First Watercooling Loop - Could you Advise Me?

Hello everyone,

I am building a new PC and I really want to create a single loop water cooling system to cool it. I have a Corsair Obsidian 900D case so I have plenty of room to house the components.

The PC components are as follows:

Asus Rampage IV Extreme x79 Motherboard
Intel i7-4820k CPU
16gb Quad Channel Memory
Radeon 7970 3gb CPU
500gb Samsung 840 Evo SSD
3tb Regular Hard Drive
Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound Card


Okay, I am thinking of buying the following components:

1. Koolance CPU-380i CPU Water Block
2. ATI Radeon 7970 Water Block (not decided which brand)
3. Swiftech MCP350 Pump and MCP35x Reservoir
4. Alphacool Nexxxos Full Copper Triple Fan Radiator


Thats basically it so far. I am trying to buy used to keep the total price down. I am wondering if anyone suggests that I get a waterblock for the chipset? Would that be necessary or would i be a waste of time?

I really am confused about the fittings, tubing and coolant I need to connect all the parts into a complete system.

What would you suggest?


Thanks for the help.

You mean the 35X pump, the 350 pump won't hold that res.

Get compression fittings. My first build I used clamp over barb. It was a pain and preventing leaks was an annoyance. 2nd build I used compression fitting and had zero problems. Compression fitting are worth the extra $'s. I'd go with the thicker wall 3/8ID 5/8OD tubing unless you want the bigger 1/2ID tubing. Thicker wall tubing has less of a tendency to kink. Once again 1st build I had to sleeve the tubing to prevent kinking. 2nd build with the thicker tubing and kinking was not an issue. For the coolant you could just use distilled water with a bit of algaecide. I went that route with colored tubing and have had no issues. I did add to pearlescent additive to the water so I could see the movement of the water through the reservoir. I think next time I'll add pearlescent fluid to a clear tubing loop.

My Swiftech pump with reservoir mounted to the top works very nicely. Actually I think my pump is a variant on the Swifttech pump that adjusts pump speed according to CPU temp. I forget the model.

jrodefeld said:

Hello everyone,

I am building a new PC and I really want to create a single loop water cooling system to cool it. I have a Corsair Obsidian 900D case so I have plenty of room to house the components.

The PC components are as follows:

Asus Rampage IV Extreme x79 Motherboard
Intel i7-4820k CPU
16gb Quad Channel Memory
Radeon 7970 3gb CPU
500gb Samsung 840 Evo SSD
3tb Regular Hard Drive
Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound Card


Okay, I am thinking of buying the following components:

1. Koolance CPU-380i CPU Water Block
2. ATI Radeon 7970 Water Block (not decided which brand)
3. Swiftech MCP350 Pump and MCP35x Reservoir
4. Alphacool Nexxxos Full Copper Triple Fan Radiator


Thats basically it so far. I am trying to buy used to keep the total price down. I am wondering if anyone suggests that I get a waterblock for the chipset? Would that be necessary or would i be a waste of time?

I really am confused about the fittings, tubing and coolant I need to connect all the parts into a complete system.

What would you suggest?


Thanks for the help.

Click to expand...

Welcome to OCFs!

Nice list of PC components, especially that super tower. There's more than enough room to do anything in it and I mean A N Y T H I N G!

As for the water cooling parts, are you going to buy some new and some used? I personally don't know if I could trust what the other user had put in his/her loop. But if you must than you must.

As for the pump I would stick with the MCP-35x or wait for the new MCP50x (end of march).

For radiators, if you have no budget just fill the 900D with rads. LOL I am in the process of putting my last radiator in it with a CPU + GPU only loop on it. I already have a 360mm and a 240mm with the fans running at 1k @ 1.0 GPM. Enough of my giberish. Honestly, the rad of choice you picked is fine. Depending if you're going high or low FPI on the radiator will result in which fan to get. You'll need to search on quality radiator fans.

Your MB won't need any watercooling unless you're doing extreme OCing.

If you're on a budget than you should go with barb fittings with good metal hose clamps on Primochill's Advanced LRT colored tubing of your choice or clear with distilled water and a silver killcoil.

Since you're new to watercooling, please take a look at our stickies in yellow as we always advise newcomers to read those as we did our first time. I learned a lot and what not to do's. Maintenance will be required to keep your loop in pristine shape.

Hope this helps.

Robmoo said:

Get compression fittings. My first build I used clamp over barb. It was a pain and preventing leaks was an annoyance. 2nd build I used compression fitting and had zero problems. Compression fitting are worth the extra $'s.

Click to expand...

This part I cant really agree on. I wont ever feel safe with compression fittings, one you have seen one go lose, and lost a bunch of hardware, you dont go back.

Not had any problems ever using barb fittings, both my rigs are running them, and the money saved on them, is spent on getting nice clamps.

That is more of a what you like situation i think, i would not advise against it what so ever.

I have never had any issues with compression fittings, nor have I ever had any issues with standard barb fittings. So long as you make sure they're installed properly (and clamped properly with barbs) then you will not have any issues.

I prefer compression fittings mostly because I feel they look cleaner than worm drive or plastic clamps.

Tubing really comes down to personal preference, and your fittings are going to follow that. Some people prefer 1/2"ID 3/4"OD tubing, others 3/8"ID 5/8"OD. I personally prefer 7/16"ID 5/8"OD for a little more flow than 3/8"ID while still retaining good kink resistance.

The CPU block you've chosen is one of the better ones on the market. I'd also look into the EK Supremacy and XSPC Raystorm if you're curious about other options.

For GPU blocks, any of the major brands (HeatKiller, EK, XSPC, AquaComputer, etc) make good blocks. Main thing to watch out for: double and triple check compatibility with your particular 7970. If you don't have a reference card, finding a compatible full cover block will be difficult, if not impossible.

The Alphacool rad is also a good one, and you'll want to make sure you get the MCP35x pump to go with that res