Watercooling setup advice

[blockynosey]

Dear All,

I'm planning to get a custom watercooling system for my i5-4690 and Palit GTX780 Jetstream. Tentatively I'm considering the "Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 DDC/XT Set" in addition to a gpu full waterblock.

The main components in question are:

CPU block - Alphacool NexXxoS XP³ Light - Acetal Edition - Intel/
GPU block - Alphacool NexXxoS NVXP Nvidia GTX780 waterblock
Pump - DDC pump 12V DDC-1T built in with a 5.25" single bay reservoir.
Radiator - Alphacool XT 45mm thick, 240mm length full copper radiator (Power input: 11W)

My question is; will my pump and radiator be sufficient for my cooling system? I'm using a coolermaster N200 mATX case, space is an issue thus I'm stucked with the single bay + pump combination.

I live in Singapore, custom watercooling is not available here, everything has to be imported. The exchange rates is not in my favour to go for anything premium.

Thanks,
Joshua.

 

[manofchalk]

Pump is fine, though I generally prefer D5 over DDC pumps.
Radiator space, nope, you need more. Given your case, I reckon you will need to externally mount a rad.

If you remove the drive cage you would have plenty of room to mount a DDC/D5 pump and reservoir.

 

[blockynosey]

Thanks Manofchalk!

I reckon I might be able to install an additional 120 rad at the back exhaust, would it suffice?

But pump-wise, there is just isn't space for a D5 after considering the front 240 rad. I'll have to stick with a 5.25" bay + DDC combo.

This upgrade was planned with the removal of the 3.5" HDD cage (storage from HDD to SSD). I would consider this to be quite a major haul.

Another question of importance, how should I design the loop for the consideration of the need to change the liquid periodically?

Regards,
Joshua

 

[manofchalk]

Yea, an additional 120mm rad at the back would suffice, though I am a fan of having more rad than you need (dual 360mm for my loop 😛)

Still really dont like the bay mounted pump, in my experience its a good way to make it noisy since you cant pad it from vibration.

When planning out how the loop "goes" and its components, consider ease of draining and filling. The absolute perfect setup would be a drain line at the bottom most point in the loop, and a reservoir at the top, but its rarely that easy, especially since component choice is out of your hands given that your getting a kit. You basically want a T-Block and a Plug fitting, and you can put that in-line to the lowest part of the loop for drainage. Check my build log.

About the HDD cage actually, a review I'm looking at says you can shuffle it back, leaving 2.5" (63mm) of space between it and the front. A typical fan is 25mm long, so if you got a slim 240mm radiator you could get it keep the drive cage.
Another option is to externally mount a rad on top of the case, there are grommets at the back of the case for tubing routes.