Quick question about cases/WC

Hey there. Sorry for the noob question. I figured that it would go in this section because it really relates to watercooling. I'm planning on building a system and I want to watercool it. I want it to be an internal system, so the question is: Do I have to get a full tower case? I couldn't seem to find any info on cases in the FAQ. Note to author, that's a good noob thing to put in - what kind of case is needed for average watercooling. In case there's no short answer, this is what I plan on putting in the system:

P4 650 (3.4GHz / 800Mhz FSB / 2MB Cache / LGA 775)
MSI P4N Diamond
4x 512 Corsair XMS2 5400UL's (2 gig's sweet)
2x BFG 6800GT
Hmm... a pump
CPU WB
Danger Den's NV-68SLI WB's.
Danger Den's 120x2 Heater Core Radiator (I would need the 2x120 right?)
And I guess a T-Line?

I'm still not quite sure what kind of configuration I'm going to need for all of this. I haven't bought anything yet, still waiting on design first (measure twice, cut once philosophy). Also I think I should mention that I'm not planning on modding the case if I can avoid it. Oh, before I forget, I heard somebody (Ninja maybe?) had the MSI board and the NB fried on it. I've also heard Mesce on the extreme overclocking boards had the same thing happen. My other choice for a board was the Asus, but I hear that the OC'ing ability is gimped due to the BIOS (so far at least). So I figure the MSI sounded like it would be sound so long as I can cool it correctly. So my other question is, what kind of cooling is available for the NB and maybe the MOSFETS? (Basically I guess I'm trying to compile a parts list so I can finish off the design portion of my new rig). Any comments/suggestions are VERY much appreciated. Thanks alot, gang! I know I'm new to the community, but I'm eager to learn

you can use any case for watercooling. it all depends on how much modding u want to do to the case. if u dont want to do modding like u suggested, u might just need a big case.

i surely didnt need a full tower, check out the link in my sig for pics. its a reg tower, not even a mid tower.

usually for smaller cases u need to do some cutting and such to fit all the components in, but it isnt a big deal imo.

there is a thread on suitable cases in the "stickies" forum...
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=260240

citronym said:

you can use any case for watercooling. it all depends on how much modding u want to do to the case. if u dont want to do modding like u suggested, u might just need a big case.

i surely didnt need a full tower, check out the link in my sig for pics. its a reg tower, not even a mid tower.

usually for smaller cases u need to do some cutting and such to fit all the components in, but it isnt a big deal imo.

Click to expand...

Wow, great rig. Thanks for the info!

pauldenton said:

there is a thread on suitable cases in the "stickies" forum...
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=260240

Click to expand...

Ah there it is. Thank you Paul. I saw the stickies in the Watercooling section but I didn't go through them all. Little did I know that there were other stickies inside

Well, judging by your computer, I would definately get a full tower case. Much easier to install, better airflow, and you can use larger tubing.

whozyodaddy makes a very good point. if its your first wc then it would make it much easier to just use a larger case. routing tubes is arguably the most difficult part of setting up a first time wc. in a larger case with lots of room, u dont have to sharply bend hoses and try and deal with kinks.

more room = more simplicity

its not necessary, but will be easier on you

Thanks for the tips, gang. This will be my first foray into watercooling, and the easier I can make it for myself, the better. Any brands I should consider or even stay away from? I know I've heard alot of people swear by Lian-Li, but those cases look kind of... well boring. I kind of like one of those blue Xaser cases, but I thought I read Thermaltake is bad. So a full tower seems the way to go. I'm guessing that 2x120 fans is the way to go? I was thinking heater core style radiator as I hear it's the best performance. Is there a spot where it's normally placed? I'm thinking of getting 2x Maxtor 300g 7200rpm drives in RAID 1, at least 1 Plextor 716A DVD burner, and possibly add on another 2 Maxtors and make a 4 drive array. I also have 2 IDE's I could use for spare storage that I currently have data on. Sounds like a lot to cram even with a full tower case. Thanks again for the help!

for an intel p4 chip, i personally would go with an ABIT motherboard, then an ASUS motherboard, if you want an abit and dont really have a cap for moola, i would go with the abit fatality motherboard, its AWESOME.

as for water cooling you'll have to get a 2X120mm heatercore/radiator, and

ive cooled a 3.4p4 and a nvidia 6800 PCI-e with a dual 120mm heater core, in a antec soho file server case, and it fight with alittle room to spare, i had to move my hdd to the 5.25 bays though which is fine with me.

heres a picture of my setup.
if your not a gamer or dont care about the sound quality that much, you can easily just use the motherboard sound and that'll give you more room for the pump, as you can see in my rig pic i am a gamer so i had to pump my pump in the spot where it wouldnt contact the sound card.

Hey hon, thanks for the tips. I was actually leaning towards the MSI board. I've heard very good things about it, so long as you keep the heat down. I do game, so onboard sound may not cut it (though the MSI has Creative Labs 24bit onboard audio chipset). As far as the picture goes, it tells me I don't have the permission to see that thread? Oh well. Thanks for the help, though.

no prob. im not sure why you cant see the picture.... hhmmmm.... get more stars then you'll be able to see it =D

but the only reason i recommend ABIT or asus is because i had very very good luck with the 3 different abit boards i had, and i had one msi board one time, and i was impressed with its quality, i wasnt impressed with its performance.

but each to his own, and ive also heard alot of good things about the MSI board, so hopefully i had a bad one and you'll get a good one.

Gotcha Thanks for the help. I keep hearing bad things about the current Asus bios. Not that it's the end of the world, because they could fix it in the next revision, but it's still up in the air for me. By the way, this is not a shameless way to get more posts. Haha. So full tower case is the way to go, it sounds like. (For my purposes, at least). I was reading a bit in that case FAQ, and it's a little daunting. There are sooo many choices. Any recommendations?

yeah there are alot of choices.

mainly how i chose my cases is looking and internal components. like the sviking case i have now i chose b/c it has a front door to mask the front of the case and then it has a rear 120mm fan and a front 120mm fan.

but! the thermaltake tsnunami case also has that setup plus its alluminum and also comes with a side mounted 90mm fan, so that could be a good choice.

but also a good choice would be the cheiftec dragon / antec soho variation case, this case comes in steal and allumnium depending on brand, i would recommend the alluminum one sinse its not a small case and will help disapate heat sinse its alluminum, and if you hack at the case you dont ever have to worry about rust, b/c i water cooled the antec soho case which is steal and i started to get rust around the button of the mounting area on the case where the pump was located from when i drained the system to swap tubing.

so for your setup i would personally vote for the chieftec dragon case, in alluminum, to help with weight and heat, also it comes in multiple colors to suit your color tastes, also it has 2 80 mm rear exhaust fans and then 2 front intake fans, WHICH you can put the dual 120mm heatercore/radiator with 2 120mm fans in a "suck" configuration, and cut the 80mm fan grills out, and there yee go, a perfect flow for the heatercore/radiator and you'll have enough room for just about anything.

also, depending on pump, like say the swiftech mcp-350 (also theres a danger den variation by i believe DDC-350) but its one of the smallest pumps and has very high output and theres posts and/or stickies you can find that help you mod that pump's 3/8" barbs to be used with 1/2" I.D. tubing and to up the flow for those components. but i have to say the swiftech 650/655 pump, which is the pump had is the best rated and the most reliable small water cooled computer pump out there, only downside is what i mentioned above about its size and the positioning you'll have to chose for it to 1, fit, and 2, perform its job best it can.

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back to the case, you can usually pick up one of the dragons pretty cheap on ebay i believe ive seen an alluminum one as low as like 50$ + shipping, which for its size etc is really good, i am planning to mod my old antec soho case for something to do, i am going to be fitting a center mounted 80mm fan in the front with a 120mm fan in the front and then 2 90mm fans in the rear, it'll take some time to get done, but all i have is time right now, sinse i am going for a new car and am selling my sig rig.


:EDIT: i should also say when i described where the heatercore/radiator will go is in the front below the 5.25" bays, it WILL fit trust me! with a couple of CM's to spare!

Wow, really? With the chieftec dragon case I can fit the dual 120 in front? It would be under where the drive cage is, right? All I would have to do is cut out the front to fit the fans? That sounds like it would work for me. I also didn't realize that you could get rust with steel, (stainless steel?) hehe That's alot of good information, thank you very much. I'll go have a look at the chieftec's. I guess I could get my hands on a dremel to cut out the front if that's pretty much all the case modding I would have to do. I'm curious though... isn't the point of all the water cooling to avoid using 100 different fans? You mentioned one in front, one in back, top, sides, etc.. hehe

reducing noise is indeed some peoples goal (or one of thier goals) when building a wc. although not always true (such as in my case) people usually run fans at a lower power rating than what they are spec'd for, thus resulting in quiter operation. it might seem like a lot of fans but that doesnt mean it cant be quiet too.

citronym said:

reducing noise is indeed some peoples goal (or one of thier goals) when building a wc. although not always true (such as in my case) people usually run fans at a lower power rating than what they are spec'd for, thus resulting in quiter operation. it might seem like a lot of fans but that doesnt mean it cant be quiet too.

Click to expand...

That's exactly one of the things that I was wondering about, citro. I understand that good airflow within the case is important, but is there a point where there are just too many fans (as in, it won't really help airflow anymore)? I was thinking as per hon's suggestion, the two 120's in the front of the case in "suck" position (I'm assuming that means having the fan facing so that they would suck air in from the outside and blow it through the radiator, blowing cool air into the case) and then a fan faced so that it would blow the hot air out of the case up top maybe?

your close
a typical 'suck' configuration (if im not mistaken) consists of fans pulling air not only in thru the front of the case, but also thru the rad at the same time. so, u have a rad at the front of the case, with 2 fans on it which are sucking air away from the rad. on the other side of the rad air is being pulled into the front of the case, then thru the rad. when u pull air thru a rad instead of pushing air thru it, u save noise and possibly even create better pressures for thermal dissipation.

and airflow is def not a measurement of how many fans you have, but a measure of how well air is moving thru the case. u only need enough fans to have a steady stream of fresh air moving thru the case. as long as there are no dead spots in the case, your components will all stay an acceptable temp. for instance, if u had 6 case fans, and they were all blowing INTO the case, you would have no air flow, just high pressure. u want air moving thru the entire case, so the air iniside is awlays being refreshed.

hope this babble makes sense, im sleep deprived...

citronym said:

your close
a typical 'suck' configuration (if im not mistaken) consists of fans pulling air not only in thru the front of the case, but also thru the rad at the same time. so, u have a rad at the front of the case, with 2 fans on it which are sucking air away from the rad. on the other side of the rad air is being pulled into the front of the case, then thru the rad. when u pull air thru a rad instead of pushing air thru it, u save noise and possibly even create better pressures for thermal dissipation.
and airflow is def not a measurement of how many fans you have, but a measure of how well air is moving thru the case. u only need enough fans to have a steady stream of fresh air moving thru the case. as long as there are no dead spots in the case, your components will all stay an acceptable temp. for instance, if u had 6 case fans, and they were all blowing INTO the case, you would have no air flow, just high pressure. u want air moving thru the entire case, so the air iniside is awlays being refreshed.
hope this babble makes sense, im sleep deprived...

Click to expand...

very well spoken and put out, and as to add to the case pressure take, i believe having negative pressure inside the case is usually best. b/c if i am correct in this that means theres more air trying to be "taken" out of the case than that is being fed in so it creates a vaccumm and there for removes more hot air than cool air.

in the rig in my sig i have more air being pulled out of my case than being sucked in via a fan controller. and my temps dropped about 4C, not much but thats pretty good sinse the front intake fan is at its lowest setting and the rear exhaust fan is about 5% above that.

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on my previous rig when i water cooled. i had 7 fans total in the case, 2 exhaust, 2 intake, 1 side intake, 1cpu, and 1 vga fan, after i water cooled. i knocked that number down to 4. 2 80mm exhaust fans, and 2 120mm intake fans. so i eliminated the noise of the VGA fan, CPU fan and side intake fan, AND with the front fans being 120mm they push more CFM at a lower RPM and lower RPM means lower dba, usually, and plus the front intake fans WERE 80mm, 80mm fans are usually winnier, the 120mm fans i replaced them with sinse the blades are larger, they are alittle less noisey.

and how i had the heater core setup in the front is it went front of the case, then heater core, then fans, then inside of case, then out the back of the case.

i got my heater core painted and barbs expoxied in from www.freshcooling.com, they come from car heater systems, so i feal and alot of other water coolers feal that heatercores from cars cool better than the purpose built black ice extreme etc radiators.

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if you see in my sig i am doing a Antec Soho case mod, same as the dragon case, what i am saying this for is i am planning to cut the 2 rear 80mm fan holes out and put 2 90mm fans in the rear. and like i stated above i am gonna have a front intake 80mm fan and 120mm intake fan and top 80mm slow RPM exhaust fan so i hope this will help create alittle negative pressure thats good pressure, lol.

just remember to post what you will be looking at to order so that way if anyone sees anything that can be changed it'll help you in the long run. i know it helped me before.

<--- {| (hot air out)------------------(Front of case)
<--- {|-------------------------------|
|-------------------------------|
|-------------------(fans/rad)__|
|--------------------------<--{|| <----
|----------------(cool air in)<--{||
|---------------------------------

So as I understand it, it would go something like this (please excuse the rudimentary ascii drawing).... on the right hand side is the front of the case. On the bottom front is the fan/radiator setup. The fans are to the left of the radiator in this picture (the little braces hehe) so in other words fan--radiator--outside of case. Okay, hope you all catch me so far. The fans would be turned in such a way that they will pull the air in from the outside, first through the radiator, and then into the case (arrows going to the left on the bottom). So that air is cool because it's outside air (well ambient, but cooler than the inside of the case). The air inside the case gets hot because of the components (and why we're doing this to begin with). At the top left side (the top rear of the case) we have exhaust fans. Hot air rises, so putting the fans up top makes sense because most of the hot air will be higher as opposed to lower. So those are blowing the hot air in the case OUT of the case (the top arrows pointing left). If I'm not mistaken, inside the case will have a kind of reverse 's" shape of sorts airflow. In through the bottom right side, out on the top left. Now I don't know if this would actually work (the PSU is usually at the top) but maybe you could fit a fan next to it? Or maybe even have the same concept, but have the fans on the top end of the case (shift the fans in my crappy diagram 90 degrees clockwise)? Sorry if I'm being a noob and a pain. I'm just trying to get the design portion down first before I start buying stuff rather than be disappointed when I need to buy stuff/replace wrong items later because I didn't think it all out first. Thanks, gang. You've already been very helpful.

test.

:EDIT: ah, there we go, got it work, that'll show it better.

note the far right of the picture is the front grill of the antec soho case.

so the fans suck the air through the front grill of the case then through the heatercore then into the case.

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dont worry about asking noob questions we all go through that part. i was going through that part not too long ago

and as for the top mounted heatercore idea i usually suggest not to do that because then you'll have fan grills or heatercore grills showing on the top of the case and even though it'll take atleast 1 5.25 bay i feal it'll take atleast 2 5.25 bay drives to be affective.

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