*Also* New and First Water-Cooled Rig

[Alexanderrrrrr]

Hey all,

Although I've built a number of machines over the years, I've never moved forward with much OC-ing or used any form of water-cooling. After a recent stint away from the PC-building hobby, I just recently took a dive back in (and an expensive one at that). I was hoping to get some advice on what/how/who/what/when/where I should set the cooling system up, or maybe help picking parts/a kit.

TL;DR Please help me I'm a dum newb.

==================

Here's my current setup (If anything comes highly recommended, I can replace just about any of this with a different part or more efficient part:

- Corsair Carbide Quiet 600Q Inverse ATX Full Tower Case
- Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel Z170 2-Way SLI ATX DDR4 Motherboards GA-Z170X-Gaming 7
- PNY - Anarchy 2-Pack 8GB PC4-19200 DDR4 DIMM Desktop Memory Kit - Blue (16GB)
- EVGA - 850 G2 - SuperNOVA Power Supply

The only two things that are not interchangeable:

- MSI GeForce GTX 1080 DirectX 12 GTX 1080 SEA HAWK EK X 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5X PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ATX Video Card

- Intel Boxed Core I7-6700K 4.00 GHz 8M Processor Cache 4 LGA 1151 BX80662I76700K

==================

I've been discussing things with an EKWB representative, but only knew they existed because they created the waterblock for my GPU. I'm thinking I would like to do a custom loop, and I do not intend to do any crazy amount of overclocking. Something beginner-ish and fairly low maintenance would be great.

Again, any input/critique would be nice. I have the parts and all I have left is assembly; I'll move forward with that whenever I figure out how the cooling is going to go. Feel free to let me know whart you think or offer any changes a more experienced user might deem useful.

Thanks in advance,

-R. Alexander

 

[exadeuce]

Hey all,

Although I've built a number of machines over the years, I've never moved forward with much OC-ing or used any form of water-cooling. After a recent stint away from the PC-building hobby, I just recently took a dive back in (and an expensive one at that). I was hoping to get some advice on what/how/who/what/when/where I should set the cooling system up, or maybe help picking parts/a kit.

TL;DR Please help me I'm a dum newb.

==================

Here's my current setup (If anything comes highly recommended, I can replace just about any of this with a different part or more efficient part:

- Corsair Carbide Quiet 600Q Inverse ATX Full Tower Case
- Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel Z170 2-Way SLI ATX DDR4 Motherboards GA-Z170X-Gaming 7
- PNY - Anarchy 2-Pack 8GB PC4-19200 DDR4 DIMM Desktop Memory Kit - Blue (16GB)
- EVGA - 850 G2 - SuperNOVA Power Supply

The only two things that are not interchangeable:

- MSI GeForce GTX 1080 DirectX 12 GTX 1080 SEA HAWK EK X 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5X PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ATX Video Card

- Intel Boxed Core I7-6700K 4.00 GHz 8M Processor Cache 4 LGA 1151 BX80662I76700K

==================

I've been discussing things with an EKWB representative, but only knew they existed because they created the waterblock for my GPU. I'm thinking I would like to do a custom loop, and I do not intend to do any crazy amount of overclocking. Something beginner-ish and fairly low maintenance would be great.

Again, any input/critique would be nice. I have the parts and all I have left is assembly; I'll move forward with that whenever I figure out how the cooling is going to go. Feel free to let me know whart you think or offer any changes a more experienced user might deem useful.

Thanks in advance,

-R. Alexander

Welcome, fellow water cooling newbie!

I've been researching water loops a lot myself, and found several beginner options that were easier than doing a full custom self-built loop. EK's Predator series was one of them, you get the "base" loop which is much like an AIO cooler like the Corsair H100i: it's a radiator with a pump/reservoir combo attached and prefilled, connected to a CPU block. The Predator comes with quick disconnect fittings you can just pop off and not spill fluid everywhere, so it's easily expandable. Since you already have the Sea Hawk, your GPU block wont be prefilled, which makes things a little trickier, but I expect you could get extra QDC fittings and attach your Sea Hawk to the Predator loop, but you'd have to refill the reservoir and bleed air out I think. But all in all, probably easier than doing the entire loop yourself. Maybe? I'm sure someone else with experience can comment.

There are also a bunch of good kits out there that are basically just all the custom water cooling parts for a basic build in one box. EK sells several, Alphacool kits also seem to get good reviews. They come in different radiator sizes, but come with the pump/res, fittings, tubing, CPU block, even an ATX power cable jumper to help leak-test the system without powering everything up. Best I can tell, if you get the kit all you would really need is a couple extra fittings for the GPU block. (and possibly an extra radiator/fans if you want to add another)

Personally, I'm going full custom with rigid tubing. Ambitious for my first try, but for me it's just as much about learning the process as much as the end result.