First water cooled build! Please advise

[maxfly]

that should be plenty for a cpu loop. be very wary of those xspc 90 and 45 rotaries. im getting rid of all of mine due to 3 of the 90s leaking on me. check them before you put them in your loop. if they are hard to turn they should be fine. if they are easy to turn or you notice the gap widening where it spins(even a little) dont use them. good luck!

be sure to get a good pair of work gloves for tightening your fittings down. the xspc fittings are hard to get tight enough even with gloves.

 

[Locla]

Thanks Maxfly, for some reason the email alert for your response went into my junk box I've actually set everything up now and just came on to update, but thanks either way for the info on the XSPC fittings! There was one which was particularly loose and that made me wary of it, so I haven't used it. The rest have been super hard to turn and hey, no leaks yet. I've been running it for about 24 hours straight on a leak test, and now everything's all powered up and I'm using it, kinda nerve-wracking.

Ahh work gloves I did not use. That's making me even more nervous I'm just not gonna touch or move it in any way for a while...

My drive bay pump is making a lot of noise, I've only got it set to about 1.5 out of 5 on the dial. (it went off once while twisted to the lowest setting, don't want that kind of stress.) Is it normal for it to be fairly noisy?

I want to thank everyone who contributed to the thread, you made my life easier and here I am with a water cooled system that's leak free (so far ) Pics and temps to follow.. (what even are good temps, is there a specific benchmark I should use to gauge my cooling performance?)

Can't wait to put in a second loop for the GPU/add the GPU to the loop!

 

[Silver Surfer]

Hello,

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this thread

My i5-2500k CPU has been a bit of a bottleneck for some time now, but instead of just replacing it I wanted to overclock it, seeing as that is what is was designed for.

OS: Windows 7 64-bit
MOBO: Asus P8Z77-V LX
CPU: Intel i5-2500k @Stock
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 970 GAMING 4G
PSU: Evga Supernova 750W B1
RAM: Kingston - HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 @1600MHz
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500Gb
CASE: Phanteks Enthoo Pro
MNTR: Samsung S22D390HS 21.5 inch

Sorry for the longish post, any help is very much appreciated!

Locla

I wish I had found this thread in the beginning to at least give you a different perspective to consider regarding keeping the 2500K and not just going ahead and upgrading your hardware platform. The good thing is the water cooling you now have is future transferable to a new setup when you can afford to go that route. Regarding overclocking the 2500K Sandy Bridge CPU you should be able to easily reach 5ghz manually overclocking it. Unfortunately even at that you are way behind the technology curve as the Sandy bridge was Intels first step into a true quad core CPU so they lacked the experience that would give Intel the edge they still maintain today regarding running higher memory speeds stably. Each platform after Sandy bridge could handle memory speeds better than the previous could so it was just getting better and better.

Sooner or later you're going to have to move up from Windows 7 and doing that requires new hardware to take full advantage of the Windows 10 operating system and unfortunately that is the future as it stands right now. Can Win10 run on your system, of course it can, but seriously limited. My wifes laptop is running Win10 and the laptop is upgraded hardware wise as far as it can be, but it's seriously lame compared to my machine, and when she gets Win10 updates it's much less than the updates for my machine, because her hardware is so far behind.

I don't know what you use your computer for but I do see an MSI GeForce GTX 970 GAMING 4G graphics card so obviously you do some kind of gaming or you wouldn't have needed that card just for surfing the internet. The gaming future is 4K and beyond, and you cannot even run 4K unless you are 4K capable and not only is that dependent on the operating system but compatible hardware as well. So you seriously need to start thinking about just how long that 2500K is going to be a viable CPU for future purposes.

SS

 

[Locla]

Hi Silver Surfer,

Many thanks for your input; I totally agree that I need to move past the i5-2500k. As you say, the water cooling set up is future transferable, and I didn't want to create my first ever loop on an expensive build in case of disaster. The next step is to overclock the chip, but I need to do some more reading before I attempt that. My upgrade route from here is likely to a coffee lake cpu and motherboard, and ddr4 ram, so I do need to wait to afford all that.

I hear what you're saying about Windows 10, and I have been putting it off for as long as is possible. Something about the forced updates which really grates on me. So far it really hasn't affected my gaming experience as far as I can tell; I am indeed using this PC primarily for games. Having said that the very next thing in line to upgrade will probably be a monitor, as I'm still running the original screen I bought for my first build (21.5 in, 1080p ).

I don't have much disposable income as I'm still a student, so I have to be pretty selective about what/when I upgrade. It's almost certainly going to be either a 4k G/Freesync monitor, or a CPU MB DDR4 bundle. Either way I'm going to have to wait a little while because of the water cooling expenses!

Here's top and side pics:

 

[Scu84St3v3420]

If I am being honest, in my opinion 4K gaming isn't currently worth while. Reasoning, because even 60 FPS consistently isn't achievable unless using medium settings in modern titles, even if you bought a brand new $1200 RTX 2080Ti.

I personally would recommend a 1440p (2K) monitor with a high refresh rate and if you feel it necessary G-Sync. Then take the money saved and spend it on a GTX 1080 (under $500 right now). As for Coffee Lake, unless your getting a new GPU it won't make a HUGE difference in your gaming performance. Rather (again these are my personal opinions) I recommend a 2000 series Ryzen system, which costs a fraction of a equivalent Coffee Lake system (again helping you stay in budget).

Example of my reasoning:

Ryzen 2600 - $199.99 vs i7 8700K 359.99 Which at above 1080p is equivalent performance in game and yields a $160 savings
ASUS 1440p 144hz 1ms freesync - $479.99 vs ASUS 4K 60hz 4ms G-Sync $850.42 almost $400 in savings
Gigabyte GTX 1080 - $429.99

These are just examples and opinions, but if you're budget oriented and still want high-end gaming, Ryzen is the way to go.

Again I will give a good example of this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3845864

R5 2600, decent MB with the ability to OC and 16 GB of DDR4 3000 MHz for $463.99

Couple that with this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125936

GTX 1080 (overclockable) for $429.99

Total:$894 roughly before shipping

And you have a high-end gaming pc to watercool with your setup which will run basically any modern title at 100 FPS minimum at high-ultra settings (2K) that cost a little more than a good 4K gaming monitor with G-Sync. And at that point you have saved enough, by not buying the intel package and 4K monitor to grab the 2K monitor mentioned.

 

[Locla]

Thanks a lot for the recommendations Scu.

I agree with your reasoning and it made me have a look at what's available for 2k. Result is I managed to find a decent 2k monitor for cheaps (AOC Q2770PQU) I mainly do RTS and MMOs, no FPSers, so it should suit my needs well enough.

When I do make the big upgrade I'll give some serious thought to going with Ryzen, as there's no arguing with their price to performance ratio. I've kept costs down with Intel by buying used parts, and it's worked well enough especially as I often play older titles (Witcher 1 currently), but I have to concede that the 2500k is pretty old now. I may lean towards getting another used Intel chip as I've been happy with them so far, but I hadn't been planning on even considering AMD before your post so who knows, I'll have to see what's on deal when the time comes.

Cheers

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Nothing wrong sticking with intel but if budget is a real issue, I'd go with AMD CPU and GPU all around.

Don't forget, the Freesync only works with AMD GPUs as is Gsync with Nvidia. Can't mix match the two.

As far as the loop goes, so far so good. As long as your temps look great, my only concerns would be the tubing near the GPU. Make sure there's clearance from your GPU's heatsink and tubing. Don't want something touching it as it can get very hot. Could possibly melt, deform or breaktown the tubing from that heat.

Other than that, it looks good and I think you're on your way to your dream rig eventually. I know it took me some time to where I'am now.

 

[Scu84St3v3420]

Thanks a lot for the recommendations Scu.

I agree with your reasoning and it made me have a look at what's available for 2k. Result is I managed to find a decent 2k monitor for cheaps (AOC Q2770PQU) I mainly do RTS and MMOs, no FPSers, so it should suit my needs well enough.

When I do make the big upgrade I'll give some serious thought to going with Ryzen, as there's no arguing with their price to performance ratio. I've kept costs down with Intel by buying used parts, and it's worked well enough especially as I often play older titles (Witcher 1 currently), but I have to concede that the 2500k is pretty old now. I may lean towards getting another used Intel chip as I've been happy with them so far, but I hadn't been planning on even considering AMD before your post so who knows, I'll have to see what's on deal when the time comes.

Cheers

Hey man no problem, I think too many people get hung up on the 8700K because it's better purely at 1080p FPS, but above that resolution the performance of a R5 1600 or 2600 is on par with it, while it falls behind in every other possibly category and cost $200+ more than either of those chips currently. However this isn't to say that Intel is a poor choice in any manner and surely for "gaming" it is still king, I'm just saying they seem to charge a premium to their consumers for what is overall on par at best with the cheaper counterparts from AMD.

Also AMD is rolling with the same socket for at least another 1.5 years if not longer, with a new generation of chip on 7nm in manufacturing and intent for the AM4 socket presumably. So no a bad choice for the ability to upgrade without replacing a motherboard, as Intel seems to have forced with each refresh in recent history anyways...

But if you are able to get used Coffee Lake components used for a comparable or better deal, then by all means that is hard to argue.

And as Jack pointed out, a decent AMD GPU is cheaper than Nvidia, however (opinion) Nvidia won this round as far as high-end gaming unlike with AMD v Intel. But either way if monitor sync technology is something you deem required, they don't mix and match unfortunately and freesync monitors are certainly cheaper than their Nvidia counterparts as well. More food for thought I guess.

I am also enjoying your actual purpose of this post, the custom loop, lmfao... Can't wait to see more!

 

[Locla]

Looks like it's gonna be AMD for the next upgrade tbh

The tube has an inch clearance at the closest point to the GPU heat pipe, not ideal as I guess the heat will deteriorate the tubing over time. Although I think quite a long time, and I hope I'll have a new water cooled GPU long before that point, which would remove the issue.

Tonight I've been following Theocnoob's excellent instructions on setting a 2500k to 4.5Ghz over in the Intel CPU section. I tried to run Prime95 but core 0 just couldn't handle it, and got a BSOD at one point. I'm now running at just over 4.3Ghz with a max core temp of 70 Celsius, pump at minimum speed (because it's so damn noisy). According to the article that's a reasonable temperature? For some reason even though I set my CPU voltage to 1.35V, it doesn't ever seem to get past 1.33V, and I do wonder if this is what is causing the crashes when attempting to reach 4.5Ghz.



It seems frozen at 1.328V, haven't seen it change from that while Prime has been running. It's not much of a biggy, I'm happy with 4.3 for my fist overclock, and tbh if it's only gonna use 1.33V then that's extending the life of the CPU a bit. I know the recommendation is to run Prime for 6 hours, but I think it's probably fine after 3 hours and I'm about to run Intel Burn Test to double check stability.

P.S. what about that TMPIN8/3??

EDIT:

Intel Burn Test indicates full stability, with max core temp of 72:

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I think those are good temps on the OC. I see you actually did hit the max VCORE you had set to 1.35. If you want and if temps permit, you could go higher and see if you can achieve your 4.5 Ghz but it's nothing is a guarantee . I personally wouldn't go higher than 1.35 for daily driving and longevity reasons but it might be closer to 1.4v to get that 4.5 Ghz you're after for.

 

[Locla]

Awesome, thanks The vcore idles at 1.35 but as soon as I stress the CPU with Prime or Burner, it seems to throttle itself down to the 1.328 figure. I don't see why it would do this, but I think that's what's causing instability, as the chip may not be able to handle 4.5 Ghz if it dips down to those volts. I also won't go above 1.35V for the same reasons. Either way it's a nice bump up from the stock settings I had before.