Proposed water Cool setup

[ollien33]

Hey all,
I am new to the site, and I have already had a look through all the forums and got some inspiration for my next project - building a custom water loop.
I have already dabbled in water Cooling, when I first built my current rig, I installed the Thermaltake ProWater 880i (I should had read the reviews first!), and then after one of the fans broke at 5pm on a Friday afternoon (second day in to battlefield 3) I hurried down to my local PC shop, which was limited in the water Cooling department, and bought a Antec Khuler h20 920. This has been sufficient for the past little while, because I have clocked back to stock standard (I will explain later).
So short story long, I am due to build up a new WC unit, with 2 loops, one for CPU and 1 for GPU. I will go through everything I am expecting to purchase (I am up to AUD$1763.40, with some new sleeved cables to pretty up the inside and a new PCI-Express SSD)

But first of all I will go through my current specs, so here goes..

Thermaltake Level 10 GT (black edition)
Gigabyte G1 Sniper (Rev 1.0)
Intel i7 960
12gig Patriot Viper II Sector 7
2X Gigabyte GTX580 in SLi
OCZ SSD
4X WD Green 2TB
LG Bluray player
Antec TruePower Quattro 1200

So first thing is first, the Res, pump and water blocks.

Reservoir - Koolance RP-452X2

Pump - Koolance PMP-450 (X2)

CPU Block - EK-Supreme HF EN Nickel

GPU Block - EK Full Cover VGA Block EK-FC580 DCII Acetal+EN Nickel (X2)


The reason I went with these pumps is because the fit directly into the res and hide away in the 5.5" bays. The water blocks are the best of the bunch that I have available.

Next up The Radiators. This is where the tricky part begins. I really like the black ice range of rads, they are a good choice for fans that don't sound like B52 bombers. I have an image here of sf_rodrigo's Level 10 set up (with his permission)

My idea for this is having a similar set up, but the radiators I have chosen are pretty much double the depth of his; (Black Ice SR1 120 Radiator, Black Ice SR1 240 Radiator)


So, as per the picture inside the case, with the Rad 1 installed, Rad 2 will not fit in place if double the depth. My solution is putting Rad 2 on the outside of the case in the same position, therefore being able to have 2 fans for push/pull. Any thoughts on that?
The map would be; Green loop Res>Pump>Rad1>Rad2>GPU1>GPU2>Res.
And for the Blue loop Res>Pump>CPU>Res.

To me that looks pretty good at the moment, but I do want to get some advice on how to better the set up if needed and also what fans should I get? I have been looking that the Noctua NF-P12 120mm Fan and the CoolerMaster 120mm Excalibur PWM Fan (I am not sure if the Noctua has controllable fan speed?) and then just a cheap 3.5" drive bay fan controller.

The main other source of confusion is how many fittings I will need for everything. What fittings go into the rads? how many will I need for all the blocks? Should I bother with a solid SLi block connector, or just use 2 fittings and a small amount of tubing? Should I get EK ones for the block, and then Koolance ones for the Res (keep it all in the same brand?). It is all those small things that confuse me and I can never get a straight answer from trawling through the forums..

If you have reached this line, then Thanks for reading! (I would have given up hours ago) Lets see this thread turn from Idea to Project, although it might take a while, as we have a baby due in a few months!

 

[sf_rodrigo]

...
My idea for this is having a similar set up, but the radiators I have chosen are pretty much double the depth of his; (Black Ice SR1 120 Radiator, Black Ice SR1 240 Radiator)
...

That may hang down over your MB a bit.
I test fitting a XSPC RX240 (which is about 9mm thicker than what you have chosen) in that slot and with the GT fans, it hung right over my MB, that may not be that big of a deal for your MB, but for me it just didn't work how i envisoned my setup. Which is why i opted for the slim XSPC EX rads. I got these running with GT 1800RPMs, and with a fan controller diled them back to 1200rpm for very little noise, when benchmarking i pop them up to 1800 and they are a tad noisy but still fine for me.

If you want some more shots of how these items are fitting together ide be happy to take some.

 

[m0r7if3r]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=223391
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=261778

bit of fan info for you there.

I'm concerned you'll have clearance issues with your cpu block if you use thicker radiators...at the very least you'll have a tubing mess. Also, why not just use swiftech qp rads? almost the same performance for the fan speed you're looking at, cheaper, AND thinner, seems like a win all around.

Don't run colored fluids...period. And especially don't run feser fluids. If you can't just go with colored tubing and you absolutely MUST have the fluid be colored, use mayhems dyes, you know exactly what you're getting that way and they look better than anything else (imo).

 

[ollien33]

Thanks for the info, guys! After much contemplation, I think this set up will not dissipate all the heat my system will be producing (especially if I add another 580 into the mix).
The next plan is to look at new cases that can contain a metric FloveK load of rads (I really want to keep it all internal) as well as begin drawing up plans for my home built monster case... that I will have to commission Spotswood to build for me.
Does anyone have any suggestions for cases... and does anyone want to buy a Level 10 GT?

 

[ollien33]

Oh, and....

Don't run colored fluids...period.

 

[m0r7if3r]

Mountain mods, danger den, caselabs, XSPC...you could also do a desk-computer like miahallen just did.

 

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Just be sure that the O-ring are installed on the pumps properly and that they aren't cracked or any defect. I have the same reservoir and one of the O-ring went bad after a few months with very slow leak. Eventually I had to take it apart and get new ring. There were mess on the metal housing that secured the pump into the reservoir but luckily no damage.