Question Need advice for water cooling parts.

[zachary1212123]

I am new to watercooling and i want to get into it. I want to upgrade my pc that i have at the moment to a water cooled pc. I am wondering what your thoughts are on the "thermaltake pacific w4 rgb cpu water block". Is this a decent water block or is it prone to leaks and errors. I am also wondering if a 360mm radiator is overkill for just cooling your cpu and if i would go with the 360m rad, would i be able to extend my water loop to cool my gpu as well.

 

[Lutfij]

I would suggest that you stay away from Thermaltake watercooling products. You should look into people who have been in the business for a long while, with a solid reputation. Some names are Aquacomputer, XSPC, EKWB are Alphacool.

 

[zachary1212123]

What would some of their parts be that you would recommend that i need to cool my cpu.(Like what size rad and pump/Reservoir)

 

[rubix_1011]

Have you read through the watercooling sticky? Can you provide some info on what you've looked at and research you have done so far so we can get an idea of how prepared you are?

 

[Raerayu]

Corsair or NZXT will give you the best results. Just make sure you get the right size for the radiator.

You will probably need a 240mm radiator. To find out what size you need, first find out where you will be placing the radiator, then find out what the sizes of the fans are in the area you're placing it. If you have two 120mm fans, get a 240mm radiator. If it's one 120mm fan, you can find a 120mm radiator.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XX8Q1CL/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_SszFCbWQ8XYV2

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077G3C6HH/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_FuzFCbT7YQ019

 

[Barty1884]

What components specifically are you looking to watercool?

While watercooling is pretty 'cool', it's a labour of love & nothing remotely close to a performance "value" for money.
If you're proposing running a custom loop on some mid-range or older components, I'd highly recommend you don't. For the money involved, you're best limiting a custom loop to some pretty high end components.

Your money, of course - just my $0.02

 

[zachary1212123]

Well i know a bit about water cooling. At the moment i have an older i7 chip but i know that you can change to socket type pretty easily if i were to upgrade my cpu. I know what happens when you mix copper and aluminum in the same loop. The case that i will be using or upgrading to is one that i made myself. It is based off of the thermaltakes P90 case. I don't think that i will go with water cooling my gpu at the moment because i am looking forward to upgrading it and it is a lot more expensive to upgrade your gpu waterblock then to upgrade the socket type for a cpu cooler. I want to have a big enough radiator and pump so that i don't have to buy new ones if i will upgrade my gpu to water cooling. While reading the sticky, i saw something that said if you upgrade to watercooling then your motherboards voltage regulators won't be aircooled like they were before. I am wondering if this is a major thing and can greatly decrease your mother boards lifespan and if it is the same for open and closed cases.

 

[Raerayu]

Well i know a bit about water cooling. At the moment i have an older i7 chip but i know that you can change to socket type pretty easily if i were to upgrade my cpu. I know what happens when you mix copper and aluminum in the same loop. The case that i will be using or upgrading to is one that i made myself. It is based off of the thermaltakes P90 case. I don't think that i will go with water cooling my gpu at the moment because i am looking forward to upgrading it and it is a lot more expensive to upgrade your gpu waterblock then to upgrade the socket type for a cpu cooler. I want to have a big enough radiator and pump so that i don't have to buy new ones if i will upgrade my gpu to water cooling. While reading the sticky, i saw something that said if you upgrade to watercooling then your motherboards voltage regulators won't be aircooled like they were before. I am wondering if this is a major thing and can greatly decrease your mother boards lifespan and if it is the same for open and closed cases.

You still have fans with a water cooler, your motherboard will be fine. I've never even come close to an overheating motherboard and I use an NZXT Water Cooler, the one I linked previously.

 

[rubix_1011]

Let's take a few steps back and look at some things in this thread real quick.

Also, while we're at it, let's stop and consider that there are really 2 main divisions in 'liquid cooling or watercooling': AIO's that come in a box, like Corsair, Cooler Master, NZXT, etc and watercooling kits/custom loops. There are very large differences in cost, performance and planning involved.

Corsair or NZXT will give you the best results. Just make sure you get the right size for the radiator.

No, not really accurate at all.

You will probably need a 240mm radiator. To find out what size you need, first find out where you will be placing the radiator, then find out what the sizes of the fans are in the area you're placing it. If you have two 120mm fans, get a 240mm radiator. If it's one 120mm fan, you can find a 120mm radiator.

Knowing how much radiator cooling area you need has nothing to do with 'what your case supports' and EVERYTHING about the TDP of the components being cooled. In this case, a CPU. Is the CPU at stock clocks? Overclocked? What speed and vcore?


The Watercooling 10 Commandments:

Thou shall not assume liquid cooling is always better than air cooling. Often times, great air coolers can outperform less-performing AIO coolers.

Thou shall not assume that 'having liquid cooling' means that it automatically is 'good liquid cooling'.

Thou shall not assume that an AIO liquid cooler will perform as well as custom watercooling, nor that a 120mm AIO, 240mm AIO, 280mm AIO or 360mm AIO all perform the same.

Thou shall realize that as in all water/liquid cooling, flow rate, fan speed/CFM and radiator size all play a part in cooling performance.

Thou shall realize that most AIO coolers are made by the same, few manufacturers and then rebranded, which mainly differ in software and fans used. Pumps and radiators are often exactly alike.

Thou shall realize that custom watercooling is often expensive and cutting corners with cheap no-name components might result in unknown (and unwarranted) disasters.

Thou shall reallize that you can find mounting hardware (bolts, nuts, washers) at your local hardware store if you need to customize to your needs.

Thou shall realize that you should know your cooling loop's complete TDP needs. This is not the same TDP needs your entire PC will require from a power supply...only the heat outputs being addressed from cooling blocks.

Thou shall realize that cooling loop delta-T is a result of ambient room temperature, cooling loop total radiator cooling volume, coolant flow rate, fan airflow/CFM and TDP of components being cooled. This defines the difference of coolant temperature vs. ambient room temperature. Good performing delta-T is 10C difference between room and coolant.

Thou shall realize that your reported CPU temps vs. ambient room temperature is a delta, but different than the delta-T of the coolant temperature of the cooling loop vs. ambient room temperature.

 

[zachary1212123]

Let's take a few steps back and look at some things in this thread real quick.

Also, while we're at it, let's stop and consider that there are really 2 main divisions in 'liquid cooling or watercooling': AIO's that come in a box, like Corsair, Cooler Master, NZXT, etc and watercooling kits/custom loops. There are very large differences in cost, performance and planning involved.



No, not really accurate at all.



Knowing how much radiator cooling area you need has nothing to do with 'what your case supports' and EVERYTHING about the TDP of the components being cooled. In this case, a CPU. Is the CPU at stock clocks? Overclocked? What speed and vcore?


The Watercooling 10 Commandments:

The CPU that i have is not overclocked and has the clock speed of 3.4 GHz. The cpu has the ability to be overclock to anywhere for 3.4 to 5.0 GHz. The TDP is 95 W. At the moment it's just my cpu that needs cooling but i what to have enough overkill with my pump and rad so that if i upgrade to cooling my gpu as well, i don't have to buy a new rad or pump/reservoir. I am also wondering if you can expand a closed loop like the ones that come in a kit or the AIO's that come in a box because they are significantly cheaper.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Imo, if at all worried about cost, watercooling is not for you.

With that being said, if you do want to later include the gpu in the loop, I would go with a 360mm radiator if your case allows. A 240 may cut it, but you may find you need more depending on the gpu you chose.

I currently have a 360mm for just my cpu and another 240, ready to go in, as I'm adding my gpu.

If you get a good pump, you probably won't need an up grade to that. I have an xspc photon x4 pump/res combo and I'm fairly confident it will do just fine for both cpu and gpu with 2 radiators.

My cpu block is an xspc raystorm. Simply chosen as the price was fair, and if I switch to amd in the future, all I need is a new mounting bracket. All of my fittings, rads, and fans are also xspc. I did however grab the ek gpu block, as I though it looked nicer.

My cpu loop was a "budget" build and was still almost $400.

 

[rubix_1011]

The CPU that i have is not overclocked and has the clock speed of 3.4 GHz. The cpu has the ability to be overclock to anywhere for 3.4 to 5.0 GHz. The TDP is 95 W.

Assuming you might have your CPU ever running at 100% full load, a 240mm AIO should be able to handle this. A good watercooling kit or custom loop would also be fine.

At the moment it's just my cpu that needs cooling but i what to have enough overkill with my pump and rad so that if i upgrade to cooling my gpu as well, i don't have to buy a new rad or pump/reservoir.

I'm not sure I understand, other than you want to have something that you can start with now and add your GPU to later? An AIO is not designed for this. Watercooling kits and custom loops do.

I am also wondering if you can expand a closed loop like the ones that come in a kit or the AIO's that come in a box because they are significantly cheaper.

Unless this is an EK or Swiftech expandable AIO, no, and you wouldn't want to. The pumps on AIOs are terrible, terrible. Like, less than 1 liter per minute and barely enough head pressure to move coolant.

Again, having 'liquid cooling' doesn't mean it's 'good liquid cooling'.

Having a car can mean having a Toyota Echo or a Bugatti Chiron. Both are cars, yes. Both do many of the same things - they take fuel to run, they have a windshield, engine and doors, you can drive them on roads and they hold people. Do they perform the same? No.

 

[zachary1212123]

So i have been doing alot of research last few days and i think that Ekwbs A360G kit on the fluid gaming website is the kit that i want to buy. Its an all aluminium kit and it cools the cpu and gpu. Since i plan on upgrading my gpu to a gtx 1070 or 1080 this kit will work fine. If you know of any problems with this kit please let me know. Since i am not really going for an rgb pc, this kit will work fine. Also what are your thoughts on hard Tubing versus soft tubing.

 

[rubix_1011]

If you choose that kit, you can't ever use copper, brass or nickel blocks or components with any of the aluminium components in that kit. There is a prominent warning label on everything in the kit, so just be aware. I reviewed one a while back...they are good quality, but just aluminum to be cheaper.

I don't know if there are any aluminum hard tubing fittings out there. You can't use hard or soft tubing interchangeably with the same fittings...you have to have specific ones to fit the tubing you choose.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Soft tubing if you're a beginner as it's easier. Hard to mess up, and cheaper. Hard tubing will look better, but it's tricky to get right. And you can end up wasting a lot of time and money on messed up tubing. But overall just takes patience to get right. I still prefer soft tubing builds. Bot only for ease of install, but also maintenance and accessibility to components. You don't have to disassemble your entire loop to replace a part that may fail, like ram, etc.

Fittings should be ok to use with the aluminum kit, right? I know most are brass, but the electroplating on most fittings, should lessen the chance of mixed metal interaction.

 

[Karadjgne]

Brass = copper + zinc alloy. Electroplating is a process where (usually) a metal base solution is electrically negatively energized and when an object placed in that solution is positively charged, the metals dissolved in the solution coat the object, welding on a molecular level. 1-2 molecule thick covering. Which in the case of fittings, is usually nickel.

For that EK kit, you'd get the EK ALU fittings which are colored aluminium fittings designed for those rads.

 

[zachary1212123]

If you choose that kit, you can't ever use copper, brass or nickel blocks or components with any of the aluminium components in that kit. There is a prominent warning label on everything in the kit, so just be aware. I reviewed one a while back...they are good quality, but just aluminum to be cheaper.

I don't know if there are any aluminum hard tubing fittings out there. You can't use hard or soft tubing interchangeably with the same fittings...you have to have specific ones to fit the tubing you choose.

I wanted to buy that kit but i found the XSPC raystorm 360 kit and i am buying that one instead. I knew it was aluminum but apparently as long as you don't mix metals it is an alright kit.

 

[rubix_1011]

Yeah, it's actually pretty solid as long as you don't use anything but aluminum with all components in the loop for the lifetime you use it.