Building My First Custom Water Cooling Loop

[Frozen Fractal]

I know there are water coolers for CPUs, but do they sell things like this (water coolers for the entire computer) already pre-assembled? I'm not sure if I'd want to go through that tedious process, and I'd be willing to spend a bit more and buy a pre-made system water cooler. But do they even exist?

Yes, you can find pre-assembled PC with WC loop these days, although they cost much higher (well that's just a common downside of WC loop anyway, nothing to blame these retailers). XOTIC PC, CyberPowerPC and of UK, Overclockers UK are some among the many places where you can get one.

Also, what's the difference in the radiator and pump?

Pump makes a fluid flow (in this case, the coolant) and the radiator cools the coolant with fans blowing external air through the radiator. Essentially a pump emits few wattage of heat, as the OP says, somewhat of 20W, and that gets added with the total heat to be dissipated by the radiator.

 

[scook9]

For me, watercooling was fun and enables form factors that were not previously feasible, in my case an HTPC with a core i7 2700k and SLI GTX 570 HD cards all in an Antec Fusion HTPC case. It was a shame I had to place the fans externally but other than that the build came together great!

https://goo.gl/photos/z3H5JU9mK3ubDPG6A

 

[Blueberries]

For me, watercooling was fun and enables form factors that were not previously feasible, in my case an HTPC with a core i7 2700k and SLI GTX 570 HD cards all in an Antec Fusion HTPC case. It was a shame I had to place the fans externally but other than that the build came together great!

https://goo.gl/photos/z3H5JU9mK3ubDPG6A

Slim fans wouldn't fit?

 

[Math Geek]

i will be building a tiny footprint pc soon and plan on going with an aio cooler but am a long way from building my own custom loop. though i have thought of using some old parts as a test system to try it out some. if i can do it without killing the older parts, then i might give it a shot on a new build later on this year or early next year. still waiting on new gen cpu's and such before deciding on what the next system will be built with.

are water blocks for gpu's specific to each model or are there generic ones that work with many different cards? never looked into it and not sure at all how it works. can someone link me to a seller of these custom heat sinks and such for gpu's so i can start doing some research. that would be much awesome

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Generally toy will get several versions of water blocks

-Universal GPU only blocks

-Reference full card blocks (fit all vendors with reference models, usually including EVGA SC) *

-Non-reference full card blocks in the top 3 tiers for those with good sales (for example w/ 9xx...we'll see water blocks for non reference PCBs fom Asus, MSi, Gigabyte for the 970, 980, t80Ti and Titan).... less likely for the "off brands"

One of the best places we've had to research for well over a decade was the frozencpu.com site...tho no longer operating, web site is still up and it's waaaayyy better than any other functioning site for finding stuff. The don't expect to see new stuff since february when they ceasd operation.

For water blocks, a great tool to use us EK's cooling configurator... their blocks are the best by a long shot

http://configurator.ekwb.com/

Interestingly enough, my son just built his 1st WC box as a "finally got a job in my field after graduating school as a "math geek" present

He wanted to do it in stages .... he started w/ the idea of air cooling ..... moved to water cooling the CPU ... and will expand the loop to include the GFX cards come Xmas time

You can see pics of his build here
http://www.overclock.net/t/1418637/official-case-phanteks-club-enthoo-primo-primo-se-luxe-pro-mini-xl-evolv-evolv-itx-evolv-atx-lovers-owners/8760#post_23674282

 

[Math Geek]

thanks. looks like a good place to start seeing what is out there. more curious than anything


edit: even better thanks for the info. will be doing some reading and such myself. i have a couple old gpu's i can take apart to try some WC on. if they get messed up, it no biggie. figured better try it on some older stuff first then on the expensive parts.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

OOps...sorry. I added more stuff but you replied too fast

 

[Joshv8]

Awesome. Dream is to one day build a hard line water cooled PC