Returning to WC Advice

[edelen]

Hola,

It's been about 10 years since I last did a WC rig... Just getting that out of the way... My last setup was with a Swiftech WB, d-tek pump & 120mm rad, + home depot tubing so my knowledge of current cooling is pretty limited.

That being said I realize modern CPUs run considerably hotter and require a much higher end system to OC. Talking with my brother (and raiding his spare parts) I have enough to cool my machine... short the waterblocks. The problem I’m running into is deciding between the two setups I have parts for.

Setup #1 would be pure DC powered, and require me to upgrade my PS. It would be a single 120mm rad, with a decent pump, and fit 100% inside my case.
Setup #2 would be pure AC powered using dual high-flow two 120mm rads, monstrous pump, and require some creative bolting to the side of my case.

I want the setup to be nice looking, but at the same time allow for a whole system WC. (CPU, GPU, Chipset etc) I need some advice on what setup to proceed with, and what WB’s seem to yield the best results. I’m hearing Swiftech is still a great option for blocks, but I’m having a hard time finding a good one for my video card.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Asus GeForce GTX460
AMD Phenom II Black 560 (AM3)
MSI 870-A G54
xClio Windtunnel

Just for S&G here’s my last attempt at WC and case mod. I was 19 leave me alone.

 

[ssjwizard]

Well welcome back to water cooling. I recently did the same. So I would say your under radded unless you run a lot of fan power through them. Now days the standard is basically 120.2(dual 120mm) for a cpu loop and the same for a GPU. Fortunately your not pushing to heavy of hardware on this system.

I would go with an AC pump personally but I'm old school like that. Personally I dont want a 30w+ inductive load on my computers powersupply. Plus I believe that AC pumps have stronger motors.

That being said I would suggest the following setup.

CPU block of your choosing, I am going with ek supreme for my build but the swiftech apogee is also very popular.

GPU well the koolance 460 block is the most available here in the US but ek makes one, and right now the xspc 460 block is going for around 40 at performance-pcs(just ordered 2 of these last week)

Tubing well whatever you want to use but there is some really nice stuff out there now. Primochill tube has a hard plastic blended into it(im guessing its probably polycarbonate related) to help prevent kinks and comes in several different colors.

Lastly I would use both of those radiators or look into buying atleast a 120.3 that fits your requirements(fan type/noise level). If you go with the 2 that you have Id say try to fit the 120 up front or on the back and then mount that 120.2 on the side panel or mod the bottom/top of the case to house it.

Fans well deltas are still basically king if you dont value your hearing. Gentle Typhoons are extremely popular and can be run either near silent or screaming loud. Yate Loons are also very popular the medium and low models are quite tolerable and inexpensive.

Its a whole different world in WC after such a long break isnt it?
Something to keep in mind about the much larger radiators, athlon/p3/p4(some) were designed around ~40w thermal profiles and GPUs were pushing about the same on the high end. Now were playing with 125-140W CPUs and some GPUs are even pushing neer 200W now. Well good luck with your setup.

 

[Conumdrum]

A DDC aka 35x is only 18 watts. and controllable by the CPU header since it's PWM. I run 50% min, 85% max. So heatload is really low.

You really don't need to cool chipsets anymore. They don't have the issues they did.

A quality 120x3 with some 1850 RPM Scythe GT fans on a fan controller would be great. Try to stay with low FPI rads, head over to Skinneelabs.com for reviews on lots of stuff. Our stickies have come a long wayyyyy, lotsa good info there.

Primochill did something right. They are as if not softer than Tygon, bends like a champ and doesn't have the plasticizer buildup. I think it's alien tech.

EK supreme HF is good. But all nickle plated blocks are pulled from sale. Beware. The have problems with the plating coming off. The Swiftech XT has a new V2 variant, better flow. XSPC Rasa (budget) and Koolance 370 also are pretty good.

Single GPU's are over 300 watts now, it's really crazy. Still, 250 watts max under real world load unless your doing voltmods etc. Then you better be thinking Ln2 anyway.

 

[Bijiont]

Primochill did something right. They are as if not softer than Tygon, bends like a champ and doesn't have the plasticizer buildup. I think it's alien tech.

I know what the heck, I use the primochill black and haven't had 1 single issue with it. Alien Tech FTW!

Welcome back OP to getting wet

Stickies and Skinnee will lead you down the right path, just read slow and soak in the wisdom.

 

[edelen]

Thanks for replies. The pumps I have are an AquaXtreme AQX-50z for the DC pump, and the AC is a massive Iwaki MD-20R. Since pump heat wasn't much of an issue 10 years ago, is that huge AC pump going to cause problems?

The fans are Papst 4606X and at 50 dBA I'm afraid 4 of them would be rather noisey, but it's hard to pass up 106 cfm. Is there anything that would put out close to that, but slightly quieter?

For the rads is it best to run them in series, or one pre-cpu, then another pre-gpu?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[Conumdrum]

I just wanted to clear up pump heat dump. Of course when you determine your heatload for rad requirements you should add the pump heat too.

Not much quieter. Maybe Earthdog and Mudd can chime in on the fans.

You shouldn't need fans like that with a 120x3 rad. Your heatload isn't very high.