Build Advice Planning watercooling loop in difficult case

I have an awesome looking cube case, the Lian Li PC-V33 black.
It fits perfectly for were I need the PC to be and it has so far done everything I wanted without any trouble.

I am in the process of re-building my machine with Coffee Lake 8600K and a Asus Maximus Code X motherboard, plus my trusty Corsair Dominator Platinum 2400 C10 RAM and Zotac Amp Extreme GTX 1070 graphics, just to mention the basics.

I have to admit this case is by far build with watercooling out of mind, in case you dont know it its basically a testbench with sides and a roof.

I have the middle version, as seen in this picture:




I have to place my graphics card in the X8 slot, but it should not really matter in terms of performance. Issue is that the card I have is close to being the maximum size the case accommodates.

I have an old Alphacool ST30 120mm radiator and thinking about buying a second one, not sure if the back one should be push/pull or only push.

I have 14x Corsair ML120 120mm and 2x ML120 140mm fans already from another build I did a year ago that's now discontinued, so available high quality fans is not an issue for me.

I dont know what CPU block I should look out for, if the EK full nickel blocks is my best bet or there is something better I should look for. Not sure what my budget would be but I see that Kryos blocks seems way overpriced imo compared to EK.

My biggest issue is pump/res, as there is not really any clear place to place it.
I think the best is in front of the modded harddrive cage in the lower section of the case (normally it dont have a hdd cage, but I have 3 drives +nvme, so needed it like that)

For the time being I will run the build on air, but will progress into buying up parts for the loop over time.
Would love to do hard tubes by the way, but always only used soft tubing so it would be my first time.


Can you recommend me what to do and not do?
I dont want to change case.


Sorry for the confusing order of questions and information, English is not my native language and i currently have flu so am kind of dizzy.

3D drawings of what Im trying to do so far:

Side

Front

Basement layer

Top layer with cpu block mock up, fans, rads and the big block at the end is the size of my graphics card, massive

 

Is your card really that long? I struggle to imagine it’s longer than my STRIX.

I would imagine that you can get away with a slim 240 at the front and do away with the 120 at the back, allowing you to install the GPU in the top slot as the cooling performance won’t be impacted much by getting rid of the 120.

 

If you have a 1070 Asus Strix then its 29.8 x 13.4 x4 Centimeter, mine is 32.5 x 14.8 x5 Centimeter, so yes its bigger.
Actually there should be room for a slim 30mm rad in front, I have had one there before, but I can not make push/pull only run it with 3 fans

Its mainly the position of pump/res im really having a hard time figuring out.
Im looking mainly at DDC pumps as they look smallest in size, would prefer to have it on the upper layer so no water has to go near the PSU.
I have even considered having the pump/res on the outside of the case.

 

I’ve got the 1080 but I’d imagine it’s the same size.

Damn. Your card really is that much larger. I’m impressed.

You don’t need push pull. It doesn’t benefit you much at all when using the appropriate fans with high static pressure.

I would put the reservoir and pump on the bottom layer to give you the best possible layout. Fitting that up top will be limited too much by your space allowance.

 

I think I found a way, its not totally up to right dimensions, specially the tubing and fittings, because oh boy I got pretty tired of drawing in Sketch-up by now...

top view


Back view



Side



Alternative top view with push/pull



The rad in the back is Alphacool XT45 dimensions. The res is Aquacomputer Aqualis DDC 100 and the pump is Alphacool DDC PWM

Im even thinking all this could be done with the right compination of spacers and fittings, instead of trying to bend HD tubes for the first time.


What do you think?

 

Always good to do your planning man. I sometimes make mock up parts too, before I commit and start cutting materials.

Took me about two weeks of planning all told, but now I have a great loop I can drain and remove in about ten minutes.

 

About that, a drain port, should that be on the outlet from pump or the inlet line?

 

If you are going to pump the coolant out using the pump then use the outlet line. I just unscrew my GPU, put a towel under it to stop it damaging anything, swing it out then drain from there. Then I have a tube I insert into one of the plugs on the GPU and blow lol. Works for me, though it is a little messy. I designed it like that though. It's not, how do you say it? "hard fixed" into the rig. The whole loop and GPU could be removed as one.

 

Retry, made it look cleaner but oh boy it have many 90* angles, is that a healthy CPU loop?
Would be kind of easy to build though.

 

well it looks a mess, I will try another day with a 240 slim rad instead. Any slim rads that are better than others?

 

Here's some good quality information on push, pull and push/pull radiator configurations - LINK

It's well worth a read

 

Surely the fin density would make a difference to push/pull? and static pressure of course.

 

The rads I look at from alphacool, bitspower or ek all have 16 fpi I think, it seems like that's how you build a rad these days.
So it's should more be about the internal design of it, how water goes around, angles for internal bends and so on.
I will look at the link tonight thanks guys.

Still, let me know if you have any 240 slim rad in mind paired with 2 120 ml120 fans

 

Any slim rad will do. Remember that as you’re blocking the rest of the system off from direct airflow, your internals are going to run warmer. Just a word of caution. You should be okay, but don’t push/pull the back as you need the airflow to vent out the back as much as you can.

I added a second, single 140 into the roof of my case and reduced overall temps by 10c on all parts except my GPU. Airflow is key to everything.

 

New plans on the table, and now its really starting to look like something.

Res/pump compo I think should end out being the Watercool DDC-Tank LT

Still it seems like a mystery to me why practically all DDC PWM pumps are unsleeved, the only one I can think of there is is that Alphacool DDC 1T.

I really like the look of Phanteks fittings, so im thinking I will go with those.

I can not avoid using a EKWB Uni mount for the pump/res.

I would like to use the flow sensor port on my new motherboard and think of getting a Barrow flow sensor (the one drawn is bitspower, but there is a price difference).

Also the temp sensors would be nice to use, and think of getting 2 Alphacool inline sensors to check on inlet temp and outlet temp.

As the whole setup will be themed around my favorite animal, Pandas, everything is going to be white/black were possible.

Therefor I would like to use black tubes and white fluid, only places the fluid is visible is in res and flow sensor, but would look awesome I think.

As for rad im thinking to get a slim 240 white model like this one.



Any feedback to my thoughts?



Still, I would really like to have a drain port in the loop somewhere, but were should it be???

 

I wish I could move rad to the ceiling of the case, but if i did that it would be impossible to service the machine without taking the loop apart.

See the new drawings, there im only using 3 fans and one bigger rad, everyone keeps telling me thats the way to go

 

I have now started building a pre-rig, just to test out a few things before the actual build.

I dont have so many hours a day to really tinker, like 2-3 hours every day, so at the moment Im still installing everything and expect it to take almost all week just doing that alone - I have a very specific set of requirements for Windows and wish I could convince MS to do it my way from the beginning, its so much smoother and without "crap" build in, but it takes quite a while to make it so.



By the way, there will be RGB included, atm testing out a Halos Lux fan frame.

 

I'd say 1 temp sensor is fine. I use 2, was my 1st WC build, so think the 2nd was a waste of £. But both of the Barrow ones were coming in cheaper than the Alphacool inline your buying.

Flow sensor was something I was interested in, then decided it's somewhat of a restriction within loop (just an opinion, not based on fact). It also seemed to serve no purpose other than another element that will say show in monitoring. If I was using it to know pump is running, etc I'd know from temps.

I added a drain port to lowest point in loop, so could get as much out with just releasing drain valve. Due to how your orientation is totally different to usual builds I can't see similar setup working. So IMO it's just a case of picking a point on loop to add a drain port which is convenient all round and then opting to blow the water out/other methods.

Awaiting completed build photos .

 

The build is put a little bit on hold because my wife is struggling to find a new job after finishing her PhD.
So for now I will soon just build it as a air cooled rig because I already have all the parts, right now it looks even worse than the pictures I posted earlier, it really look like the work of a mad scientist, but its super quiet and SUPER fast!