watercooling extreme noob needs some help

alienware

alienware

alienware

Associate
Joined
8 Jan 2009
Posts
40
hey guys i wanted some extensive amounts of help regarding watercooling. i recently decided to go for WC setup for my i7 but unfortunately im completely clueless when it comes to selecting the right piece of equipment for it. i have been looking at components for around 5 months now at different websites but i always got confused with the dimensions required and how many of each piece of equipment i would need. anyways ill mention my pc specs first then ill ask the main question so here goes:
Intel Core i7 975 Extreme Processor
Rampage 2 Extreme Motherboard
12GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 2000MHz
Gainward 4870x2 DDR5 2GB GPU
Cooler Master Cosmos S casing

Now please keep this in mind that i only want CPU to be watercooled right now. NOT THE GPU!!!
think these are the components which should be related to WC setup, no need to mention the rest of the stuff installed. So what i request from you guys is to please lay out (in detail) as to what sort of equipment i should get for WC'ing. Like which block is the best (ive read quite good things about the swiftech cpu block), would a 240MM Radiator do the job or going for a 360MM is better? what are the pros and cons for both.

Go for drive bay reservoirs or tube ones? i also heard from a friend that drive bay reservoirs tend to leak (although i would prefer going for the drive bay one since it adds to the cool effect of the whole casing).

Which pump to go for? which are the better ones?

Now the real confusing part. How much tubing to purchase? Length wise and diameter wise (3/8mm or 1/4mm). the hose fittings, go for 3/8mm ones or 1/4mm ones?...whats the difference between both? and how many hose fittings would i need?

please if some one can list down everything for me it would be a great help. thanks a lot:) and sorry for the noobism
 
No. Water cooling needs care, time, and research. If you won't give it these things, it'll take your computer from you. I will answer your specific questions as best I can, but I will not describe in detail everything about water cooling. The request is impractical and would help you little were it possible.

360 is better in every way except size and price. Its bigger and costs more, but cools better. Roughly 150% the dissipation of a 240.

Neither. T line or the xspc reservoir top if you use the laing ddc. Ideally the former, as it can't leak. The latter is more convenient. Bottom of the list are tubes/bay reservoirs, as the capacity is excessive and they introduce more points of failure than is required.

Laing. DDC or D5 have the pros and cons. Google it.

3/8mm and 1/4mm don't exist. 3/8" is 3/8 of an inch. If you've seen a ruler recently you'd realise why the tubes are not a quarter of a mm in diameter. 7/16" over 1/2" barbs is standard. I use 11/8mm compression fittings. Google this also.

You need two barbs per item, as water goes in and out of the item. Is this not obvious?

noobs should not watercool their computers. Learn more, research lots, no longer be a noob and then watercool it :)

I'd like to see a picture of the inside of your case. Your spec is good enough that its fairly likely not to exist, that's all. If you do put one up, the picture will help us determine where you should place water cooling components.
 
well thanks for the help jon but i would really like to know what made you say that my pc specs are good enough for it to not to exist?...maybe i took it in the wrong way but here are the insides of my pc. pics were taken before i installed the dominator gt ram but it shouldnt matter. currently im using a i7 940 but ive bought a 975 from ocuk and would be installing it once i go back from my vacation.



 
5 posts, you've named yourself alienware. Seems a fair guess that you'd be pretending to have a system when you actually don't, theres a surprising amount of that about. I'm thrilled to have been proved wrong, that's far more exciting. That is beautiful, I'm not sure it deserves the label noob :D

You didn't come here expecting questions I suspect, but I'm starting to look towards i7 and don't often see 12gb ones. Do they run warm/hot to the touch? There is a beautiful watercooling block for corsair dominators by mips, but it's quite possible it does nothing if the ram runs cold anyway.

What's the 24 pin extension being used for? A little hard to tell from the photo.

Anyway, that'll do for my curiosity. Water will cool better with less noise, but at a price and inconvenience. I do hope you're overclocking, it would be a real shame not to. An almost ideal cpu only loop would be a heatkiller or ek supreme, feser or thermochill triple radiator, laing ddc 18W or D5 pump. I've gone with ek supreme, feser, ddc myself, but there is very little to call between them.

You can run an i7 by itself off a 240, but it's starting to push the limits of the system slightly. If you aren't overclocking, temperatures probably don't matter to you so a 240 would do. Even at stock, that gfx card + i7 on a single triple radiator will be too much if you try it in the future.

You'll need some way of filling it. A T junction with a tube coming off the middle ending with a plug is the best option, but not the most convenient. This is, not surprisingly, a T line. Reservoirs work in the same way but with less effort. A second t line at the lowest point in the system is useful for draining it. 7/16" tubing with 1/2" barbs and jubilee clips is the favourite method for joining the pieces together
 
thanks for the advice jon. and i dont blame you for doubting me. let me answer the questions you asked first before i ask some. to be honest with you i havent spent much time with the dominator ram running at full 2000Mhz frequency that corsair brags about. this was due to my negligence in researching before buying. after i recieved the ram modules and hooked them onto my pc, i realised that the 940 does not support ram modules running at 2000Mhz or even at 1800. atleast mine didnt. this is where the 975 extreme came in because i read on the asus forums that i would need the 975 processor to support the rams running at 2000Mhz hence i wouldnt be able to tell if the temps are high for touch or not.

regarding the 24pin connector, it comes with the cosmos S. you HAVE to connect it to the 24 pin psu connector so that the touch sensitive power button on the case can work.

now im not planning on water cooling the ram modules as yet so im not really looking for ram blocks. regarding the cpu first of all my apologies for being negligible towards the tubing and hosing sizes. its 3 am in the morning and im half asleep what do you expect:P. yes i have been oc'ing the 940. managed to take it upto 4.2 on air. wouldnt boot at any frequency above that. my main reason for oc'ing is just running the benchies and competing with the guys on another forum.

as far as the tubing is concerned, can you please tell me approximately how much of it would be sufficient. the reason im asking these noobish questions is that i dont live in uk. im here for vacations. im planning on buying the parts from here and taking it back to my home country pakistan where i live. any part with the wrong dimensions like the hose or tubing would just get me no where since i wont be coming back to uk anytime soon. thats why i want things to be clear in my head so i know what im buying.
 
Like Jon said before, most people will suggets 1/2" barbs with 7/16" tubing. This gives a very tight and secure fit and means you dont need to use clips to hold the tubing on.

As for how much tubing to buy, whenever I change my loop I order 2m of whatever tubing Im using. If your just doing a CPU loop 1m may be enough, but its cheap enough so get 2m to be certain you have enough :)
 
Ducky Spud said:
Like Jon said before, most people will suggets 1/2" barbs with 7/16" tubing. This gives a very tight and secure fit and means you dont need to use clips to hold the tubing on.
Click to expand...

Yes you will see allot of people reccomending 7/16" tubing, but I would point out that the downside is that it is impossible to get the tubing off your barbs without cutting the tube, thus if you regularly strip down of generally fiddle around with your loop then you either have to build in slack in all your tube lengths, or you have to replace with new every time. Using normal 1/2" or 3/8" with appropriate fittings, I prefer jubilee clips, will mean you can definately reuse the same tube. It boils down to whether you want to have visible hose clips or not. Also 3/8" tube is easier to work with than 1/2" with virtually the same cooling performance.
 
Having gone through all the advice a few times now, for safety and efficiency sake I'd always advise compression fittings now, as for tubing size just get what you want, it makes damn all difference to the loop pressure.
 
thanx for the advice guys....i talked to one of the online retailers in uk and this is what he recommended for the setup that would be most suitable for me. before placing the order i would appreciate if you guys can pitch in your views about if everything is ok or not. Thanks

XSPC 3/8 ID 5/8 OD High Flex Gloss Black Tube**
XSPC Dual 5.25" Bay Reservoir with built in pump
G1/4" to 3/8" Plated barbs
Swiftech Apogee GTZ CPU Block
Swiftech i7 Skt 1366 Mounting Plate for Apogee GTZ*
Thermochill PA120.3 360 Radiator with 15mm Fan Spacing : PA120.3 15mm
 
Looks pretty good. That pump will do the job for this setup... but dont go adding much more to the loop. Your far better getting a Laing pump if your planning on adding more later on.

Also, Thermochill use a different sized thread on theyre rads so you would need 2 barbs that would fit that. You would need barbs like these

Also, you got 3 fans to put on the rad?
 
yea ive got plenty of fans so they arent a problem. i would be adding gpu blocks later on in the year when dx11 cards show up so you think i would have to make some major changes to this setup if ill add 2 gpu's to it?
 
I would just recommend getting a better pump such as a Laing DDC Ultra. They're quite expensive but the best pump you can get really.

Or if your adding 2 GPUs to it you could just add a whole new loop if you wanted? 2 GPUs and that i7 in a single loop may be a bit too much, even for the mighty Thermochill
 
+1 for the 18W laing ddc, amazing pump. The thermochill triple is basically ideal for the i7 only loop, but you'll probably want another radiator when/if you put the gpus under.

I admit I use compression fittings, but always thought I was in the minority in this. Much prefer them. I think I've gone through 8m of tubing so far, I change my mind a lot
 
thanks jon and ducky spud for the advice. ill go with the laing ddc ultra pump and because of this change i would no longer need a bay reservoir. although i would like to have one just because the uv reactive coolant would add to the looks o the case. any downside to that? like having all that fluid in the reservoir? i mean what are the chances of leaks if any?. oh and one more thing. what do you think about having black tubing with uv orange liquid in it (i know the liquid wont be visible in the black tubing) but IF i have a front bay reservoir it will be visible there. my whole pc has a black and orange coloured theme.
 
I use a single bay res at the moment and find it very handy. It obviously takes more fluid than a smaller res so make sure you have enough (you should do if you get a single like me, but a double will need a lot of fluid to fill it. Ive never had any problems with it leaking though (including driving for about an hour and half with my system still filled up in the car boot!)

As for black tubing with orange coolant, it should look pretty good! Have you thought about orange tubing? Got a few photos of black and orange setups saved on my PC and most use orange tubing and it looks great!
 
Can I suggest that for a first build you don't use black tubing as it's very much harder to bleed the system down with tubing you can't see through.

I would also suggest that you look at making yourself an easy-to-install system. I'm not talking about the piping up, I'm talking about the drilling and the cutting and so on and so forth.

Alphacool make a rather nifty mounting plate that mounts a Laing DDC with a reservoir top onto a 120mm fan, so you actually don't need to drill anything to mount the reservoir or pump.

I made up something to cool just a low VID CPU;

120mmkit.jpg


That kit had a 120mm radiator that bolted through and so the overall number of cooling fans was reduced by one (no CPU fan) and it gave a very quiet system. But it has a D-Tek FuZion CPU block, Laing 10W DDC pump and XSPC reservoir top, so the overall efficiency of the loop wasn't at all compromised. If you also look carefully, you'll be able to see that I packed the bolt-through on the pump with rubber grommets which reduce the vibration from the pump and lift the pump off the metal plate for better airflow.

Depending on how you are mounting the PA120.3 you could use one of the fans there as the mounting point for a system like this, or just one of the case fans, as I did in the example above.

If you are planning to mount the radiator in the roof where the three 120mm fans sit, then measure the hole spacing carefully. I think the hole spacing on the Thermochill is wrong for that case, and you need something with 15mm spacings, like the Feser, Swiftech, Black Ice or AquaComputer 360mm radiators. In that way, you could potentially mount the whole thing without drilling or cutting at all.

[Edit]And I'd bodyswerve UV reactive coloured fluids for the first build. You can get translucent orange tubing that will still fluoresce under UV, but you'll be able to see the liquid inside as well[/Edit]
 
Last edited:
thanks for the tip wja96. ive posted a pic which resembles my system (basically i copied this guys design since this was the best looking cosmos s i could find on the net) and i would prefer my system looking more or less the same. think he has used uv reactive orange tubing with orange coloured fluid or maybe a orange dye in the water, something like that.



 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom