Water cooling in a Fractal Design R3.

Tediore

Tediore

Tediore

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26 Jan 2011
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Hi, folks.

I'd like to reduce the noise output of my PC, primarily the noise of the graphics card. I have a Twin Frozr II cooler, which, as I've seen mentioned on here before, is prone to bearing problems with the fans. I used to get a buzz in a very small fan speed range, but now I can hear it slightly even at minimum fan speed and it's driving me crazy, so I've decided to look into some water cooling.

The case is a Fractal Design R3. I was hoping someone who's done water cooling in one of these before could shed some light on what sort of layout I could go for. At first glance, I can get a 240mm radiator in the top, but I'd ideally like another one, but I'm not entirely sure where I'd put one.

The rest of the system specs are:

i5 2500K
8GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile
MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 580
2 x 2TB Samsung F4 (with an SSD to come at some point)
Antec 650w TruePower New PSU

As for fans, I have a 120mm Fractal Design fan front and back, a 140 in the top, and a spare 140 that used to be on the side until I decided to put the noise dampening back on to try and protect my sanity.

Any advice/input would be appreciated. Do I put the kit together myself? Are there any good kits out there? Any brands better than others? As far as budget goes, I'd like to do this as cheap as I can without cutting too many corners, so will probably see what I can source on the MM.

Thanks :)
 
The 580 is a reference board as far as I can tell, and I can find no reports to say otherwise.

I do have a DVD drive. I forgot to mention that, however I'd be open to replacing it with an external one if it'd help. I hardly ever use it.

It looks like the HDD cage will come out with just a few screws undone, but I'd need to find somewhere for the HDDs to go, as the cage doesn't split.
 
The problem I'd run into there is that my HDDs are nearly full. I'm going to need another one soon.

Another route I was thinking of was a 120mm radiator for the CPU and a 240mm for the GPU. My current CPU cooler is just a place holder Arctic Cooling Freezer 13, and that keeps my (currently stock) 2500K at 17 - 20 degrees idle at 25% fan speed, so I'd assume a block and a 120mm radiator would keep it below or around 30 with a reasonable overclock.
 
Tediore said:
The problem I'd run into there is that my HDDs are nearly full. I'm going to need another one soon.

Another route I was thinking of was a 120mm radiator for the CPU and a 240mm for the GPU. My current CPU cooler is just a place holder Arctic Cooling Freezer 13, and that keeps my (currently stock) 2500K at 17 - 20 degrees idle at 25% fan speed, so I'd assume a block and a 120mm radiator would keep it below or around 30 with a reasonable overclock.
Click to expand...

How about just watercooling the graphics card?

You can get brackets that convert 1 ODD bay to 2 3.5" HDD's bays.
 
seeing you would only be cooling 1x gtx card and 1x cpu a 240 rad imho would be fine for cooling both! im only running 360 worth of rad space for 2x 570 and an i7 2600k @ 4.8. cpu on load gets to 55 during gaming and both gpus dont go above 50 either!

a lot of ppl say 120mm worth of rad per component :)

use the ek websites cooling config to find out what waterblock is compatiable with your gfx card.

if you do decide to wc the cpu also the ek HF range are very good!

will you be using a tube res or would you prefer a bay res?
 
I did consider just water cooling the GPU, but I like the minimalist look of water cooling on both, and it's not too much more expensive to do so.

I'd be perfectly happy with those temperatures, muppet. It'd be great if I could get away with a 240mm radiator for the entire system. I'd either use my existing 120mm Fractal fans, or replace them with Scythe Gentle Typhoons if they're much better.

I'd probably go for a bay res. I can't see anywhere I could comfortably fit a tube res, and I have a spare 5.25" drive bay. I'll look into the EK configurator, but I imagine something like this is what I want.

As for a pump, the Laing D5 seems to get a lot of good press. Would you mind sharing your setup, muppet? You seem to get pretty good temperatures. I have no idea what I'd go with in terms of tubing and fittings, so any suggestions there would be appreciated :)
 
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Nice builds, both of you.

Given me some inspiration as to what I want to do with mine :D

I may even do a log. I've been looking for a project to keep me entertained. Unfortunately, I see this venture starting with water cooling... :( :D

Nice to see there is room for a tube res if I decide to go down that route. I also like the position of the radiator. Makes the build look very clean. Could I ask what sort of temperatures you're getting with the radiator in the front like that? Did you have to do any cutting to fit the radiator there and get air flow to it?

I wish I had that sort of room to work with, muppet!
 
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