[SOLVED] First liquid cooling

[Frazzy]

Any advice on starting liquid cooling as ive already got case fans?

 

[Isokolon]

can you get a bit more precise? get a block, a pump, fittings.

 

[Zerk2012]

I prefer air myself, custom water is a lot of work and requires maintenance, AIO coolers have about a 5 or 6 year lifespan.

 

[Phaaze88]

Here's a start: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/overclocking-cooling-water-cooling-sticky-index.3599603/

Also:
-lots of research
-more research
-don't skimp on the research
Custom cooling requires some patience. Rush it, and it'll bite you - both figuratively and literally.

 

[punkncat]

I have to say that the thought of having a custom loop sounded really cool right up to the point that I started pricing kits from well known suppliers. AIO it was....

 

[mazooni]

I built my custom loop almost 10 years ago. I did months of planning and research. And I don't mean like 5 or 10 minutes a day. I was reading for hours every single day for months. Not necessarily because I felt that much was necessary for a successful loop, I just found everything so interesting. That being said the loop has been running for close to 10 years now and I have been way too lazy to do any maintenance (literally didn't maintain the loop at all). It is still running perfectly. I am not telling you this because I don't think you shouldn't do maintenance. The point I am trying to make is I didn't care to maintain it because of how much work it would be (which is awfully lazy on my part). The performance is still great although it is not my primary rig anymore it runs a home media server (I had 2x 480mm radiators, 1x 360mm radiator, 1x 140mm radiator) it was overkill for my build and allowed me to overclock to the wall. Just make sure you wanna do it because you think it's awesome and not as much for performance because beefy air coolers these days are pretty dang great.

 

[Karadjgne]

Pricing kits? Those are CHEAP. Lol. If you did the research on what full custom loops are, are for, how they work, why they work, the work expected and the parts to accomplish the work, you'd realize that a decent loop will cost upwards of $700 easily. $10 a fitting avg, 2 fittings per component minimum, some loops can use as much as 20ish fittings, rads run $50-$150, pumps run close to $100 each, distro plates are $200ish or more, cpu blocks are $100ish, gpu can be far higher.

The only cheap item in the entire loop is the distilled water.

Kits... 😂

Those are the toys you get in a Happy Meal, just saying.

 

[punkncat]

Pricing kits? Those are CHEAP. Lol. If you did the research on what full custom loops are, are for, how they work, why they work, the work expected and the parts to accomplish the work, you'd realize that a decent loop will cost upwards of $700 easily. $10 a fitting avg, 2 fittings per component minimum, some loops can use as much as 20ish fittings, rads run $50-$150, pumps run close to $100 each, distro plates are $200ish or more, cpu blocks are $100ish, gpu can be far higher.

The only cheap item in the entire loop is the distilled water.

Kits... 😂

Those are the toys you get in a Happy Meal, just saying.

I can't help but feel a little picked on here...

I am FAR too cheap to be investing that much into a cooling solution. It pains me to spend a bill on an AIO or good air solution. I AM that guy waiting for Ryzen 3 to drop so I can get a 3700X for $100 a few months after....

 

[grimfox]

Yesterday there was a guy complaining about the airflow in the case he bought and the only solution to keep the case was to go custom water cooling. Which is way more than buying a new case. 3-4 times more.

Some people like to play DND. Some of those people like painting their own character models or writing their own quests. It's the same for PC building. Some people like to add water cooling and some people like to write their own code. Water cooling is a hobby unto itself.

I almost always tell people that are looking to "get better temps" that it's not worth the cost. Get a bigger air cooler or a AIO. Or a different case. There are many ways to get better temps than to water cool.

That said, I do it. I spent about 600USD all told on my loop and it's nothing too impressive. Softline tubing. 280 rad. I probably need to buy some new tubes and do a clean and rebuild. It took me a little over a week to build because I hadn't done it before and had to order some fittings that I hadn't taken into account. That was after months of research. Also, most builds you see online or at shows use fancy fluids and dyes. You can't use those at home. They always fall out/fade/clog. Use straight distilled water all the time every time. Straight water lacks a lot of the appeal of the fancy fluids.

I'd like to do another build, but I'm saving up for a new TV instead. I'll get a lot more out of a 600 dollar TV than I would out of another 600 dollar WC loop.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yep. Most ppl are semi-clueless about full custom loops. And not just the costs involved or the maintenance. When finished, I'll have 2x 240mm rads in a case literally no bigger than a average shoebox, a tubing routing nightmare. Grand total will be just under $800, but that includes the 4x Noctua A25 fans which were just shy of $100 by themselves. But at 700-800rpm they'll be dead silent. As hard as I can push that pc, they'll not go faster, no need. They only way you'll be able to know the pc is actually on is the leds on the kb/mouse. That degree of silence took a whole different amount of research, as to what rads, what pump etc pto get those results.

Anybody with half a brain can watercool with a liquid loop, that's what TT and EK are counting on with those kits and the online performance designers and such, but getting a loop to do what you want, not what it wants, is a whole different level of thought.

 

[coolraveen]

For my Ryzen 5 3600 i have 4 case fans, three at front and 1 at rear, with a Antec A400 tower air cooler,
i get idle 43-45 and gaming - 75.
So its enough for me and tower air cooler are reliable, when compared to water cooler, for liquid cooler you have to lot of research and layout is very much important, if the pump fails your cpu will go burst.

 

[rubix_1011]

Part of the problem with relying only on what is discussed on forums is there is no guarantee that the person answering the question has enough knowledge to recommend what they are providing as the solution. Simply providing an solution doesn't always make it the right one. This is where doing some homework should be expected of anyone who is willing to spend money on their PC - it is your money....not theirs. Why ONLY take their advice and do so blindly?

Having a case with terrible airflow will still cause problems even for the most expensive liquid cooling setup. If there isn't any air to exchange the heat being generated with the ambient room air, you are just building an expensive PC into a convection oven.

Let's go back to the basic question here:

Why do you want/need liquid cooling, whether its an AIO or an expensive custom loop?

Determining the driving force behind this question is where we will find our answers.

 

[geofelt]

Any advice on starting liquid cooling as ive already got case fans?

First,what is your objective?
Are you looking for record overclocks?
Do you have a space restricted case?
Do you care about aesthetics?
liquid, just for the hell of it?
Are you looking at a simple aio or a custom cooling setup?
Is this to cool a cpu or a graphics card?

My first reaction was; if you have to ask the question, then you should not be doing liquid cooling.

Regardless for a good answer, you need to supply more details.
Make/model of the cpu, gpu, case at the very least.