Liquid cooling setup

[Shadow_Wolf]

Hi guys, im looking at liquid cooling my new pc...
Ill be running
I7 3770K
2 GTX680's SLI
In a NZXT Phantom 820

Id like thoughts from you guys weather its worth cooling my GPU's and the CPU or just the CPU and what parts you would reccomend?

Currently I have 7 fans running in a HAF X ahaha so im kinda new to the Liquid cooling scene.

I have had a quick look around and im liking the XSPC X20 as the res but i dont really have much else lined up...

Thoughts and opinions are greatly appreciated.
Cheers.

 

[sfvirgo86]

im running an rs 240 in that same case for my 3770k, in the 820 u can fit a 360 up top a 240/280 down bottom, 140/120 rear. i would def say yes for the cpu, but unless ur doing some extreme oc on the 680's i would skip them, just now i peaked at 55c for 4.3 ghz at 1.15vcore. im thinkin about goin to a 360 up top and a 240 down bottom and adding a block for my 7950 after awhile

 

[manofchalk]

First off, you should read the water-cooling sticky if your interested in Custom Watercooling. It will explain many of the concepts and some of the maths behind water-cooling.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/277130-29-read-first-watercooling-sticky

If you still have questions after reading through, dont hesitate to ask.

Also if your water-cooling in a HAF-X, take a look at my build log (in my sig). Seeing others loops in your case really helps to visualize how it will all mesh together.

 

[Shadow_Wolf]

Intel Core i7 3770K/3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/LGA1155 Ivy Bridge
Gigabyte G1-SNIPER-3/Z77/4 x DDR3/4 x PCI-E3.0 x 16/6 x SATA3/10 x USB3.0/HDMI/DP/D-Sub/DVI-D/2 x GB
Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) CMZ16GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz CL9 DIMM Memory for for 2nd and 3rd ge
Western Digital 1TB SATA3 64M(WD1002FAEX)
Corsair 120GB Force GT Series 3 SSD
EVGA GTX680 2GB SC Edition x2
Pioneer SATA DVR220L 24X DVD Black & OEM Software
NZXT Phantom 820 Matte Black Full Tower case No PSU
Corsair AX-1200 1200W ATX 80+ Gold 100% Modular Cabling
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit OEM
Updated system...

Chalk, i read the sticky, few things i already knew and picked a few others up. im thinking of getting Raystorm 750 RX360 i can fit the rad up top of the case and if i need a 240 down bottom i can get, but if im only cooling the CPU then i think the raystorm is fine and it looks like a decent kit for a first time liquid cooler.

 

[Rustyy117]

My advice is if your planning to watercool the CPU, then watercool the GPU(s) aswell. Reason being is because you can buy very effective high end air coolers for CPU's which are substantially cheaper than custom water cooling.
Also GPU's benefit massively from watercooling so it would be a shame to leave them out of the loop, obviously you'll have to make sure you have enough radiator real-estate.
You should be able to get a 120.3 in the roof of the Phantom 820 and a thick 120.2 in the bottom of the case which would be plenty of radiator real estate for your needs.
A single D5 pump would do nicely aswell.

 

[manofchalk]

That kit should do just fine for a CPU only loop, could probably fit one of the GPU's in as well before you would start running out of radiator, but you will want to do the math and figure it out for sure.

One thing I have learnt from starting out with a kit, plan some way to drain the loop from the start. It will save you a lot of time and frustration later on, because no doubt you will eventually want to upgrade the loop.
Also consider some Anti-Bacterial solution, the common options are a Silver Kill-Coil or a Biocide like PT_Nuke or Deadwater.

 

[Shadow_Wolf]

@omgitzfatal:
Yer it will fit the 240 on base and 360 on top might run that.

@chalk:
yer i think i might need the second rad, probably going to be going past what just the 360 can handle. Literally thought about draining the loop before i read your mesage, i have a plan haha.

I want either my tubes or liquid green, ive looked around at stuff today and there are a few different coolants/Additives (Mayhem,fluidXP+,Koolance) but i think i would prefer the tubes themselves to be coloured or UV reactant so i can stick with distilled water as my coolant and a kill coil.
Thoughts? what do you guys use? Is it really so bad to have coolants/additives instead of just plain distilled water?

Cheers

 

[Rustyy117]

@omgitzfatal:
Yer it will fit the 240 on base and 360 on top might run that.

@chalk:
yer i think i might need the second rad, probably going to be going past what just the 360 can handle. Literally thought about draining the loop before i read your mesage, i have a plan haha.

I want either my tubes or liquid green, ive looked around at stuff today and there are a few different coolants/Additives (Mayhem,fluidXP+,Koolance) but i think i would prefer the tubes themselves to be coloured or UV reactant so i can stick with distilled water as my coolant and a kill coil.
Thoughts? what do you guys use? Is it really so bad to have coolants/additives instead of just plain distilled water?

Cheers

I prefer to use coloured tubing as I've tried using clear tubing with coloured coolant and the tubing has clouded within a few weeks which makes the coolant look dull.

Nothing wrong with coolants or additives, you'd still have to add a anti-bacterial solution to distilled water.

 

[manofchalk]

If you want colour in your loop, do it through coloured tubing and lighting. Dyes (particularly Mayhems Aurora) gunk up your blocks and stain tubing and acrylic over time.
Same with Dyed coolants.

Not that Coolants are necessarily bad, just that they are often dyed (see above), include unnecessary additives like anti-corrosives and biocides and cost a lot more than plain Distilled. Water has the highest thermal capacity of any liquid (except Mercury, but not really feasible to use that), the more additives in it, the less thermal capacity it has.
Though Biocides wont impact that in any meaningful way.

I use Distilled water and Kill-Coil. Cheap and the kill-coil is low maintenance, don't have to replace it like you do with a Biocide.
Also dont bother buying "quality" Distilled water, the water is contaminated as soon as it makes contact with the metals in the loop, so having a purer water to start wont have any effect. The Distilled available in any supermarket will be fine to use.

 

[Shadow_Wolf]

Ok sweet i think ill go the coloured tubing and just distilled water with a kill coil...
so my set up will be the system already stated above and if im ordering from XSPC i may aswell get everything from them...
Is the V4 pump that comes with the Raystorm enough?
Im going to have 2 GPU waterblocks one CPU water block a 360rad and a 240rad

 

[manofchalk]

The V4 is enough for the kit as is, but I imagine after another rad and two GPU blocks it will begin to struggle.
Might want to consider getting a stronger pump, a D5 variant would be good. Though that pretty much means dropping the kit and going fully custom, which it seems you will near be doing anyway.

 

[Shadow_Wolf]

haha ok its settled then, ill get the D5 vario in the raystorm pack it comes with and then get the extras i need. ill post pics when ive got it up and running an if i encounter any problems ill be straight back here!! cheers for the help thus far.