Water Cooling Overkill Opinion/Help

[DRosencraft]

I've had an AMD build now for nearly a decade. Currently my system is an FX-8150, a Gigabyte UD5, and a R9 290. Have watercooled my builds since I had a Phenom II. A buddy of mine is switching out his system a bit and had an Intel board up for grabs that he didn't want to bother trying to sell. Also decided he would try his hand at water cooling and decided he'd go for broke trying to cool an i7-4790k, 2x GTX 970s, and 2x Teslas. Went and bought a 9x 120mm rad and an XSPC D5 Photon, to compliment the 1/2" ID tubing and the assortment of EK blocks. I wasn't there to help him out, and he ended up getting a severe leak that threw coolant all over everything. Everything but his AX 1200i power supply survived, but it sort of scared him off water-cooling for now, so he decided to give away/sell all the stuff. He gave me the D5 Photon and the super Rad (plus what tubing he had left and the ModMyToys fittings).

So here's the gist of it. I want to add those water cooling components to my new Intel build, which will consist of an i5-4690k to be water cooled, a Gigabyte Z97x-SOC Force water cooled, and migrating over my water cooled R9-290. That will also include at least one or all of my current 360mm rad, 240mm rad, and a Swiftech mcp-355 in a Koolance bay reservoir.

First, I do recognize that the above rad total is completely overkill.

Second, I'm unsure if I need both pumps. Given the sheer mass of radiators, blocks, tubing, and elevation changes that the pump would have to push through, is either of those pumps by themselves alright, or should I have them in series somewhere along the loop to ensure consistent flow?

Third, is there an ideal progression here? Starting at the D5, my thoughts right now are as follows; D5> CPU>240rad>MB>360rad>MCP355>GPU>9x120rad>D5. What are your thoughts? Is there a better a option or is this about the best option? Does it not really matter?

 

[Apoca1ypse]

Am I reading that correctly, that you are using 9 120mm radiators ontop of a 240mm and 360mm rad?? If so, one pump is certainly not going to be enough.

1/2" tubing and EK blocks are pretty good for flow, and the D5 is a nice solid pump, so I would consider just using the 240 and 360 rads, and a single D5 will be enough.


I'm running 4 alphacool rads, CPU, GPU and mosfet blocks (all EK) with 1/2" tubing off a single D5 set to 3500rpm and no issues at all.

 

[DRosencraft]

It's not 9 120 radiators. It's this thing here- http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/wamo4xproblr.html - the Watercool Mo-Ra 3. It can fit either 4 180mm fans or 9 120mm fans, per side (so either 8 180mm or 18 120mm fans). So, technically speaking, it would be a matter of using 3 rads, though one of them is fairly large, hence my concern that one pump would not be enough. Would have to be a little more insane to actually go with essentially 11 radiators.

Like I said, I know this is a ton of rad real estate, but that's not the issue here. The issue is do I have enough pump to run through it all, and if the relative loop progression makes sense.