Custom Watercooling Loop

[Kyzer]

I have an idea for a watercooling loop I'm going to do. Since my case is the Corsair 230t, I cannot have a fan and radiator combo on the top, since there is not enough space. Just a radiator by itself or fans (because RAM and CPU PD heatsink get in the way. If the fans were slim and the radiator was as well, its possible, but radiators don't get smaller than 28mm, and that's with a Black Ice radiator).

 

So I was thinking. I could do a 240 or a 280 up top, probably slim or thick, whatever is better for passive cooling (Maybe just a 120 or 140... I think I prefer one top mounted exhaust fan, my setup actually keeps all the dust out currently). Then, once the water (well, in this case, Ice Dragon coolant) leaves the radiator, it goes to the CPU, then to a rear 120mm radiator, probably a Black Ice Nemesis 120GTS. I'm not doing any overclocking unless its necessary, so that radiator should be fine to dissipate most of the CPU's heat (its a 120mm 16 FPI, 29.6mm thick radiator). After that, it will probably go down to the GPU, pass through, and go down to a bottom-mounted 140mm SR2 Radiator (9 FPI, 60mm thick). After it goes to that one, it will go to a radiator on top of the fan cooling that 140, to keep it from heating up the air passing through it to get to the 140mm thick radiator, then to the reservoir and the pump and around again.

 

Order of operation (way coolant is moving):

 

Reservoir and Pump

Top 140 or 280mm slim or thick passively cooled radiator (no more than 1.5 inches thick)

CPU block

Rear 120mm 30 FPI radiator

GPU block

Bottom-mounted 140mm radiator, with another on top of its fan with air getting drawn through it

Repeat

 

Is this a good setup? All fans will be Noctua (not because I'm a fanboy; whenever I would make a custom loop, its always Noctua, for the quality, and Black Ice radiators)

 

The main question is, is it a good idea spending the money on the passively cooled top radiator, and will the bottom mounted 9 FPI radiator be doing any good with air being pulled through a 16 FPI radiator above it? As for the bottom mounted 140, again, the main heat goes to the 60mm thick radiator, then to another thin 140 above it (this way the one above it isn't causing any real heat, so it wont be causing hot air to be pushed down onto the thicker radiator)

 

Or is the thinner 140 not even worth the cost?

[LesGensMentales]

You would probably see a noticeable temperature difference without the extra 140 in the bottom but you could definitely get away without it assuming you have a single GPU and a single CPU in the loop.

[Kyzer]

Radiators being used: 

http://hardwarelabs.com/sr2/products/black-ice-sr2/sr2-140

http://hardwarelabs.com/nemesis/nemesis-products/nemesis-gts/nemesis-140gts

http://www.hardwarelabs.com/nemesis/nemesis-products/nemesis-gts/nemesis-280gts

http://hardwarelabs.com/products/black-ice-gt-stealth/gts-120

[Kyzer]

You would probably see a noticeable temperature difference without the extra 140 in the bottom but you could definitely get away without it assuming you have a single GPU and a single CPU in the loop.

Yes, its a single CPU and single GPU.

[Kyzer]

You would probably see a noticeable temperature difference without the extra 140 in the bottom but you could definitely get away without it assuming you have a single GPU and a single CPU in the loop.

Also, do you mean without or with? in what way?

[LesGensMentales]

Also, do you mean without or with? in what way?

 

I just mean that without adding the bottom 140 you have enough radiator space especially if the 280 is thick to adequately cool a single CPU and GPU with better temperatures than if on air. And that with it you would probably see lower temperatures and have slightly more overclocking headroom.

[Kyzer]

I just mean that without adding the bottom 140 you have enough radiator space especially if the 280 is thick to adequately cool a single CPU and GPU with better temperatures than if on air. And that with it you would probably see lower temperatures and have slightly more overclocking headroom.

I already said I'm not overclocking

A: Which 140? I said there were going to be 2 140's, a thick and a thin one

B: The upper 280 is at max 1.5 inches thick, and does not have any fans on it

C: It's a AMD build, not Intel

[LesGensMentales]

I already said I'm not overclocking

A: Which 140? I said there were going to be 2 140's, a thick and a thin one

B: The upper 280 is at max 1.5 inches thick, and does not have any fans on it

C: It's a AMD build, not Intel

 

Sorry about that, I was referring to the thinner 140 the Black Ice Nemesis GTS. And I believe I misread your post, sorry. If the 280 is passively cooled then personally i'd say the extra 140mm for heat dispersion might be a nice thing to have. I still don't think it's necessary, but once again it will provide lower temperatures especially if the largest radiator in the loop isn't going to have fans actively pushing heat out of your case. Even with your build being AMD based the combined radiator space should be enough even without the thin 140 to achieve temperatures considered safe and well below the maximum recommended operating temps. 

[Technocrat-Ohm]

Passive radiators are essentially useless unless you have so much airflow in your case that they become actively cooled by non-adjacent fans. It's not even worth spending your money getting radiators if they're going to run passive. The only set-up you can make them work is if you have every fan in your case set-up to be intake and you seal off every exit point for air except the passive radiators. Even then, you need lots of static-pressure optimized fans running at high rpms. It would actually make more sense for you to put in case fans to help bring air to your other radiators rather than adding unnecessary restriction to your water loop.

 

Radiator sandwiches (rad/fan/rad) are almost always inferior to a single rad-single fan set-up, by a pretty large margin too.

 

You can handle a single cpu+gpu loop with a 120mm+140mm radiator. I'm not sure what components you have, but you'll need to medium to high speeds if they're hot components, or you're a heavy overclocker. If you're running at stock clock on cool components, you can get away with mediumish speeds.

 

I'll also add that Noctua NF-F12 are inferior to Gentle Typhoon fans and Noiseblocker Eloops fans in performance to noise ratio when it comes to using them on radiators. You can check out some of the research such as from here http://martinsliquidlab.org/2013/05/07/fan-testing-round-12/ . Gentle Typhoons are pretty famous in the watercooling community for their unmatched P/Q curve.

[Kyzer]

Snipped!

Noise is not a problem to me, I actually like noise, I associate it with power. Quiet is nice, but I like some kind of audible noise.

[Kyzer]

Sorry about that, I was referring to the thinner 140 the Black Ice Nemesis GTS. And I believe I misread your post, sorry. If the 280 is passively cooled then personally i'd say the extra 140mm for heat dispersion might be a nice thing to have. I still don't think it's necessary, but once again it will provide lower temperatures especially if the largest radiator in the loop isn't going to have fans actively pushing heat out of your case. Even with your build being AMD based the combined radiator space should be enough even without the thin 140 to achieve temperatures considered safe and well below the maximum recommended operating temps. 

Thanks

[Kyzer]

Though of course, noise like a Delta fan is not something I like

[Kyzer]

I guess another question is:

 

More fins, or less thins and thicker? What is better?

 

Example: 30 FPI thin, or 9 FPI Thick?

[Kyzer]

Sorry about that, I was referring to the thinner 140 the Black Ice Nemesis GTS. And I believe I misread your post, sorry. If the 280 is passively cooled then personally i'd say the extra 140mm for heat dispersion might be a nice thing to have. I still don't think it's necessary, but once again it will provide lower temperatures especially if the largest radiator in the loop isn't going to have fans actively pushing heat out of your case. Even with your build being AMD based the combined radiator space should be enough even without the thin 140 to achieve temperatures considered safe and well below the maximum recommended operating temps. 

Whats better? 30 FPI Thin (29.6mm) or 9 FPI (60mm)

Or is a mix of the two good? As in, water goes through CPU, then to the 30 fin, then to the GPU, then to the 9 FPI?

[Technocrat-Ohm]

FPI gives you a rough estimate of what kind of air restriction the radiator imposes. Other factors are thickness, louvering and fin-splitting. Increased thickness, more fin louvering will increase air restriction, fin-splitting will reduce restriction, usually improves performance for an increased price.

 

A low-restriction radiator will outperform a high restriction radiator at low fan speeds. So if you want a quiet set-up, you want only low-fpi radiators that work best with fans that run quietly. However your set-up, is very small on radiator space so you should intend to run high fan speeds to be able to dissipate enough heat to prevent your components from overheating. So in this case, you need high fpi-radiators, ideally thick ones one too.

[Benji_w]

Whats better? 30 FPI Thin (29.6mm) or 9 FPI (60mm)

Or is a mix of the two good? As in, water goes through CPU, then to the 30 fin, then to the GPU, then to the 9 FPI?

 

The fins actually do a lot of the cooling on radiators don't let the more is better rule apply too much here, low FPI rads are thicker to allow for similar performance but marginally less.

 

The FPI number should matter to you because it will help dictate which sort of fans you require, you've stated you don't mind noise so I'd just go with what ever rad you like the look of then fit an appropriate fan.