I have never done any proper watercooling in my life. I'm scared of it, you know, leaks, disassembling my £300 GPU and so on... The closest I've ever got to watercooling anything is fitting my Corsair H70 Embarrassing, I know... So with this in mind I comprised a shopping list. Please correct anything that's wrong. Any advice on how to proceed, how to do bleeding etc. is welcomed. It will be cooling only Core i7 860 and a Zotac GTX 470 amp. EK Supreme HF Copper Plexi (775/1156/1366/AM3) CPU Water Block EK 470 GTX Full Cover VGA Water Block - Nickel Plexi EK 470 GTX Backplate - Black Swiftech MCP350 10W 12V DC Pump EK Multioption Reservoir X2 250 Advanced Nanoxia Extreme Stark 1000ml liquid PrimoChill Dye Bomb - Invisible Blue Masterkleer tubing PVC 12,7/9,5mm (3/8"ID) clear Alphacool Tubing Cutter TFC Compression Fitting G1/4" Thread 3/8" ID/1/2" OD - High Flow XSPC Tubing Clip For 3/8" Hose Did I miss anything? What things do I need to watch out for? My budget is about £250 and I want my system as silent as possible too (I have Fractal Design R3 case). Thanks guys!
Most of your parts look fine, but there are two things I'd ditch. 1) The "Nanoxia Extreme Stark". It's just filtered deionized water. Go to your local supermarket and get 2.5l of standard deionized for a pound or so, I guarantee you won't be able to tell the difference. 2) Alphacool Tubing cutter. Do you really need it? A sharp Stanley knife and a little care makes cutting tubing just as easy. You've specified 1/2" barbs with 3/8" tubing, is this deliberate? I run 1/2" barbs on my rads for extra security and 3/8" tubing for the plastic barbs elsewhere in the loop from my DDC/MCP350 and Swiftech block. The bit that you should be especially careful with is the GPU block. There've been a couple of recent threads from WC'ers who damaged their cards by not being careful enough when installing GPU blocks. On the subject of blocks, have you specified a mix of copper and nickel blocks for a reason? They won't match you know.
His tubing is correct, the fiting says 1/2" OD (outer diameter) still 3/8" ID. Make sure the tubing you get is 1/2" OD though. Feser tubing is 1/2" OD but other tubing like Primochill 3/8" ID tubing is much thicker on the outside. You don't need tubing cutter. I use my aviation snips, but I think regular scissors are fine for 1/2" OD tubing. You don't want to pay for distilled water when grocery stores practically give it away. You don't want dye bombs since they can crystallize in your blocks over time and reduce flow. Not to mention they stain tubing and any platic it touches if you spring a leak. Also the dye will cause the water to dry slower. So if you spring a leak, the liquid might not dry even overnight and can cause unsuspecting shorts. You might be wondering, why would companies sell dye and coolants if it is so bad. Well its a way of making money out of you. Buying distilled water at grocery store means no money for them. Its all just marketing crap. I would use UV reactive tubing. Looks great and doesn't have any downsides. Not to mention UV reactivity lasts longer in tubings than dyes.
For 3/8" ID, 1/2" OD I'd suggest Primochill LRT if you want clear tubing. It has a better bend radius than most and doesn't seem to get cloudy http://specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=11316&cat=1233&page=1 For white tubing the TFC White UV http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2m-tfc-ft-0074-white-hot-uv-reactive-tube-3-8-id-1-2-od is top quality with slightly less bend radius than the Primochill. Looks very classy if you like that sort of thing (I do). I've had 3 EK Reses now and 2 of them leaked from new. I think the o rings are too small but it's dead easy to get some free replacements from EK though they take a few days to arrive from Slovenia. If you're planning on getting the TFC HF fittings from Overclockers then beware, they may supply 2 different types. Those fittings do work well with these extenders http://www.scan.co.uk/products/tfc-...f-45-degree-g1-4-extender-compression-fitting if you need to make some 45º fittings. The chrome finish matches perfectly.
Thanks guys, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what you say. It's true, nickel and copper won't match so I'll have to search for matching blocks. I must admit, I'm bit scared of it all, there are so many things to consider. I do want the liquid to be red, as to have it like blood running through the veins ( I know it sounds silly, but I like the idea ) I will revise the list and come back to you.
The dye would look very clear. So using red dye would look like fruit punch more than opaque blood. Also copper and nickle works fine together. Just avoid aluminum.
if you are going to use dye to colour the liquid you will find yourself with stained tubes and having to take the CPU/GPU clock apart to clean out the sludge it leaves behind within a year or less i would advise you to use coloured tubing instead
If you're in the UK then I can recommend specialtech for WC parts, they're very reliable (in my experience) and have recently expanded their range massively. Course it is. Duh.
You also need a raditor and fans with that. I think everyone would agree that Scythe Gentle Typhoons is THE best fans you can get for the money. For that system, I would recommend at least a dual thickness 120x3 radiator. ThermoChill 120.3 is pretty good.
I'm not so sure about the latest Gentle Typhoon 1850's. The last batch I bought has different noise characteristics to the older ones and are louder and have an annoying high pitched whine. Other people seemed to have noticed this too. As far as I can tell the CFM and static pressure are very much the same but I'm no longer convinced it's worth paying the premium for the GT's when the noise levels have changed so much. It's worth keeping an eye on the test results at http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=261778
It might just be a bad batch. I have recently purchased 3 Scythe GT AP15's from Aquatuning, and those work just fine, got them hooked up on a fan controller and slowed down to sub-1000rpm I can't hear them, but they still shift some serious air. At full speed the rush of air becomes too loud, but other than that there is no mechanical noise whatsoever. Best fans ever. Also, to the OP, I'd advice against Masterkleer tubing, I had white 10/13 tubing on my build and I got my fittings, blocks and res coated with some fine, powdery-like residue which was absolute PITA to get rid of.
UV white tubing. I had the tubing for 3 months before the residue become properly visible. If the tubing is leeching plasticizers, you too might be in for a nasty surprise. Also, I was running the loop with deoinized + drop of Cu2SO4 concentrate for biocide (1ppm), so it shouldn't have anything to do with it either.
