A friend of mine just got a MSI GTX 1080 8gb sea hawk EK X for free but doesn't have a loop or any watercooling experience. Would would you guys recommend that is cheap and would be easy to install on it?
How do you get those for free? Sign me up! Failing that... send it my way and I’ll swap for my card. Hah! Ehhh... seriously, though, cheap and WC isn’t really a road I like to venture down. It’s an expensive thing. I’d probably recommend him trading it for an air cooled variant as that’s the easiest thing to do, and probably the cheapest with the potential for a little more cash to come his way.
Through university somehow. I agree a swap would be easier but it’s harder to find someone wanting a watercooler card compared to air. If anyone wants a legit swap I’ll speak to him about it
I'd check the marketplace. Pump, res, rad and a couple of fittings shouldn't be too hard to get. Get pipe and fluid off site x, shouldn't cost that much really. Vault-Tec has this for £40, would only need tubing and fluid on top.
Have a look at the Barrow stuff on AliExpress, they do pretty much everything you need for a loop now. If you can wait for the long delivery the savings can be pretty substantial.
I should be able to supply some 1/2" ID, 3/8" OD nickel finish compression fittings for postage. I don't think I have any spare rads apart from a Hardware Labs 480GTX (dense fins, needs high speed fans) which is a bit OTT. I think I gave my spare pumps to Teelzebub shortly before he died but I'll double check anyway. Edit: Just checked my pm's and Teelzebub did indeed get both my spare Jingway pumps however I may still have an Eheim Aquastream XT pump that I no longer use but I need to find the conversion fittings as they're hard to find now. The pump was one of those fish tank pumps modified by Aqua Computer for PC cooling and as I recall works OK on a simple loop but it's relatively large.
Found the Aquastream pump and adapter fittings. There's supposed to be a USB cable for it which I think controlled the speed but I can't find that. It did run fairly quietly at full speed though and worked the last time I used it around 10 years ago. If you're interested I'll take a couple of photos. There's also a push on anodised aluminium res for it but I wouldn't recommend using it firstly because I wouldn't trust a res held on by the friction of the rubber seal and also if the anodising fails it can cause galvanic corrosion. I also have spare 1/2" ID, 3/8" OD fittings in various shades of nickel. All above for for postage costs only. Send a pm if interested.
My local Maplin have a full do it yourself watercooling loop for £90 if it's any use lemme know and I'll post it down
