Help with first build in 800d (or v1010)

[Italiano86]

Hey everyone. So ever since I bought my galaxy gtx 470 I have been itching to do a full water cooling build for several reasons. I want to oc the card like crazy, cool my q6600, and basically have a dead/near silent pc.

At the moment I have a lian-li v1010b which is an awesome case from performance-pc's, which I paid enough for as is, but the cooling in it sucks and it doesn't have room for a quad rad. I know, I know, you're probably thinking, wtf? Why not just put a triple rad in that awesome case!
Well, I'm still considering it, but I saw the 800d online with a quad rad inside and it's pure win.

Here's the link to the guys full build of the case, which is what I would like to go for.

Aside from selling the case to my bro for 100 or so, if that, if I keep the case and skip the 800d what sort of WC mods can I do to it? The top can fit a triple rad no problem but the case is so shallow that even with a thin rad and a push or pull setup it will still come down over the mobo.

Currently, my setup is as follows:
q6600 w/thermalright ultra 120 oc'd to 3.2 @1.2875v with plenty of room to go, I had it at nearly 3.7 but it ran too hot for comfort.
4gigs corsair xms 6400
Corsair 620w hx
Galaxy reference 470 gtx
asus p5k deluxe wifi
Sound blaster xfi Fatality gamer
5 hdd's, +1 more sitting a box full of stuff which amounts to around 5.8 tb.

Now in the near future if and when I get the 800d I am thinking I should get a new psu, because after I get this setup water cooled, I will probably go with an i7 build shortly after, or whenever the current build starts to feel slow for games. When I do this I doubt the 620hx can handle an oc'd i7 and 470, It's running hot right now with just stock speeds and my oc'd 6600.

I am looking at a xspc 480 for the top of the 800d and probably ek blocks for the cpu and gpu. I will simply use the same cpu block for the 6600 and i7 since it's universal. It looks like I can do a push/pull config on that rad, which will make it pretty damn deep, or just put 4x120's on top to intake cold air and push it through the rad.

The key to this build for me is quietness. The xspc rad seems the best for this type of setup because the radiator fin density is very low and is ideal for low rpm fans to manage good temps, but I have read that a pull config is ideal to a push until around 12-1500 rpm's, when it doesn't matter as much. What fans are good for quietness and good performance? Are fan controllers recommended for 4-8 fans?

I can definitely use some good input on a pump to use that is silent yet powerful enough to handle a quad rad and 2 blocks. I was checking on the swiftech 350 or 355 with an ek top, and also the 655 but it looks funky to me and not sure how quiet it is. I will probably grab an ek reservoir with a tube going to the bottom of the case into the top of the pump.

As for the tubing size, this is what is frustrating me the most as there are so many possibilities. I definitely don't want the largest od tubing of 3/4, which looks retarded to me, and not the smallest either, probably something in-between. 3/8 id 5/8 od looks good I think, but not sure how good the performance would be. How about 3/8 1/2 performance wise? 7/16 5/8? Crimping is obviously a concern, but I don't think the tubing will be making any real sharp bends to just a cpu and gpu block. I will probably go with white tubing. Do you guys have any good links to show setup comparisons of different sizes?

I am looking into getting bitspower compression fittings, most likely black. Where can I get these things for cheap? Most places have them for 7-9 dollars a piece.

Lastly for the price, I figure:
120 for quad rad
120 for ek gpu block
70-80 for ek cpu
65 for pump + 40 or so for top
20-40 for reservoir
80-100 or so for fittings and tubing, with a couple kill coils.
40ish for 4-8 fans? Dont care about plain black since I will probably paint the blades white for the 800d case.
20-40 for fan controller
60 or so for quad rad grill and misc screws
240 for 800d case
200 or so for new psu, was looking at 1000w hx, but not sure if it's a good psu or if I need that much for an i7 build in the future.

So I'm looking around 1030 to 1100 for everything I figure. 4-500 for the water setup alone I don't mind, I just need to make sure I'm committed to the new case and psu for a future build, which will probably run me another 7-800 for components.

Lastly, I know the quad rad might seem a little crazy for what I'm looking at, but I want this case to last me a long time for future builds as well, so adding extra rads or pumps would be minor or not even necessary. Please let me know what you guys think, I have been researching this stuff for like a week straight non stop so any input you can give me would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[m0r7if3r]

to OCF

Have you checked out our sticky? If not, head up there and read it, all of it. This'll probably take a week or 2 to make through. Once you've got that done and you understand heatload and dT, head over to skinneelabs and read all their watercooling stuff (ALL of it again). Between our sticky and skinnee's reviews you should be able to have a really solid build and get a lot of your noobie (no offense) questions cleared up

hope this helps.

 

[Italiano86]

I haven't read the sticky on this forum, but I have on other forums, I'm not totally clueless. I am hoping to get some opinions on an 800d though and to see if my future setup will be adequate. I can read a sticky, but alot of the stuff I am asking about specifically won't pertain to the 800d or v1010 case and about a future i7 build and a new psu.

Can you give me any advice while I read the sticky?

 

[m0r7if3r]

The key to this build for me is quietness. The xspc rad seems the best for this type of setup because the radiator fin density is very low and is ideal for low rpm fans to manage good temps, but I have read that a pull config is ideal to a push until around 12-1500 rpm's, when it doesn't matter as much. What fans are good for quietness and good performance? Are fan controllers recommended for 4-8 fans?

easily answered at skinneelabs

I can definitely use some good input on a pump to use that is silent yet powerful enough to handle a quad rad and 2 blocks. I was checking on the swiftech 350 or 355 with an ek top, and also the 655 but it looks funky to me and not sure how quiet it is. I will probably grab an ek reservoir with a tube going to the bottom of the case into the top of the pump.

easily answered between the sticky and skinneelabs

As for the tubing size, this is what is frustrating me the most as there are so many possibilities. I definitely don't want the largest od tubing of 3/4, which looks retarded to me, and not the smallest either, probably something in-between. 3/8 id 5/8 od looks good I think, but not sure how good the performance would be. How about 3/8 1/2 performance wise? 7/16 5/8? Crimping is obviously a concern, but I don't think the tubing will be making any real sharp bends to just a cpu and gpu block. I will probably go with white tubing. Do you guys have any good links to show setup comparisons of different sizes?

Comparison by cathar is in our sticky iirc (might only be at XS)

I am looking into getting bitspower compression fittings, most likely black. Where can I get these things for cheap? Most places have them for 7-9 dollars a piece.

list of vendors in our sticky

Lastly, I know the quad rad might seem a little crazy for what I'm looking at, but I want this case to last me a long time for future builds as well, so adding extra rads or pumps would be minor or not even necessary. Please let me know what you guys think, I have been researching this stuff for like a week straight non stop so any input you can give me would be much appreciated. Thanks!

quad rad for an i7 (Which you said you were going to get) and a 470 is on the lowish side of enough...don't know where you're getting your heatload and dT numbers, but this is discussed in our sticky.

Don't mean ot sound rude or anything, but with that much answered in our sticky, I really don't know what's not in there for me to answer...there are a couple 800d build logs around here I could find for you...but outside of that

 

[Italiano86]

What do you mean about the low side of enough? It's overkill or not nearly adequate? I don't need an insanely low dt for my new setup, in fact 15-20c would be fine, just something reasonable. I figure a quad can dissipate about 600w with medium speed fans, so I would appreciate an explanation. My room temps average about 22-24c, while my cpu currently gets to about 65c. I would like to keep my stuff at a comfortable 50-55c, but Skinnee's review shows me otherwise...

This link to one of skinnee's reviews on the kyros block, which I hear is supposed to be one of the best is kind of shocking. Having temps at 75c on water setup? What does this do to the poor pump, which it seems like most are only supposed to be run at 60c max

I understand where you are coming from with all the info out there. But honestly, there are an infinite number of combinations available for water setups and so many stickies out there. I have read plenty of facts on line in a number of stickies, I am just looking for personal user feedback and opinions, from different people.

I'm going crazy with the number of stickies I have read. For instance, I know all the tubing sizes out there, I just want people's feedback on what looks good to them, I already know that most tubing from 1/4 to 1/2id varies very little in cooling potential.

Thanks for the input so far, I will continue reading until my head explodes, but I will still ask questions for clarification and opinions, lol.

 

[m0r7if3r]

120.3 is the recommended amount for an i7 that you're gonna want to push to it's limit. gfx will be happy on 120.1 in it's own loop, but if it's with the cpu the cpu might get a bit toasty as the gfx gets loaded.

you skipped this page on that review http://skinneelabs.com/ac-kryos-xt.html?page=3. 1.5v at >200w heatdump into the loop...that's not exactly normal conditions, he could push that processor way further than 4000 on those volts (my 24/7 is 4.2 at 1.38 and that's on the high side of where it should be). You also have to consider that there are multiple dT's going on, you have a chip to water dT then a water to air dT. Heat tranferance out of the cores of the i7's isn't really that great (it isn't for any processor tbh), so there's a pretty high chip to water dT there. Personally, I'm not a fan of the Kryos because it gets the ek by .05C, costs way more, and most importantly has awful flow. Flow needs to be considered in your case because you are running the gfx in the same loop.

 

[Italiano86]

I figured 1.5v was insanely high for an i7, guess he really likes to stress the blocks to see what they do. How are your temps with your cpu at 4.2 and vcore at 1.38? Also, what is your current build? I would like to check it out to get an idea.

I saw this post regarding dual loops for a cpu and gpu and there really doesn't seem like a great enough benefit for me to go that route. I will already plan on spending around 500 or more on the water setup alone, and going dual would not be practical for me it seems. Also, I know having an i7 around 4ghz can be extreme in most cases, but having only a single gpu would sort of balance that out I think.

With my room temp average of around 18 -20c what temps do you think I can expect chipset wise in an i7 running at 4.0 and the gpu overclocked with that quad rad? To make things simple, could I expect the cpu to run at say 45-50c and the gpu around the same, which would be a delta of around 17-30c, which seems a bit conservative? Is that unrealistic to expect?

I know people say having a delta of 10-15 with a gpu and cpu in one loop is ideal, but that seems excessive, just to have the chips running around 40c. How many rads would you need to see crazy temps like that in my i7 setup? Thanks for the info so far, I'm slowly figuring things out. It's just hard to get even a small idea of what to expect in my setup because of too damn many variables, lol.

 

[m0r7if3r]

My i7's on air right now x-( but it linx's around 90...it likes the volts though, I cherry picked on batches for one that would clock high...they tend to run a bit hotter when they can go higher for some reason, there's also the other end which just runs hot and doesn't clock well at all...sorta a tossup

My stance on dual vs single is that there's a tipping point where it becomes better to run a single, typically this is closer to the overrading side of things...I can't really give you any numbers on that since it's just a theory and something I go more by feel and experience on than anything.

You're making the exact same error when it comes to dT that I did when I first got into this stuff, dT (unless othewise specified) is your water to air difference (or delta), your chip to air dT is significantly higher (I'll dig through and find the old post where we had a LONNNGGGG discussion on this and trying to optimize it).

As for your temps...can't really say, depends on the specific cpu and gpu that you run, if you get 2 that run hot it'll be pretty miserable in there on a 120.4, if you get cool running ones, it'll be nice'n'happy...there's just a lot of variance which is why I tend to err on the side of overrading...hope that clears some stuff up for you

 

[Italiano86]

90c? Man, that's pretty extreme, haha. Honestly, my galaxy 470 stock reference board runs 92c load and my cpu 6600 clocked at 3.2 runs at 65 load, so whatever water setup I get at this point, espcially with a quad rad and decent coolers can only get better. At least that's how I see it. If I can run this setup and later an i7 around 50c, with water temps of 35c, and ambient of 20c I will be happy. So an air-water dt of 15c and an air-chip of 30, if that delta makes sense...lol

Like you are saying, normal dt on reviews takes air to water into account, but how does this show how good, say, an i7 runs when testing 20 cpu blocks? I see that it shows variances between blocks, but I don't see them showing the actual chipset temps very often. This is why I have a hard time getting some kind of estimate of what to expect out of a custom setup, no matter what I look at.

I think I will get a d5 with ek top and an ek block for my 470, probably the nickle and acetal one and the ek supreme hf for the cpu. People seem to be recommending the gentle typhoon 15's with a fan controller, which sounds good to me. I just need a fan controller than can take 8 fans. Doesn't seem like 7/16id or 1/2id 5/8od tubing will make much difference, which is what I may go for.

 

[m0r7if3r]

Yea...I'm gonna hop on that 90c at some point, just been real busy this past while with real life (gasp!). Real world it never tops 80 though...linx is brutal, great for stability testing though.

 

[boucher91]

http://www.jab-tech.com/Sunbeam-Rheobus-Extreme-Black-pr-4090.html
this is the fan controller that i use, i have 4 high speed yate looms hooked to 1 channel.
the nzxt case i use has 4 fans on the side door on channel 1 and 4 fans on each rad 2rads the rad fans hooked to channel 5 and 6...hope this helps, not using push /pull

 

[Italiano86]

That controller looks pretty interesting. I found this online this morning and it seems pretty promising. You can program it to whatever conditions and fan speeds you want basically and can even hook up the water pump, so it doesn't have to have a build in speed controller which is cool.

 

[Conumdrum]

It's kinda not supported much any more. The Koolance auto controller is about the same and gets software updates.

The fancy ones are great, can get complicated.

Why not buy the one above or this simple good one for now and once it's all done then you can read up across the net on the 200 and the Koolance on to see pitfalls and issues others have overcome.

http://www.jab-tech.com/Sunbeam-5-1-4-Rheobus-Kit-BLACK-pr-2530.html

 

[Conumdrum]

90c? Man, that's pretty extreme, haha. Honestly, my galaxy 470 stock reference board runs 92c load and my cpu 6600 clocked at 3.2 runs at 65 load, so whatever water setup I get at this point, espcially with a quad rad and decent coolers can only get better. At least that's how I see it. If I can run this setup and later an i7 around 50c, with water temps of 35c, and ambient of 20c I will be happy. So an air-water dt of 15c and an air-chip of 30, if that delta makes sense...lol

You won't get a i7 to run at 50C with 20C ambients and water temps of 35C.

15C DT? Need lower DT for 50C.

 

[Italiano86]

You won't get a i7 to run at 50C with 20C ambients and water temps of 35C.

15C DT? Need lower DT for 50C.

Sorry man, I'm just using a guestimate for numbers right now. My ambient temps in my room really do average about 18c throughout the year and only rarely gets to 28c. I know that delta I entered earlier is high, I am just trying to get an estimate of what kind of temps I can expect for a future oc'd i7 with my room temps. Seems like you need a real delta, which is impossible for me as I am planning a build and don't have anything water related, so it's all hypothetical to me for now, lol.

I am thinking of going with less expensive yate loon medium speed fans with a fan controller in a push pull config on the xspc rx 480. With that rad and a 655 running an ek supreme hf and 3/8id1/2od tubing, what temps can I expect on the i7 chip? I am hoping with that setup my delta will be somewhere around the 5-12 range. Again, just hypothesizing so I'm not disappointed when I end up spending almost 600 on my setup. Thanks!

 

[Conumdrum]

http://skinneelabs.com/xspc-rx360.html?page=4

Drop the DT another 25% since your radiator is 25% larger.

Go with max 250 watts on your CPU, you'll be under that wattage.

Your looking at a DT of about 5C. You might see 50C under load, due to your cold room.

You just have to do the math, you don't need to hyothisize, you can actually get rather close.

I don't have any measuring devices either, but I can see somewhat what my DT is by doing a bit of math using Skinnees charts.

You really, really don't need push pull at all for your setup. Yate Mediums in push or pull is plenty for that.

 

[m0r7if3r]

I don't think it'd be a full 25% drop since it's approaching an asymptote, i'd ballpark it in the range of 10-15%, but that's only based on 2 datapoints, so I really can't say :S

but yea...math ftw, just model things graphically and extrapolate.

 

[Italiano86]

Thanks for the info, I'm finally starting to understand the way water cooling works and sort of what to expect. I looked at skinee's chart and I forgot to add in my 470 which will be heavily oc'd, hopefully alot. Factoring that in I figure the cpu and gpu will have around 500 watts to dissipate, correct me if I'm wrong. If I factor in the fan speed of around 1400rpm and take off about 15% of the final dt, I figure mine will be around 9c or so, does this seem somewhat accurate?

Also, would you say 1400rpm's on the rx480 would be considered quiet from pretty close, say a couple feet? I want to be able to leave my machine on at night while I sleep.

I have been looking at fans and saw recommendations for s-flex, but they have fluid bearings, which I hear is bad for fans running horizontally because the fans cant fully lubricate this way. Bs? Plus, 15-20 per fan for me is crazy when I need 4-8 of them. Should I just go with medium speed yates from petra tech and use a fan controller? Thanks again

 

[m0r7if3r]

well...I'm not sure about the fluid bearings, but the yates will wear out faster if you have them non-vertical...that said, the yates are so cheap if one dies it's really not an issue. Altogether, yates are a great option...have you seen this link?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=223391