Cooling Cooling system design help required

For my next system, whenever that may be, I want a watercooling system ....

Using thin tubing, dont want big fat and ugly tubing inside.

Thinking like 10mm or something, everything connected using pushfits.


What are the best components in such a case ?

Please list pump, rad, cpu block, gfx block, and nb block.


Edit - Forgot to mention.... While I am going to be doing all this, might as well get myself a dual opteron ....

Single opteron to start with, but to upgrade to dual as possible.

 

Should we assume that's 10mm OD?

 

It doesnt have to be 10mm ... any fitting really, but I dont want a fat mess of tubing within like with 1/2" stuff.

 

Guess you won't be needing my services then!

 

If there is a SUBSTANTIAL increase in performance with big fat ugly tubing, I am willing to use it

As the opteron system will undoubtedly be overclocked.


And 90% chances are there wont be a window in the case ... so its not like anyone will be seeing the tubing inside.

but I would still like it to be neat, with braided psu cables, proper cable/tubing management etc.

 

You can use 1/2" tubing without it looking ugly. Just use the thin walled stuff (but this does make the tubes more fragile and prone to breakage).

-Lemur 6

 

Whats the best performing block out there ?

Whatever the tubing size.

 

Athlon 64 (well opteron, same size socket) one?

 

What is the fascination with thin tubing? I have 1/2" OD tubing and I think it looks too small for my PC-70.

 

Thin tubing looks that much more elegant.

Bladerunners setups and waterchill setups look so much better than big fat tubes going all over the place.

With a case the size of a PC70, it might look ok, but with a smaller case, I dont think it looks very nice.

 

I would say that you willrrpobably get the very best cooling with the largest tuding and blocks designed for it. However you will be able to get very good cooling using vastly smaller tube and fittings.

You can talk to Pug about Aquacomputer which will probably provide the most elegant looking system and look at some of the other European alternatives which will generally use either 8mm or 10mm OD tubing, mostly with pushfits or compression connectors.. (Have a look in the German stores listed in the watercooling links threads fo rexamples of the kit).

Alternatively you can take a look at Swiftech who use 1/2" OD tubing and their own push fit connectors for a compromise dolution.

 

Not really looking for kits, want to mix and match to give best performance.

I have been reading around other posts on the forum, and it seems like the German blocks will give the same performance with a lower tubing size as compared to blocks like the swiftech with bigger tubing.

So if that is true, then that would be a better option.

But if there is a performance increase in going for bigger tubing, then I dont really mind that either.

Chances are there wont be a window in the case, so its not that much of a issue.

But whatever the size, I want to use pushfit connectors throughout the system. I dont mind replacing all the barbs that come as standard with pushfit connectors.

 

Cascade.

The best pump is the Swiftech MCP600 (Look here)

The MCP600 also draws the least power of all of these. It is very efficient.

Rad wise, if you were going for the two components above, then something like a black ice extreme 2, or one of the big thermochill rads.

But remember, you will be using 1/2" ID tubing with these.

If you really don't want to go with large tubing, then Pug is the man to speak to.

8-ball

 

Is it possible to replace the barbs on the cascade block with pushfits ?

 

For what sized tubing?

I wouldn't recommend using smaller diameter tubing with the cascade.

If you are dead set on small diameter tubing, speak to Pug.

8-ball

 

For 1/2in even ... I am not dead set on smaller diameter tubing, but I would have preferred it.

 

You can get larger sized pushfits. (SMC do up to 16mm OD 3/8" thread but I don't know where you can buy them, swiftech mush use the imperial variant.

However both of these at samller thatn the standard for the cascade and when you use pushfits you need stiffer tubing (or inserts.

I'd say if you want to got the cascade route you're stuck with huge tubes, barbs and jubilee clips.

 

another option is swiftech. They like using 1/2"OD tubing with push fit connectors. It all looks pretty smart.

www.swiftnets.com

8-ball

 

It is possible to fit 3/8" ID tubing on 1/2" OD barbs and this would mean the tubing and barbs had the same ID.

I think that I am planning to do this...

 

But the performance wont equal cascade will it ?

How about it I use those Puthon or whatever things that Nexxo use and also in Project Prime or Optimus Prime or whatever it was on the Cascade ones and I get pushfits for the rest of them ?

I am pretty sure I can source these pushfit connectors if they are available on the market.