Water cooling for under $200

[trickson]

After factoring in the costs of a TRUE black or copper and fans it seems like water cooling might be a better option for not much more. If I went with water cooling I'd start out with the CPU only, then move up to the graphics card later on. I'm looking for something quiet. I don't need complete silence, but I'd like something quiet as I've been getting into the whole quiet PC thing recently. Actually, I'm installing a bunch of quiet fans to replace the noisy Armor stock fans and am loading the case up with sound dampening this week. I'd like to eventually take my Q9300 up to 3.6ghz or even higher if temps allow, so I need some performance. I've never dealt with water cooling before so I'm pretty lost on what to get and how to do it. As for installation I'll be asking plenty of questions, but it doesn't sound that hard to do if I plan it right and read a lot more about it. My setup is (as of this week when everything gets in):

GTX260 OCX (the one with 216 shaders)
Q9300 at 3.4ghz
DFI Lanparty DK P35
Thermaltake Armor case

I'm doing some big orders from Xoxide, Newegg, and TigerDirect later today so I can get any combination of things from them. I'm okay with ordering from Frozen CPU as well. What would you guys recommend? I'd like to spend under $200, $150 if possible. I just don't want any crap that will cool my system improperly and cause problems.

I just picked up and installed this setup and man it is great !
http://www.petrastechshop.com/pecod4.html
I recommend it ..

 

[TheThermaltaker]

I forgot to list the final setup. As some things were out of stock I had to substitute a few things.

CPU Waterblock: Swiftech GTZ

Pump: MP655

Reservoir: Mountain Mods drive bay res with Bitspower crystal/LED stopper to illuminate everything

Radiators: Swiftech triples

VGA Water Block: MCW60 with adapter and GTX 200 heatsink

Barbs: 6 Bitspower barbs (the large ID ones)

Compression Fittings: 4 Bitspower

Clamps: Worm drive from McMaster

Tubing: Feser UV Blue

Coolant: Distilled water with a few drops of PT Nuke PHN

 

[TheThermaltaker]

This is something I just noticed. I know the top right port on the GTZ is the outlet and the top of the res is the inlet, but what about the pump and radiator? I'm pretty sure the pump's inlet is the one on top, but I don't know which one is the inlet. One rad will be mounted sideways on the front panel and the other on the back panel with the ports on the bottom. If the ports are able to perform as inlets or outlets, which ones should I use as inlets?

 

[Cluster]

Pretty sure the rads should be bi-directional, meaning it doesnt matter, for the pump, the inlet that goes into the center of the pump is the inlet.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

for the MCP655 the inlet is in the middle and outlet is on the top.

rads don't matter as already stated.

using the picture below the horizontal is the inlet and the vertical is the outlet. you can also see the arrow on the outlet barb.

 

[TheThermaltaker]

for the MCP655 the inlet is in the middle and outlet is on the top.

rads don't matter as already stated.

using the picture below the horizontal is the inlet and the vertical is the outlet. you can also see the arrow on the outlet barb.

Thanks. Is there a way to mount the pump horizontally? Because since the res is going to be all the way on top it would look better if the inlet was on top and the outlet went directly into rad 1 (horizontally mounted on front panel).

 

[Spawn-Inc]

you can mount the pump any way you want really accept for mounting it with the intake facing down as it will have to suck up the water.

and here is a link to various pump brackets of the stock one is no good. (the stock one is pictures above)

 

[TheThermaltaker]

you can mount the pump any way you want really accept for mounting it with the intake facing down as it will have to suck up the water.

and here is a link to various pump brackets of the stock one is no good. (the stock one is pictures above)

Mounting it on my radiator would be perfect. How much does it restrict airflow though? And should I go with the Absolute or 3G? I plan on mounting it with the inlet facing up.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

i've never used those brackets, i bolted the stock one to a piece of wood which fits perfectly in my case. my inlet is up as well.


i'm not sure how it would affect air flow but i would think it should be fine.

 

[TheThermaltaker]

i've never used those brackets, i bolted the stock one to a piece of wood which fits perfectly in my case. my inlet is up as well.


i'm not sure how it would affect air flow but i would think it should be fine.

Since the case is nearly all clear the wood would look bad. Since it won't restrict airflow much (and if it does I still have 16 other unrestricted 120's in the case) mounting on the rad would work perfectly, but as for which mounting bracket to get I still have no clue. Should I call up Petra's tomorrow?

 

[TheThermaltaker]

Things have started to arrive, and hopefully the case will be in on Friday. I'd like to thank you guys for helping me pick the parts out and learn how to assemble everything. Hopefully everything will go without a hitch. Now that watercooling is more in the present I'm thinking towards the future. How often should I drain and refill the system? How do I do that? Also, do I ever need to disassemble and clean everything? And for the pump, do I need to disassemble it or can I just run it with the inlet tubing into a bucket of distilled water and the outlet tubing draining into my sink? If so, how much water should I run through the pump?

 

[TheThermaltaker]

I just realized that I have a few extra black Yate Loons. Would my temps drop if I doubled up the fans on a rad? On the back panel rad I'd have 3 black Yates on the back, then 3 black Yates covered by 3 blue LED Yates. The LED is 1350 and the black medium is 1650. Or should I just save the extras for another time?

 

[Spawn-Inc]

so you have 9 yates on a MCR320?

double up fans (i mean fan-fan-rad) will hurt performance, from my experience anyway) but if you go (fan-rad-fan) it helps yes, but they should be the same speed/cfm, but i see people using different ones so might be worth a try.

 

[TheThermaltaker]

so you have 9 yates on a MCR320?

double up fans (i mean fan-fan-rad) will hurt performance, from my experience anyway) but if you go (fan-rad-fan) it helps yes, but they should be the same speed/cfm, but i see people using different ones so might be worth a try.

What I meant is that I planned on using 6 fans, but realized I have 3 extra Yate mediums. If I were to buy some longer screws at a hardware store it would be easy to fit 9 fans on the rad, making it into a push push pull setup. Would 1650fan>rad>1650fan-1350fan be better than 1650fan>rad>1350fan? Here's a diagram of what I mean. The grey bar is the rad, the blue is the LED, and the black is the standard Yate. Is diagram 1 or 2 better? Automatically the rad would benefit from 1650 RPM fans, but would the 1350's behind it help lower temps or just push air outwards and heat up the case?

 

[TheThermaltaker]

for the MCP655 the inlet is in the middle and outlet is on the top.

rads don't matter as already stated.

using the picture below the horizontal is the inlet and the vertical is the outlet. you can also see the arrow on the outlet barb.

After test fitting some of the things that came in I noticed the barbs on the pump don't fit on my 1/2"ID tubing, no matter what way I try to work it on. Would dipping the tubing in hot water to fit it on damage the color/UV sensitivity? Or is there a method to getting tubing on the pump?

 

[Conumdrum]

Time for tough love. Google and search here for cleaning loop, getting loop ready etc.

I know I have written at least 3 times on cleaning a loop and what to check for a new loop in the last year. Give yourself a few hours of looking. If no luck, let me know, I'll get ya all ya need.

 

[Conumdrum]

After test fitting some of the things that came in I noticed the barbs on the pump don't fit on my 1/2"ID tubing, no matter what way I try to work it on. Would dipping the tubing in hot water to fit it on damage the color/UV sensitivity? Or is there a method to getting tubing on the pump?

They fit, same setup as me. I think I finally resorted to a bit of spit, but they do go on. Now you can see the wisdom of not using 7/16" ID, imagine using it.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

What I meant is that I planned on using 6 fans, but realized I have 3 extra Yate mediums. If I were to buy some longer screws at a hardware store it would be easy to fit 9 fans on the rad, making it into a push push pull setup. Would 1650fan>rad>1650fan-1350fan be better than 1650fan>rad>1350fan? Here's a diagram of what I mean. The grey bar is the rad, the blue is the LED, and the black is the standard Yate. Is diagram 1 or 2 better? Automatically the rad would benefit from 1650 RPM fans, but would the 1350's behind it help lower temps or just push air outwards and heat up the case?

go with the first pic. double up the fans like in the second pic will hurt the airflow. if they where spaced maybe it would work but i doubt it. 6 fans on it is plenty.

 

[TheThermaltaker]

Time for tough love. Google and search here for cleaning loop, getting loop ready etc.

I know I have written at least 3 times on cleaning a loop and what to check for a new loop in the last year. Give yourself a few hours of looking. If no luck, let me know, I'll get ya all ya need.

I know exactly how to clean my loop and prepare everything (and have already cleaned/prepared most of the parts), what I couldn't find were some tips on draining the loop and how often I need to do a complete tear-down of the loop for dismantling and cleaning. The draining question was my mistake though, after looking through my search history I realized why I couldn't find anything on draining the system; Because I had searched for "bleed" in Water Cooling instead of "drain" (FAIL). As for the pump, dismantling it and cleaning it would work, but it would be a lot easier to run some distilled water through it for a minute. What I don't know though is if that will clean it as well as the cleaning process I've used on my CPU and GPU waterblocks so far. I searched for "clean pump" or something like that before I posted the question and the only thing that came up was an unanswered post from last year. I'm a long-time member of another forum (non-computer related) who completely destroys noob non-searchers, so I make sure to search before posting a query to not be hypocritical.

 

[TheThermaltaker]

go with the first pic. double up the fans like in the second pic will hurt the airflow. if they where spaced maybe it would work but i doubt it. 6 fans on it is plenty.

I'm curious, what would cause doubled fans to limit airflow? If I were to double up the 1650's and leave the 1350's alone, would it be better than just 3 fans on each side?