watercooling noob

j0s · 2 Mar 2015 at 22:24

I am thinking about going into watercooling, I was looking at the watercooling bundles that Ocuk sell but I am not to sure which one.

I have the corsair 540 case, so unsure which is the suitable one to get, so basically looking for advice.

Cheers

Bryan Kortez · 2 Mar 2015 at 22:28

I've just ventured down the custom loop path myself, after only using AIO's in the past.

What are you looking to watercool, CPU, CPU + GPU, etc..

j0s · 2 Mar 2015 at 22:32

thanks for the reply, I think to start of just the CPU and maybe look to GPU later on

Bryan Kortez · 2 Mar 2015 at 22:47

I was going to do a water cooling setup in the 540, but ended up selling it and i'm working on a Prodigy atm. I looked at so many different setups in the 540 for watercooling and you can't really go wrong with the amount of space you get.

If I was doing it, I would go with a 360mm rad upfront so i'm in taking cooler air to cool the rad, then exhaust out the top with some silent fans. Only problem I would see at the moment is you would be supplying slightly warmer air to your GPU until you added that into the loop.

Another idea perhaps is for now just use a top mounted rad 240mm low FPI rad up top to just cool the CPU, then add an extra low FPI rad upfront once you get your GPU in the loop. With the amount of rad space and using low FPI rads you could get a pretty silent system.

Bryan Kortez · 2 Mar 2015 at 22:50

Also this info was given to me in a post I made a while ago, might help you out too..

Undesirable said:
The main thing about rads is that some are optimised for high-speed fans, and others low. The radiators that are optimised for high-speed fans have more dense fins on them to help dissipate heat, but optimally need more air to push through them. A rad designed for low-speed fans have a lower fin per inch count and require less air to pass over them to dissipate heat, however they won't benefit as much as the denser rads will from a high speed fan. To surmise:

Low density rad + low speed fan: quiet and moderate to good cooling.
Low density rad + high speed fan: noisy and good cooling.
High density rad + low speed fan: quiet and moderate cooling.
High density rad + high speed fan: noisy and good to excellent cooling.

Thin rad + low speed fan: quiet and moderate cooling.
Thin rad + high speed fan: noisy and moderate to good cooling.
Thick rad + low speed fan: quiet and moderate to good cooling.
Thick rad + high speed fan: noisy and good to excellent cooling.

120 / 140mm rad: stock-clocked CPU.
240 / 280mm rad: overclocked CPU and a single low-TDP stock-clocked GPU.
120 / 140mm + 240 / 280mm rad: overclocked CPU and a single high-TDP stock-clocked GPU. Overclock the GPU if 140 + 280mm rads.
240 / 280mm rad + 240 / 280mm rad: overclocked CPU and dual low-TDP overclocked GPUs.
360 / 420 mm rad: overclocked CPU and a single high-TDP stock-clocked GPU. Overclock the GPU if 420mm rad.
120 / 140mm + 360 / 420mm rad: overclocked CPU and single overclocked high-TDP GPU or dual low-TDP stock-clocked GPUs. Overclock the GPUs if 140 + 420mm rads.
240 / 280mm rad + 360 / 420mm rad: overclocked CPU and dual high-TDP stock-clocked GPUs or dual low-TDP overclocked GPUs. Triple low-TDP GPUs if 280 + 420mm rads.
360 / 420mm rad + 360 / 420mm rad: overclocked CPU and dual overclocked high-TDP GPUs. Triple high-TDP GPUs if 420 + 420mm rads.

Disco_P · 2 Mar 2015 at 23:19

More rads = lower temps. Or you can swap some degrees celcius for lower noise which is what I do.