Water cooling i7 + 480 kit advise.

Prereality

Prereality

Prereality

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Joined
13 Sep 2011
Posts
13
Hi,
I am looking at taking the plunge and water cooling my Rig as I am having some noise/temp issues at the moment.

Setup:
i7 920 (Bloomfield) Rev D0 running @ 3.6
6Gb of ram (soon to be 18GB)
Reference 480gtx (could cook an egg on this and its so noisy)
120GB SSD (games drive)
64GB SSD (OS Drive)
3x 1TB drives
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
Current cooler is Noctua NH-U12P

Side note: When I got my board cpu etc I went with this:

*OVERCLOCKED* Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 4.00GHz / Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Intel X58 Motherboard / Corsair 6GB DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz DDR3 Bundle

I had to drop the CPU speed down to 3.6 as it was just getting too hot 85-90 degrees at load. Even as we speak where the cpu is idling my temps are hovering about 46-50 degrees @ 2175 clock speed. Ambient temp of the room is about 24.5-26 degrees.

I have been doing some reading around and the EK kits seem pretty popular.
However I also saw this:
OcUK V12 Watercooling Kit 360 [OCUKV12-1]

If I got the above mentioned OcUK kit and an EK 480 full cover block do you think that would be sufficient to keep my CPU and GPU cool. Additionally what else would i need on top of the GPU block to get the water cooling on the gfx side as its says two additional components are required?

Thanks is advance for any help people can throw my way.
 
U would need 2 more of these if adding a gpu into the loop, the SR-1 is one of the best rads u can get so while i would normally recomend a 480 rad or a pair of 240 rads for cpu + gpu that kit should be ample to give u lower temps and a lot less noise than u currently have, u could also add in another rad at a later date.
 
Hi Prereality
Welcome to the forums :)

yes, that kit will be fine for a Bloomfield CPU and a single Fermi GPU
I would advise getting an OcUK kit over an EK kit if you plan on cooling a 480 as well.
This is because the hardware in the OcUK kits is a no compromise approach.

you will get very nice temperatures and the fans are superb for performance and silence.
 
Thank you for the warm welcome and thanks for the super fast replies both of you. I have decided based on your comments to go with the full on OcUK system. Those fittings you mention Krony are out of stock at the moment, I assume I can just go with another pair of the same size in a different brand... Any recommendations or are they all much of the same?

I am not sure where I would put a second rad in my case, everything needs to be inside as I two very mischievous rag doll cats that will try everything in their power to take out my system. I will bare in mind what you said though when installing this first kit and see where I might be able to fit a second rad. What sort of temps do you think would be achievable with this setup if i push my CPU back up to 4GHZ?

Thanks again.
 
You're running the exact same setup as me. I would definitely go with the OCUK kit over the EK kit if you are looking to cool your CPU and GPU.

Is this your first venture into WC'ing btw?
 
Hi Jinxpad, yes this is my first foray into water cooling been building PCs for 16+ years now and never really had a reason to water cool until recently. My other half has developed a medical condition where she has issues controlling her body temp and always feels cold as such I cant run as cool a house as I want and as you can imagine a warmer house = warmer PC. I have a lot of technical expertise but I am always happy to take advise from people who have paved the way so any tips you have would be appreciated. What temperatures and OCing are you achieving at the moment?
 
I will get more fittings ordered tomorrow. they must have sold out in the last few hours.

those fittings are the ones in the kit so they will all match. :)

best of luck finding a 480 block at the moment. they are like hens teeth!
 
All ordered up yesterday, the kit should be arriving next week as it takes a few days to assemble, not quite sure what needs assembling I suspect its just a cunning ploy by rjkoneill to keep me in suspense ;) . My memory and various other parts should be arriving tomorrow though so at least I can put my additional memory in. I found some 480 full covers in stock but ive decided to hold off for the next gen GFX cards in the last quarter or early 2012. Seems a little silly blowing £100 (30% of the cards price) on a block i cant reuse on an already 2 generation old gfx card. So I will have to make do with one very well cooled i7 Bloomfield.

On a completely separate note you have been out of compressed air for an eternity can you get some more in as I order nearly all my stuff through OcUk and its annoying to have to pay extra delivery else where for 1 item.

Thanks again for all your help guys much appreciated. I will let you know how it all goes when it arrives if anyone is interested.
 
Yeah put a build log up, just make sure you take your time, plan everything out and you'll be fine. Any advice you need on anything just ask :)

Good luck!
 
Thanks for that idea Avathar77 but I read that the GPU only blocks had big problems due to lack of Vram cooling and other components on the GFX card. I can see where they are coming from as I have replaced stock GFX coolers in the past with new air cooled ones and the cooling on the memory of the "generic" replacements leaves a lot of be desired. Is this not so much the case with water cooling?
 
Well with core only block like "EK VGA Supreme HF" you will need to buy the passive cooling chips for the memory and VRM modules. Enzotech and Akasa do these kind of heatsinks.
Each set will be about £10max.
There is a member here who cooled his 480 with the same EK VGA Supreme HF block.
I use the same as well but on a 6950 card.
 
Sorry there has been no update yet guys, still waiting on the kit to arrive, not sure whats taking so long. How do I set you up as trusted so that you can send me that link avathar? Is it as simple as clicking the trust button? I have done that let me know if i need to do anything else.
 
Hi everyone the Kit arrived on Friday and I spent all day today putting it together today. I am booted up and running now. Installation was painful due to, sadly I have to say very poor instructions by OcUk (the first time I have ever had anything to complain about from OcUk). Anyway install is all done now but I am getting very high temps atm 70 C idling at 2175 :( typing this. Any ideas?
Config right now is:
Rad-->CPU->Res--> Pump---> Rad

I have done all the air bubbles checking and I cant see any other that a small one on the surface of the res with is to be expected i think.

Sad Panda at the moment. Any ideas would be appreciated.
 
bastic said:
have you removed the cover film from waterblock ? ( it does happen)
Click to expand...

FML!!! I had already just thought of that and switched off my machine to do it. I remember seeing it and checking it and my test fit went so well I didnt take the block off again. I cannot cannot cannot believe I did that!!! I will never live that down. I was kind of hoping to get away with it but you beat me back online with your answer before i could report a fix ;-P. Idle temp at the moment is 33C with a room temp of 26.5C so very happy with that. I will engage some prime 95 and some Overclocking in the next few days and let you all know how it goes. Thanks again and sorry for being a muppet. Also I need to write a short guide for anyone using the V12 kit as the OcUk one is woefully incomplete if you are new to the whole scene. Once I have written my tips and pointers I will post it in a new thread.
 
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