Recommended Pump(s) and Advice for First Custom Water Cooling Loop?

[5hadowking115]

Summary: Looking to cool two systems on one loop in one case. Two GPUs, two CPUs, gaming and office work with hybrid NAS. Is it possible/efficient, what pump should I use, what GPU blocks should I get? Should I even use one loop, or split it into two?

Hey Guys,

So I'm completely new to custom water cooling, only things I know are what I saw on YouTube, mostly JayzTwoCents. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good pump for my rig, which is still in planning stages of its cooling.

I plan to liquid cool two CPUs and two GPUs on a single loop, using a Phanteks Enthoo Mini XL chassis to house two different systems:


- The first is my gaming/NAS combo running off an mATX (I'm debating using an mITX for better airflow, sacrificing expandability) board with an i7-8700k hexcore and (hopefully) 1080 or 1080ti. This one's going to be hooked up to a 2560x1440 165Hz monitor and a 2560x1080 144Hz simultaneously.
- The second is an mITX board with an i5-6400 quad core and GTX 1050/1050ti for general use, but focused on office and media. This one will be hooked up to two 2560x1440 165Hz monitors simultaneously


Now, of course I'm not sure what kind of pump is powerful enough for this rig, or if even cooling the whole system on one loop is efficient, given they'll both usually be running simultaneously, and I have no idea what to do for the GPUs either.
For CPU waterblocks, I was thinking about using (mind my near-direct quoting) EK Suprema​cy EVO Ace​tal + Nick​el Origina​l QSC blocks for both CPUs and an EK DBay D5​ MX Acetal as my reservoir.

Now, for the GPU blocks, I'm not sure where to start. Do all blocks work the same? I looked on EK's website, and some of them say "1080". Does that mean compatible with all 1080 cards, is it a model number, etc.? And what about the 1050?

Any advice is appreciated, considering I've never worked with custom loops before, and have zero practice doing this. Thanks in advance guys, y'all are always a huge help

 

[n0ns3ns3]

Very interesting plan. I will comment form practical point of view which does not include "because I want/can" and will add a bonus option to do it with less HW
So practically, liquid cooling i5-6400 (or any non overclockable CPU) and sub 100w GPU is pointless waste of resources. they can be passively cooled, especially the 1050. moreover, there is no full cover block for 1050 simply because it costs more than a card.
For the 6 core with 1080Ti, there is a need for at least 4x120 rad surface, and preferably 6x120 or 4x140. it can be 280 + 360 for example. with two systems installed, you lose the ability to install the rear radiator. and i'm not sure how much clearance the second system will leave for the top radiator. at least 45x145mm required for the top rad.

To pump the liquid through a loop with 2 rads, CPU block and GPU block, a single DDC or D5 (my favorite) pump will be more than sufficient. Even adding another CPU block will be no problem. If you want to have redundancy, a pair of pumps can be used either as a separate in different point or as a single piece like this https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-xtop-revo-dual-d5-pwm-serial-incl-pump.
The bay reservoirs have some downsides due to their form factor, so I'd recommend to use tube reservoirs. Much easier to fill and much less air going back to the loop. The most advanced and flexible tops and mounts are made by Singularity Computers. If you want to learn how to build advanced loops, check their youtube channel. not as entertaining as Jay, but much more professional.

CPU block/blcoks:
check the Kryos Cuplex Next by aquacomputer - they are the high-end when it comes to liquid cooling. some models include the VISION - small OLED screen with usefull info, some have VARIO - adjustable geometry to tune performance to a specific CPU die layout.
https://shop.aquacomputer.de/index.php?cPath=7_11_12_2694

GPU blocks:
as already mentioned above, there is no full cover block for 1050, the lowest end card to have a GPU block would be GTX 1060 on reference PCB.
The GPU blocks are designed for a specific card due to different components layout and height used by different manufacturers. the most common block is for the cards based on the reference PCB design provided by NVIDIA. The most known form of those cards is the Founders Edition, but there are plenty of other cards using same PCB with different cooler.
for example, this block will fit all the cards in the list as they are all based on reference PCB https://www.ekwb.com/configurator/waterblock/3831109831977

As for your dilemma about MB format, I found little to no use for the extra PCIe slots in last decade. The only practical use for them is for the multi GPU which I personally find unnecessary. A single card can do well enough with any monitor/resolution without issues like support, stability, high input lag for the multi GPU.
On modern mITX MB, a person can find 2xM.2 slots, up to 32GB RAM, decent sound an plenty other features.

Bonus - Multiple systems on a single machine:
you can get the idea from Linus 7 gamers on one CPU video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI
The idea is simple, there is a base/host Linux OS that runs everything else as virtual machines with direct HW access. So the performance of the virtual machines is practically the same as running them on real HW.
I built such a system for myself using borrowed i7-4770 (my 4770K does not support VT-d which is required to assign real HW to virtual machines) and it work really well with Linux as my general usage/work machine and the Windows inside for gaming. Gaming performance was identical to running it on the same system on bare metal. I didn't even had to reinstall the windows as it can simply be imported with it's own SSD to run as virtual machine from existing installation. And it was running in that little mITX build that you can see in my signature. Unfortunately for me I had to return the CPU after a few months. I couldn't justify the system HW upgrade since this machine is 99% of the time is gaming.

If you are uncomfortable to use Linux on a daily basis, you can use two virtualized windows machines, but that will require an additional GPU.