Help me with my watercooling loop

[KelThuzad]

Hi Guys,

I was hoping someone could help me with my first attempt ever at water cooling a new PC I built. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


My current build is:

1. EVGA GTX780 Classified 3GB GDDR5 / ACX Cooler X2

2. ASUS Maximus VI Extreme Intel Z87 LGA 1150 Motherboard (should have gotten a Z97 but now it's too late...)

3. Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W 80PLUS Gold Certified Modular Power Supply

4. Corsair 760T Mid Tower ATX Case

5. Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB 2133MHz (2x8GB)Modules

6. Intel Core i7-4790K LGA1150 4GHz Processor

7. BenQ XL2720Z 27" Pro Gaming LED Monitor, 144hz, 1920x1080 Resolution, 1080P,12M:1 DCR, 1ms RT, VGA,HDMI,DVI

8. Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Desktop Kit Version Internal Solid State Drive MZ-7TE250KW

9. WD WDBSLA0040HNC-NRSN 4TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.5" Internal Hard Drive


After watching many videos and reading several threads on watercooling I am still not quite confident that I know what I am doing. I want to overclock as much as possible and my current idle temps are horrible (40c with H100i at stock speeds, HT and turbo disabled!). I don't even want to go into how bad it is under full load...

After looking at different brands it seems as though EK would be my preferrable choice because it actually has a block designed for my GPUs and motherboard. Not to mention, I like their CPU block the best. I started shopping and before I commit was hoping someone here would be gracious enough to help me.


Here is what is currently in the shopping cart:

1. EK-Supremacy Clean CSQ - Full Nickel (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-supremacy-clean-csq-full-nickel.html)

2. EK-FB ASUS M6E - Nickel (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fb-asus-m6e-nickel.html)

3. EK-FC780 GTX Classy - Nickel X2 (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fc780-gtx-classy-nickel.html)

4. EK-FC780 GTX Classy Backplate - Black Rev.2.0 X2 (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fc780-gtx-classy-backplate-black-rev-2-0.html)

5. EK-CSQ Fitting 13/19mm G1/4 - Nickel X10 (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-csq-fitting-13-19mm-g1-4-nickel.html)

6. EK-BAY RES D5 Vario (incl. pump) (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-bay-res-d5-vario-incl-pump.html)

7. EK-CoolStream RAD XTX (360) (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-coolstream-rad-xtx-360.html)

8. TUBE PrimoChill PrimoFlex™ Advanced LRT™ 19,1 / 12,7 mm - Bloodshed Red RETAIL 3m (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/tube-primo...ttm-19-1-12-7-mm-bloodshed-red-retail-3m.html)

9. EK-Ekoolant EVO Blood RED (concentrate 100mL) (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-ekoolant-evo-blood-red-concentrate-100ml.html)

10. EK-FC Bridge DUAL Parallel (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-fc-bridge-dual-parallel.html)

11. Corsair Air Series SP120 (CO-9050014-WW) 120mm PWM High Performance Edition High Static Pressure Fan (Twin Pack) X2 (4 fans total so I have 1 extra)


Am I forgetting or doing something wrong here? Budget is not the biggest issue but I would like to keep it under a grand if possible. I also know that it might be a bit much to jump into for the first time but that is just what I want to do

 

[GearingMass]

I don't even want to go into how bad it is under full load...

Well it's never good to ignore a potential problem. Realtemp will help you monitor your Cpu temps and see if anything gets too nasty under load.

Also, welcome to OCF!


Now, a few things about your water cooling components.

1) Most people on this forum will warn you away from using dyes/ dyed liquid as it can (will) gunk up your loop and caused increased maintenance of your loop. Distilled water + silver coil/pt nuke is the way to go.

If you want color, colored tubing should be sufficient, which I see you have.
Adding colored fluid probably isn't worth the hassle down the road for a slightly better color through the tubing (if the tubing is even transparent at all).

Good pick on the Primoflex tubing, though

2) I doubt you need to water cool your motherboard, especially for 128 Euros, but that's up to you. As far as temperatures go, there's very little chance you'd actually need that. If you want to spend that money for the looks, by all means, but that's just my two cents.

3) You may or may not have enough fittings, but I'd always but a few extra and also a couple of angled ones, just in case. Also plan for a way to drain the loop and incorporate that into the parts list.

4) Are you going to cool the 4790K and (2) gtx780's who a single 360 rad? My recommendation would be to drop the motherboard block and spend the money on a 240mm radiator for the front in addition to the 360 radiator up top.

 

[EarthDog]

Great advice above... especially 1,2, and 4. That loop is underadded if its only a single 360. You can get away with it, but would want beefy (read louder) fans to keep things cool. That is over 550W to cool with just the 2 GPUs and CPU.

 

[KelThuzad]

Thank you for the kind welcome! And thanks for the advice guys.

1. I will definitely drop the dyed liquid. My tubing is already red so that works. Any distilled water will do, like from the grocery store? Will now purchase the silver coil/pt nuke.

2. I really just was going for the motherboard block to go overkill but if it is not going to dramatically help my temps, no big deal in excluding that.

3. I am now adding more compression fittings along with some angled ones just in case. Thanks for the tip!

4. Awesome! My house can get very hot, especially during the summer months. Having two radiators sounds like a great idea. I am assuming the pump I have spec'd is strong enough for 2 rads.

Would the loop be something like this?

Pump out->CPU in->CPU out->360 RAD in->360 RAD out->GTX780s in->GTX 780s out->240 RAD in->240 RAD out->Res in

 

[GearingMass]

Thank you for the kind welcome! And thanks for the advice guys.

1. I will definitely drop the dyed liquid. My tubing is already red so that works. Any distilled water will do, like from the grocery store? Will now purchase the silver coil/pt nuke.

2. I really just was going for the motherboard block to go overkill but if it is not going to dramatically help my temps, no big deal in excluding that.

3. I am now adding more compression fittings along with some angled ones just in case. Thanks for the tip!

4. Awesome! My house can get very hot, especially during the summer months. Having two radiators sounds like a great idea. I am assuming the pump I have spec'd is strong enough for 2 rads.

Would the loop be something like this?

Pump out->CPU in->CPU out->360 RAD in->360 RAD out->GTX780s in->GTX 780s out->240 RAD in->240 RAD out->Res in

1) Absolutely, any distilled water from the grocery store will be perfect. The "good" stuff is like $1 a gallon where I live

2) Like I said, it's unnecessary temp wise, but entirely up to you. If it's that or the second radiator, the second radiator is a no-brainer.

3) Awesome! Make sure you have a plan for how you're going to drain the loop eventually. Whether that's with quick disconnects, a drain port at the bottom of your loop, etc. There's a lot of different ways to do it.

4) Yes, that pump should handle it no problem.


The loop can be in any order you like (usually what makes the cleanest looking tube runs) with one exception - the reservoir must be before the pump in the loop. In other words, your pump inlet should be pulling water directly from your reservoir, and preferably your pump be lower down in the loop than the res so that gravity can help out with the initial fill.

 

[Nebulous]

Hi and welcome to O/C Forums!

First off nice build! I would not bother watercooling the board unless you're benching. That's a waste of money and with good airflow your board will be happy.

Parts list looks good, but as other have mentioned don't use dyes. It's useless and will clog up your blocks/pump and stain up the res. Use colored tubing instead.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Welcome to OCFs as well.

What the members said before me are spot on.

I will say since you're only fitting a 360mm and 240mm rads, I would take a look at the new Black Ice Nemesis rads. They are optimized for low to mid speed quality premium rad fans. I'd also a look at the eLoops B12s if price ain't an issue. Make sure you take some measurements to make sure your choice of rads will fit and have some wiggle room.

Plan out our loop and loop order won't matter as long as the res is before the pump. We can see by the choice of the res/pump combo, that won't be an issue. You can just make the loop as simple as possible with the shortest route possible while making it look nice and clean.

When you're ready, show us a list so we know exactly what you have finalized.

Here's a nice video I like to show to new comers to the H20 world that might seem uneased.

 

[Daddyjaxx]

I personally do not think water cooling the motherboard is a waste of time. It may not help performance any, but it will take 40-50c on the PCH down to the 20's and the VRM's can put out a lot of heat also. It either dissipates in the loop or in the case. I vote for the loop as long as you have the radiators to support it. If you can't fit the rads, I'd forget the board.

 

[Carlitos714]

I personally do not think water cooling the motherboard is a waste of time. It may not help performance any, but it will take 40-50c on the PCH down to the 20's and the VRM's can put out a lot of heat also. It either dissipates in the loop or in the case. I vote for the loop as long as you have the radiators to support it. If you can't fit the rads, I'd forget the board.

It is nice to see vrms at low temps. Cooling the motherboard is awesome, but not always required. If I had the $$ I would cool the motherboard too. Plus some mobo blocks look awesome!

 

[EarthDog]

Restrictive blocks, no performance gains 99% of time (perhaps on X79 and overclocking the snot out of it would be its only useful application). The expense and restriction buys you cooler temps (they are fine where they are at), and looks. If that is worth the $100 to add it in, go for it as a lot sure do look pretty.

 

[Techjesse]

Restrictive blocks, no performance gains 99% of time (perhaps on X79 and overclocking the snot out of it would be its only useful application). The expense and restriction buys you cooler temps (they are fine where they are at), and looks. If that is worth the $100 to add it in, go for it as a lot sure do look pretty.

"overclocking the snot out of it"
I want to see hardware snot LOL
That's a good one Dog! needed a good laugh