First time water cooling, could use some advice

Hey Guys, Im new here so be gentle....

I am planning on water cooling my current rig so I get some experience at it before building my monster new rig in a year or two. I have a TT soprano DX case which is only a mid tower so its cramped for room and no cable management or water cooling holes. Im trying to use as much gear as I can that I will use with my new rig (case, w/c gear, etc)

Current Hware

Q6600 (Gay B3 stepping)
Kingston HyperX Ram
Gigabyte
XFX GTX280 XXX edition
Toughpower 750watt

What Im thinking is

Corsair 800D case
Fan controller
Swiftech MCP655B pump
thermochill PA 120.3 Rad
Swiftech XT CPU block
3x scythe gentle typhoons in push or pull
EK multioption 250 res
Bitspower True Silver compression fittings 1/2"
Feser tubing 1/2" UV Red
EK-FC280 GTX for VGA
EK-D5 X-TOP

Setup: Res > Pump > Rad up top > CPU > GPU > back to res


My starting questions are if anyone can help:

As far as I can tell the rad and blocks are all copper so distilled water + silver fittings will do? (I am assuming the pump doesnt have any materials which will cause galvanic corrosion since everyone seems to use MCP655s or vairants, so no other additives needed) I read that the rad is made of brass and copper, im assuming that those 2 dont cause corrosion with each other

Is there enough room for the 360 rad in a 800D with GTs (ive heard its a massive case but havent seen one in person)?

If I need to add in another single rad, im worried that I will then need another pump & res? and now the cost starts climbing above what I can afford in the short term haha

Will the 360 rad provide enough cooling for my hware? (i am looking to overclock, but not trying to set any records, besides im hamstrung with B3 stepping)

1. You're good to use only distilled water as long as you have True Silver fittings - but make sure they're True Silver not Shining Silver.

2.

3. You can add another rad, even a dual rad if needed, without stressing that pump - it'll push through a LOT of stuff.

4. A dual heater core was plenty for my Q6600 but I'm not sure how much rad that GPU needs. I'd think another 2x would be enough so your triple plus a single should be enough but don't quote me on that. Someone here will know for sure ...

Thanks Quiet

I did notice both shining silver and true silver on an aussie suppliers website and that the shining silver were fake rather than the 99.9% silver

Good to hear about the pump being able to cope with 2 rads, I dont really want the extra cost of another res & pump

Hello and welcome to OC WC,

1st, there are a few 800d builds going on right now in the WC Forums, I would suggest looking throu and you will see some pics as well.

2nd, If the case you now have is small I would suggest going with an external "Pedestal" , why, it will let you build you WC outside of the current case and just run your hose into your case just about anywhere you want.

Best advice would be to leave your current rig....and start building you own/purchase new case and start modding/fitting it for the WC parts.

Just take a look at my build in the sig... the case (aka cabinet) cost nothing therefor I was not worried about drilling or cutting up a $300 case which gave me $300 more to add to my WC parts and accessories.

As for Rads....always over rad if you can...that way you can always add GPUs and OC without having to rebuild or teardown.

Yeah, Ive been looking around, Freddiz is my god haha.

I want to do water cooling to my current rig because it will be simple and straightforward (compared to my planned rig which will have sli gpu, mobo, ram blocks, water cooled psu, several rads and pumps or dual loops etc)

I thought about getting the swiftech ultima XT kit, but with the new case and i managed to find a gtx280 waterblock, my plans changed

Besides, Im going to use my current case and some spare parts to make a media/file server, so losing the case is no biggie.