Watercooling tips

[areuz]

Hey there,

I'm going to be making my first custom watercooling loop - going from a all in one H80i (It sucks...).
I have a few questions.

 

1. Liquid - I've heard many opinions, and I would like to get a final answer. Coolant with anticorrosives from a good brand VS distilled water with killcoil?

 

2. This is what my loop will consist of, I would like to get feedback/experiences:

    XSPC EX420 Radiator

    XSPC RayStorm CPU Block - I have an Intel 3770K on a ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe

    XSPC HighFlex Hose - 13/19mm or 1/2ID 3/4OD I think.

    XSPC D5 pump & Photon 270 reservoir combo

    (I didn't actually realise that all this was from XSPC till now )

    3x Noctua NF-A14 in push.

    Thermal paste will be a MX-4 I have laying around...

 

3. I'm going to have 2 of the 3 Noctuas running off of a Y cable, because my Mobo has only 2CPU Fan Headers... Is that OK, or a molex powered splitter will be any better?

 

4. I'm actually still not sure If a 420mm rad fits in the Enermax Fulmo GT case, It seems to be a rather rare case, I had to ship it from UK to Slovakia. Ofcourse it arrived with some damage, but I'm modding it anyway, so I will repair it. The manufacturer says that 420mm rad is compatible, but manufacturers like to lie... Also there is space for 2x 230mm fans, and the rad is 460mm long... soo.. I don't know.

 

Sorry for the photo quality, it made me compress it to 2MB

[wtfxmitchell]

did youi mod the case?

[areuz]

Yes, the black panel with the cutouts and gromets is actually pretty much the whole mod (Also had to cut out some holes in the backpanel cuz the holes didn't line up to the original ones), but I'm planning to do some more stuff. Like... PSU cover, sidepanel plexy because it has a mesh, I don't like those. Watercooling reservoir and maybe the rad aswell wil require some holes drilled. Etc.
But I don't plan any paintjobs right now...

[jd2195]

A 420mm rad is pretty overkill for just cooling a cpu so if you are worried about is fitting then you could just drop the size down to 360mm rad to make sure it will fit and it will still sufficiently cool your cpu.

[areuz]

I'm doing only the CPU right now because it is already REALY expensive and I know I will replace the 660Ti I have right now in a year or less and then I'm gonna watercool the new one aswell.

I'm just trying to cram as much stuff in there, because the pricing isn't that much different (If It doesn't fit, in my country you can just bring it back to the shop and get your money back - in max 14 days).. If somebody knows that it 100% doesn't fit, I will get a 360mm right away though

Also, I didn't find FPI of the EX420, anybody knows how much fin density it has?

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Hey there,

I'm going to be making my first custom watercooling loop - going from a all in one H80i (It sucks...).

I have a few questions.

 

1. Liquid - I've heard many opinions, and I would like to get a final answer. Coolant with anticorrosives from a good brand VS distilled water with killcoil?

 

2. This is what my loop will consist of, I would like to get feedback/experiences:

    XSPC EX420 Radiator

    XSPC RayStorm CPU Block - I have an Intel 3770K on a ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe

    XSPC HighFlex Hose - 13/19mm or 1/2ID 3/4OD I think.

    XSPC D5 pump & Photon 270 reservoir combo

    (I didn't actually realise that all this was from XSPC till now )

    3x Noctua NF-A14 in push.

    Thermal paste will be a MX-4 I have laying around...

 

3. I'm going to have 2 of the 3 Noctuas running off of a Y cable, because my Mobo has only 2CPU Fan Headers... Is that OK, or a molex powered splitter will be any better?

 

4. I'm actually still not sure If a 420mm rad fits in the Enermax Fulmo GT case, It seems to be a rather rare case, I had to ship it from UK to Slovakia. Ofcourse it arrived with some damage, but I'm modding it anyway, so I will repair it. The manufacturer says that 420mm rad is compatible, but manufacturers like to lie... Also there is space for 2x 230mm fans, and the rad is 460mm long... soo.. I don't know.

 

Sorry for the photo quality, it made me compress it to 2MB

Computer.jpg

 

Looks like a sensible loop to me. You'll get crazy low temps on the CPU only and nice temps when you add a GPU in there.

 

1. Anti-corrosives and biocides (a kill coil) are not the same thing. Anti-corrosives are needed when you're mixing aluminum components with other metals in your loop and biocides are needed to keep water-borne organisms from growing in your loop. Good coolants (Mayhems X1) have everything you need added but they might stain your tubing and water blocks. So it's up to you, distilled water + a kill coil is the most hassle free but you can go for colored coolant if you think it looks cooler and don't mind the potential risk of staining.

 

2. Great components! Personally I'd go with Primochill Advanced LRT for the tubing. It comes in some attractive colors you could combine with distilled water and a kill coil.

 

3. If you get the PWM versions of the NF-A14's you can get this, http://www.frozencpu.com/products/20988/ele-1196/Swiftech_8-Way_PWM_Cable_Splitter_-_SATA_Power_8W-PWM-SPL-ST.html . Otherwise just check your motherboard manual and see if it can handle the amount of wattage the fans pull on the headers. The formula is A x 12V to get the max W they will draw. Plenty of motherboards can handle three PWM fans no prob but calculate this first!

 

4. Dunno the case so I can't say for sure but it with the naked eye it looks like it'll fit. Plus you're willing to mod so go ahead with that if it doesn't. Another point you should remember to consider is motherboard/ram clearance with rad thickness in mind. I think max you can have in there is like 70mm configs.

[areuz]

Looks like a sensible loop to me. You'll get crazy low temps on the CPU only and nice temps when you add a GPU in there.

 

1. Anti-corrosives and biocides (a kill coil) are not the same thing. Anti-corrosives are needed when you're mixing aluminum components with other metals in your loop and biocides are needed to keep water-borne organisms from growing in your loop. Good coolants (Mayhems X1) have everything you need added but they might stain your tubing and water blocks. So it's up to you, distilled water + a kill coil is the most hassle free but you can go for colored coolant if you think it looks cooler and don't mind the potential risk of staining.

 

2. Great components! Personally I'd go with Primochill Advanced LRT for the tubing. It comes in some attractive colors you could combine with distilled water and a kill coil.

 

3. If you get the PWM versions of the NF-A14's you can get this, http://www.frozencpu.com/products/20988/ele-1196/Swiftech_8-Way_PWM_Cable_Splitter_-_SATA_Power_8W-PWM-SPL-ST.html . Otherwise just check your motherboard manual and see if it can handle the amount of wattage the fans pull on the headers. The formula is A x 12V to get the max W they will draw. Plenty of motherboards can handle three PWM fans no prob but calculate this first!

 

4. Dunno the case so I can't say for sure but it with the naked eye it looks like it'll fit. Plus you're willing to mod so go ahead with that if it doesn't. Another point you should remember to consider is motherboard/ram clearance with rad thickness in mind. I think max you can have in there is like 70mm configs.

 

Thanks for your amazing answer!

 

Yeah.. crazy low temps is what I'm going for, till now my CPU was running at high 80-95C° @4Ghz (I even think that the H80i was a bad unit, but didn't investigate further) so I will try to keep the CPU as cool as possible, but also do some nice overclocks, Adobe programs can really use more CPU power.

I'm probably going to go with the distilled water + kill coil as I planned, and I might get collored tubing instead of colored coolant. That shouldn't stain my blocks and reservoir, right?

 

I didn't think that a manual would have this in it, but I guess those 3 books that came with the motherboard have to be useful in some way CPU header can handle up to 12W/1Amp and "Max Input Power" of the noctuas are around 0.98Watts. So It's totaly fine I guess. I ordered the 3-Pin ones I think, but not sure, Slovak sites aren't that good at describing, all they say is  "Noctua NF-A14 FLX 1200rpm 140mm"...

 

There's actually nearly 100mm of space above the motherboard, but yeah, I have to put the 8-Pin somewhere. The radiator is 45mm thick + 25mm Fans, FPI unknown.. but the noctuas should handle it pretty easily. Also If it doesn't fit, I will have a hard time cutting a piece of the 5.25" area out, but I hope I won't have to do that.

 

Also, how do you think I can mount a plexi window in the sidepanel? (Obviously I want it to look nice from the outside):

 

[Shaqo_Wyn]

 

Thanks for your amazing answer!

 

Yeah.. crazy low temps is what I'm going for, till now my CPU was running at high 80-95C° @4Ghz (I even think that the H80i was a bad unit, but didn't investigate further) so I will try to keep the CPU as cool as possible, but also do some nice overclocks, Adobe programs can really use more CPU power.

I'm probably going to go with the distilled water + kill coil as I planned, and I might get collored tubing instead of colored coolant. That shouldn't stain my blocks and reservoir, right?

 

I didn't think that a manual would have this in it, but I guess those 3 books that came with the motherboard have to be useful in some way CPU header can handle up to 12W/1Amp and "Max Input Power" of the noctuas are around 0.98Watts. So It's totaly fine I guess. I ordered the 3-Pin ones I think, but not sure, Slovak sites aren't that good at describing, all they say is  "Noctua NF-A14 FLX 1200rpm 140mm"...

 

There's actually nearly 100mm of space above the motherboard, but yeah, I have to put the 8-Pin somewhere. The radiator is 45mm thick + 25mm Fans, FPI unknown.. but the noctuas should handle it pretty easily. Also If it doesn't fit, I will have a hard time cutting a piece of the 5.25" area out, but I hope I won't have to do that.

 

Also, how do you think I can mount a plexi window in the sidepanel? (Obviously I want it to look nice from the outside):

 

Sedepanel-01.jpg

Sedepanel-02.jpg

Sedepanel-03.jpg

 

You're welcome.

 

Nope, colored tubing won't give you any problems. Make sure you get tubing that doesn't have any plasticizers in it that can end up gunking up your loop.

 

Yup, the NF-A14 FLX's are 3-pin. Luckily you got those and not the ULN's. Their max RPM is really low and this sucks for most cases unless you have enough rad surface area that 800RPM fans would suffice. 

 

Well then you're good on the rad clearance. The EX series has 19 fpi but that's what NF-A14's are for. You'll definitely be fine since the EX rads aren't the thickest either. 

 

I'm not much of a modder, seeing how I have two left hands. Only thing I could think of is industrial staples but there are probably easier and better ways to go about it. 

[areuz]

You're welcome.

 

Nope, colored tubing won't give you any problems. Make sure you get tubing that doesn't have any plasticizers in it that can end up gunking up your loop.

 

Yup, the NF-A14 FLX's are 3-pin. Luckily you got those and not the ULN's. Their max RPM is really low and this sucks for most cases unless you have enough rad surface area that 800RPM fans would suffice. 

 

Well then you're good on the rad clearance. The EX series has 19 fpi but that's what NF-A14's are for. You'll definitely be fine since the EX rads aren't the thickest either. 

 

I'm not much of a modder, seeing how I have two left hands. Only thing I could think of is industrial staples but there are probably easier and better ways to go about it. 

 

Well, seems like I won't regret my decisions.

Now I'm probably going to the modding section to ask about the sidepanel

Really big thanks to you for all your  help, I mean it,

- FireDust

[Dr Fopolopolos]

 

I'm probably going to go with the distilled water + kill coil as I planned, and I might get collored tubing instead of colored coolant. 

 

I would personally recommend using a biocide such as pt nuke instead of a kill coil. It works great for me and I've heard it can be more effective.

[areuz]

I would personally recommend using a biocide such as pt nuke instead of a kill coil. It works great for me and I've heard it can be more effective.

I don't know... I read some forums, including this one http://www.overclock.net/t/1063387/biocide-vs-silver-coil-or-both - It's really old, but I don't feel like distilled water and pure silver changed over the years Also there were a lot of people saying they run on distilled an silver and had no problems in years... But I guess I will have to try it.

I plan to have a quick disconnect part under the reservoir anyway, so re-filling the loop will be easy   (But quick disconnects are freaking expensive... it's like 20 buck a piece, and you need two to make a connection)

 

But because you reccommend it, I'm going to do some more research on that

[areuz]

Found some more great forums on this topic if you are interested

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/45081-silver-coil-or-mayhems-biocide/

http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=58187 - Some  excellent posts over here!

http://www.specialtechforums.co.uk/showthread.php?1676-Biocide-or-silver-kill-coil - These guys are saying that biocide is better, but are not against kill coils either.
 

[Joshua Ondangan]

well I haven't tried having both a kill coil and a ptnuke in 1 loop but I've tried just putting ptnuke in a distilled water with a adv lrt tube. seems to work well. although it never gets lower than room temp but it stays cool when I oc it.

[DirkW]

seems to work well. although it never gets lower than room temp

That's just physics.   There's no way it could get lower than that on a water loop (or air cooling).

[Joshua Ondangan]

That's just physics.   There's no way it could get lower than that on a water loop (or air cooling).

yep always like that. i your room temp is 60c (deg) then I doubt your gpu/cpu would go lower >.<