So after years of being broke I can finally afford to replace my aged gaming rig, I figured after building many many air cooled rigs for myself family and friends it must be time to go down the path of watercooling. Then I hit a blocker, I know nothing about watercooling or where the hardware market is atm. picked up a copy of customPC as I usually do in prep for a build. So that'd be air cooled sorted... I'm sure they used to have more watercooling stuff in there :S Any how I'd like a 3 monitor set up, possibly with a 4k screen in the middle but from what I've read 4k isn't quite there yet, so I figure 2 of the latest version of my current monitor and look at 4k down the line. I've already purchased a Phanteks Enthoo Primo v2 to fit everything in so I'm looking for confirmation of above monitor thoughts and internal advice as my knowledge is well out of date Budget:~£3000 not including monitors or Main uses of intended build: gaming/CAD Parts required:everything but soundcard and HDDs Previous build information (list details of parts):see sig Monitor resolution: 1920x1080 x3 or x2+ a 4k Storage requirements:new SSDs one for OS one for games Will you be overclocking: yes Any motherboard requirements (no. of USB, Xfire/SLI, fan headers): Extra information about desired system: so I'm thinking CPU: Intel I7 5930K (do I really need the extra PCIe lanes?) Mobo: Asus Rampage V Ram: 16gb DDR4 of some description PSU: Corsair AX1200i SSD: 2x Samsung 840 evo 500mb GPU: honestly I don't know these days (always been a bit of an ATI/AMD fanboy mind) Watercooling: I have literally no idea beyond I need radiators acrylic tubing, fans, a pump and a reservoir, I think I've got space for 2 loops in the case so one for GPUs and one for CPU motherboard etc If someone could point me to a useful resource so I can read into watercooling better than project logs that'd be greatly appreciated Thanks for any help anyone can provide
I'm at work at the moment so I can't go into great detail right this second but I can give you some small pointers. Check out youtuber SingularityComputers. His videos are very informative. That's where I learned just about everything I know. Figure out the tubing size you want. It's usually measured by inside diameter/outside diameter and make sure your fittings match. You'll also see measurements on fittings and blocks/radiators like "G1/4. " That refers to the threading of the male/female connections of the hardware, not the tubing size. In my experience G1/4" threaded hardware and 1/2" ID x 3/4" OD tubing and fittings seems to be the most common. Keep in mind thicker tubing is typically harder to work with. Blocks performance very very similarly across the board these days so don't fret on that too much. Just get what you think looks good. Browse frozencpu or performance-pc to see what tickles your fancy. Pump and reservoir choices are numerous and very flexible. I can go into more detail later. Sent from Bittech Android app
Ta for the nod for that youtube channel looks like it's got plenty of useful stuff on it I'm planning on using rigid tubing in my mind as I really like the neat lines but other than that I know next to nothing. I can fit a 240/280mm rad on the base plate, thinking cpu/mobo loop downm there, a 140mm on the back and up to a 480 on the roof thinking linking those for gfx?
Unless you're folding then a single loop would be the preferred choice and for a CPU and GPU a 480 rad would be enough. Adding more rads would allow you to run the fans at slower speeds for the same temps as a single rad. You could also fit a 480 rad in the bottom of that case. B Negative's guide on acrylic tubing should be useful. I'd recommend a PWM controlled Swiftech 35X or D5/655 pump as PWM will allow slow pump speeds when the system is under light loads ramping up to higher speeds if needed, the advantage being that they will be quiet at slower speeds.
I thought about putting a big rad in the bottom but can't see an obvious solution to where to put the drive bays. So a single loop using the bottom and top rads only should be sufficient to cool everything when say playing bf4 over 3 screens? Ta for the link
Personally, as a beginner, I avoided rigid tubing on my first build because it's a bit of an advanced way of doing things. I don't know about your personal situation but for me I didn't want to potentially waste money on screwing up my bends so I went for a normal tubing setup. However, I wanted straight runs and a nice layout of fittings so I actually spent more than I really needed to on fittings for purely aesthetic reasons. Other tips I can give you would be to plan out your tubing pathway in advance and determine what fittings you'll need to get the job done. Pretty much if you can think of a fitting you need, it probably already exists. I like bitspower. They look awesome, have great finishes and the variety is insane. They also have arguably the best selection of rigid tubing accessories if you do go that route. Like the previous poster said, unless you're going for a very specific aesthetic layout, you don't need dual loops. For radiators the general "rule of thumb" is 120mm of radiator for each block/component you are cooling. You could definitely use just a 240 rad for a single GPU/CPU loop but the more radiator you add, the slower fans you can use, the less noise you produce. Personally I have a 240 "low profile" radiator which is 30mm thick and a single 140 normal thickness radiator cooling an R9 290 and a heavily overclocked 4670k. I took it as more of a personal challenge than a necessity because I did a mITX build. Since I mentioned fans, I will tell you this: For radiators you want fans with higher static pressure. CFM doesn't matter as much. Corsair makes a line of fans such as the SP120 line for this purpose. I have 2 and they are good. You need to look at the "FPI" specification of your radiators to determine if you need very high static pressure fans. FPI is fins-per-inch and it's the density of cooling fins across the body of the radiator. The more dense they are, the higher static pressure fans you need to move air across them effectively. It's not a big deal though so don't get hung up on it. SP120 fans are fine for pretty much anything. Your case has a lot of options for radiators. anything that works out to 360mm or more would be fine. I think you can just stick a single 360mm up top and be done. For aesthetic reasons maybe put another 240 in the front or something like that. Ultimately it's up to what you like and what your budget allows for. As for the pump/reservoir, lots of folks are going with the pump top/pump/tube thing these days. Basically there's a cradle called a pump top or pump base that you install your pump into directly and then you attach a 60mm OD tube reservoir on top of it. This is a great setup because the pump is constantly gravity fed the coolant making initial setup of your loop extremely easy if you know what you're doing. EK actually sells this combo pre-built. http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2...rio_Pump_EK-D5_Vario_X-RES_140_incl_pump.html That's the whole setup there. Note that it is also available without the pump if you want to use your own. WC pumps come in a million different configurations but most of them are just slight variants of a few very common pump designs. You have the Laing D5s which are also referred to as mcp-655 which also come in pwm variants, you have DDC pumps which are all pretty much the same and you have a smaller option I can't remember what it's called atm though. Most companies just re-brand them and sell them as whatever. See here that EK is calling it a "vario" pump. It's a basic Laing D5 with a direct speed control switch. Note that Bitspower also sells a D5 pump combo and an upgrade kit for it that allows for -tons- of customization. SingularityComputers goes over this in his videos. He always uses the bitspower pump tops with the upgrade kit. Pro(amateur)tips: Bitspower fittings and adapters are the bomb. Double and triple rotary fittings and adapters allow for virtually any angle you can possibly think of. Get a tube cutting tool IF you go with normal tubing. Can't really stress this enough. Can you do without? Yes. Do you want to? No. They guarantee a straight cut every time and you don't have to screw around with razor blades and scissors are just horrible. If you go with compression fittings get some nice form fitting gloves to wear as they can tear up your fingers during the install if you have gentle skin. Be sure to flush your radiators before you build your loop. Pour in some distilled water and give it a good shake to clear out any manufacturing materials left inside the rads. Repeat 4-5 times. Your reservoir should be above the pump. Helps prevent cavitating, etc. You don't really need to build a drainage systems unless you really want to. It's expensive and unnecessary. A loop should go a couple of years or more without having to be drained. Mayhems Aurora should not be used in a long-term system but regular mayhems is fine. When filling and testing your loop, don't run with any power going to your mobo or GPU. Use a paper clicp to jump your PSU and make sure the only thing plugged in is the pump itself. This might save your butt in the event of a leak. un-plug and power off (via the toggle switch) the PSU, then stick one end of the paper clip into the green pin and the other end into any black pin. Then plug in and toggle power on to run the pump. Run until the res is almost drained (NEVER RUN THE PUMP DRY) and add more coolant. Repeat until the entire loop is filled and the pump can be left on without fear of it running dry. Also check out my threads. I know you said build logs aren't super helpful but maybe you can glean something from what I've done. This was my first wc build as well. I enjoyed every second of it. planning phase: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=271767 build log: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=278520 A lot of this might not apply to you since you're doing a full size build, but maybe you'll get some ideas. That's all for now, hope that helped and I'll be looking forward to the pictures!
Wow thanks for all the info there that's incredibly useful I think I should be ok with rigid tubing, I've worked with acrylic before and work in R&D so more than used to being hands on. Will take my laptop to the in laws this weekend and sketch some ideas out on it, and you know decide on what gfx combo to go with ... Will report back when I have an idea of what I plan to do, and maybe invest in a macro lens
For the GPU I'd get a 970 at this point. Long story short, it renders AMDs entire line-up in that price range moot.
OK so below is my plan for waterblocks etc so far I welcome all feedback (I'm expecting to to be fairly critical) Key Orange = Fans Dark Red = Rads Blue = Res/pump Light Red = Tubing Purple = Waterblocks just realised I've not put in the other case fans and will update tomorrow to include them after work Gfx wise I was thinking of going for 2x 290x from the latest review lab in CPC?
Looks like you're off to a good start. Personally I'd go with the gtx 970s if you can find them. They perform almost identically the 290x, cost significantly less, use over 100w less power at load and have better technology built in such as DSR and advanced anti-aliasing techniques and G-Sync. I'm saying this as a 290 owner myself. Nvidia basically killed AMDs line-up with the 970 and up until AMDs most recent slashing of prices, there was no logical reason I can think of to get a Hawaii chip over a Maxwell. Only now after having cut the price of the 290X by over $100 has AMD even put themselves back on the map, but even though they are priced competitively they are still behind in every other factor. Finally SLI is still a better solution than Crossfire as far as I know so really I'd go 970 without looking bck.
You may want to revise the position of top and bottom fans & radiators. The fans are usually more efficient when they push the air, but on your sketch it looks like the air is going to be pulled out instead.
Fair enough, easily done on the bottom rad and I had intended to have them push there but not so easy on the top will grab a tape measure and report back Update ok having checked the case there is a cut out in the top that will fit 140mm fins nicely but nothing any thicker than that there is then about 75mm of space below that bracket so if i can fit a rad in push pull i will if not looks like it will be pull only
My last build used acrylic tubing (2 separate loops). It's very different than flexi tubing, but not much more difficult once you know what you are doing. It does take a hell of a lot longer to build though. I would definitely recommend one of the Monsoon Hardline Bending Kits or similar. I really wish these had been out when I built mine, to get the really smooth curves and to make sure that the curve went exactly where I wanted it. I ended up sticking masking tape on the tubing where I wanted the bend to start and again where I wanted the bend to end, so that I knew I was heating the correct part of the tube. I would also heartily recommend the Bending Cord. This will help your bends from collapsing. Best advice I can give with rigid tubing is measure, measure and then measure again. Leave yourself extra length on the tubing before you start your first bend. You can easily cut off more to make it fit; you can't add more on. Tubing will often swell when you heat it too, so ideally you want to make sure that all the ends of the tubing going into the fitting are unheated to avoid issues with getting the fitting screw caps onto the tube. There are angled metal fittings you can buy (such as ones from Bitspower) that mean you don't have to bend the tubes, if you are at all worried. I would also suggest buying extra tubing. It's very easy if you aren't concentrating to overheat the tubing and cause it to bubble. As for graphics cards, I went for 3 x 290x's in my build. They work great with my 3 monitor setup - I can't say I've had any issues with crossfire at all. If I was building it now, I'd go for 970's or 980's - dependant on what screens I went for.
ok so I now have a vague idea of what I'm after, quick question though 13mm or 16mm acrylic tubing? also is it worth getting waterblocks for the mobo? I really doubt I'll be able to resist overclocking the nuts off it so seems like it might be a good idea? So before I start to spec out the water cooling components, am I missing anything below? Also taking recommendations on a 3 monitor stand
Ok so after much surfing I've decided I like the look of EK blocks the most and bescause i was on their website I have devised the following list: Please tell me if I'm going wrong here anywhere, pump top and longer res tube to match up my planned routing better Now all I need (I think) is some fans and a fan/pump controller please could someone point me in the right direction. Also I plan on using as few 90&45 adapters as possible and just bending the tube to fit, however I feel it best order some adapters in case I'm underestimating the difficulty
Your Chart says Euro and £ on it. Are you using seperate rads for each section like the the 140 for mobo? 280 for cpu and 480 for gpus? If so id probably drop the 140 rad and mobo watercooling in general. Its a waste of time as the performance gains for that money are negligable at best. Similar to watercooling ram looks cool in a rig offers very little. You also do not actually need the 140 rad period even if you do watercool the mobo for the record. 480 + 280 is more than enough for an nvidia build and most AMD builds unless going past 2 graphics cards. Avoid adding 45 and 90 degree bends where possible this will reduce water flow rate which will increase temps. Straight fittings are always best unless you have no choice. Adding 20 of them to a setup will impact temps. ( unless the 10 of each is a missclick) As far as your pc build is concerned, The PSU is super overkill for the mensioned build. Even a 1200 watt would actually be over the top. Unless your planning quad sli then theres just no need for this sort of power level. Buy 2 EVGA cards when watercooling on nvidia gpus as they will let you keep the warranty once you remove the fan shroud. No other company allows this as far as im aware. MSIs base overclocks are not relivent as you will be pushing your own overclocks.
I’d recommend you ditch the 140 rad at the back and replace it with an intake fan to provide fresh air to the top rad. Will make for a much easier tube routing layout, look better, and since you already have two huge rads already, is pretty much unnecessary. Also, be aware that if you hard mount your pump to the case, you’ll get a fair amount of vibrational noise when it spins up. Better to use a shoggy sandwich or make your own.
