water cooling an AMD build. any tips?

[Jae Tee]

in the near future i want to do a mid range build R 2600x and 5700 xt, ALL WATER COOLED. any tips in particular, and what about monoblockes? this would be my first custom loop, so im slightly apprehesive about pulling the trigger on it. Plus i dont technically need it so....

 

 Remember I am doing this for fun and for the experience. While I do not want it to be expensive, money is not my main concern the point here is to build something that will look really cool and perform as such.

[xdeathshot20]

so the build that i currently have was my first water cooled build and i was nervous as you are.  My personal recomendations are try and stay with all the same brand parts.  Every water cooling part in my build except from the tubes are from EKwb.  as for monoblock, i would probaly say unless you are doing some serious overclocking or your mobo has no vrm cooling then i wouldnt get it and save your money

[Jae Tee]

1 minute ago, xdeathshot20 said:

so the build that i currently have was my first water cooled build and i was nervous as you are.  My personal recomendations are try and stay with all the same brand parts.  Every water cooling part in my build except from the tubes are from EKwb.  as for monoblock, i would probaly say unless you are doing some serious overclocking or your mobo has no vrm cooling then i wouldnt get it and save your money

Thanks. Though to be clear the main reson for pushing it off is because i simply dont have the reson to spend the money, but we'll get there.

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, xdeathshot20 said:

so the build that i currently have was my first water cooled build and i was nervous as you are.  My personal recomendations are try and stay with all the same brand parts.  Every water cooling part in my build except from the tubes are from EKwb.  as for monoblock, i would probaly say unless you are doing some serious overclocking or your mobo has no vrm cooling then i wouldnt get it and save your money

^^ EK is solid, I prefer Watercool for the blocks though. Their Heatkiller IVs have been nicer than EK blocks IMO. I've had an EK monoblock for my Crosshair VII, it was very expensive for no real need (more aesthetics, foolish choice now that I look back at it), and not built/finished as well as the Heatkiller IV Pro block I run on my CPU now, or the Heatkiller IV block I had for my Vega FE. Watercool didn't make a Heatkiller for the Radeon VII though, so I have an EK block on that now and it's very nice indeed. EK doesn't make the best rads for everything though, their slim ones are solidly bleh and cost like $30 more than some of the best ones money can buy, so shopping around is always better. Bitspower is fine for fittings, though I use EK stubbies I got for really cheap, along with EK-ZMT tubing (super easy to work with). 

But of a ramble, but TL;DR: EK makes solid stuff, Watercool's Heatkiller IV blocks are excellent, take a look at reviews for rads and such before going for all EK stuff. For a first build I'd go soft tubing, EK-ZMT is my reccomended tubing. 

[TheBean]

if you are tight on budget, custom watercooling is not for you. if you want a decent upgrade from a regular AIO, you will end up spending much more. a cheaper custom build may be only slightly better than an AIO while being much more of a hassle

[andrewmp6]

The best rads are hardware labs the best blocks are heatkiller but for that 5700xt you might have to go bitspower or ek for that.Fittings most swear by bitspower.If you are looking more budget minded bykski and barrow are cheaper and are about par with ek for cooling and quality.A friend of mine built his loop out of both with 2 360 rads cpu gpu blocks all that,It cost him under 400 bucks and has ran amazingly good for almost the year hes had it up and going.He tore it down a week or two ago to change coolants and check everything.All the blocks looked brand new and zero problems.