What Do You Think of this Build?

[jfrost]

Hey all,

I'm going to build my first water-cooled system, and I was hoping you all could give me some advice on the parts I've picked out. I've read guides and tutorials on how to set up a water-cooled PC, but since I've never done it before, I don't know if the parts I picked out will work well together or if any of them are unnecessary, too powerful, or not powerful enough.

Here are the PC components:

Motherboard – Gigabyte GA-EP45T-DS3R, P45
CPU – Intel Core 2 Quad 9550, 2.83GHz
RAM – OCZ Flex XLC 2x 1GB sticks, DDR3 1600 (PC3-12800)
GPU – ASUS EAH4870 Radeon HD 4870, 1GB memory, 256-bit, PCI-E 2.0
PSU – OCZ 500 Watt OR OCZ 600 Watt
Case – Something spacious, cuttable, and <= $120 (any recommendations?)


Here are the water cooling components:

Pump – Swiftech MCP655, 317gph
Radiator – Swiftech MCR320-QP (3x120mm fans), with 2x Swiftech High Flow ¼ BSPP to 1/2inch ID Barbs
Reservoir – Swiftech MCRES Hi-Flo (SSF), ½”
Tubing – ½” Blue UV Feser One
Coolant – Feser One UV Blue F1
CPU Waterblock – Danger Den MC-TDX for Intel 775
GPU Block – Swiftech MCW60-4870

I'm going to be overclocking the CPU, GPU, and RAM (for tighter timings). The reason I'm going with water cooling is so that my PC will run quieter and cooler, and because it'd be fun to build and awesome to own.

I'm not sure which PSU to get, since I don't know if my machine will need 500W or 600W - does anyone know? It seems like 600W might be overkill.

Also I haven't decided whether to get a waterblock for my northbridge or not. I've read that they can constrict the flow of your loop, but then again my pump will be cranking out 300+ gallons/hr, though my loop is pretty big since it includes my RAM. Should I get a waterblock for my northbridge? And if so, which ones are reliable and not too expensive?

I'm going to have a fan in the front of the case (something very quiet and not very strong) that will suck air in to blow on my hard drive. Should I also put a fan on the rear of the case just below the PSU to suck air out? Or should I just rely on my radiator's airflow to take care of that? I haven't figured out how to set up my fans yet.

I haven't picked out a case yet, though I'm expecting to be cutting holes in the one I end up buying. I think I'm going to put the pump in the bottom of the case, the radiator in the top of the case (with holes cut in the top, along with a hole cut for the PSU unless the case has a top fan), and the reservoir might go in the top as well.

I think my loop order will be:
Pump -> CPU -> GPU -> RAM -> (northbridge?) ->Radiator -> Reservior

Also, is it possible to hook the pump into the PSU, or somehow tie its power switch into the one on the PSU, so it turns off when the PSU's power is cut? I have little to no experience working with the specifics of power supplies and wire voltages, so that one might be out of my league.

How many feet of tubing should I get? 8?

Should I use some sort of sealant along with metal clamps to hold my tubes on their barbs, or are the metal clamps sufficient on their own?

And does anyone know of a good temperature gauge that I could drop in disk drive spot in the case?

Sorry to ask so many questions at once! I would greatly appreciate any help anyone can offer.

Thanks!

 

[Ric2L]

Hey all,

I'm going to build my first water-cooled system, and I was hoping you all could give me some advice on the parts I've picked out. I've read guides and tutorials on how to set up a water-cooled PC, but since I've never done it before, I don't know if the parts I picked out will work well together or if any of them are unnecessary, too powerful, or not powerful enough.

Here are the PC components:

Motherboard – Gigabyte GA-EP45T-DS3R, P45
CPU – Intel Core 2 Quad 9550, 2.83GHz
RAM – OCZ Flex XLC 2x 1GB sticks, DDR3 1600 (PC3-12800)
GPU – ASUS EAH4870 Radeon HD 4870, 1GB memory, 256-bit, PCI-E 2.0
PSU – OCZ 500 Watt OR OCZ 600 Watt
Case – Something spacious, cuttable, and <= $120 (any recommendations?)


Here are the water cooling components:

Pump – Swiftech MCP655, 317gph
Radiator – Swiftech MCR320-QP (3x120mm fans), with 2x Swiftech High Flow ¼ BSPP to 1/2inch ID Barbs
Reservoir – Swiftech MCRES Hi-Flo (SSF), ½”
Tubing – ½” Blue UV Feser One
Coolant – Feser One UV Blue F1
CPU Waterblock – Danger Den MC-TDX for Intel 775
GPU Block – Swiftech MCW60-4870

I'm going to be overclocking the CPU, GPU, and RAM (for tighter timings). The reason I'm going with water cooling is so that my PC will run quieter and cooler, and because it'd be fun to build and awesome to own.

I'm not sure which PSU to get, since I don't know if my machine will need 500W or 600W - does anyone know? It seems like 600W might be overkill.

500w is pushing it with the vid card & system you picked out, use this to find out http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Also I haven't decided whether to get a waterblock for my northbridge or not. I've read that they can constrict the flow of your loop, but then again my pump will be cranking out 300+ gallons/hr, though my loop is pretty big since it includes my RAM. Should I get a waterblock for my northbridge? And if so, which ones are reliable and not too expensive?

N/B blocks restrict the flow of the loop pretty good, usually there not needed, just make sure theres decent air flow on it, I have a 70mm fan blowing directly on mine.


I'm going to have a fan in the front of the case (something very quiet and not very strong) that will suck air in to blow on my hard drive. Should I also put a fan on the rear of the case just below the PSU to suck air out? Or should I just rely on my radiator's airflow to take care of that? I haven't figured out how to set up my fans yet.

You should have a decent Intake at the bottom front of the case, & an exhaust at the top rear of the case. Depending on where you mount the rad (inside case or outside) will determine fan set up on it, if inside top of case then you want the rad first with fans under it pulling cool air through rad & into case.

I haven't picked out a case yet, though I'm expecting to be cutting holes in the one I end up buying. I think I'm going to put the pump in the bottom of the case, the radiator in the top of the case (with holes cut in the top, along with a hole cut for the PSU unless the case has a top fan), and the reservoir might go in the top as well.

keep the res in the bottom of case, if you mount it on top you will have problems bleeding air out. it should be lower than rad & blocks

I think my loop order will be:
Pump -> CPU -> GPU -> RAM -> (northbridge?) ->Radiator -> Reservior

Also, is it possible to hook the pump into the PSU, or somehow tie its power switch into the one on the PSU, so it turns off when the PSU's power is cut? I have little to no experience working with the specifics of power supplies and wire voltages, so that one might be out of my league.

the pump will plug into the power supply via molex connector, when you shut down PC pump will shut off also

How many feet of tubing should I get? 8?

8 to 10 feet should be enough

Should I use some sort of sealant along with metal clamps to hold my tubes on their barbs, or are the metal clamps sufficient on their own?

Use worm drive clamps, no sealant

And does anyone know of a good temperature gauge that I could drop in disk drive spot in the case?

?????

Sorry to ask so many questions at once! I would greatly appreciate any help anyone can offer.

Thanks!

 

[phil178821]

i would definitely get atleast 600w psu, however, others will be more knowledgable on this.

cases: i recommend checking out Antec and Lian Li's. My Mountain Mods is great, however, it ran me $415 after shipping.

tubing seems fine. i prefer tygon, however, its really expensive and most argue not worth it.

just a pointer, for coolant all you need is distilled water and an algaecide, like petras pt nuke or anything found at local pet store.

the mcp 655 connects to you psu via molex, thus, when the pc starts, it will power up.

i would recommend worm drive clamps

there are better blocks out there than the DD MC-TDX (i use it). Check out the apogee GTZ.

MCW-60 is a great choice. make sure you use sinks on the ram, mosfets etc and maintain air flow. now i am an nvidia guy, so i cannot substantiate this, but, i heard that ati cards dont work well with gpu only blocks. that their mostfets, ram etc get too hot and the system wont work. i would definitely research that, and if its true, invest the $$$ in a full coverage block.

loop order doesnt matter, as long as your reservoir goes right before your pump inlet. you are best routing the components so that you use the least amount of tubing. I currently have my 3x120 rad mounted in the front of the case, thus, all air taken into the case is off the rad. i then have 3x120 mm fans up top pushing out, and 2x120 fan in the rear push out. I idle at room temperature with all of my fans turned silent.

so really.. you want good air flow coming in the front and exiting through the back/top; especially if you are using sinks on your vga's ram and fets.

another note. for most people, a decent sink, like a noctua, and good air flow is ample for the north bridge. WCing the northbridge generally comes in handy when you really start cranking of the voltages for high OCs. ultimately, though, i own the mcw 60, the dd mc-tdx, and the mcw 30 (on my NB). my system still does not appear to be saturated by the three components. also, the mcw 30 does not appear to restrict flow that much



and also, if you haven't purchased yet, make sure you shop around. some vendors are much cheaper than others with certain items
-Danger Den
-Sidewindercomputers
-jab-tech
-petrastechshop
-newegg (very limited WC)

i know I am missing some more.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

agree to both comments above and will add (i think no one said it) but there is no point in cooling the ram even though the ram as the capabilities of it. they are 1/4" barbs will will hurt the system flow more then you gain from having it cooled.

 

[phil178821]

agree to both comments above and will add (i think no one said it) but there is no point in cooling the ram even though the ram as the capabilities of it. they are 1/4" barbs will will hurt the system flow more then you gain from having it cooled.

ah yes, I new I was forgetting something.

I agree. Forget the ram. Waste of money on the blocks, limits flow too much, increases the risk of leaks, and offers no performance gain. generally, ram OCing (correct me if i am wrong) is limited by the chips themselves, not thermal thresholds.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

ah yes, I new I was forgetting something.

I agree. Forget the ram. Waste of money on the blocks, limits flow too much, increases the risk of leaks, and offers no performance gain. generally, ram OCing (correct me if i am wrong) is limited by the chips themselves, not thermal thresholds.

correct, though he has the OCZ flex which has the block but i still stand by what i said.

 

[jfrost]

Awesome, thank you Ric2L, phil178821, and Spawn-Inc for the help!

I am going to leave the RAM out of the loop. That model of RAM was the one I wanted to get before I had even realized it had water blocks on it, so the water blocks were just an added bonus.

I just have one last thing to figure out before I order all my parts - my fan setup.

I'm going to mount my radiator on the top of my case with 3 Yate Loon medium speed fans pulling air through the radiator and into the case. I am also going to have a single fan in the bottom of the front of my case pulling air in. Then I'll have a fan in the typical fan spot on the back of my case pushing air out of the case. And of course the PSU will be pushing air out of the case a bit as well, and that will be in the top back corner of the case.

Also I'm going to go with an MCW30 water block for my northbridge, the video card water block I'm getting covers the video card's RAM, and the only heatsink I'll have will be my RAM (just the heatsink / block that comes with it). So I don't know how important the air flow will be in my case.

With that said, is this a good fan setup? Is the rear fan necessary, or could I get rid of it altogether if I switch my bottom-front fan to push air out of the case while the radiator fans pull air into the case?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

i personally would have the fans pull air from the case through the rad as heat rises so it should be easier to take the heat out of the rad. BUT then you get some heat from the case going into the rad and you get less cooling. if its not that hard i would do tests with your way and mine and find out what works best.

you still need airflow in the case so i would set those up as you have said. maybe even put a fan over the ram if your going to be ocing them alot. and try to get some airflow over the cpu socket area for the mosfets and inducers around the socket.

 

[phil178821]

i personally would have the fans pull air from the case through the rad as heat rises so it should be easier to take the heat out of the rad. BUT then you get some heat from the case going into the rad and you get less cooling. if its not that hard i would do tests with your way and mine and find out what works best.

you still need airflow in the case so i would set those up as you have said. maybe even put a fan over the ram if your going to be ocing them alot. and try to get some airflow over the cpu socket area for the mosfets and inducers around the socket.

agreed.

also, pick out a case too. it would be helpful to have 2 front fans and 2 rear fans than just one.

 

[jfrost]

Ok, thanks for the info. After looking at cases and working with different ideas of where to place my radiator and PSU, I've realized it won't be possible to fit both the PSU and the radiator side by side at the top of the inside of the case. The cases I've looked at range from 450-525mm "deep", and my PSU will take up 130mm of that, leaving only 320-395mm for my 410mm radiator.

So I'm thinking about putting my radiator outside of my case and on top of my PSU which will be in the case, and having one of the radiator's fans work in a Pull-Pull sequence with the PSU fan, since the PSU has a 120mm fan pushing air out of it. I know this would be bad for my cooling since the hot air from the PSU would be drawn through the radiator, but it also might make the PSU run cooler since it will have 2x 120mm fans pulling air out of it and pushing air into the radiator.

Here's a diagram of what I'm thinking:

...._________________________
....|________________________| <- radiator
....|^^^^^^|^^^^^|^^^^^^| <- Yate Loon Med. Fans & air flow
__________________________ <- case top
|.................................|_^_^_^_| <- psu fan (120mm), air flow going up
|.................................|..............O
|.................................|....PSU....O <- Open vent in back of PSU (no fan)
|.................................|_______O
|.................................................|
|.................................|drives/etc|

So the PSU would be dragging air in through the open vent in its side and having it dragged through its top by two 120mm fans, which go directly into the radiator.

What do you guys think of this? I also thought about putting the PSU on the bottom of my case, but I thought I'd rather do it this way than have the PSU fan blow hot air directly into the case.

 

[phil178821]

i am not sure if i fully understand.

first, its my understanding that psu's pull internal air and push it out the rear. I may be mistaken, though.

next, are you intending to mount the rad off of the top of the case or the rear? When i skimmed through your text, i thought you were saying rear. When I look at your diagram, it appears the top.

aesthetically I think you are best off mounting the rad off of the rear of the case. cooling wise, it depends on what air is coming out of your case

all of that said, i wouldnt specifically link the psu and rad. if i understood you correctly, you mentioned having the 120mm fans would help with cooling the rad. I would think that is a little pointless. Idk, I just have never had a psu that overheats on me.

here is a photo of my old build (i will include one of my new build, however, that case ran me $400+). you can see the amount of strain that the rad is putting on that plastic swfitech radbox. if you get the radbox rev1 (instead of 2), it will be metal, offering better support. Even easier, you could just quickly make up your own brackets. this is all for external mounting.

oh, and also note that my rad, the thermochill 120.3pa, is a good deal heavier than the swiftech MCR320. Also, it includes a shroud, all adding to a bit more weight.


any thoughts on a specific case yet?










so if it were me. I would definitely go for a case that has at least 120mm front intake and 120mm rear and top exhaust. Ideally, it would offer more than one fan in each position. Then, if I couldn't get an internal mount of the rad in the front or top of the case (front pulling air in, top pulling air out) i would mount the rad externally off of the rear of the case. its pretty simple to fab of some brackets for this or use the radbox as mentioned above. i would definitely use decently high flow fans, like the medium yates, or even high. i would then tie them all into the $15ish sunbeam controller, which can handle five per each of its four channels.

 

[Krazed]

The case is going to be the heart and soul of determining how things flow. Air, and water all together. For less than 120, with an internal 120.3 rad its hard to find. But, I did a lot of research prior to forcing myself to spending $400 on a case. (Silverstone TJ07) and I came up with a few that would require modding.

My suggestions so far are:

Antec Twelve Hundred
CoolerMaster RC-690
and possibly the Thermaltake Armor Full Tower

As for the CM-690, it was my overall best choice that I found with some modifications. Like, adding a Koolance radiator/fan shroud to the top. It would look something like this pre-shroud.

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=152692&st=20

and the shroud: http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...t_info&manufacturers_id=102&products_id=23316

I actually have that shroud that I bought before I figured out I wanted a big perfect case. I'd sell it to ya for cheap if you wanted it, though I don't have enough posts to go to the classifieds yet.

 

[jfrost]

Thanks for the advice and case ideas. But I think I'm just going to buy a cheap case and cut all of my fan holes myself.

I did a poor job explaining my PSU fan idea before, so I drew up a picture to show what I mean. The blue arrows represent the direction of air flow, the light blue boxes are fans, and the big green and red lines are my hoses (the two colors were just to make the hoses stand out better when they overlap). So my radiator would be on top of the case, and its fans would be inside the case. What do you guys think? I also labeled the fans whether they are yate loon mediums or lows.

Thanks again for all the help guys, I really appreciate it! And thanks for being patient with my noob questions.

 

[phil178821]

Thanks again for all the help guys, I really appreciate it! And thanks for being patient with my noob questions.

no worries. Glad to help. We all have to start somewhere.

So your sketch isnt that bad. I would definitely relocat that psu. I am about 99% sure that any case that runs the length of your 3x120mm rad, will have space down in the bottom or back up top for the psu. it is likely that you can place it behind your current pump position, if your vga isn't too low. if it is, you can always place it behind the Res, or move the res down, mount it off of the 120 mm exhaust, and place the psu in its place. if you go with the swiftech mcres, it has a very small footprint and will always fit beside the psu.

another pointer. i wouldnt waste the tubing running from your pump straight to your cpu. i personally believe you are best off when using the least amount of tubing, which means your gpu first. you can also, if you dont mind mounting rad+fans outside, mount them off of the rear, which will result in short runs of tubing. water temp hardly varies across the loop, maybe a degree or so, since the water equilibrates across the whole set up. that said, you will suffer more in performance by having the extra tubing than you would gain by preferential routing.

all in all, hope you are handy and good with a dremel, lol.

 

[Krazed]

Yeah, that PSU is going to heat up your loop. It will probably put out the most heat out of all your components after the WCing. You need to relocate that.

If you want something to cut up, but still semi-within budget for a case, try an Antec P180 or similar. I did my first WC build with that, granted it was half assed, but there was lots of room, and a PSU on the bottom of the case.


You could easily cut up the top for a 120.3 Rad and make something work. Theres lots of options if you're decent with a dremel and can relocate the HDD Cages.

 

[myndlessdayz]

I'm a little confused with your diagram.

Is your PSU at the front of the case? I'm assuming because it is sitting on top of the DVD drives. And the fan for the PSU, if I'm not mistaken is an intake fan. It sucks in air from in the case and out of the fanless vent.

Correct me if I'm wrong I'm tired but I can't sleep.

 

[jfrost]

Ok, I'll change the loop to:
Radiator -> Reservoir -> Pump -> Video Card -> CPU -> NB -> Radiator

And I'm going to move my PSU to the bottom of the case - I'm going to put it in the back side of the bottom. Also I'm going to move the pump more toward the middle of the bottom of the case, right beside the hard drives. And I'm going to reverse the radiator so that the hoses go in the top of the front of the case, and I'll put my reservoir in the top right corner of the case somewhere.

I picked out a case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119077

I did look at the P180, and it's a nice case - I almost decided to go with it. But I want a cheaper case.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[jfrost]

Scratch that. I'm going to get this case:
CoolerMaster Centurion 590

I just need to find a piece of transparent plastic or plexiglass to make my own side window out of now.

 

[Krazed]

That's not a bad case, I just checked the CoolerMaster website (just incase you hadn't) to see if it would fit.

The case is 20 inches long, and the Swiftech rad is 16" long. You should be good to go without too much issue!

Good luck with it all.