Water cooling rig idea help please

[Stewartwi]

This is the water cooling rig that I was thinking of getting. If anyone sees any problems then please let me know. Also can anyone tell me what the best water cooling fluid to use is? I heard Primochill is good but I also heard alot of people suggest to go with just distilled water and an anti-growth additive. Thanks in advance

Pump: Swiftech MCP655™ 12v Water Pump w/ 3/8" Conversion Kit (317 GPH)

Radiator: Danger Den Black Ice GTX Xtreme 480 Radiator - Black

Reservoir: XSPC Passive 250mm Reservoir - BLACK

CPU WB: Swiftech STORM Extreme Performance Universal CPU Waterblock - Revision 2

VGA WB: Swiftech MCW60 VGA Water Block w/ MC14 BGA Ramsinks W/ the G80 adapter kit from SWiftech. Anyone happen to know if the swiftech MCW-Ramcool will fit on the G80's?

Chipset WB: Swiftech MCW30 SLI Chipset Water Block

Tubing: Tygon Anti-Kink 1/2" ID (5/8" OD) Tubing

Pardon the messy looking post please.

 

[Stewartwi]

A couple of questions I have is my choice in reservoir ok? I mean is that going to hold enough fluid? I have no idea how much fluid a system should hold this will be my first water cooling project. Also will my choice in a rad effect anything I mean will the pump have enough head room to push through the rad and the blocks and reservoir ok? Any help would be greatly welcome.

Also what do you guys think about NorthWater Xtreme Water Xchangers? Here's the link to them Clicky Seems awfully expensive to me but if they'll help I'll bite.

 

[p8ntslinger676]

that all looks pretty good but personally if I were you I would be running two stage loop, first stage for the graphics cards and second for the processor and chipsets or vise versa using two 2x120's instead of that gigantic 4x120, I personally have a 3x120 and it is almost as long as my case is, plus you will get better overall cooling with a setup like this. say the loop first goes to the processor and then the chipset, then to your graphics card without being cooled at this point, all that heat from the processor will already be in the loop so you will not be able to get as low of temps as you might want out of your graphics card, and you deffinatly dont need a reservoir that is that big, i suggest just getting a single or dual drive bay reservoir which will be more than enough for any water cooling setup.

This is the pump I have and it has the exact same output as the swiftech pump but you will save a good $30 and it is a quality pump but it is also a bit bigger which is one of the downsides to it:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=201&products_id=2741

and I would also recommend using 7/16" id tubing because it will give you tighter fits around the barbs and has pretty much become the standard size tubing for anyone that is using a 1/2" barb and has been around water cooling for a while. and make sure you are getting clamps to fit around the outside of the tubing so they are good and secure around the barbs.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=292&products_id=3705

coolant wise i would suggest using either Primochill PC Ice (this is what im using in my loop right now) or Fluid XP+ Extreme, you will get almost the exact same performance out of the two, I chose PC Ice cus it was cheaper.

and some other good sites to look on for water cooling parts are Xoxide.com and Performance-pcs.com, I noticed that they seemed to have lower prices on a few different things and have always had good experiances with the two, Frozen CPU is also a good company but I noticed they always have a lot of stuff out of stock.

Side note: If you are going to upgrade to also be using a TEC cooler with your water cooling setup to get below ambient temps (and below freezing) then get the swiftech apogee waterblock since it hase a much larger serface area to pull heat from and the TEC's themselves also produce quite a bit of heat themselves so it all contributes to the heating and I have heard many stories of the Storm not being able to keep up with the amount of heat the TEC's are putting out. (here is a link if you want to know more about water cooling with a TEC, CLICK HERE!!!)

Happy Overclocking !!!

 

[Stewartwi]

@ P8ntslinger676

Thanks a ton man I'll look up the new tubing size and I'll go with the two loop setup for sure. As far as the reservoir being so big is there a downside to it other then it being large? I kinda like the design on it. My case idea is either a CoolerMaster Stacker 830 or the Tai Chi from ThermalTake going to buy a case for the purpose of water cooling. :-D I do plan on eventually looking at the TEC cooling and hell even Phase Change in the future but will probably just use water for a while so see how that goes.

Any thoughts on the NorthWater Xtreme Water heat Xchangers?

 

[chuckshissle]

First of all what cpu are you cooling and how much overclocking you want? Also what G80 are you using and how many?

 

[Stewartwi]

First of all what cpu are you cooling and how much overclocking you want? Also what G80 are you using and how many?

Going to be QX6700 and 2 eVGA 8800's GTX on an eVGA 680I board. It's an awesome build going to have to be won't be able to upgrade for quite awhile. Have a baby coming in January. So no money after this for awhile.

I'm thinking I might got with Danger Den 8800 water block instead of the Swiftech since the danger den cools the ram as well as the card. As far as overclocking goes I would like to squeeze out all I can while staying stable. I had thought about using the Vigor Monsoon II for the processor and then just cool the VGA's. But not sure if I should use that setup or not.

This is the other pump I was looking at if you guys can look at it too and tell me what you think. Hydor SELTZ L 45 II

 

[chuckshissle]

Okay good. With the QX6700 you can water cool that for sure and do some serious overclocking, that is if you have the right motherboard and ram. That cpu, north bridge and two 8800GTX will put out lots of heat.

Well you could start cooling the cpu alone, you don't need to go water cooling the gpu's. The heatsink fan for it is good enough and with you can do some overclocking. It's also quite.

With that setup, it's good to overclock that cpu so that it can fully utilized both 8800GTX while gaming. Besides for now, no game will hinder that system.

The north bridge is better when cooled during heavy overclocking but not necessarily needed to be water cooled. It will only add more heat to the loop. You can use a good cooler for that chipset like that one Thermalright offers. That way you don't include it on the water cooling setup does cooling the cpu better.

For now I'd say you should just water cool the cpu and overclock it. Cool the northbridge with the HSF and leave the graphics card on the stock setting. Those water blocks are so expensive, two of those will get you one 8800GTS.

As for the equipment you need that Hydor pushing 950GPH so that you'll have no problem for future upgrades and performance. Get a good 2x120mm radiator, you can snag one from CoolingWorks which is the best in performance and price. Get a rad box from swiftech for the rad and also use 4 fans for a push-pull setup. As for the water block, use the Swiftech Storm (rev2). I use that one and it's very outstanding.

For the north bridge cooling use the Thermalright HR-05 or HR-05-SLI what that fits on the motherboard. Then install an 70-80mm low rpm low noise fan for better cooling.

I got most of my water cooling components from Frozencpu.com., Xoxide.com, and CrazyPC.com. You'll pretty much have everything you need for water cooling in this sites.

So that said, you'll water cool the cpu first and overclock it to run them 8800GTX. That way you can always upgrade later on.

 

[BGP_Spook]

Just use distilled water.

Don't put any Aluminum in contact with the water.
Don't buy the "NorthWater Xtreme Water Xchanger Large."<--Reason above.
Don't buy the "XSPC Passive 250mm Reservoir." <--Reason above.

Don't buy from FrozenCPU. I mean it! They charge an arm and a leg too much.
Don't buy that Hydor. There are better quality cheaper pumps out there with more head pressure and less heat dump.

Go with the MCP655 or something like it.

If you are willing to spend $150 on a radiator then buy a Thermochill PA120.2 or PA120.3 as they are the best in that price category.

Since you are cooling a CPU with an IHS you may want to consider the Apogee instead. The numbers show that for a CPU with an IHS you will likely get results that are very close to that of a Storm(within 1 C under load).
Although, if you go with the Storm you are getting the best block possible.

What fans are you going to use?


EDIT:
Places where you should look for more WCing(water cooling) advice:
XS
Procooling

And general hardware advice from nice people:
Bleedinedge

 

[Stewartwi]

What fans are you going to use?

I'm planning on using these Silverstone FM121 using push pull. If you were going to suggest a pump with lots of head room what would you suggest?

@Chuckshissle

I had actually thought about what you suggested with just doing the CPU and not worrying about the video cards until further down the road since nothing was going to touch those cards at the moment. Haven't decided yet on what I'm going to do in that regard. What do you think about that BGP_Spook?

Thank you all for the help.

 

[BGP_Spook]

What fans are you going to use?

I'm planning on using these Silverstone FM121 using push pull.
They would work.
Also worth looking at Panaflows, Scyths, and Yateloons.

If you were going to suggest a pump with lots of head room what would you suggest?

I hate to call you out but....
It is not "head room," it is just "head" or "static head" in our case.

The Swiftech MCP 655 is good.

The Laing DDC series(aka Swiftech MCP 350 and 355) are also popular.

What do you think about that (just cooling the CPU) BGP_Spook?

I would start with just the CPU as well, NB cooling is overboard unless you are doing some pretty extreme overclocking. I would keep the GPU's at stock clocks as long as they do their jobs well, hence no need to WC them.

 

[Stewartwi]

I hate to call you out but....
It is not "head room," it is just "head" or "static head" in our case.

Oh no worries man I'm heading into a new land here. This will be my first go at water cooling so if I sound and seem like a newb it's because I am. heh Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Stewartwi]

Also on the same note if I'm just going to Water cool the CPU couldn't I just go with something like Vigor Monsoon II and just skip the water cooling till I needed to do more? I've read some great reviews on the Monsoon but I would prefer to go with whichever one will allow me to OC better. What do you guys think?

 

[mcain591]

Trust me, go with a TEC cooler. Also, if you are going with the G80, get 2 of these: BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB Water Cooled PCI Express Video Card w/3/8in Fittings. There are SO many other things that need to be cooled other than the GPU on any DX10 cards.
Also, if you do go with TEC cooling, BE SURE to put at least a dual rad after the TEC. And use at min. a single rad after each GPU.
As far as coolant goes, distilled water and zyrex is the way to go. Save yourself some money and get this over pre-formulated mixtures. Trust me, those mixtures are wasted $.

 

[Stewartwi]

@mcain591

Yeah I saw those blocks for the G80 those are extremely nice. I think what I might end up doing is going with the TEC cooler and then just holding off on doing anything with the 8800's till the more advance games comes out.

I think my main reason I'm trying to get everything now is me and my wife are having our first baby in Jan and I'm just freaking out that I won't have the money to get anything for my computer till down the road and that's just plain scary. heh

Well, thanks again for all the advise guys.

 

[BGP_Spook]

Complicated issue.

Generally, a good WCing setup will allow for a higher OC(overclock) due simply to the nature of water cooling.

On the other hand you should be able to achieve good OC results even with the stock HSF(heatsink/fan).

However, most people find the amount of noise produced by OCing with an air cooler to be annoying. Hence some advantages go to WCing.

Also, empirically, an OCed and WCed CPU will last longer than an OCed and air cooled CPU based on the idea that will WCing keep the chip cooler.

Without getting too technical and speaking generally, the higher the temperature the shorter the life of the CPU. Typical Intel sever specs say there should be 1 failure in 100 CPUs in a ten year period under typical operating circumstances. OCing and/or higher temps will cause more rapid failures though this is very rarely a problem if one is not overly abusive to a CPU. Look up electronmigration for more information.

 

[mcain591]

Just make sure that you do your research ahead of time so you know how to prepare for TEC cooling. Use that link that someone posted to xtremesystems forums.
When I say preperation, I mean 2 things that you need to do.
First, you take your mobo, cover all ports and things that wouldn't like being sprayed, and you then give it a couple of coats of, forgot the name, but an anti-condensation electronic spray. Go to the Danger Den petilier cooling section, and you'll see the stuff.
Secondly, you will need to use, yet again forgot the name, an anti-condensation (silicon based?) gel. After you put your CPU in, just lather the gel around the cpu socket, effectively sealing it, and use it as glue inbetween the anti-condensation foam.
Best of luck.

 

[Stewartwi]

@mcain591

Well, the TEC cooler I'm thinking of using is the Vigor Monsoon II cooler which is alot less complicated install it's mainly like installing a standard HS Fan. At least from the installation guides I've seen.

 

[mcain591]

Its your choice, but if I were you, I wouldn't go with that. In order to be truly effective, go with something like the Swiftec APOGE TEC waterblock. You'll be seeing temps as low as 20-10 deg. F. Just my 2 cents.

 

[chuckshissle]

For the push-pull setup, you don't have to use the FM121. Yes, I do use them for my radiator since I got them when I was still air-cooling the cpu. You can use a decent low-noise fans and since it's push-pull the airflow will be smooth no matter what. Well that is if you want a low-noise rads. However the FM121 can do the same and much more since you can adjust the rpm, but it's pricey. I remember spending $12 for one FM121.

 

[p8ntslinger676]

O and BTW im going to be upgrading to this tec setup in a week or so:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2411/exp-04/437W_Qmax_Peltier.html?tl=g30c105s187

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3198/psu-123/Mean_Well_600W_24V_Single_Output_Switching_Auxiliary_Power_Supply_SE-600-24.html?tl=g30c105s190

^^^that is a dedicated PSU just for that TEC since it will be pulling so much power, then im going to have to make a cold plate out of copper to stick in between the tec and the processor

 

[chuckshissle]

This fans are good and low-cost.

Silverstone FN121
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999346

 

[p8ntslinger676]

ya but they only move 53cfm, the ones he already has chosen move twice that

 

[tool_462]

But he says he is going to use a push/pull setup, the FN121 will perform extremely close to the FM121 when both setup at full speed. We are talking 8 fans on a 480mm rad here, plenty of airflow. I would imagine that the OP would end up turning down the speed of the FM121 to roughly the specs of the FN121 to keep them quiet.

 

[wun911]

With tygon-anti-kink you never need to use cool sleves again...

Tell us how that tube goes...

 

[Stewartwi]

With tygon-anti-kink you never need to use cool sleves again...

Tell us how that tube goes...

I will do and I will post some pics up once I set everything up. I'll also post a final build list before I actually order everything was thinking of ordering the stuff this coming friday. Will keep you guys informed.