First time ever water cooling

Hello all, and thanks in advance. I am going to take the plunge and watercool. I have read the stickies, and been browsing parts, making plans etc.

Here is my first attempt at listing the parts I want to get. Open to any and all critique you're willing to offer.

First, my system will be in the Corsair Air 540 case, and I want to cool the i5-4670k and a gtx 780 in the loop. I am looking at a 360mm rad and a 240mm rad.

Questions:
1. I'm thinking of ordering this kit and adding the gpu parts to it. Will the pump be enough if I'm adding another 240mm rad and the gpu block? Any other thoughts? Are kits like these generally decent or am I better off ordering individual parts?
RayStorm Twin D5 AX360 WaterCooling Kit

2. For the GPU, I will be getting a 780. What's the difference if any between these two gpu blocks other than one will fit a 780Ti?
Razor GTX Titan / 780 / 780Ti
Razor GTX Titan / 780

3. Do you recommend the backplate for the 780?
Razor GTX Titan / 780 / 780Ti / 770 Backplate

4. In order to keep the system quiet, as mentioned above, I'm using two rads, the 360mm in the kit, plus this one
EX240 Dual Fan Radiator
Is this a good choice?

5. Is XSPC a decent brand, or what company(s) should I be looking at?

I'll have more questions, but the answers to these will be a great start, thank you in advance!

No need for a dual pump setup save some money and get the single pump version

Great, love saving money! Something like this one then? And it will have enough power for an additional 240mm rad plus the gpu block?
http://www.xs-pc.com/watercooling-kits/raystorm-750-ex360-watercooling-kit

The pump in that kit isn't as good as a d5 or a 35x, but that is one of the least restrictive cpu blocks so it will probably be ok adding a gpu block and second rad. But one of the d5 kits would be better.

So this one is better then?
http://www.xs-pc.com/watercooling-kits/raystorm-d5-ex360-watercooling-kit

Yeah, those are all fantastic parts, so it ends up being a great kit to start out with.

Any issues with switching to this kit instead, with the different style reservoir?
http://www.xs-pc.com/watercooling-kits/raystorm-d5-photon-ax360-watercooling-kit

My case (Corsair Air 540) only has 2 external bays, and it looks like this kit's reservoir would take up both bays leaving me no room for a fan controller (and I'm looking for a recommendation on a good fan controller if you know of any, preferably blue LED, controlling ten corsair SP120s).

Sometimes its a challenge to find a place to mount a tube reservoir, but outside of that it will work just as well. As to controlling the fans, they look to be pwm capable so i was going to recommend the swiftech pwm splitter which would allow you control of them from software, but it looks like corsair sp120 fans require a much stronger pwm signal than most fans so they dont work well with it, at least beyond 4-5 fans. Its still an option, but you may have to run two of them depending on how many fan ports your motherboard has.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2...able_Splitter_-_SATA_Power_8W-PWM-SPL-ST.html


edit: of course, going that route would link all the fans to the same speed, or two groups of speed, depending on how you did it. That may be a problem, or it may not be.

The motherboard will be the maximus vi hero, and I believe it has 4 chassis fan headers.

If I'm doing push pull, I'll have 6 fans on the 360mm rad, then 4 fans on the 240 rad, plus the single 140mm fan on the back of the case.

So yeah, I suppose two of those splitters you linked would work well (4 in each one).

Thanks for your input, this is really helping a lot.

Welcome to OCFs!

In this case I have seen people use the XSPC Photon combo pump and res with Alphacool ST30 240 and Alphacool ST30 360 radiators. Have seen a few builds with these components installed with a push and pull in front and push or pull up top. This will work if you choose to buy everything seperate. You'll still need to get fittings, fans and tubing.

Here is a build log with the radiators I am talking about and another build log with the XSPC radiators installed.

Thats supposed to be a good board, and supposed to have a similar set of fan software that my asrock has. I can control each fan header, using temperature to set up 5 points to make a fan curve for each of them. Makes it nice and easy to control my pwm capable pump, but thats all i use it for.

Hey just to let you know, the hero has 3 chassis fan headers and two for cpu. ( building my system now.)

Tweaked1024 said:

Hey just to let you know, the hero has 3 chassis fan headers and two for cpu. ( building my system now.)

Click to expand...

Thank you!

GTXJackBauer said:

Welcome to OCFs!

In this case I have seen people use the XSPC Photon combo pump and res with Alphacool ST30 240 and Alphacool ST30 360 radiators. Have seen a few builds with these components installed with a push and pull in front and push or pull up top. This will work if you choose to buy everything seperate. You'll still need to get fittings, fans and tubing.

Here is a build log with the radiators I am talking about and another build log with the XSPC radiators installed.

Click to expand...

Are those radiators better than the XSPC ones I am looking at? Also, you mention that the top rad is push OR pull, it looks like there is a lot of room for push AND pull (corsair Air 540), but are you saying otherwise?

I appreciate your help on this, cheers!

I'm thinking of getting the EVGA HydroCopper 780 graphics card. What's the consensus on these types of cards? Am I better off getting a reference cooler and using an aftermarket waterblock?

http://products.ncix.com/detail/evga-geforcegtx780-hydrocopper-3gb-gddr5-3d-84934-1360.htm

jimthenagual said:

Are those radiators better than the XSPC ones I am looking at? Also, you mention that the top rad is push OR pull, it looks like there is a lot of room for push AND pull (corsair Air 540), but are you saying otherwise?

I appreciate your help on this, cheers!

Click to expand...

Either or should be fine. I am not sure about the top being push and pull so I would search and see what others have done with that or do your own measurements and go from there.