Rebuilt my WC rig - couldn't be happier.

All of my parts came in by Thanksgiving, so I spent yesterday rebuilding my setup. The goals were better cooling and less noise. I really wanted to scrap my BIX2 mounted in the bottom of the case, as I was a little nervous about the heat that the drives were generating mounted in the 5.25 cage.

Parts used:

• DangerDen TDX
• DangerDen Maze4GPU
• Dtek Bay Reservoir
• Swiftech MCP650 Pump
• Dtek Pro120 ProCore Radiator
• Dtek Pro120 Shrouds x 2
• Adda AD1212MB-A73GL 120mm fans x 2 (80.5 CFM @ 32dB) mounted push/pull.
• Nexus MultiFan Controller
• Coolsleeve tube shroud

I'm terribly impressed with teh ADDA fans. I was able to mount them push/pull in the top of the case and still have room for the res and my DVD burner. The form of the res, mounted two inches under the bottom fan, makes for a nice air channel that pushes the air into the case and across the back of the video card / passive northbridge. The original drive cages are intact, and I have my Raptor array (which I'm about to expand to 4 drives) mounted in the first cage, and my fan controller in the 2nd.

Since I'm still too stubborn to change cases, all of my tube runs are tight. The CoolSleeve sleeves are a winner for me. I was skeptical, but they actually do work.

My layout is:

Pump -> Rad -> CPU -> GPU -> Res -> Pump

The Swiftech pump is not nearly as loud as I'd feared, and when dropped to about half voltage, it runs near silent, as do the four fans.

The actual rebuilding took about 7 hours, not including leak testing.

Remaining mods:
UV Cold Cathode x 2 w/front mounted switch
Add inline T with temp probe
Convert power switch to reset switch
Add key switch on front for power switch
Sleeve all cables
PSU mod to remove unused cables.

That's nice, but what can it do?

Idle = 31C
Load = 42C
Case = 25C

The temps are from AsusProbe, so they're not right. But, by comparison, my old temps were 36C / 43C / 29C. Not a drastic drop in the load temps, but I gained a lot of space, and a lot less noise. With C'n'Q enabled, my idle temps drop to 27C.

Pics:

The Tubing


Radiator / Fans



Drive Cages / Fan Controller



The 120mm Intake.

shouldnt you have the gpu before the cpu, as the cpu will heat the water a lot and ur just transfering the heated water to ur gpu. Put the gpu b4 the cpu as it doesnt produce as much heat.

The whole point of putting the radiator between the pump and the CPU is to ensure that the coolant is at it's coolest when it hits the CPU waterblock. Given that the pump will heat the water less than the GPU, isn't that kind of counter-intuitive? I'm not being a smart-a$$, I'm just not familiar enough with this to know.

GPU idles at 28C, according to ATITool, so I'm guessing that it's doing ok.

Do some searches. Order has a negligible impact on water temp between blocks/rad/pump. ~.5c at the very most. Keeping the tubing as short as possible will make a greater impact than will the order, so route for short, neat lines.

no, your not understanding what i mean
i mean that the setup should be:
Pump -> Rad -> GPU -> CPU -> Res -> Pump
not
Pump -> Rad -> CPU -> GPU -> Res -> Pump

This is because the cpu will heat the water, and since afterwards it is going to the gpu, its not allowing better cooling.
Not sure if im 100% right, but i read it in an article.

andyl33t said:

no, your not understanding what i mean
i mean that the setup should be:
Pump -> Rad -> GPU -> CPU -> Res -> Pump
not
Pump -> Rad -> CPU -> GPU -> Res -> Pump

This is because the cpu will heat the water, and since afterwards it is going to the gpu, its not allowing better cooling.
Not sure if im 100% right, but i read it in an article.

Click to expand...

No, I understood what you meant.

As noted by Styyn, everything I've read is that order in the loop doesn't change the temps very much. Even so, I built the loop to play the odds. What doesn't make sense about your suggestion is taking water through the GPU waterblock (which would dump heat into the water) THEN going to the CPU. I'm a lot more concerned about the temp of the water going into the CPU than I am about the tmep of the water going into the GPU.

Anyone have any idea if this setup would be efficient enough to split the flow after the radiator to cool the CPU and GPU in parallel? My reservoir can handle two returns, so I wouldn't have to bring the tubes back together. I'm just wondering if that would add too much flow restriction.

knewman said:

No, I understood what you meant.

As noted by Styyn, everything I've read is that order in the loop doesn't change the temps very much. Even so, I built the loop to play the odds. What doesn't make sense about your suggestion is taking water through the GPU waterblock (which would dump heat into the water) THEN going to the CPU.

Anyone have any idea if this setup would be efficient enough to split the flow after the radiator to cool the CPU and GPU in parallel? My reservoir can handle two returns, so I wouldn't have to bring the tubes back together. I'm just wondering if that would add too much flow restriction.

Click to expand...

thats true. The cpu does need the most cooling afterall.