My First/New Rig, Whatcha Think?

This is not only my first water cooled build it is my first build all together. And my first overclock as well. What do you think? I don't have any friends that have any idea what I'm talking about when I tell them about my computer so I'd love to hear your opinions. I know it isn't the cleanest looking inside but I tried my best with only a mid-tower. My next purchase will be a bigger case and a more powerful power supply. Everything runs perfectly stable. It's passed several hours of Prime95 and Mark3D2001 SE without any problems.

Here's what I got:

P4 2.6'C' @ 3.31GHz v1.60
Asus P4P800 Deluxe
2x512 Kingston HyperX PC3200, 2-2-2-5-4 , v2.55, 3:2
Asus GeForce4 Ti4800 SE @ 330/635
WD 160GB, 8MB Cache, 7200RPM
WD 60GB Back-Up Drive
WaterCooled with Swiftech CPU, NB, VGA Blocks and Pump along with an Koolance HDD water block and DangerDen Black Ice Xtreme II Dual 120mm Radiator
Antec 330Watt TruePower
Antec Plus660AMG
Temps - Air: 22, Idle: 26, Load: 30
3DMark2001SE Score: 15,990



The pump, rad and res are external in the wooden box on top



All the coolant goes to the CPU first then splits (parallel) to the NB and GPU. After it goes to the NB it then goes to the HDD in the box at the bottom. Coolant lines then combine back to one before going to the res. I put the HDD in a box to keep it quite. The whole idea for the watercooling set-up was noise reduction at first. Then I found out about OC'ing. Therefore watercooling made it easier to OC quitely.



The external box housing the res, pump and rad. The extra hose with the valve on the end is used just for filling the res easier. This is a daul 3.5" bay res on it's side. I have both fans on the radiator running on the 5V line to keep them quite.

Overall I'm quite satisfied with it all! I've sadley become a computer geek and I enjoy sending a good chunk of my free time dreaming up different things to do to my computer.

Welcome to the forums!
nice rig you got there. A bit overkill if ya ask me(NB waterblock) but clean and nice. I'm interested in that box you have the hard drive in.. do you have any pictures?

P.S. quiet. its spelled quiet.

yea i was going to say the same thing Daegon, the nb wasn't really needed just adding more heat in ur loop but good though. nice good the wire could use some help lol i don't like to hide stuff, i prefer techflex. yea i'd like to see whats inside that hd

I know the NB waterblock is a bit overkill but I thought I'd be getting rid of almost all the fans in the case to keep it all QUIET (I was just typing too fast) so I thought the NB might get a bit warm with little airflow in there so...
As far as the box the HDD is in I found it at an electronics store. It has a top and a bottom both in the shape of a "U" that fit together. I drilled holes in it for the collant to go in and out and also for the HDD cable and power cable. I lined the inside with foam to keep the noise down. You can't hear the drive running at all even with you ear 1 inch away. Now I've got to figure out if I can run my power supply with only one fan instead of two. The 92mm fan inside the PS is almost the loudest part in the system right now.

Here's some pics of the box the HDD is in.

Nice setup, loving those temps. I'm seriously considering getting some nice water for my comp once I get some money.

Get rid of all of the Y fittings its totally pointless. Just run everything together.

I don't really want to for just one reason. The HDD block only has 1/4" ID fittings that can't be changed. I didn't want that piece in series with all 3 other blocks because I thought it would restrict flow to everything else. It's all put together and leak tested now and I have pretty good temps. I'm reluctant to change things. As they say..."If it aint broke why fix it."

NICE, really neat idea on the HD can you even here that thing when it's running? Very clean all around and welcome to OC Forums

Nope, you can't hear the HD at all. It's great!

good setup, NB is no overkill if you ask me.....!!!!!

zero-p Hey, I personally have not met anyone in the flesh who knows anything about extreme-cooling cpus, and that includes my most amiable and heroic IT pals at work, even though they do ask about my overclock from time to time. The fact that you put together that monster places you firmly in the ranks of the few and far between.

Everyone is saying that it is overkill to cool NB, but he has water on the HD!!! I realize this is because you want noise reduction more than performance. I love the idea of cooling my hard drives with water so I can enclose them, but I want a high overclock, so I won't be doing that.

is that clearflex tubing?. and its 3/8" right? That temp is amazingly good.

It's all Tygon tubing (expensive but easy to use) with 3/8" ID for everything inside the case except the HD which is 1/4" ID. It is 1/2" ID for everything inside the external box. I did it that way just because everything in the box already had 1/2" ID barbs.

Thanks for all the input!

Not bad..
I had to put my cooling stuff in a wooden box like yours also..
But I used the a chevette core and the rad that came with the kit..
How are your temps?

temps and noise cannot be argued with!
only thing i can think of would be to put the radiator fans on the other side, so that they are pulling instead of pushing.

i really love how you cut the wood to fit fans on there, it looks great.

That is something I haven't fiddled with yet but have been wondering. What's the difference with having the 2 fans on the radiator pushing or pulling. Is one more efficient than the other? Is either one more quite than the other?