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Water cooling for under $200

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the only bad things i've heard of yates are they aren't good in a horizontal position. but even if it cuts the life a bit short there cheap so who cares...

TheThermaltaker said:
Also, would 3 Yate Loon low speed fans sufficiently cool the radiator or should I go with the medium speed ones?
Click to expand...


i would go with 3 medium and either get a fan controller or make a connector to change from 5v or 12v.
 
Spawn-Inc said:
the only bad things i've heard of yates are they aren't good in a horizontal position. but even if it cuts the life a bit short there cheap so who cares...




i would go with 3 medium and either get a fan controller or make a connector to change from 5v or 12v.
Click to expand...

Well, I've got a test running right now. I have 4 mediums cooling my motherboard in the horizontal position, and 3 blowing through the rad in the vertical position. The three on the rad were wired together and run off a 4 pin molex at full speed. It's pretty darn quiet. It's the ones over the mobo that put out the most noise oddly enough. Maybe it's because they are mounted horizontally, maybe it's because there are 4 in such a small area.
imgp0060za7.jpg
 
Okay, so I have the majority of the kit figured out.

Reservoir: Swiftech Micro Rev 2

Pump: Swiftech 655

Radiator: Swiftech MCR320

CPU Water Block: Swiftech GTZ

VGA Water Block: MCW60 with GTX 200 heatsink

Clamps: Worm drives and maybe a few compression fittings.

Some T's to separate the CPU from the graphics card loop.


The only two I haven't figured out yet are:

Tubing: 15 feet of either the Tygon or the Primoflex, wrapped with this. The Primoflex looks cooler, but if the Tygon is better I'll go with it. How many packs of the coil should I get?

As for coolant, would distilled water with this blue UV dye and Zerex be a good idea? And how much Zerex should I put into the water? Most importantly, do I mix everything before pouring it into the reservoir, or do I add the water, then Zerex, then dye and let the loop mix it?


Is there anything I'm forgetting? And are the barbs that come with everything any good or should I replace them now?
 
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Now for the loop. Should I go reservoir, pump, radiator, split to CPU and GPU lines, reservoir? And is it that much of a performance improvement to have the radiator right before the CPU and GPU, or could I put the radiator before the pump? Also, I haven't seen any non-Thermaltake water cooled Armor cases. Is there anyone on the forum that has water cooled their Armor in a similar way that could post a pic of their setup?
 
You don't want to seperate the water flow or parellel it. Thats not recommeneded and a typical noob misconception. It will reduce flow rates across the individual parts, and especuially the CPU block is made for high flow and inpingment action to pull the heat out. Make it all in a serial loop. The difference in temp across anywhere in the loop will be no more than 1-2C. Please, no Ts, put it all in series.

I have to ask about Zerex and dye. Do you HAVE to have it? Why not buy blue UV tubing instead. And you didn't mention biocide yet. Petras for biocide, please take a look.

Don't need the coils unless you have kink problems, and it's possible with Primoflex, Tygon is less 'kinky'. Don't be short with tubing, 10' is enough for most CPU/GPU loops.
 
Conumdrum said:
You don't want to seperate the water flow or parellel it. Thats not recommeneded and a typical noob misconception. It will reduce flow rates across the individual parts, and especuially the CPU block is made for high flow and inpingment action to pull the heat out. Make it all in a serial loop. The difference in temp across anywhere in the loop will be no more than 1-2C. Please, no Ts, put it all in series.

I have to ask about Zerex and dye. Do you HAVE to have it? Why not buy blue UV tubing instead. And you didn't mention biocide yet. Petras for biocide, please take a look.

Don't need the coils unless you have kink problems, and it's possible with Primoflex, Tygon is less 'kinky'. Don't be short with tubing, 10' is enough for most CPU/GPU loops.
Click to expand...
I never knew that. I'll make sure to keep it in a series. For the tubing, I was only getting the dye to keep it UV blue, but if this tube is comparable to Tygon I'd rather go that route. I've read about Zerex being great for water cooling, is that true? If not, what would you recommend to add (and how much of it)?
 
distilled water and PT nuke is all you need, if you want colour get some uv dye, not coolant.

use 10-20 drops of pt nuke for the whole loop and the rest distilled water.
 
Spawn-Inc said:
distilled water and PT nuke is all you need, if you want colour get some uv dye, not coolant.

use 10-20 drops of pt nuke for the whole loop and the rest distilled water.
Click to expand...

Do I mix it before adding the water or do I put the drops in after filling the system up?
 
TEN to TWENTY DROPS??????

Oops, sure he added a keystroke by mistake.

It's 1-2 drops total. Just fill the loop and once it's full just drip 2 drops in the loop. Your loop will only have about 1/2 gallon or less in it total anyway. One bottle of PT nuke will last tons of redo's of the loop. There is a newer kind than PT-Nuke on their WWW, some are starting to use it. Anything from Petras is good stuff, it's one of maybe 5 PC enthisiast sites for WC thats top notch, and Petra's is on the top of the heap. great folks. You even get a PT Pen with every order! LOL.......

Zerex coolant, or any coolant besides water. It's been discussed for a long time. Waters thermal properties at the temps we run for WC cannot be beat by ANY additives. I'm sure there is some exotic liquid that can kill you and costs $500+ a gallon thats better. In the ol' days antifreeze was used due to dissimilar metals and the need for colored water etc. Some say it lubricates the pumps etc, but why would you need to lubricate a proven aquaruim pump used by millions with antifreeze? Don't think a pump for fish was designed that way. These pumps we have now aren't the same used long ago by the intrepid WC'ers who had to make their own blocks and were geniouses.

We are lucky, great proven stuff and methods are all here at our fingertips.
 
Last edited:
Conumdrum said:
TEN to TWENTY DROPS??????

Oops, sure he added a keystroke by mistake.

It's 1-2 drops total. Just fill the loop and once it's full just drip 2 drops in the loop. Your loop will only have about 1/2 gallon or less in it total anyway. One bottle of PT nuke will last tons of redo's of the loop. There is a newer kind than PT-Nuke on their WWW, some are starting to use it. Anything from Petras is good stuff, it's one of maybe 5 PC enthisiast sites for WC thats top notch, and Petra's is on the top of the heap. great folks. You even get a PT Pen with every order! LOL.......

Zerex coolant, or any coolant besides water. It's been discussed for a long time. Waters thermal properties at the temps we run for WC cannot be beat by ANY additives. I'm sure there is some exotic liquid that can kill you and costs $500+ a gallon thats better. In the ol' days antifreeze was used due to dissimilar metals and the need for colored water etc. Some say it lubricates the pumps etc, but why would you need to lubricate a proven aquaruim pump used by millions with antifreeze? Don't think a pump for fish was designed that way. These pumps we have now aren't the same used long ago by the intrepid WC'ers who had to make their own blocks and were geniouses.

We are lucky, great proven stuff and methods are all here at our fingertips.
Click to expand...

Okay, PT Nuke it is. So my last question is should I get this tube or get Tygon and add the blue UV dye? And with the Feser tube, does it kink easily?
 
i got 4 bottles of the first one you linked to, (i thought i was going to use a bottle per fill lol) there both the same but work differently i think.

just skimming through the description of the second link makes me think its for mixed metal situations (eg. copper rad, aluminum block).


not sure how the feser tubing is but i know lots of people rave about tygon.
 
Also, should I get the optional top fill-port barb for the reservoir? I don't get exactly what it is. Is it just a barb that can be used to remotely fill the reservoir?
 
if you have a spot on your case for a fill port then get the fitting for the res ($5-6) plus a fill port. it will make things a bit easier but its not needed.
 
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