated previously I think my high temperatures currently are down to a poor case and the fact I have 5 drives butted up against the fans drawing the air towards the graphics card.

Mynight · 5 Jul 2013 at 03:22

Thank you

I'm new to this advice giving malarky

What case do you currently own? (Sorry if it says in your sig but its half missing on mobile and I'm away from my beloved computer

).

You could consider buying an external hard drive enclosure. I believe a 4 bay one can be had for £40 (even less 2nd hand) add in a sata pcie card £20(?) and you've opened up your air cooling ability again

Side note: I'm incredibly envious of you moving to aus

I plan on moving there when/if I can

(i might finally get a tan

)

demon8991 · 5 Jul 2013 at 03:43

Mynight said:
Thank you I'm new to this advice giving malarky

What case do you currently own? (Sorry if it says in your sig but its half missing on mobile and I'm away from my beloved computer ).

You could consider buying an external hard drive enclosure. I believe a 4 bay one can be had for £40 (even less 2nd hand) add in a sata pcie card £20(?) and you've opened up your air cooling ability again

Side note: I'm incredibly envious of you moving to aus I plan on moving there when/if I can (i might finally get a tan )

Ahh no worries I have the Bitfenix Shinobi non windowed version.

Yeah I have considered doing something like that or even a NAS setup but then I just come back to the fact that for a 10-20 degree temperature problem I am going to so much effort to combat that when a new case/better case design would be a simpler option.

Yeah I moved 18 months ago and it was the best decision I have ever made! Its sunny almost all the time, most of the population live 10 minutes from the beach, the average wage is so much higher than the UK and the GBP is very weak against the dollar so sending money back to pay off my apartment has been amazing. However I miss my friends and family and English pubs and a good curry.

OLDPHART · 5 Jul 2013 at 10:06

Jokester said:
Watercooling will make your room slightly hotter because of the heat from the pump and additional fans.

Maybe if your living in a Box, but it makes no difference to the living room where my PC is. My rads under my desk hanging at the back of the footwell and can't feel any heat from the rad on my legs when it's cold.