First, thank you Spawn for creating a thread for my dilemma! I completely forgot about OCforums, this is a great place to bring it! (I just registered now as you can see
)
So yeah, I'm running on an ASUS watercooled motherboard, there are a few out there, this one comes with built in barbs for 3/8" flow. My system is 1/2", so no matter what I do, series or parallel, I will have to adjust down to that barb size.
I'm going to do a bit of copy/pasting now:
Here's my explanation for the split, and 'T's:
Originally I did look into 'F's and Y's, but I couldn't find any Y's that went from 1/2" to dual 3/8"s, and like you already mentioned the F's are useless unless it's specifically for swiftech stuff.
Second, I did a little math work. A single 1/2" diameter tube has an area of:
(1/2")/2 = 1/4 this is the radius
(1/4)^2*pi = area
area = .196
Dual 3/8" tubes have a TOTAL area of:
(3/8")/2 = 3/16 this is the radius of ONE tube
(3/16)^2*pi = area of ONE = .110
area * 2 = area of both
area of both = .220
.220/.196 is roughly 12%, which means that having 1/2" to dual 3/8" tubes drops the pressure/speed by 12%. They are so close to being the same.
Next, the motherboard tubes look very small, definitely not 3/8" tubes, they're tiny metal pipes. If the pressure is too high going in there, which I have heard high flow systems have had, the tubes could just pop off and I would be left with a destroyed computer. So basically what I did was I made an "offramp" for excess water. I'm not too concerned with the NB/SB since it cant cool itself normally without watercooling, so the watercooling is just a bonus. Also, the outflow from the 'T' where the two 3/8" tubes reconnect give the 1/2" no pressure differences, allowing for the whole system to be unaffected by the motherboard loop. (also the motherboard hose connectors are so close together that I can't use real clamps, I have to trust ASUS with they're ones.)
So basically, the mobo is already fine without watercooling, I cranked the fans up to the max (I only have 3 120's on it right now, all of which are on the radiators, 2 front 1 back, so nothing directly on chips atm) and here are the temps:
CPU: 25C
NB/SB: 36C
GPU: 33C
HD(s): 32C
Nothing ever goes over 40C when the fans are on max or even low, both under load and idle. The only time I really see higher temps is when I turn all of the fans off.
What do you think?
What I may do is put a 120mm fan on the door of my case, just for some of my heatsinks, GPU (heatsinks to be added soon), and motherboard in it's entirety.
I haven't OC'ed yet, but am anxious to test the full potential!
Oh and ALSO, if I decide to take out the parallel, I can just cap off the 'T's appropriately to turn them into straight diameter adjusters.
