Small Form Factor Watercooling Help (First Timer)

[neiru37]

I'm planning on creating my own case out of acrylic, and with that i'll be upgrading my rig to haswell as well (haswell - h + space = as well. LOL)

 

Anyway, first, a parts list:

 

Asus Impact ROG board

i7 4670k

Evga 780 Ti ACX

2 sticks 8gb 1300 ram

1 ssd, 1 laptop-size hdd

SIlverstone SFX PSU 450w gold

 

For watercooling:

Impact AIO waterblock (EK or Bitspower)

Full 780 ti waterblock (open for suggestions)

Most compact Pump + Res I can find (open for suggestions)

240mm xflow rad

 

So my questions for this build:

1. I plan on overclocking, how much would you think I can squeeze out of the CPU and GPU with a 450w PSU? And no, I have no plans of changing the PSU because I want to be as SFF as I can. around 4ghz would be my target.

2. Given said overclocking limits beacuse of PSU, will a 240mm rad be enough for the both of them? My secondary option would be to add a 2nd 240mm rad in this configuration:

 

PumpRes -> GPU -> Rad -> CPU -> Rad -> PumpRes

 

3. Given that I'll be watercooling my GPU, would the ACX version be a good choice over the reference version or are they virtually the same card with different coolers? Would you suggest a different card instead? 780 Ti's avaliable locally are the Palit, Zotac, Inno3d, MSI, and EVGA ones.

[Freaky_spider]

i5 4670K and a 780Ti on 450 watts? not going to happen... 780 is the highest you can use with a SFX PSU

[neiru37]

Really? Bummer. I wonder how Northwest's Tiki can handle that configuration. It lists both the 4670k and the 780 ti as options in their configuration, and yet they use the same PSU only.

[Wyre]

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 

I have found this to be a very valuable tool. Just plug in the required hardware and click the 'calculate' button.

 

Your system requirements came out to 356 watts, and a recommended minimum of 406 watts. This is not including any overclocking - but yes you could run that system on a 450watt PSU.

 

With a H80 from corsair and 2 120mm fans it came to a total of 383 watts with a recommended minimum of 433 watts

[Izaya Orihara]

i5 4670K and a 780Ti on 450 watts? not going to happen... 780 is the highest you can use with a SFX PSU

I have the perfect videoo showcasing that you are wrong. 

[Izaya Orihara]

Really? Bummer. I wonder how Northwest's Tiki can handle that configuration. It lists both the 4670k and the 780 ti as options in their configuration, and yet they use the same PSU only.

Is is wrong look at the video i linked. It's close but i works. 

[neiru37]

I actually tried that tool after Freaky_spider's post and found out that @ 4.0 ghz with 100 TDP and 1.25 vcore (i'm not aiming for super-high overclocks anyway, just enough to utilize the CPU being unlocked), and at 90% system usage, it said that at min i'll be using 393w and my recommended would be 443. These tools are even known to overestimate.

[Wyre]

450watt PSU is going to be enough - but you are not going to have a lot of overhead on that PSU. 

[neiru37]

"Enough but not a lot of overhead" - exactly. And it most certainly isn't "not gonna happen" because it can.

 

Anyway can we move to the watercooling discussion now?

[Wyre]

If you have the room I would recommend the Phobya 240mm cooling loop. It isnt AIO but the cooling vs price is really impressive.

[RadicalMods]

Of only 100 watts to spare that PSU will constantly be hot and noisy with that small fan blaring all the time.