280mm Rads and 140mm fan advice.

[thepurser]

Hello all,
Well after planning a system using AIO coolers and being talked out of it on here I have gone away and done my research on a "proper" water cooling loop.
Have to say I am more confused then ever not least because of the lack of decent, (current) information on 280mm rads and fans.

My new system will be comprised of the following.

Corsair 730t black tower case. (purchased to use as a recase of my old system with extra clearance for the lowest GPU)
Intel i75930
Asus X99 Deluxe mobo
32gb HyperX DDR4 (4x8)
FXFX 1050w psu
2x Asus GTX980 Poseidon
A selection of HDD, SSD, slim opticals etc.

As far as water cooling goes I have started puting some bits together as and when I see a bargain.

XSPC D5 Vario Photon 170
EKWB Supremacy evo

Earthdog was kind enough to give me a few pointers and recommended a minum of 5x120 rad for this kind of loop.
Looking around and at the case 120 rads seem a waste of space as I have mounting points for a 280 in front and up top with a possible 140 on the back and a 120 in the bottom.
Would 2x280s be enough for general needs?
The increased size is roughly comparable to 5x120s.

From what confusing research I have done and accounting for my budget, I have kind of settled on mounting NexXxos xt45 280s. Temptation wsa to go for the slimmer model but the price difference is minimal.

Fans is a complete nightmare.
A lot of comparisons are now several years old and others just give conflicting results. Add to that I don't really understand if I need Static pressure or airflow fans and how to mix, or not.
Again budget is a concern.
I'd like to aim for about £5 a fan as I am sure I will be recommended to go for Push and Pull so minimum 8 fans.
Yesterdays research came up with this offering which seemed to be liked by the reviewer and compaed well to the rest of the fans.
Thermalright X Silent Eleven 140mm.

The new system will start out not being over clocked whilst I iron out the lops and get it settled to something I am happy using.
In the future I will explore Overclocking the CPU and GPUs to gain some performance for things like graphics and video creation / editing. I also do some 3d work occasionally so anything to help cut dowm render times is good.

Short of buying tubing and fittings it's really just deciding on the fans and rads that is stopping this build now so any advice, pointers and guidance would be greatly appreciated!!


Main aim is to keep the heat out of the case and keep it quiet.

 

[Kenrou]

You will always have to keep a compromise between heat vs noise, and £5/fan is... unrealistic is the word for it ? (i'm not English) don't the good fans hover around £10-£20 each ?

Not sure what the opinion about this guy is from everyone here but these videos help and explain a bit.

 

[thepurser]

Thanks for the links Kenrou. I'd actually seen the last one and some of his other videos are very informative.
Like he said, you get to a point of information overload after a while and can't pick out the relevant info due to a lack of experience / knowledge.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

120.5 seems a bit low for a 5930K and 2x 980's.

For fans, get the PWM Noctua industrialPPC fans and a PWM fan hub.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Go with a XT45 280 up top and a UT60 280 up front with EK Vardars as 140mm. Just make sure you do some measurements regardless.

 

[thepurser]

Does the UT60 280 provide enough performance difference to justify the extra cost? Almost half as much again as the XT45 280!
When you say measure do you mean take physical measurements for fitting?

With regard to Noctua ppc, BGears etc whilst they have good pressure and airflow at full rpm they are noisy units. How do they compare with some of the cheaper slower fans when reigned in to 20db or less? Do they then drop the pressure and cfm to a similar level?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Does the UT60 280 provide enough performance difference to justify the extra cost? Almost half as much again as the XT45 280!
When you say measure do you mean take physical measurements for fitting?

If the cost difference is too high, than go with the XT45. Just make sure you get quality fans to back them up.

As for measuring, yes, physically measure everything to make sure the rads will fit nicely in the case and have room for other things like routing, reservoir/pump placement, etc. So you also know what angle fittings will be needed as well.

I would advise on doing a search of your case with custom water cooling and see how it looks and what was used to give you a better idea.

 

[thepurser]

Cheers. I have been looking around at other builds in both the Corsair 730t and 760t, (essentially the same case). Going with a double 280 up top as the 360's would mean losing the optical bays and I need those for my HDDs.
I have 75mm of clearance up top so can fit the XT45 and a 25mm thick fan easily. If I go Push Pull I will have to put the other fans on top of the case, so bottom to top will be Fan, Rad, Case grille, fan.
Front is tight but I know it has been done with an XT45, so a 60 should work too.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

With regard to Noctua ppc, BGears etc whilst they have good pressure and airflow at full rpm they are noisy units. How do they compare with some of the cheaper slower fans when reigned in to 20db or less? Do they then drop the pressure and cfm to a similar level?

The whole point of PWM control is so that you're not running full speed.
That said, the iPPC fans are very quiet compared to others at full speed, and dead silent once throttled down.

 

[thepurser]

Cheers Atminside. It gets mind boggling trying to make comparisons!!
I think I have a grasp of the basic principles but I'm having great difficulty sorting through opinions and recommendations, (though they are all appreciated and not discounted!).

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Yep, there's tons of options!

Make a spreadsheet with each component type and all your comparison pieces, then fill in all the empirical data you and opinions you have.
Note though that you want to look at actual fan testing when comparing fans, not manufacturer specs. A lot of those specs are slightly falsified to make cheap fans look better. There's only a handful of manufacturer specs you can trust some of which are Noctua and Delta.

 

[thepurser]

Cheers. Its something I was thinking of doing so I may have to sit down and get busy.
Was babysitting last night and started a thread that was comparing about 20 120mm fans and 15 140mm. I got about 20 pages into a 300 page thread. Life is too short sometimes!!!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Those are exactly the comparisons you need!
Definitely watch for ones where they actually compare fans performance while mounted to a radiator, that's where you see what's actually good and what isn't!

 

[thepurser]

Hardware.FR have a fantastic interactive chart showing the noise v airflow of many 140mm fans both in free air and through a radiator. Shame it is a few years out of date and in French but still quite informative.
http://www.hardware.fr/marc/ventilo3/graph.htm?140rad#

Seems that Scythe and Cryorig make a decent 140mm fan but for cooler towers so round frame and 120mm spacing holes. Could still be worth it though with an adapter?

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Check out Martinsliquidlab and I forgot the other site if a member can kindly remind us. I use those sites, even though the data is still old, its still fairly relevant.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

120.5 seems a bit low for a 5930K and 2x 980's.

For fans, get the PWM Noctua industrialPPC fans and a PWM fan hub.

These guys move quite a bit of air... Turned my NZXT S340 into a wind tunnel! I have the 3000 rpm versions and they are strong. Through my entire case I can feel their airflow out of my vented pci slot blanks. I actually passively cooled a 212 EVO in the case with a 4ghz 8320E in system. I was under 50c so could take it even higher, but it is simpler to put a fan on the 212 and reduce the noise from the iPPC 3000 fans.

 

[DNRDustin]

These guys move quite a bit of air... Turned my NZXT S340 into a wind tunnel! I have the 3000 rpm versions and they are strong. Through my entire case I can feel their airflow out of my vented pci slot blanks. I actually passively cooled a 212 EVO in the case with a 4ghz 8320E in system. I was under 50c so could take it even higher, but it is simpler to put a fan on the 212 and reduce the noise from the iPPC 3000 fans.

Even though mine don't hit advertised rpms, I recommend the ippc 3000's. They're beasts and i can't wait to have more radiator space for all of them.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

Even though mine don't hit advertised rpms, I recommend the ippc 3000's. They're beasts and i can't wait to have more radiator space for all of them.

Just tested mine, they hit 2700 rpm. That should fall within the +/- 10%.

 

[DNRDustin]

My 140's hit ~2550, but the 120's do 2900.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

My 140's hit ~2550, but the 120's do 2900.

It's not a terrible thing.... Think of it this way... @2700rpms they are stupid loud.