Purchasing a custom water loop for a 5960X and GTX 980 SLI. Need help.

[Amisently]

Which brands have the best quality and how much will all this cost? My budget is around ~$1500 give or take. I'm planning to OC both the 980's and the 5960X. My system specs: Asus X99 Deluxe, 5960X, GTX 980 SLI, and the case is the 900D Corsair. I'm looking for white tubes instead of the 'regular' transparent ones?

 

[RobCrezz]

Not sure about white tubes, but I have seen people use the clear tubes and use white coolant.

 

[Menkes]

For liquid cooling its best to use Colored tubing and clear coolant. A lot of colored coolants tend to gunk up your narrow passes on cooling blocks are hurt performance greatly, so the safest practice is not to add them at all - only add a biocide that is supported by all of your cooling blocks metallic composition.

EKWB (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/) just released new blocks for the 980's. From my experience EKWB has amazing support and products and i recommend them without hesitation!

I recently bought a complete cooling system from them for my 900D which included:
(2) 480 radiators
(1) 240 radiator
(2) 3m colored tubing - although 1 pack of 3 meters was enough for more
(16) Compression fittings
(1) pump/res combo with the D5 pump - very reliable
(1) Supremacy EVO waterblock
(2) 780 ti full cover blocks

and it all came down to around 800-850 Euro (1000-1100 USD).

I only needed 1700ml of distilled water to fill up my loop by the way.

EDIT: I also want to note that this does not include fans, cables or controllers. so take that in mind!
I loaded mine with 13 SP120 fans undervolted for quiet operation.

All of that radiator power is indeed what you would call an "overkill" to some, but running your overclocked CPU and GPUs on room temperature on idle and having a delta of about 20 degrees to full load while not hearing even a hint of noise is a great advantage.

 

[Amisently]

For liquid cooling its best to use Colored tubing and clear coolant. A lot of colored coolants tend to gunk up your narrow passes on cooling blocks are hurt performance greatly, so the safest practice is not to add them at all - only add a biocide that is supported by all of your cooling blocks metallic composition.

EKWB (http://www.ekwb.com/shop/) just released new blocks for the 980's. From my experience EKWB has amazing support and products and i recommend them without hesitation!

I recently bought a complete cooling system from them for my 900D which included:
(2) 480 radiators
(1) 240 radiator
(2) 3m colored tubing - although 1 pack of 3 meters was enough for more
(16) Compression fittings
(1) pump/res combo with the D5 pump - very reliable
(1) Supremacy EVO waterblock
(2) 780 ti full cover blocks

and it all came down to around 800-850 Euro (1000-1100 USD).

I only needed 1700ml of distilled water to fill up my loop by the way.

EDIT: I also want to note that this does not include fans, cables or controllers. so take that in mind!
I loaded mine with 13 SP120 fans undervolted for quiet operation.

All of that radiator power is indeed what you would call an "overkill" to some, but running your overclocked CPU and GPUs on room temperature on idle and having a delta of about 20 degrees to full load while not hearing even a hint of noise is a great advantage.

Thank you very much for your response. I will definitely consider EKWB for my liquid cooling system, and coloured tubing.

 

[Davil]

I have had 0 issues with any parts I've used from any manufacturer or colored coolant. If you use koolance they actually recommend you use their coolants because they supposedly contain lubricants and other additives that maintain the chemistry of the water and prevent biologic growth inside your loop. Really the key to building your loop is doing what is in your budget and checking reviews on different parts. www.frozencpu.com is one of the best sites out there for finding parts and there are more. If you wanted to use koolance parts you can buy from them directly. $1000 for a loop not including fans, cables, or controllers is pretty crazy for most of us. I don't care how you sell it 13 fans worth of radiators is completely unnecessary. I cooled an OC'ed 4770k and 2 gtx 680s on 1 thick 240mm rad and I really didn't hear the fans unless I was running prime95 or some other kind of stress test.

You can ask for recommendations on manufacturers but really it comes down to doing research. What you will actually need will depend on your tdp for each component which is how many watts you need to dissipate. For a 5960x you are looking at about 115w and 2 gtx980's should be around 340w without overclocking either. Add about 20% for overclocking and you need to be able to get rid of about 550watts or so worth of cooling. So knowing that you just need to find radiators that will make that happen, a 360mm radiator should do just fine with the right fans. I don't recommend sp120's because they're more or less middle of the road fans. You can find quieter fans with more static pressure and airflow for about the same price or cheaper. Also steer clear of bay reservoirs because they may seem easy to install but they are generally horrible at getting air out of the loop and keeping it out. Most D5 pumps are all pretty much the same, if you want a really powerful pump I'd look at koolance's pmp-500, it is fairly loud without a baffle box of some type though.

 

[Menkes]

I have had 0 issues with any parts I've used from any manufacturer or colored coolant. If you use koolance they actually recommend you use their coolants because they supposedly contain lubricants and other additives that maintain the chemistry of the water and prevent biologic growth inside your loop. Really the key to building your loop is doing what is in your budget and checking reviews on different parts. www.frozencpu.com is one of the best sites out there for finding parts and there are more. If you wanted to use koolance parts you can buy from them directly. $1000 for a loop not including fans, cables, or controllers is pretty crazy for most of us. I don't care how you sell it 13 fans worth of radiators is completely unnecessary. I cooled an OC'ed 4770k and 2 gtx 680s on 1 thick 240mm rad and I really didn't hear the fans unless I was running prime95 or some other kind of stress test.

You can ask for recommendations on manufacturers but really it comes down to doing research. What you will actually need will depend on your tdp for each component which is how many watts you need to dissipate. For a 5960x you are looking at about 115w and 2 gtx980's should be around 340w without overclocking either. Add about 20% for overclocking and you need to be able to get rid of about 550watts or so worth of cooling. So knowing that you just need to find radiators that will make that happen, a 360mm radiator should do just fine with the right fans. I don't recommend sp120's because they're more or less middle of the road fans. You can find quieter fans with more static pressure and airflow for about the same price or cheaper. Also steer clear of bay reservoirs because they may seem easy to install but they are generally horrible at getting air out of the loop and keeping it out. Most D5 pumps are all pretty much the same, if you want a really powerful pump I'd look at koolance's pmp-500, it is fairly loud without a baffle box of some type though.

By no means did i recommend spending 1000$ on a cooling system, most people are more than done at around 300-400. I did recommend going with EKWB, while mixing components in the loop is possible and done in most of the cooling loops built at home, i like to keep mine with one brand, making sure everything matches perfectly.
One company's nickle plating can cause another company's copper metal to act up.

Using a branded coolant is fine, but sticking to the clear one will make sure you are on the safe side and require much less maintenance.

If you don't take my work for it look up some tech feeds on youtube like Linus or Jay and hear their recommendations as well.

 

[Davil]

I haven't watched anything from Jay, every time I watch something Linus makes it irritates me to no end how opinionated and flat out wrong he is most of the time. That's probably why everyone thinks SP120's are a good fan, he gave them such a glowing review but look at these:

Koolance fan compared to SP120 Specs
Almost half the price almost and twice the performance.

Don't get me started on reviewers like him that advertise a freaking mod-right modding mat. Even he couldn't sell that like it made sense to buy it. His opinions come from his sponsors and own ignorance. And they really do not outweigh the sum total of the entire internet worth of reviews on different products and results.

That being said you did bring up a good point that we had missed which is different metals. Brass and copper are ok to mix, the plumbing in your house is likely all brass and copper. But you should not mix them with alluminum so that's another thing to check when you are picking out parts. The only way corrosion will happen is on parts that water touches, and I'm pretty sure nickel isn't used inside of any part. Plenty of things are nickel plated sure, but not on the inside where it counts.

 

[rubix_1011]

Have you read through the watercooling sticky? It is linked below in my signature.

 

[Davil]

Have you read through the watercooling sticky? It is linked below in my signature.

Also a great source of information because it pretty much has everything you need to know.