Picked up a watercooled system. Needs a few bits to complete. Advice please

[wh00sher]

A friend no longer needs his `spare` PC and I`m looking to buy the missing components to get it back up and running.

It`s fitted into a LianLi case

Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7

CPU is an Intel Core i7-980X Processor Extreme Edition which he used to run it at 4.6 GHz without issue. Only came with 2GB or Corsair RAM

It has 2x GTX 780 Graphics Cards

It has a part installed watercooling system, using EK Cooling blocks on the CPU, Motherboard and video cards. The fan controller is a SCYTHE of some sort with an NZXT display above it

I`m guessing these plug into the reservoir / pump assembly ?

Now I know this is pretty old stuff by modern standards, but considering I`ve been running a Dell Workstation with Twin Xeon 5150 CPU`s and 8GB DDR ECC Ram, this will certainly be an improvement

I already have an SSD System drive and a couple of 1TB SATA data drives that I can swap across into the new case

I`ll need some more RAM and to be honest I`ll probably get some used DDR3 Dominator RAM, a good yet quiet power supply, pump, reservoir and my friend suggested replacing the tubing as it`s pretty old now.


This is my first foray into watercooling but I`m well versed in building PC`s, I just stopped upgrading several years ago when I stopped playing games on the PC and found this system was absolutely fine for general use. I do a lot of video rendering and this will be a significant improvement compared to my current setup.

What I`m asking for is advice on the pump, reservoir and power supply along with anything else I`ve missed. I know I can browse the front page, but advice is welcome.

Will my hardware support and control a EK-XRES 100 REVO D5 PWM for example ? Or would I be better with the 140 ?

I`ve never used a Modular Power supply, which I think this requires? Is this spec complete overkill or necessary ? LIAN LI PE-750B 750W '80 PLUS PLATINUM' SFX-L MODULAR POWER SUPPLY


Any suggestions and advice is very welcome, apart from suggesting I just bin it and buy new. I`m not sure I could buy a new system that would perform as well as this will for the same budget.

 

[LuckyBenski]

That is an EXCELLENT haul for free, you have a nice friend. Similar performing setup would cost you over £500 easily, without the water cooling. Only issue is power consumption - I believe those cards are 250W at stock clocks each so you'll want probably 750W.

You don't need a modular power supply - modular just means cables are removable to let you keep it tidy when not using every connector. You WILL need a PSU with 4 PCIE power connectors to power the GPUs. The power supply you listed is SFX i.e. small, you can probably find better/more suitable.

Maybe I'm being blind, but where are the radiator/s? Are the only loose tubes coming out of the back? You will want maybe 5-6 fans' worth of radiator for this I'd say, minimum. I recommend you replace the tubing and strip/clean the blocks too. It's worth a full rebuild really, to get this system rock solid.

Any motherboard should be able to drive a pump's PWM speed signal from a fan header, or even do it from the fan controller. It will likely take its power direct from the PSU.

Looks like a good fun project though! Definitely a graphics powerhouse too.

 

[wh00sher]

That is an EXCELLENT haul for free, you have a nice friend. Similar performing setup would cost you over £500 easily, without the water cooling. Only issue is power consumption - I believe those cards are 250W at stock clocks each so you'll want probably 750W.

You don't need a modular power supply - modular just means cables are removable to let you keep it tidy when not using every connector. You WILL need a PSU with 4 PCIE power connectors to power the GPUs. The power supply you listed is SFX i.e. small, you can probably find better/more suitable.

Maybe I'm being blind, but where are the radiator/s? Are the only loose tubes coming out of the back? You will want maybe 5-6 fans' worth of radiator for this I'd say, minimum. I recommend you replace the tubing and strip/clean the blocks too. It's worth a full rebuild really, to get this system rock solid.

Any motherboard should be able to drive a pump's PWM speed signal from a fan header, or even do it from the fan controller. It will likely take its power direct from the PSU.

Looks like a good fun project though! Definitely a graphics powerhouse too.

Thank you.

Further investigation and stripping out unnecessary wiring has made it much simpler for me to get my head around. You are right, a standard high powered PSU will do, obviously a quiet one or it`s missing the point. He gave me a twin pump setup but you are absolutely correct, I need a radiator, I`ll look at what are available.

Good shout on replacing the tubing, I have no idea how old this is and it makes sense to get it changed so I`m starting from a good place.