Hi folks. Last time I water cooled we were using something called a pa120.3 and I had 2 of those with Yate loon fans...all to cool a q6600 in a thermalright Mozart case. Fast forward many years and I've been living off laptops until I got a small ryzen machine for my home server. Now it resides in a rack in the garage alongside a forcepoint 1100 pfsense router. I don't like the noise. What I'm thinking is this: Mora or the alphacool external radiator to sit in the bottom of the rack. 9x 120 or 140 fans running minimum rpm Tygon r3603 tubing...I presume that's still a thing...1/2"Id. A pump.. probably just a single DDC 4.2 (I think this is the update to the 3.2 I had back in the day) A pumptop that has as wide bore as possible or a top res. An EK distribution block sitting at the middle of the back of the rack. Quick disconnects between that and tubing going into the router (has a pentium d1508, only 1u high so need a block that is either side insert or use 90 fittings although iv heard they can be quite tall) And also a quick disconnect into the server which has a ryzen 4650g at present (I want to upgrade to a 5900 or 5950x). I want to have thermalheadroom for a GPU at some stage. Is this all stupid and a big waste of time and money and what sort of fittings should I use.?
It's be really cool (in both senses), but maybe a bit ott. Pump - DDC is good, my preferred choice, 4.2 or 3.2 would be fine. Res (and/or top) - literally anything is, as long as it holds coolant. I'd probably go for a tube pump-res for compactness and ease of use. Distro block - do you mean something like this rather than the acrylic show distro plate found in O11D etc? I think that would be good idea in conjunction with QDCs for ease of access, routing maintenance, tinkering etc QDCs - koolance is still the absolute best, but don't overlook someone like barrow, alphacool, that are literally half the price. There are also more industrial type ones that I've bought a few of and they work fine, flow is good, but a bit more stuff getting on and off so might not be great if they're getting stuck somewhere difficult to access. Fittings and tubing - get EPDM tubing. Black tubing similar to think neoprene, but bit more durable. 16/10 size and compression fittings to match. Barrow or xspc fittings are decent and don't cost a bomb. Rads - mora3 would be good, but expensive. could have a look though eBay for some big chunky rads ek 480 for less than £50. I got an alphacool Monsta 480 for £40 cause it didn't have any G1/4 plugs, but got a pack of 10 for Less than £10 Fans - ARCTIC P12 (5 Pack) - 120 mm Case Fan, Pressure-optimised, quiet motor, Computer, Fan Speed: 1800 RPM - Black https://amzn.eu/d/0eNYqSA £22 for 5 really good fans. Bargain. Blocks - alphacool, watercool and ek do some 1u blocks . Shouldn't have too much bother finding one. Have a look on ebay for stuff you need. Got a load of watercooling gear off eBay lately, including GPU blocks for £40-50, rads and fittings. Flash bathroom spray is a miracle worker for getting stubborn old coolant off/out of stuff. Just be sure to rinse it a **** ton after.
thanks! i got a load of tygon that im going to use and now need to source the rest of it. not sure if i need 1 or 2 pumps. yes the EK distribution block sitting at the back of the cabinet would work well for the QDs to go into.
If that tygon is old, from when you last watercooled a rig, bin it. It's likely to have some decay and potential to leech stuff into the coolant. If it's relatively new then it's fine. One pump should be fine, 2 for a little safety in redundancy more than bringing a performance benefit.
If its in your garage I'd question why you'd want to do this? Ryzen 9 7900 is only 65W and a 4070 is 200W, so with those you wouldn't need crazy cooling...
