Should I custom Watercool?

[Anoraked]

Hello!

 

I'm building a new PC that I'm looking to last about 5 years and wondering wether spending $950 on Corsair Hydro X water-cooling is a good idea? This is my first time water-cooling a PC and I'm a bit nervous but I've found plenty of guides out there.

 

It's going to be a 3900x with a 2080ti both water-cooled with soft tubing in the Corsair 680x case. I'll leave my configuration code below so you can check it out. 

 

I'm a bit worried that I added to many extras for my needs, so if any one could give feedback on that it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Go to https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/custom-cooling-configurator/ and enter the code Uf7c8r to see the loop.

 

Any help is appreciated,

 

Anoraked

[Windows7ge]

I don't think the question should so much be "Should you watercool?" as much as it should be "Do you want to watercool?".

 

Custom watercooling is a passion. If you want to start that passion, go for it. If you don't want to air cooling or AIO's will do you fine.

[TheGlenlivet]

I built a custom watercooled PC with the intent to have it on 24/7 at full load in a room where it needed to go largely unnoticed.

Lots of money and time later, I got it working as designed and nearly silent.  The refrigerator in the next room made more noise.

That said, if you are just building a gaming pc with no special requirements for noise or performance, then I would say no.

Unless you just want to do it for the experience.

[For Science!]

17 minutes ago, Anoraked said:

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I mean, there are often cases where I can say that "you shouldn't custom watercool" (generally with older hardware). But in your case this is top-of-the-line hardware so it's a situation where if you are happy to spend the money on reducing the noise of your system, then go for it. Generally speaking you won't get more performance with custom cooling though.

 

The loop looks okay, I would get 2 L of coolant instead of 1.

[SolarNova]

44 minutes ago, Anoraked said:

Hello!

 

I'm building a new PC that I'm looking to last about 5 years and wondering wether spending $950 on Corsair Hydro X water-cooling is a good idea? This is my first time water-cooling a PC and I'm a bit nervous but I've found plenty of guides out there.

 

It's going to be a 3900x with a 2080ti both water-cooled with soft tubing in the Corsair 680x case. I'll leave my configuration code below so you can check it out. 

 

I'm a bit worried that I added to many extras for my needs, so if any one could give feedback on that it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Go to https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/custom-cooling-configurator/ and enter the code Uf7c8r to see the loop.

 

Any help is appreciated,

 

Anoraked

One should ALWAYS custom water loop !

 

But seriously, with a system like that, yea go ahead and build a custom loop.

But i would stear clear of overpriced kits or product lines like the corsair series. Theres no reason u need to spend 1000 on a loop unless its a seriously overkill boutique loop.

 

Stick with the tried and trusted companies.

EK for blocks and perhaps even fittings.

Any D5 pump + separate res , or pump+res combo to ur liking. Personally im a fan of the XSPC D5 Photon as its a glass res.

For rads, Hardware Labs are considered by some to be the best, but there are plenty of options, I use a combination of XSPC rads and Alphacool rads for example.

 

~$700 should be enough for a CPU + GPU loop.

 

~$200 for the blocks

~$200 for a couple rads

~$150 for pump+res

~$50-150 for fittings (this depends greatly on hard vs soft tubing and fitting for bends vs not ..and also the number of angled fitting u want)

~$20 coolant

~$30-$60 tubing

~$30-$120 for fans (depends on rad size and quantity and how much u want to spend on fans $10 per fan or up to $40)

 

This is judging by a quick glance at Newegg prices. Im from UK so im sure theres better deals to be found in the US beyond what im seeing on Newegg.

 

 

[Zando_]

Just now, SolarNova said:

EK for blocks and perhaps even fittings.

Any D5 pump and/or pump+ res combo to ur liking. Personally im a fan of the XSPC D5 Photon as its a glass res.

For rads, Hardware Labs are considered by some to be the best, but there are plenty of options, I use a combination of XSPC rads and Alphacool rads for example.

For the US, Performance-PCs is fricken excellent for pretty much any watercooling stuff around. 

As for brands:
Yes, EK is great. Their EK-ZMT tubing is my go-to since stubby barbs + zipties are cheap, it still looks clean af, and it's easy to work with. I have an EK D5 pump/res combo as well, have had 0 issues with it. Their blocks are good, I have one on my GPU and it's very well made and finished. Usually like Watercool's Heatkiller IV line better though, they're just a bit nicer and usually the same price/cheaper, that's what I run on my CPU (and on my Vega FE back when I had one). 
I use Hardware Labs GTS radiators, they're hella fine slim rads. Haven't really used many others so I can't speak on those. 
Bitspower and Alphacool are usually solid as well. If you ever need super niche stuff, Alphacool makes rads all the way down to single 60mm or 2x40mm ones, and Bykski is a bit off-brand but they make blocks for 1050 Tis and other GPUs that nobody really has reason to watercool other than for the lols. 
 

5 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

One should ALWAYS custom water loop !

^ Yos. If you can afford it and are happy with the hardware you already have, it's excellent. Very much an enthusiast thing, but it's really satisfying to set up a loop and they provide instant and very noticeable gains in cooling perf, especially on GPUs. 

[Tristerin]

I have 1 CON when doing a custom loop, as I am building my third now and I am addicted to the process.  However when a component fails, its a tedious task with more risks than troubleshooting an air cooled PC imho.

 

Other than that, its the best thermals (my) money can buy.