Best Watercooling config with dual rads with cpu and gpu setup

[Fickert]

Hi I am new the forum.

I am looking into doing my first custom water cooling loop and I have a good idea of what I want in it, but am not terribly familiar with the whole optimal part selection.

So I am looking to do a whole build with the following components:

• 
  MSI X99A Gaming Titanium LGA 2011 - v3 ATX Mobo
  
  Corsair RMx Series RM1000W PSU
  
  Intel i7 6800k
  
  Mushkin 512gb ssd
  
  OCZ m.2 256gb x4
  
  Corsair Vengeance LPX 64gb (8x 8gb) DDR4 with Coolers
  
  x2 Seagate HDD 7200 rpm 3TB in raid 0
  
  Acer Predator Z35 1440p with g-sync
  
  Various Thermaltake Riing RGB fans (to fill radiators and case)
  
  MSI GTX 1070 with EK waterblock
  

Now I am looking to get started on the build once Corsair releases their new Carbide 740 case.

This case can easily accommodate a triple 120mm radiator and a double 140mm radiator. I would like to use these in conjunction with a nice looking reservoir, and have the pump tucked away in the back part of the case with the PSU and drives.

I am looking to add another 1070 down the road but would like to have all this installed initially because it will look awesome.

All in all I am in need of suggestions for what radiators, pump, reservoir, cpu block, coolant, dyes, additives, and routing is best for this?

Side note, I am in a serious RGB mood for this build as well so I am leaning towards using the 16mm od Thermaltake Compression Fittings with paste white coolant. I am also leaning towards petg tubing to make a clean build and a clear cpu block.

I am willing to pay for the components to an extend but trying to stay under 450ish for the loop so I am looking for middle ground components, or willing to splurge on the cpu block or something if recommendations permit such.

Thank you!

 

[Mattz982]

450 $ or £? also, just so you know, watercooling is an expensive business, and I think that 450 ($ or £) may not be enough for what youre after.

 

[Fickert]

450 $ or £? also, just so you know, watercooling is an expensive business, and I think that 450 ($ or £) may not be enough for what youre after.

Thank you for the clarifying question.

I am in the states so 450 USD.

Also I realize this may be a bit of a challenge as I asked this question with not a whole lot of understanding of picking components. I have realized that I will be at least $450 in on the loop. Which at this point I am fine with paying more than 450 for what I want. I just do not want to go above and beyond what I need. If I go with the fittings I want, and the cpu block (the gtx 1070s will already have blocks on them so I do not consider them part of the cost of the loop) then I can get close I think.

I am a bit concerned on the reservoir size though. With dual rads would a 150mm be large enough?

I am pretty sure I am set and stone on the swiftech 655 pump. They have it (non-variable speed version) at a local MicroCenter to me for 75 bucks. Cannot really argue with that imo seeing the praise for this pump.

And as for radiators I am still slightly confused on what I should get. I mean this is a gaming rig and 3d modelling will be ran on it often, in conjunction with a 3d printer slicing program. I will have high static pressure pwm fans either pulling or pushing (I don't think I will have enough clearance for push-pull, but if I do I will do this) but I am concerned with a good middle ground fpi. I have been reading the sticky thread a lot which is where I learned a bunch of info, but it all seems kind of dated as well.

 

[King Dranzer]

I think this is your first custom build. For first custom loop I would recommend going for soft-tube instead of hard-tube. Working with soft-tube is easy, you can cut it easily and bend it as per your requirements without need of heating it.
As you are going for custom loop would recommend you to get EK loop as all the parts fit perfectly together whereas XSPC and Frozen CPU has bit threading problem when I last checked(1 year back may have improved since then).

 

[Fickert]

Yes this will be my first custom liquid cooling build.

I have read a lot about people recommending to go soft tube first. I don't mean to gloat but I am very good with doing "tedious" modifications and feel confident in bending and getting my tubing length right. I also plan on buying extra to get good practice in and see which way is best to bend and find lengths are.

I am a huge fan of the hard tubing and am not really seeing to get these made up as a concern.

I think I have narrowed down to a specific radiator for the 280mm and 360mm. There are good reviews for the Alphacool XT45 radiators. Thoughts?

 

[King Dranzer]

Go for Alphacool rads as they are best and EK water blocks because EK blocks are best performers.

First connect reservoir to 280mm rad and connect rad to CPU block. Then connect CPU block to 360mm rad and connect rad to GPU block. Then connect GPU block to reservoir thus completing the loop.

 

[Mattz982]

ek cpu block, make sure its the X99 block.
For the price, your best bet is probably going to be XSPC rads
Tubing, hard tube is more expensive due to having to get lots of different fittings, so if you are stuck for money, then just go soft for the time being. Hard is possible and quite easy, it just requires more equipment, i know from experience.
Could I recommend the EK D5 Vario pump, just because it's a solid pump.
Yea, so if you want I can do a shopping list for you, the best place to go is performance pc's

 

[Fickert]

ek cpu block, make sure its the X99 block.
For the price, your best bet is probably going to be XSPC rads
Tubing, hard tube is more expensive due to having to get lots of different fittings, so if you are stuck for money, then just go soft for the time being. Hard is possible and quite easy, it just requires more equipment, i know from experience.
Could I recommend the EK D5 Vario pump, just because it's a solid pump.
Yea, so if you want I can do a shopping list for you, the best place to go is performance pc's

That would be perfect if you could. I currently went shopping and pulled together a list from mostly AquaTuning.us. Feel free to neglect the fans and fittings since those two things can change quite easily.

 

[Fickert]

So I first want to thank you for the direction to Performance PCs. They have a killer site.

I have a cart made that I would love to have looked over for any input. I believe I added enough 45's 90's and connectors for my personal setup but only time will tell. Also the large quantity of tubing is for in case of errors and learning so I am hoping to see maybe 1/4 actually used in my PC.

I am mainly concerned with the pump with my setup.

Here is a link to my list.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bxi0uBhn1toSRmc5MEk5RmlwZjQ

 

[Mattz982]

Looks good, I would recomend any D5 pump really, thats gonna be your best bet. Also, idk if the tube cutter will cut PETG, i think you may just need a saw of some sort, thats what I have used. Also, you dont have the CPU block in

 

[Fickert]

Looks good, I would recomend any D5 pump really, thats gonna be your best bet. Also, idk if the tube cutter will cut PETG, i think you may just need a saw of some sort, thats what I have used. Also, you dont have the CPU block in

Ah thank you for the catch, I had to recreate my list after I made an account on their site and had forgotten it.

I also changed the 280mm rad to a 240mm. Then I can get the same fans throughout the case.

And I figured I saved a few bucks from the rad change that it got me jump to the g 1/4 threaded d5 swifttech pump.

 

[King Dranzer]

So I first want to thank you for the direction to Performance PCs. They have a killer site.

I have a cart made that I would love to have looked over for any input. I believe I added enough 45's 90's and connectors for my personal setup but only time will tell. Also the large quantity of tubing is for in case of errors and learning so I am hoping to see maybe 1/4 actually used in my PC.

I am mainly concerned with the pump with my setup.

Here is a link to my list.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bxi0uBhn1toSRmc5MEk5RmlwZjQ

That was what I was talking about. If you wanna do hard tubing do it on a complete scale without using angled barbs. With angled barbs the risk of leakage increases. I would rather recommend you get a heat-gun, good pair of gloves and few extra hard tubes to experiment with.

I would still recommend CPU and GPU blocks from EK as they are best performers.

That cutter will work with PETG tubes

 

[Fickert]

So I first want to thank you for the direction to Performance PCs. They have a killer site.

I have a cart made that I would love to have looked over for any input. I believe I added enough 45's 90's and connectors for my personal setup but only time will tell. Also the large quantity of tubing is for in case of errors and learning so I am hoping to see maybe 1/4 actually used in my PC.

I am mainly concerned with the pump with my setup.

Here is a link to my list.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bxi0uBhn1toSRmc5MEk5RmlwZjQ

That was what I was talking about. If you wanna do hard tubing do it on a complete scale without using angled barbs. With angled barbs the risk of leakage increases. I would rather recommend you get a heat-gun, good pair of gloves and few extra hard tubes to experiment with.

I would still recommend CPU and GPU blocks from EK as they are best performers.

That cutter will work with PETG tubes

Thats actually a great recommendation. I was planning on still bending the tubes with 90's and 45's but use the barbs to help mount to the rads or pump if need be. But I didn't have the thought of bending the tube at that area where they meet until now. That will also drop the cost a bit which is very nice. Considering I was hoping to not spend more than 450 or so I feel 487 is very fair.

In regards to the EK blocks that is all I hear people recommend so I chose the Supremacy Evo for the cpu, unless you have a better EK recommendation.

I am going to be using MSI GTX 1070 Sea Hawk EK X cards in SLI so I assume they are the same as the separate block from EK, or they at least appear to be.

Thank you.

Updated List

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxi0uBhn1toSQmc2LVRya1FJNGM/view?usp=sharing

 

[Mattz982]

I know that im saying one thing and then the other guy is saying another thing, but realistically you're not going to be doing this without a few 90's and 45's, thats just hard tube for you, risk of leaks are nominal, equipment these days is much better than it used to be, if you do it right then it shouldnt leak.

without them your'e going to be bending very close to the ports which will deform the tube unless youre maybe 50mm away from the fitting, and at that distance you will end up will a clearance issues. You can TRY to do it without any 90's, but buy a couple and then if you dont need them, just return them, but I guarantee you will, look at basically any high end system with hard tube and there will be at least 1 angle fitting. I know, from experience.

 

[King Dranzer]

I know that im saying one thing and then the other guy is saying another thing, but realistically you're not going to be doing this without a few 90's and 45's, thats just hard tube for you, risk of leaks are nominal, equipment these days is much better than it used to be, if you do it right then it shouldnt leak.

without them your'e going to be bending very close to the ports which will deform the tube unless youre maybe 50mm away from the fitting, and at that distance you will end up will a clearance issues. You can TRY to do it without any 90's, but buy a couple and then if you dont need them, just return them, but I guarantee you will, look at basically any high end system with hard tube and there will be at least 1 angle fitting. I know, from experience.

You are trying to say is that doing exact small bends is hard as that little part of the tube can not be bend easily and can cause deform the tube. Yes agreed but it depends how the person is working on it. If one takes the perfect measurements of the tube and cuts accordingly and then try to bend it will possibly deform. To get good and perfect bend we should take the measurements we need and cut the tube leaving bit extra length on both sides. That extra length helps us to hold the tube easily while bending it and thus get a perfect bend. After bending is over we can cut out the extra tube from both sides to get perfect results. Like this the the loop is completed without angled fittings and is more leak-proof.

I personally did many small bends for SLI loop when I had to do 90' in between the GPUs using this technique and it always worked out perfectly.

 

[Fickert]

I know that im saying one thing and then the other guy is saying another thing, but realistically you're not going to be doing this without a few 90's and 45's, thats just hard tube for you, risk of leaks are nominal, equipment these days is much better than it used to be, if you do it right then it shouldnt leak.

without them your'e going to be bending very close to the ports which will deform the tube unless youre maybe 50mm away from the fitting, and at that distance you will end up will a clearance issues. You can TRY to do it without any 90's, but buy a couple and then if you dont need them, just return them, but I guarantee you will, look at basically any high end system with hard tube and there will be at least 1 angle fitting. I know, from experience.

You are trying to say is that doing exact small bends is hard as that little part of the tube can not be bend easily and can cause deform the tube. Yes agreed but it depends how the person is working on it. If one takes the perfect measurements of the tube and cuts accordingly and then try to bend it will possibly deform. To get good and perfect bend we should take the measurements we need and cut the tube leaving bit extra length on both sides. That extra length helps us to hold the tube easily while bending it and thus get a perfect bend. After bending is over we can cut out the extra tube from both sides to get perfect results. Like this the the loop is completed without angled fittings and is more leak-proof.

I personally did many small bends for SLI loop when I had to do 90' in between the GPUs using this technique and it always worked out perfectly.

This is my thought process. Measure where the bends should be and then cut off the extra. It should leave enough tube for leverage and can save a bent tube if measurements are incorrect and need to be longer.

 

[Mattz982]

I know that im saying one thing and then the other guy is saying another thing, but realistically you're not going to be doing this without a few 90's and 45's, thats just hard tube for you, risk of leaks are nominal, equipment these days is much better than it used to be, if you do it right then it shouldnt leak.

without them your'e going to be bending very close to the ports which will deform the tube unless youre maybe 50mm away from the fitting, and at that distance you will end up will a clearance issues. You can TRY to do it without any 90's, but buy a couple and then if you dont need them, just return them, but I guarantee you will, look at basically any high end system with hard tube and there will be at least 1 angle fitting. I know, from experience.

You are trying to say is that doing exact small bends is hard as that little part of the tube can not be bend easily and can cause deform the tube. Yes agreed but it depends how the person is working on it. If one takes the perfect measurements of the tube and cuts accordingly and then try to bend it will possibly deform. To get good and perfect bend we should take the measurements we need and cut the tube leaving bit extra length on both sides. That extra length helps us to hold the tube easily while bending it and thus get a perfect bend. After bending is over we can cut out the extra tube from both sides to get perfect results. Like this the the loop is completed without angled fittings and is more leak-proof.

I personally did many small bends for SLI loop when I had to do 90' in between the GPUs using this technique and it always worked out perfectly.

This is my thought process. Measure where the bends should be and then cut off the extra. It should leave enough tube for leverage and can save a bent tube if measurements are incorrect and need to be longer.

It all depends on the path you want to take and how well you think it out. Personally I think a loop with 90's in it looks cleaner than loads of tight bends, thats my opinion, I think you should at least buy a few just incase, you can always return what you dont use, I've never had to worry about a fitting leaking on me, as long as you get good quality fittings you should be fine.