Thinking about building a custom Water cooling case (stand alone case) but have ????

[Wizzard005]

Aloha all,

I was thinking about taking one of my old Cases and turning it into a WaterCooler and just have the water lines ran to my PC.

I have a few questions tho..

I am thinking of going with:

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Liquid/liquid_index.asp

They have a ton of stuff that would work for me I think.

1. Can you keep adding radiators? Meaning, if i have 4 lets say, can i have 1 going to 2 , 2 going to 3, 3 going to 4, and then to the pump etc? Would something like that cool alot faster then just having one Radiator?

2. Pumps, Should I have 1 or two? If i have it outside of my case, like a 10foot run to my CPU will that be ok?

3. I was thinking of having all thermal control fans, 1200 - 5000RPM depending how hot everything gets.

4. Would this setup work to cool everything in my system>? HD's and CPU / VIdeo Card?

Last water built system i built was a koolance system that it was all built in. The temps were never that great, but under 60c with my old P4.

Any input would be great. Also, if its a stand alone case, what would be the best way to get power too it? Eg , how would you power up the other system?

Thanks all...

[4od]

First off, dont get a thermaltake kit; the low price is appealing, but you'll pay performance wise.
99% of the time high end air will be better than kit watercooling (exception include the swiftech
kits, which are really top-notch)

1. As for radiators, more radiators generally help, but two 1x120mms are not only as flow friendly as
one 2x120, but they usually dont have any performance increase, sometimes its the exact opposite
(they perform worse). Your best bet is one 3x120 or dual Bonneville heatercores, which are great flow
and performace wise, although you might have to braze on tubing nipples.

2. Pump wise, the distance between your case and the pump is limited only by the power of your pump
(and how much tubing you have). With a thermaltake pump, dont expect to have decent flow rates with
anything more than one 2x120 or 3x120 radiator and maybe overall 6 or seven feet of tubing. Luckily its
not hard to modify submersible aquarium pumps for water cooling applications, but they are noisier and
can add heat to the loop. If you have money to burn and need high head (pressure) get a MCP355 and
switch out for one the many custom high flow heads (the best is probably Petras). For higher flow (and
1/2" ID fittings) get the MCP655. Multiple pumps will allow you to either have high head (allowing you to
have the rad box further away from the computer) if you put them in a series, or higher flow if you put
them in parrallel.

3. Thermal control fans are a nice idea, but i just have a fan controller on the front of my case, and i
turn down my fans when playing games or photo editing. Just surfing around usually doesn't affect
temps (for me) too much). Still, its nice to not have to think about that kind of stuff.

4. The thermaltake setup will not work to cool everything but dual bonneville heatercores will.

Heres my suggestion for you loop:

MCP355 with modded top
Dual 2x120 Heatercores (Bonnevilles)
Waterblocks:
Apogee GT or Dtek Whitewater for CPU
No HD block
Dangerden Maze5s with the DTek 8800 series heatsink for the memory, PWMs, etc.

[Wizzard005]

Hi and thanks for the reply. Ya I was looking at reviews and nothing seemed that great for them. Right now i have the Coolit Elimentor and its not all that great with my Core2 6600, runs about 65+ with a load (least tat tells me that)

Anyways, I just ordered the Swifttech H20-220 Apex™ Ultra+ Most places I check on the reviews everything seemed good for the price.

I hope i made the right choice. I dont know where i am going to mount the stuff in my Silverstone TJ09 case but we will see as i can take the old HD rail system out i think...

[orion456]

Swiftech 220 is a great cooling kit and easy to install. You will get some good performance and it looks great too. Have fun. :eek: