• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

my CPU cooling loop parts list...

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

iAmCodeMonkey

Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Location
Somewhere On Midgard...
Watercooling Loop: $333.25 US

EK Supreme-LT AMD CPU Water Block (Acetal\Copper) - $44.95 US
Swiftech MCP355 12V Pump - $64.95 US
EK DDC X-TOP Rev. 2 (Acetal) - $24.95 US
XSPC 5.25" Bay Reservoir (Black) - $44.95 US
Hardware Labs Black Ice GT Stealth 240 Radiator (2X120mm) - $49.95 US
Feser UV Red 8 Feet (3/8" ID x 1/2" OD) - $24.95 US
Koolance Tubing Spring Wrap - Black (3/8" ID x 1/2" OD) x5 - $2.99 US
Bitspower Shiny Silver Compression Fittings (3/8" ID x 1/2" OD) x8 - $7.95 US

Any suggestions as to what parts could be better? I would be cooling the GPU's later on btw to save cost.

Water Cooling is my planned summer project, if I have the funds of course.
 
parts list looks good over all though i would change the following.

Rad - get a thicker one if space isn't an issue like the one of the following.

also you will need more rad later on for gpu's.

Double 120mm
Thermochill PA 120.2 - good for low speed fans
XSPC RX240- good for low speed fans
HW Labs Black Ice GTX240- good for high speed fans
Swiftech MCR220-QP- good for medium speed fans
Feser X-Changer Triple 120 mm- good for low speed fans
Black Ice SR1 240- good for low speed fans
or the new EK rad which is good for low speed fans.


is that a single or double bay res? if it's double i would opt for the XSPC dual bay dual or single pump res/top. it will put the res and pump in one spot.

as for coolant what are your plans? go to food basic or loblaws for some distilled water and get some silver or pt nuke as a biocide works wonders.
 
That is a VERY old rad, flow restictive and way less capable than newer ones.
Spawn gave you a great starting point. How do we know these things? Scientific tests at Martins and Skinnees. Might want to take a gander at this link and use the links within big time. You got till summer, so learn a bit.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/253958-29-watercooling-guide

If your going to add GPUs you might want to think about fatter tubing. You'll need more flow rate for the best performing loop adding GPUs. Also, you'll probably need more rads depending on your GPUs, so might think of more rad now. As your sig is now, adding a GPU you WILL need a 120x3 sized rad depending on your overclocks. So plan ahead.

You need a 120x2 for your CPU now. Adding GPUs makes your Delta T worse.

Simple explanation of what DT is, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND IT.
............................
DT Temps

A delta measurement is used in many engineering terms in many disciplines. I guess it means the difference between two of the same thing.

In water-cooling it's simply the difference between the ambient air temps and the water temp on the outgoing side of the rad. Room temps vs. water temps. A better rad setup cools better. Load meaning heat created. Stable meaning the load has been running long enough so the loop is stabilized, heat is made; it is removed and run long enuff for the water temps to get to the max under a load.

If your ambient are 60C and your water exiting the rad is 65C, you got a 5C DT. And it’s important you understand this simple concept. You need xx cooling for xx heat load with a resultant xx DT. Its how you decide what size radiators you need as a minimum for the loop to perform better than air, and what’s needed for really superior max over clocks.

So for example, in a water cooled loop you generate 200 watts of heat. Your block pulls heat into the water; the heat is dissipated into the air by the rad/fans. Skinnee and Martin came up with a great chart for rad test results. Make xx heat, run xx fans with xx radiator brand and size, your DT is xx.

The efficiency of the rad determines the residual heat in the water as it circulates. A rad cannot remove ALL the heat. Heck if that was true, running a rad with no heat load would cause the water to go all the way down to below freezing theoretically. A great Delta T is under 5C, meaning you got a big rad for your heat load. Medium DT is 10C, and 15C is getting bad. CPUs need lower DT than a GPU loop.

Ultimately lucky folks with cooler temps year round can go with lesser rads. People with high ambient might need bigger rads for the same final core temp on a CPU that someone in Norway vs. Samoa can get.

Hope that helps, it's a simple explanation, I'm not a Thermodynamic engineer.
 
Last edited:
Thank you very much for the replies.

@Conundrum: I will read the link you sent me to learn more. And I will keep the triple rad suggestion in mind, although I would like to keep the internals of my case as clean as possible, so I likely would not bolt a rad onto the rear 120mm fan, as my Voodoo Omen case only has a 2x120mm rad mount and tube holes in the front portion of the case as shown here:

04.jpg


"note how close the 2 front fans are to the hard drive cages"

I also am not looking to overclock my hardware very much at all, and the water cooling loop will be used for creating a (relatively) silent computer. My coolant will be distilled water and an anti-algae additive (PT-Nuke?)

Again, thanks to you both for the suggestions. I am off to bed in a half-hour :)
 
Last edited:
Thank you very much for the replies.

@Conundrum: I will read the link you sent me to learn more. And I will keep the triple rad suggestion in mind, although I would like to keep the internals of my case as clean as possible, so I likely would not bolt a rad onto the rear 120mm fan, as my Voodoo Omen case only has a 2x120mm rad mount and tube holes in the front portion of the case as shown here:

"note how close the 2 front fans are to the hard drive cages"

I also am not looking to overclock my hardware very much at all, and the water cooling loop will be used for creating a (relatively) silent computer. My coolant will be distilled water and an anti-algae additive (PT-Nuke?)

Again, thanks to you both for the suggestions. I am off to bed in a half-hour :)

The fun part is : you will have more computing power with a moderate overclocked ci7 with it's stock cooler than your watercooled amd - thus I would have spent the money on a 1366 system instead of that wc gear ;) but that's me ;)
 
The fun part is : you will have more computing power with a moderate overclocked ci7 with it's stock cooler than your watercooled amd - thus I would have spent the money on a 1366 system instead of that wc gear ;) but that's me ;)

Read the post more carefully next time...

1 - I never did say that I bought my WC gear.

2 - My AMD rig is more than powerful enough for my needs, thank you very much ;)

I don't see the need for an i7 in gaming since I do not have an interest in synthetic benchmark scores, which the i7's DO beat Phenom II's in.

Yeah, I am probably in the minority on that ;)
 
Back