Need help with new water cooling build

[xaugerx26]

Ok so I'm trying to help out a friend with water cooling his system but i need help because im quite new to the whole idea of water cooling. I have a pretty good idea of how to assemble everything together and such but what is really getting me is what parts to buy. Some questions have arised in my mind such as "1 or 2 radiators? How big should the radiators be? Whats block will fit my gpu? Which pump/reservoir/block is better?" Im just very confused on what im going to get atm so any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks ;D

Heres the build that we will be water cooling: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/D0B6

I should also mention that we are on a $450 budget due to his already insane build xD

 

[manofchalk]

First place to start would be the water-cooling sticky, it will explain a lot of the concepts behind water-cooling and some of the math.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/277130-29-read-first-watercooling-sticky
Chances are it will answer most of your questions.

Has that rig been built? Because it looks pretty unbalanced to me.

EDIT: You should get your friend to learn all this stuff as well, water-cooling isn't exactly something you can do without knowing background knowledge. And ultimately, they are the one who's going to be building, maintaining and upgrading the loop. So its best that they know understand what they are doing and getting themselves into.

 

[xaugerx26]

No it hasnt been built yet but it is open to suggestions because none of the parts have been ordered (Although he can be quite stubborn). But thank you for the response, I will make sure to check out the water cooling sticky ;D Also, What do you mean by unbalanced?

 

[manofchalk]

Balance is whether the parts are appropriate for each other, make sense and make the best use of your cash. The motherboard is overkill, you can drop $100 (to something like an AsRock Z77 Extreme4) from that and still have a board that will serve you just fine. Use the cash to upgrade to a 7970Ghz graphics, that will give a noticeable performance upgrade.
Plus a few other tweaks I would make.

Start a thread in the systems forum, that's where you can get this kind of advice. Use this format, it will be the first thing asked of you when you get there.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/353572-31-build-upgrade-advice

 

[xaugerx26]

Thanks alot for advice ;D I'll definitely talk to him tomorrow about him learning more about this stuff considering its his build. Also, I'll change up the build according to the recommendations I get in the systems forums. Again, Thank you. ;D

 

[xaugerx26]

Best answer selected by xaugerx26.