Custom loop for my rig?

MrCynical · Jul 4, 2010

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me create a custom loop/cooling setup in general for my new rig? Budget is less than 1k, including case.

Components:
CPU:i7 980x (Prefer to overclock it to 4.7 or so)
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Extreme
Graphics cards: 5970 and 5870 in Crossfire, GTX 480 for PhysX
RAM: 24 GB G-Skill Ripjaws
PSU: Antec 1200 (should be enough?)
Hard Drives: Main OS: 4 1 TB Hard Drives in RAID 10
Storage; 4 2 TB Hard Drives in RAID 0 (Uncompressed HD Video)

So yeah.

Conumdrum · Jul 4, 2010

Start here, cya in a few days!

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6489396&postcount=3

I'll add to just WC the GPUs your looking at about $300+ in blocks.
Rads, pumps CPU block, hose etc and a case to hold it all is going to be hard to do. Your gonna need a big case, over $250 easy, and $750 in watercooling parts done the right way gonna be tough.

MrLarkins · Jul 4, 2010

Conumdrum said:
Start here, cya in a few days!

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6489396&postcount=3

I'll add to just WC the GPUs your looking at about $300+ in blocks.
Rads, pumps CPU block, hose etc and a case to hold it all is going to be hard to do. Your gonna need a big case, over $250 easy, and $750 in watercooling parts done the right way gonna be tough.

+1
Conumdrum is sooo wise. So Conumdrum, how many times have you posted a link to that thread? 50? 100+? A lot probably I guess.

TheBastard · Jul 4, 2010

Kinda curious why you are on budget on something as important as cooling. 24GB of RAM alone was $1K+/-$100 (not that I can even think of anything that would require that much, but I guess years down the line). If I had a guess, that entire build is well over $4K.

And lol at conumdrum's link:

A fine fine rig. Built by a woman

Either way that'll be a badass rig when you are finished.

m0r7if3r · Jul 4, 2010

Have you considered raid 5 for your main drives, it'll add another terabyte to your usable storage space. Just out of curiousity, what're you doing with 2 different graphics cards in crossfire? Iirc, crossfire works by having one card render odd frames and the other render even, so half your frames are being rendederd at about 60% faster than the other half. Shouldn't be an issue if you're doing rendering, but it will for gaming, you'll get weird lag.

In terms of cases, you'll probably need something from mountain mods or similar so you have room for all the radiator space you'll need to get decent performance out of loop, so a pretty big chunk of your budget will go to that...unless someone can think of something cheaper, I figure you'll need at least 2 120.3 radiators.

MrCynical · Jul 5, 2010

m0r7if3r said:
Have you considered raid 5 for your main drives, it'll add another terabyte to your usable storage space. Just out of curiousity, what're you doing with 2 different graphics cards in crossfire? Iirc, crossfire works by having one card render odd frames and the other render even, so half your frames are being rendederd at about 60% faster than the other half. Shouldn't be an issue if you're doing rendering, but it will for gaming, you'll get weird lag.

In terms of cases, you'll probably need something from mountain mods or similar so you have room for all the radiator space you'll need to get decent performance out of loop, so a pretty big chunk of your budget will go to that...unless someone can think of something cheaper, I figure you'll need at least 2 120.3 radiators.

I am buying the 5870 and the 5970 because they are the essentially the same thing, except the 5970 are two underclocked 5870's. So you overclock the 5970 to 5870 speeds, so it is like having 3 5870's.

I'd use RAID 5, but the thing is, Windows only allows you to install it on partitions two TB or less, no larger. I tried to put two 1.5 TB hard drives in RAID 0, but it won't let you install it.

I will read the post Cornumdrum linked, and I am considering a Mountain Mods case. I decided to raise my budget to 1.5k for the cooling and case.

Grosjambon · Jul 5, 2010

Hiya mate,
Just a few question for you
I dont think 5870 and 5970 work in crossfire, and physX for a 480 is pretty overkill...
Why do u need that much horsepower? what are u doing with that rig.
What do u want to watercool? Cpu only? or Cpu + Gpu, U might go in some problems when doing the loop -GPU1-Gpu2-Gpu3 etc.. since they are not the same graphic card means the GPU block are not the same so u wont be able to use a *sli connector to rely GPU-1 to GPU-2 Etc.
Why dont u buy 2 5870 (watercooled)or 2 5970 (watercooled)and leave the 480 on air cooled.
Hope u understand what I mean otherwise ill do a diagrams for u. (picture of what I mean...)

m0r7if3r · Jul 5, 2010

MrCynical said:
I am buying the 5870 and the 5970 because they are the essentially the same thing, except the 5970 are two underclocked 5870's. So you overclock the 5970 to 5870 speeds, so it is like having 3 5870's.

I'd use RAID 5, but the thing is, Windows only allows you to install it on partitions two TB or less, no larger. I tried to put two 1.5 TB hard drives in RAID 0, but it won't let you install it.

I will read the post Cornumdrum linked, and I am considering a Mountain Mods case. I decided to raise my budget to 1.5k for the cooling and case.

the 5970 is not like 3 5870s if you're running it in crossfire. The computer reads it as a single graphics card, not as 3 separate processors. You're better off with either 2 5970s or 3 5870's (i think you can do triple crossfire...), but that combination will give you issues unless some very recent catalyst drivers changed something.

Custom loop for my rig?

MrCynical

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