faster flow with 3/8 or 1/2 ?

[Stephen Castles]

will i get alot more water flow and better performance if i use 1/2 inch tubing? i have a pump rated at 300 gph, but i feel the 3/8 tube if capping some of it off. help me out here

[Diggrr]

That's a loaded question.
You'll get more flow, but depending on components, this may not drop your temps. Changing the fittings on the waterblock is pretty easy, but it can get complicated to change the radiator's.
Also, increasing waterflow may raise your temps if the flow through your radiator increases to the point where it's unable to shed the heat as fast as before. (consensus seams to be for slowing the radiator's flow to increase cooling power/heat removed).

You just gotta try it to see. It won't damage anything, but try to make sure it's reversable..just in case. ;)

<edit> It would increase the flow at the pump. It may slow the velocity of the water through the tubing. Your pump may run cooler though.

[Stephen Castles]

since i have 2 radiators, the flow will go from the pump, to the block, then split, so bassically the flow will be cut in half. My pump does run a little warm, the outlet was 5/8 until i put a 3/8 adapter on it so maybe 1/2 wont be as hard on the pump.

[Stephen Castles]

i just took off the 3/8 fitting and put the 5/8 hose on the pump like it's supposed to be, now it pumps like a mother *&^^$^, seriously ! It's 3 to 4 times more that it was pumping, so i looks like i need the 1/2 inch anway because of the pump, it would be under alot of stress using the 3/8.

[Silver]

My experiment. 1/2 inch into 3 1/4 inlets with 3 1/4 outlets. I use a garden watering head. Prior while using a dd maze 2/1 I used fingernail polish to close all but 36 holes in the head in order to get a good spray pattern. With this setup I used 88 openings in order to get a good spray pattern. Conclusion: MUCH more volume. Undoubtedly this aided in allowing this poor aluminum heatsink to outperform the dd maze 2/1 by 1c. I like the idea of multiple radiators in a case water cooling solution as the lack of a bong would make radiator cooling and volume very important in maintaining thermal efficiency and therefore the ability to overclock. Two or more radiators reduced to low flow by splitting would allow for a good (theory) cooling solution under higher voltages. Thank you for the input.

[ButcherUK]

Unless you have a hopeless wimpy radiator then higher flow is better. The most popular closed loop rad is the heater core. These are massive overkill for the application so it's almost impossible to flow too fast through them.