solid or flexible piping for water cooling

freemason

freemason

freemason

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13 Oct 2013
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Dear all,

In the next month or two i shall be starting my pc build it will be built around my gaming needs.

I'm looking to water cool the gpu cpu etc.... Full water cooling will be my target.

I know to some the question about piping may be some what trivial but to me its not I've seen PC's. Both with solid piping and the also the hose type.

My question is, is there any benefits to one vs the other... I do personally like the look of the hard piping. As i think the flexi hose just looks messing as its left hanging in mid air where ever it lies it stays. With the hard pipe i feel a much more cleaner and managed loop could be made

Thank you all
David
 
As you've said other than aesthetics there is no reason to choose one or the other. Solid acrylic is a lot more difficult to work with due to the nature of having then bend it using heat.
 
I wouldn't suggest using solid acrylic tubing if this is your 1st watercooling build (or even 2nd or 3rd).

With flexible tubing you can fit it as you go with very little planning needed. With acrylic you need to plan the build very carefully. It's also very time consuming doing acrylic runs.

I agree the acrylic builds look awesome but they are really the preserve of show builds.
 
You can tide up flexible hose as well.
Just use more than needed and attach it in different curves of your case.
I have seen few guys putting them into cable management space.
And you can use 10/16mm hose instead of 10/13mm.
Another thing is you can use some fittings/connections that allow 90" and 180" turns.
There is plenty of that in OCuk store, just look for it.
 
Flexible tubing usually only looks messy or 'hanging in mid air' when people leave too much slack (often the case with bay res setups) and/or end up with unattractive loop layouts.

Plan it out thoroughly, use the right fittings and it can be as clean as you want :)

Of course, if you want razor sharp straight lines, then rigid tubing is the way.
I'd definitely agree that rigid tubing is probably not suited to the first timer, though it's certainly not an impossible task.
 
Thank you all,

Yes this will indeed be my first water cooling endeavour. I guess if i use flexi for now see how it goes, and take my time getting the lines right perhaps i can make a good go of it. Keep everything tidy and stuff
 
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