First attemp was botched, second any good?

First attempt was botched, second any good?

My first attempt at setting up a WC system was pretty horrible so I've decided to give it a second try. This time the routing will be quite different. Anyway, check it out.



The idea is to allow better bleeding, improve the noise levels and to improve the temperatures of the case and CPU/GPU. The placement of the rad trapped a lot of bubbles and it was just too much of a hassle to get them out.

The main thing that I'm worried about is the placement of the bay reservoir. I was thinking that the reservoir might be too restrictive and cause adversary performance. My current setup is comprised of an MCP600, Dual heater core, 5.25" bay res, MCW6002, and a Maze 4 GPU block.

Do you think that this would be a good idea? Oh, forgot to ask; Do you think that I should place the two 120mm fans pulling or pushing? (I'm going for decent case temperatures too)

your system should go pump>rad>block>gpu block> res> pump>

I forgot to mention that I'm also looking to use as little tubing as possible. If I were to follow the pump > rad > CPU > GPU > res > pump it wouldn't look very clean. But the original question was if I could run it with my proposed setup with acceptable performance.

you would get better performance with thorilan's suggestion

having the pump push water into a res and then expecting it to leave the res at the same velocity is a long shot. THe res should be right before the pump, Period!

Hmm, thanks for the replies (Even though the questions were never really answered )

I guess I'm going to go with the original setup but with the rad mounted on the front panel. I was hoping for that clean look but alas, I guess I'll have to settle with more tubing.

I had a similar setup to you old one. I put the rad at the top to help vent all hot air out of the case. I used an undervolted 120mm fan to do that on the underside of the rad. I went:
pump > cpu > gpu > rad > res

It worked very well for me. I would still have it if it didn't burn up in a house fire. I used as much tubing as I could and had a full gallon of water in my system. The idea was that it would heat up slowly and would keep a steady temp over time. I also was using the Danger Den Maze 3 (which was brand new at the time). The only problem that I ever had was that the pump I chose was a little on the loud side.

How big is your case? Maybe you could think of putting the pump up by the res/rad? That would solve both your problems.

I was thinking of that but I wouldn't have enough room. It's the chieftec dragon, the four bay case.

i personally dont think it makes a big difference what order its in, its gonna restrict the same iether way and its very little temp difference from one side to the other...

its gonna restrict the same iether

Click to expand...

usualy this is correct but using a bay res after the pump will actualy cause more restriction because you are pushing water into a larger volume

Raider84 said:

having the pump push water into a res and then expecting it to leave the res at the same velocity is a long shot. THe res should be right before the pump, Period!

Click to expand...

I don't like a res after the pump neither (in fact I don't like reservoirs at all) but: Water in = water out, so why would the velocity of the outgoing water change? (except if incoming and outgoing tube ID is different)

CD

Do you have to use a res? If you were to use a t-line instead, it's solve your problem.

so why would the velocity of the outgoing water change? (except if incoming and outgoing tube ID is different)

Click to expand...

because the larger the res the larger the surface area the more resistance.

have you tried putting a hose in your sink and turning it on and watching the water move around pretty well even full but try putting that hose into your swimming pool and not see it move water all that much.

maybe not the best explination but trust me . i make lots of reseviors and from a real world performance standpoint coming from someone who has tested it im telling ya . it just doesnt work as well.

personaly i eally dont like bay res because they are poorly designed for water cooling

hence me making my own resses

I don't have to use a res, but I still would like to keep it. I paid $36 for it so I want to get the use out of it. But I've also decided that I won't fill the reservoir the same way as I did before. I'm going to unscrew on the of barb caps and fill it from there. That way I won't have to deal with the trapped air bubbles.

Anyway, I'm going to go with the Pump > Rad setup again. I don't want to sacrifice that much performance loss for a foot or so less of tubing.

Thanks for the help

thorilan said:

usualy this is correct but using a bay res after the pump will actualy cause more restriction because you are pushing water into a larger volume

Click to expand...

I do not agree.

Flow and velocity are the same on the suction side and on the pressure side of the pump (assuming same tubing ID's on both sides).
The only thing that differs is pressure.
You will observe the same restriction to flow in the res whether it is on the inlet or outlet side of the pump, so pushing water into a larger volume is not causing more restriction...
What is causing restriction is the fact that most reservoirs are small and badly designed, and therefore the entering water creates lots of turbulences (=restriction), sometimes even vortexes!

thorilan said:

because the larger the res the larger the surface area the more resistance.
have you tried putting a hose in your sink and turning it on and watching the water move around pretty well even full but try putting that hose into your swimming pool and not see it move water all that much.

maybe not the best explination but trust me . i make lots of reseviors and from a real world performance standpoint coming from someone who has tested it im telling ya . it just doesnt work as well.

Click to expand...

Your above example is wrong.

Bigger reservoirs do not present more restriction to flow, every entering drop of water in the res will cause another drop to leave on the outlet, and the leaving drop is not the one that just entered the res...
Following your reasoning, a given pump would pump less water/time unit in a big fishtank than in a small one...

thorilan said:

personaly i eally dont like bay res because they are poorly designed for water cooling

hence me making my own resses

Click to expand...

I'm not aware of EVEN ONE well designed commercial reservoir for high flow loops...
Yes, most have a very cool look and are well built but they are almost useless when it comes to their primary function: trapping air in the loop.

The ONLY way to effectively trap air is to slow down the water velocity so that the air bubbles have time to reach the surface (this is also the reason why T-lines take so much time to remove trapped air).

This can only be done effectively by:
1. Using a big res so that no turbulences occur (very space consuming).
2. Only letting a part of the flow entering the res: the airtrap.

A well designed airtrap is small, not restrictive, slows down the velocity of the water as much as possible, and acts as a little res (takes care of volume changes due to temperature changes of the water and gives a visual indication of the coolant level).

CD