some advice before ordering

Heya everyone, first and foremost, i'm new around here secondly, i am getting ready to start a new project and am going to order the bulk of my water cooling supplies.

i am using the MM UFO case so room is not an issue. I am going to use the thermochill PA120.3 rad once someone, anyone in the US restocks them. Because of the case size and the creativity i hope to add to this project the water loop will probably be a big one.

first concern will be the pump. i like the stealthy look of the Laing DDC+ but i am concerned with it's ability to pump constantly through a big loop. Due to this concern I have also considered the Laing D5. This pump seems it will have the power but it will lack the stealthy look (no biggy i'll hide it another way). I have considered a number of options, 2 loops, 2 pumps in a loop etc. just looking for advice from those who have these two pumps.


3/8 or 1/2 seems to always be an issue. i like the 3/8 look but with the size of the loop, i am concerned 3/8 will not produce enough consistent pressure.

i'll be using a swifttech storm for my cpu, i am not sure which fun block i'll use for my 8800gtx yet, still reading reviews on some. memory, HDD, NB all up in the air yet.

any help is appreciated

thanks

Blackout

well you could add an alphacool top to the DDC+ to increase the performance and then it pretty much matches the performance of a D5
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=201&products_id=4506

and the biggest reason why not to go with 1/2 is that you don't have the room to make wide bends... i don't think you have that problem with that case so i would say go with the 1/2

and I am also waiting for someone to get the PA120.3 in

yah, i have been waiting for weeks now for the PA120.3, i could order from thermochill direct, but i dont really wanna go the international shipping route. since this is gonna be a long term project i can be patient, i guess

To differ a bit, I'd use 7/16" ID tubing with 1/2" barbs. If you can get 1/8 wall so much the better. The 7/16" tubing will give you basically the same flow but it makes much better bends and a much cleaner fit.

As for the pumps, my D5 and an older D4 are hitting the auction block. The modded DDC with 1/2" barbs works almost as well and is much smaller. If you really need more pressure use two of them in series (which is what I'm thinking of doing... I've got a Thermochill PA 120.3 from a previous build but I'm waiting to see what "options" to the Lian Li PC-343B become available before I start building).

MVC said:

To differ a bit, I'd use 7/16" ID tubing with 1/2" barbs. If you can get 1/8 wall so much the better. The 7/16" tubing will give you basically the same flow but it makes much better bends and a much cleaner fit.

As for the pumps, my D5 and an older D4 are hitting the auction block. The modded DDC with 1/2" barbs works almost as well and is much smaller. If you really need more pressure use two of them in series (which is what I'm thinking of doing... I've got a Thermochill PA 120.3 from a previous build but I'm waiting to see what "options" to the Lian Li PC-343B become available before I start building).

Click to expand...

i have considered running 2 in series, and in fact still may do so. such a big case, so many ideas lol

Running two pumps in series will not offer any benefits. You will be limited by the pump with the lower flow rate. Parallel should offer you some increase in pressure but I am not sure how much. Personally, I would stick with one pump.

blackout424 said:

yah, i have been waiting for weeks now for the PA120.3, i could order from thermochill direct, but i dont really wanna go the international shipping route. since this is gonna be a long term project i can be patient, i guess

Click to expand...

It doesn't take that long, I ordered something from thermochill one time and it took about 6 days

Also you can try calling moutainmods if they have it in stock, their website doesn't show if it in stock or not.

Petra did some testing of the moded top for the ddc/+ pumps. During testing also ran parallel and in series two pumps. No huge advantage from second pump



By the way, moded ddc+ will perform as well or better than d5 http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=117215

UBERCOOL said:

Running two pumps in series will not offer any benefits. You will be limited by the pump with the lower flow rate. Parallel should offer you some increase in pressure but I am not sure how much. Personally, I would stick with one pump.

Click to expand...

Except under unusual circumstances running in parallel will actually hurt performance. Running in series "reduces" your loop the the limits of the inferior pump, but if the pumps are identical that doesn't say much. What running in series does do is insure that pressure is maintained. If one pump isn't enough to maintain optimum flow throughout the loop, two might be able to. I don't often recommend two (or more) pumps, but in a large loop they can be beneficial.

meionm said:

It doesn't take that long, I ordered something from thermochill one time and it took about 6 days

Also you can try calling moutainmods if they have it in stock, their website doesn't show if it in stock or not.

Click to expand...

well i went ahead and ordered the PA120.3 from thermochill direct. assuming i dont get bent over and lose my rad in shipping, i made out like a bandit. i paid 106.00 american, shipped. every other store lists at 135.00ish + shipping!

As said before I ordered from them before and I was quiet supprised how fast that went. I don't know if the still do that anymore but when I order my thermochill from them it came with metal barbs not the plastic that it usually comes from US resellers.

I'm not sure of the necessary utility of metal barbs. My PA-120.3 came with the "standard" plastic barbs Danger Den puts on them. But, in "playing" with my loop in the recent rebuild I removed tubing a number of times. The 7/16" Tygon I had to remove from the Danger Den barbs on the Thermochill I had to cut off. No clamps, no running for any period of time, they just sealed very well!!! I hate to say it, but the only barbs that the 7/16" Tygon came off of without any real effort were the barbs on the G5. The silver block works very well, but any tubing attached to it does require hose clamps!

MVC said:

I'm not sure of the necessary utility of metal barbs. My PA-120.3 came with the "standard" plastic barbs Danger Den puts on them. But, in "playing" with my loop in the recent rebuild I removed tubing a number of times. The 7/16" Tygon I had to remove from the Danger Den barbs on the Thermochill I had to cut off. No clamps, no running for any period of time, they just sealed very well!!! I hate to say it, but the only barbs that the 7/16" Tygon came off of without any real effort were the barbs on the G5. The silver block works very well, but any tubing attached to it does require hose clamps!

Click to expand...

The metal barbs are better than plastic from some reason with 7/16id tubing. I have EK barbs on storm and vga block and tubing goes on and off quiet easily. Same applies to dangerden high flow barbs.