First time watercooling

[SL]

As the title suggests I am starting my first watercooling build soon (once the asus X99-E WS is available over here in about 2 weeks)
I will be watercooling a 5820k and a 7990. My case is a Fractal Design Define XL R2.
Going to use noctua industrialPPC fans for the 360 alphacool Monsta radiator mounted in the front of the case.

I was wondering how you can easily mount a pump/res config (res needs to have multiple inlets on top) to the front 360mm radiator.
Which components would you recomend?

At the moment I am thinking D5 with bitspower modtop modkit and top-upgrade-kit (res) and Z-cap (to give the top of the res multiple openings)
I think the best way for me to mount it is via a 120mm bracket to the radiator (found a Z2 pump bracket for that)

I'll send more questions your way as I look trough components and will probably need some people to do a sanity check
make sure it'll all work together and that I didn't make some silly mistake along the way.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

to OCFs.

Please take the time and read our water cooling stickies in yellow on top of our water cooling section to understand the basics and maintenance involved.

Secondly, that massive monsta rad won't fit in that case unless you heavily modify the case and still aren't sure that it would fit at all.

You'll need a decent amount of heat surface for a CPU + 2 GPU setup.

Your best bet is to a simple google check your case + watercooling to see what folks have done with the case.

Worse case scenario, if budget permits, I'd suggest in looking for a bigger case so you're able to fit the right amount of heat surface, that's if you're looking for a quiet operating system, otherwise, not sure how many radiator locations that case has as you'll have to research that and see if you do have enough for high FPI/High RPM (noisy) rad to fan setup to compensate the loops heat load.

Hope this helps to get your started.

 

[SL]

to OCFs.
Secondly, that massive monsta rad won't fit in that case unless you heavily modify the case and still aren't sure that it would fit at all.

Already modded the case and made sure it would fit. It could in theory hold some 480 rads in the front but you'd need to mess with the front io and cut away even more of the front which would make the case too flexy for my liking.

Any clue on if there is better ways to do the pump mount tho? Mounting it near the front is pretty much my only option and I don't really wanna drill holes in the bottom of the case.

Could double sided tape work on the feet of the pump/res?
I just saw some on a watercooling webshop.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Already modded the case and made sure it would fit. It could in theory hold some 480 rads in the front but you'd need to mess with the front io and cut away even more of the front which would make the case too flexy for my liking.

Any clue on if there is better ways to do the pump mount tho? Mounting it near the front is pretty much my only option and I don't really wanna drill holes in the bottom of the case.

Could double sided tape work on the feet of the pump/res?
I just saw some on a watercooling webshop.

Oh ok. Since you got it to fit, will you be adding more rad up top? If you do, I'd suggest getting a radiator with a built in reservoir. Drill a whole up top of the case and use the rad/res as your fill and bleed point while having a DDC pump at the bottom along with a drain port is your best bet at this point because it will be a hell of a process to fit a reservoir when you have a 360 monsta on the front with what room you have left for the rest, i.e. routing, cable management etc.

 

[SL]

Oh ok. Since you got it to fit, will you be adding more rad up top? If you do, I'd suggest getting a radiator with a built in reservoir. Drill a whole up top of the case and use the rad/res as your fill and bleed point while having a DDC pump at the bottom along with a drain port is your best bet at this point because it will be a hell of a process to fit a reservoir when you have a 360 monsta on the front with what room you have left for the rest, i.e. routing, cable management etc.

With the monsta installed I have about 10cm of space left between the GPU and the rad. The pump is about 6cm at the widest which is below the GPU so I should just be able to make it fit in there. Since the 7990 is a single physical card there isn't much cable management to be done same for the single ssd I have hiding behind the mobo.

It should fit and that radiator with those fans should be able to cool it. I was just wondering if there was perhaps a better way to do it but it seems like bracket mounting the pump to the radiator is the way to go.