Watercooling - What brands?

[Shaddow1086]

Good Morning Everyone.

I am looking to upgrade my system to watercooling. Currently have an AIO Corsair H115i but would like to set up a hard pipe watercooling for both CPU and GPU.

Wondering what peoples views are on the different brands?

Is it best to build the whole system using a single brand, or mix and match brands to get best parts?

CPU - I5 7600K
GPU - 1080ti (Asus Strix)

Case is an Corsair Obsidian 750D, so plenty of space.

Thoughts are to fit a tripple rad at the top and double rad at front.
Possibly look at a bay reservoir and pump (Seen EK have them).

Werner

 

[Glanza]

Brand doesn't generally matter to people. It's the mixing of metals that cause issues.

I use a mixture of XSPC barbs, Mayhems tubing, fluid and radiator and Black Ice Radiator in my current loop.

 

[Shaddow1086]

Thanks for info.

 

[pastymuncher]

One brand matters to me and that's EK. Not in the way you imagine though. I will go out of my way to avoid EK after I had a pair of blocks (one brand new and one 6 months old) leak due to O ring failures and had one of the worst customer service experiences I have ever had. I ended up finding out the sizes of all O rings in the block and replacing them myself. My next upgrade I removed all EK blocks in my sytem and will never go back to them. Aquacomputer's blocks, particularly the gpu blocks are excellent quality and look great. I have a Aquacomputer Kyographics GTX1070/1080 block for my GPU and a Alphacool Eisblock XPX on my cpu. I use hardline tubing inside the case these days so have Mizucool tubing (seller on Ebay who also sells Barrow fittings) with Barrow fittings and Mayhems excellent 10/16mm soft tubing and 12mm copper pipe outside the case (my rads are mounted in a box on a windowsill). I have a Alphacool VPP655 pump (D5 vario), modded XSPC Photon 270 reservoir and a pair of thick Coolgate 360mm rads (CG360+G2 360mm). My rads are not the best available these days but at the time were the best performance for my money. For coolant I always use Mayhems X1 which has all the additives you need in a loop.

 

[TangoEchoAlpha]

Interesting thread OP, wanted to reply and watch it. Been looking at all the different options as I am hoping to do my first custom loop over the next couple of months - having looked at a lot of threads, the comments about EK by @pastymuncher are quite regular on the forums. I've no experience of them myself, but it's enough to put me off.

I've been looking at XSPC and AlphaCool. I expect I will go with the latter in the hope they keep that typical German engineering

 

[Shaddow1086]

Some interesting feedback and as @TangoEchoAlpha mentions, it seems there is a lot of negative comments around EK online.
Need to put some time aside to go through each component piece by piece and build a kit.

 

[Kei]

I've not had any problems with any of the kit I've used from:

Alphacool - radiators only
Aqua computer - gpu block
EKWB - cpu & 2x gpu blocks
Koolance - 2x cpu blocks
XSPC - fittings and 2x reservoirs

For my next blocks, I'm looking at watercool heatkiller items which seem to have a very good reputation.

 

[LuckyBenski]

A piece of common and universal advice for hard-line is: make sure tubing and fittings are compatible. The easiest way to do this is buy both from the same brand. There's much less room for error with hardline fittings due to o-rings rather than a stretchy tubing. Some companies take 5/8" to mean exactly 15.9mm where others will interpret it as 16mm, etc, and you can run into problems mixing them.

My personal experience is largely Alphacool: I found their radiators pretty clean and well made, blocks even moreso. I have a VPP755 pump which works beautifully and is quiet but on 3-4 occasions it's failed to start at boot. If you have reasonable precautions (alarms or shutdown at zero RPM or high temperatures) this isn't a huge issue.

 

[TangoEchoAlpha]

What's the opinion of Phanteks as a watercooling brand? I like the look of some of their components, but (ready to be corrected as I am very much a newbie for anything water cooling) they seem to be predominantly alumnium based?

OCUK seem to have a limited subset of AlphaCool components and I would ideally like to get everything of the same make. I have spent some time looking at XSPC components earlier today for my 2700X and have loosely listed out what I think I would need, but still think I'd like to go AlphaCool given their reputation.

 

[pastymuncher]

There is still a UK based watercooling specialist retailer you can buy from that stocks a large variety of watercooling components from the major brands and there is another based in Germany that has a UK website and Alphacool is one of their main brands that they promote. I have bought from both many times and have had no problems with either.

 

[Glanza]

What's the opinion of Phanteks as a watercooling brand? I like the look of some of their components, but (ready to be corrected as I am very much a newbie for anything water cooling) they seem to be predominantly alumnium based?

OCUK seem to have a limited subset of AlphaCool components and I would ideally like to get everything of the same make. I have spent some time looking at XSPC components earlier today for my 2700X and have loosely listed out what I think I would need, but still think I'd like to go AlphaCool given their reputation.

I was impressed with the quality of the R220 I got, not tried their blocks yet as I haven't needed to change from my EK.

 

[Jokester]

My go to stuff at the moment is:-
Tubing/Fluid - Mayhems
Blocks/pump top - EK
Pump - D5
Radiator - Alphacool
Quick Release - Koolance

Phobya, Aquacomputer for sensors and controllers.

 

[ilc72]

AquaComputer does some amazing products, especially pumps and CPU blocks. In terms of fittings BitsPower are great, especially their Black Sparkle. I’d recommend checking out GGF Events on YouTube for inspiration, also JayZTwoCents has some great videos including tutorials.

I wouldn’t write off EK as there are many in the YouTube Tech Community that use and recommend them. There is no perfect product and there will be issues with any manufacturer, the trouble is you only hear the bad stories and not always the good ones.

 

[Shaddow1086]

Out of interest, what is the average cost to build a "basic" water loop to include gpu and cpu cooling?
I've gone on ek's site and used their configuration tool and ends up with just over £700!
Is it possible for a half decent loop sub £500?

 

[Disco_P]

I built my first CPU, GPU loop for about £320.
CPU block £30
GPU block £60 second hand
Pump res (D5) £100
240mm rad £40
360mm rad £20 second hand
Tubing £10
Fittings £25
Coolant £10
Fans £25

I shopped hard for deals, picked up 2nd hand parts where I could and aimed for bang for your buck parts.

 

[NMBlack]

Out of interest, what is the average cost to build a "basic" water loop to include gpu and cpu cooling?
I've gone on ek's site and used their configuration tool and ends up with just over £700!
Is it possible for a half decent loop sub £500?

The EK kits are good value for cpu-only watercooling, but I suspect your budget of £500 for cpu and gpu cooling is only going to work if you add some second-hand components. GPU blocks are the major expense there, unless you can find a bykski block for your card, and the cost of fittings.

You could do it for £500 if you went for the aluminium cooling kits from EK, but then you're tied into using aluminium components if you want to upgrade (as you shouldn't mix metals).

edit: Disco P beat me to it with the second-hand info...

 

[NMBlack]

I built my first CPU, GPU loop for about £320.
CPU block £30
GPU block £60 second hand
Pump res (D5) £100
240mm rad £40
360mm rad £20 second hand
Tubing £10
Fittings £25
Coolant £10
Fans £25

I shopped hard for deals, picked up 2nd hand parts where I could and aimed for bang for your buck parts.

Did the cost of fittings include a drain port?

 

[Shaddow1086]

So more of a long term build to get for good price and buy parts over time.

Ill start keeping my eyes peeled for 2nd hand gpu blocks. Unfortunately I doubt many 1080ti 2nd hand block will be about.

 

[LuckyBenski]

So more of a long term build to get for good price and buy parts over time.

Ill start keeping my eyes peeled for 2nd hand gpu blocks. Unfortunately I doubt many 1080ti 2nd hand block will be about.

It will also have to be a Strix block rather than a reference one sadly.

I agree that WC parts last a long time, even CPU blocks can usually be reused for several builds. Investing in good parts is a sound principle. I also have some cheaper (but still reliable) things that are handy, like a spare pump and some old worn fittings. They let me flush other parts, leak test blocks, and also test new GPUs if they come with a water block. I don't want to disassemble my main rig to test a new purchase so I pop it in another build with the spare parts sitting outside the case.

 

[Disco_P]

Did the cost of fittings include a drain port?

No I don't have a drain port. Probably drained the loop 10 times, I just open a plug on the GPU block and it pours out into a bowl.