Questions About a Cosmos II Rig - Especially About Water Cooling

tskasa1

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Jan 18, 2013
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Hello, I am in the process of purchasing parts to build a high-end gaming rig. I want to make a versatile, powerful, rather extremely overclockable gaming rig, and I've come into some problems along this route. Mainly, the problem has to do with cooling, in the liquid cooling department. After some extensive research, I've come up with the following:

Essentials:

Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos II Ultra Tower - $317 (Amazon)

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V Motherboard Pro - $200 (Amazon)

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K Hex-Core 3.2 GHz Processor - $570 (TigerDirect)
Thermal Paste: Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra Thermal Paste - $12 (Coollaboratory Website)

GPU: EVGA Nvidia GTX 690 - $1000 (Newegg)

Power Supply: CoolerMaster Silent Pro M2 RSF00-SPM2D3-US 1500W Power Supply - $400 (TigerDirect)

RAM: Patriot Viper 3 Black Mamba 32GB Quad-Channel 1600MHz Memory - $175 (TigerDirect)

Sound Card: ASUS Xonar Essence STX Sound Card - $185 (Newegg)

HDD: 2x Western Digital WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD - $180 (Newegg)

Monitors 2x Samsung S24B350HL 23.6-inch 1080p Monitor - $214 (Amazon)

Essential Parts Total - $3647






Cooling:

GPU Block: XSPC Razor GTX690 - $130 (FrozenCPU)

Top Radiator: XSPC AX360 Triple Fan Radiator - $100 (Frozen CPU)
Top Fans: 3x 120mm Scythe SY1225SL12M Slip Stream Case Fan (1200 RPM) - $9 (Petra's Tech Shop)
*This is for CPU and Motherboard

Bottom Radiator: XSPC AX240 Dual Fan Radiator - $80 (Frozen CPU)
*I plan to swap out the bottom HDD cage for this; This is for GPU

CPU Block: EKWB EK-Supreme HF - $100 (Amazon)

Motherboard Block: ASUS P8Z77 Series Cooler Set POM - $120 (Mips Computer.de)

Fan Control: NZXT SEN-001LX Sentry LX - $64 (Newegg)

Tubing: 10x 1/2-inch Tygon Silver Antimicrobial Tubing - $3.55/foot (Petra's Tech Shop)
*For a total of about 10 feet. Sounds like a lot, imho, but it's my first time and I'd rather have too much to not have
to order again if I mess up too much, and whatever is left over I can save for future modding

2x XSPC D5 Vario/Dual Bay Reservoir Combo -$148 (Amazon)

140mm Scythe Kaze Maru 2 Slip Stream (1200 RPM) - $15 (Amazon)
*This is to replace main 140mm fan that comes with Cosmos II since I hear its basic cooling is trash

Fittings: 14x Bitspower True Silver 1/2-inch Fitting - $10 (Sidewinder Computer Systems)

NOTE: I plan to use distilled water as the coolant

Cooling Total - $1092.5

Grand Total - $4739.5

My questions are the following:

1) Will my choice of radiators work with the Cosmos II case without need for further customization (removal of HDD case not included)? Also, will it work with the chosen fans (and still allow me to close the lid)?

2) Do I have enough fittings? And if so, are they compatible with everything else that needs them or will I need other sizes?

3) Will I need any extra fittings outside of the bare minimums for the blocks/rads/pumps? If so, about how many do you think I'd need and of what kind?

4) Are there any better parts that you could recommend that would drastically alter the cost (+/- $100 per piece) of the rig?

5) Am I fine on mixing metals? Will I need to get something special to fight off corrosion or the like?

6) I chose to use a third party fan controller because I'd also like to have a display that tells me how hot my rig is getting. I've also heard that the built in fan controller doesn't work too well with nonCM fans (is that true?). Will this setup work this way or should I go for something else?

I'm sorry for all the questions, however, help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
Why a 1500W PSU? Way overkill, an 850W is closer to what you should be getting on this rig.
No SSD?

But on to the water-cooling
First of all you should be asking the water-cooling forum, and I suggest you do.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-29-380.html
Your just lucky that I know about how to get your computer wet :).

I must ask where you plan to fit that fan-controller and two Dual bay res/pumps when you only have three 5.25" drive bays? Suggest you get pump and res inside the case, not in the drive bays.
Also any plans to include a T-Line to facilitate easy draining or filling of the loop?
I question whether water-cooling the motherboard is worth it, in the vast majority of cases it isn't.

1. Yes, though I advise you get...
Why a 1500W PSU? Way overkill, an 850W is closer to what you should be getting on this rig.
No SSD?

But on to the water-cooling
First of all you should be asking the water-cooling forum, and I suggest you do.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-29-380.html
Your just lucky that I know about how to get your computer wet :).

I must ask where you plan to fit that fan-controller and two Dual bay res/pumps when you only have three 5.25" drive bays? Suggest you get pump and res inside the case, not in the drive bays.
Also any plans to include a T-Line to facilitate easy draining or filling of the loop?
I question whether water-cooling the motherboard is worth it, in the vast majority of cases it isn't.

1. Yes, though I advise you get EX rads. Thinner than the AX and at the RPM you'l be running the fans on it likely wont make a difference.

2. Yep, you have enough fittings for the loop as is.

3. Nope, all use G1/4 threads so your good on fitting compatibility.

4. Drop the pump/res' and just get a stronger internal pump and a dedicated res. Drop the mobo-cooling as well.

5. You shouldn't need anything special to prevent corrosion, as long as you keep the metals in the loop reasonable (Copper, Nickel, Brass, Bronze, Silver) it wont be much of a concern.

6. Not sure, but all fan-controllers in a nutshell are just variable resistors, dont know why it would only work with CM fans.
Two issues I can see is the lack of drive bays to put it in, and the fact that the controller only offers 4W per channel. Unless you want each of the 5 channels dedicated to an individual fan, you haven't got enough wattage. You'l want to find something that's offering more like 30W on each channel, then you can control multiple fans off the one channel.
 
Solution

tskasa1

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Jan 18, 2013
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Ahhh, sorry about that.

Nope, no SSDs. Honestly, I prefer raw storage capacity, and 7200RPM drives seem fast enough. I've never really gotten the huge deal with SSDs which, while faster, don't seem to improve that radically on HDDs and sacrifice a significant amount of storage power because of it.

As for the PSU, I can see your point.

I'm thinking of putting the pumps inside the case itself. One of them is going to be placed in place of the HDD Cage on the lower right corner of the case. The other one in the main compartment. If that would not work, could you recommend a good alternative?

As for the T-Line...my god, I can't believe I hadn't thought of that. That's a pretty great idea, haha. I feel pretty dumb now... That's prolly the way to go, and although I think I'll have to plan it out a bit more, it'll essentially amount to a T-junction with a fitted stopper on one of the ends, right?

1) Would the thinness offer me any other advantage? I mean, if it fits along with the fans then wouldn't it be more advantageous to go with the slightly thicker one since it'll work better if I choose to ever upgrade the fans to something more powerful (something I'm considering now).

3) Damn... So then I'll need to get new ones >,> Can you recommend any silver ones I could use to hook up to 1/2-inch tubing?

Fittings are being especially annoying since I'm having trouble imagining what fittings I'll need for those things that are not directly hooked up to the blocks >,>

4) Oh, I had heard something about the MOFSETs having a tendency to get hot, so I had thought it best to go with a Mobo block as well.

As for the pump, will a single pump work well with the triple AND double rad? If so, could you recommend a good pump (and res) that would achieve that?

6) Well, I'm only really looking to control one fan per channel, since outside of the top fans and the main fan in the back, (and perhaps one extra one), I don't think that I'll be adding fans.
 
Once you'v used an SSD based system, never go back to HDD's. On a rig of this budget $100 isn't much to get a 128GB SSD, I really recommend you do.

Why would you get drive bay pump/res' and not put them in the bays? Would just be best off with a dedicated internal pump and res.

Thats pretty much what a T-Line is.

1. Would just generally take up less space in the case, which is always better IMO.

3. The fittings you have are fine, they will work.

4. As long as there is decent airflow through the case the mobo will be fine.

Would depend on the pump and the restriction on the various components. But a decent pump could handle what your after. As you can imagine, there aren't many ways for reservoirs to outperform one another. Get one that fits with your case. I'm personally looking at the Swiftech Micro-res for a reservoir and it seems fairly good.
 

tskasa1

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Jan 18, 2013
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I'll see what I can do about SSDs then.

3) Oh, okay. I misunderstood you, sorry.

4) Ahhh, okay, thanks.

As for reservoirs, does volume actually matter?

And lastly, could you recommend any good pumps?
 
The volume of the reservoir doesn't overly matter, but having a larger one can help when your filling the loop.
If you wanted to get really technical you could also that that more water to heat up means you hit your peak temperatures slower, but that has minimal effect unless you go extreme and have buckets of water.

I'm also looking at pumps right now, got my eye on the Koolance PMP-500.
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/12/13/koolance-pmp-500-pump/
Though you should figure out which pump is best for you, this will probably help.
http://martinsliquidlab.org/pump-planning-guide/
 

tskasa1

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Jan 18, 2013
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Just to clear it up, does the following revised cooling system work?

XSPC Razor GTX690 - $130 (FrozenCPU)
XSPC AX360 Triple Fan Radiator - $100 (Frozen CPU)
XSPC AX240 Dual Fan Radiator - $80 (Frozen CPU)
EKWB EK-Supreme HF - $100 (Amazon)
NZXT SEN-001LX Sentry LX - $64 (Newegg)
10x 1/2-inch Tygon Silver Antimicrobial Tubing - $3.55/foot(Petra's Tech Shop)
2x PMP-500 Pump - $77 (Koolance)
3x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm x 25mm Fan - 2150 RPM (D1225C12B6AP-45) - $15 (Frozen CPU)
140mm Scythe Kaze Maru 2 Slip Stream (1200 RPM) - $15 (Amazon)
17x Bitspower True Silver 1/2-inch Fitting - $10 (Sidewinder Computer Systems)
Enzotech G1/4" Stop Fitting - Nickel Plate (Metallic Silver) - $4 (Frozen CPU)
Phobya 180 Degree T Bock - Silver Nickel (64092) - $8 (Frozen CPU)
Phobya Balancer 450 Reservoir - Silver Nickel - $48 (Frozen CPU)
 

tskasa1

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Jan 18, 2013
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Only listed five because the COSMOS II case comes with a dual 120mm fan in the bottom left bay, which is where I plan to put the dual rad. Although I've been planning some more and decided for some overhauls and to change all the fans. This ended up making the cooling system the following:


XSPC Razor GTX690 - $130 (FrozenCPU)
XSPC AX360 Triple Fan Radiator - $100 (Frozen CPU)
XSPC AX240 Dual Fan Radiator - $80 (Frozen CPU)
EKWB EK-Supreme HF - $100 (Amazon)
Lamptron FC Touch - 30W - 6 Channel - $70 (Frozen CPU)
10x 1/2-inch Tygon Silver Antimicrobial Tubing - $3.55/foot(Petra's Tech Shop)
2x PMP-500 Pump - $77 (Koolance)
5x Cooler Master SickleFlow R4 Series 120 Silent Fan - $12 (Frozen CPU)
Aerocool Shark Black Edition 140mm - $17 (Frozen CPU)
17x Bitspower True Silver 1/2-inch Fitting - $10 (Sidewinder Computer Systems)
Enzotech G1/4" Stop Fitting - Nickel Plate (Metallic Silver) - $4 (Frozen CPU)
Phobya 180 Degree T Bock - Silver Nickel (64092) - $8 (Frozen CPU)
Phobya Balancer 450 Reservoir - Silver Nickel - $48 (Frozen CPU)
Silverstone Air Penetrator AP181 180 x 180 x 32mm Fan - $24 (Frozen CPU)
FrozenCPU Noise Dampening Material - $15 (Frozen CPU)
FrozenCPU Power Supply Rubber Silencer - $3 (Frozen CPU)

Cooling Total - $1019

 
Those Sickleflow fans are not good for radiator use.
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Silverstone Air Penetrators, Noctua NF-12's, Gentle Typhoon (forgot which model) are the recommended fans for radiator use.
When picking a radiator fan, you want more static pressure rather than CFM, especially with the thick AX rads you have chosen.

To me it seems fine, though I would wait for reply's on the water-cooling forum thread, they know a lot more than I do.