Custom water cooling loop for beginner.

[PacMan1337]

Hey everyone, I have been educating myself with everything I possibly can for building high end PC's. I am experienced in building with AIO's & Air Coolers but I have never actually taken to leap and moved up to a custom water cooling loop. I am looking to take this step sometime this year if I can get my hands on the right parts for the right price without having to pay some greaseball a premium. I was hoping that possibly some of you more experience enthusiasts could maybe give me some advice on how things go with the water cooling and what steps are absolutely necessary for someone like me to take while building. I already have watched tons of youtube videos on how to do this but I was just wondering if there is anything you don't see people talk about or anything like that. Thank you everyone and have a blessed day.

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, PacMan1337 said:

but I was just wondering if there is anything you don't see people talk about or anything like that

I hardly ever see people mention how typically nobody actually needs their machine to be water cooled. That's usually a pretty rare one. You never get great "should I water cool in the first place" advice from people who are enthusiasts and have zero problems doing it.

[jaslion]

1. Make sure you stick to one size for the tubes
2. Use soft tubing the first time non transparent ones are really nice and don't yellow
3. Get a good pump the first time
4. Make sure to leaktest very well without the system being on even after testing outside the system(so just psu outside running)
5. Have distilled water at the ready
6. If using colored fluids try to stick to the ones that use inks and not solid particles and stuff if you don't want to have the clean the loop yearly to keep original performance
7. Make the loop easy to drain and fill

These are of the top off my head.

 

But the most important one will always be. If the money spent on watercooling can buy you a better gpu or cpu get that.

[jaslion]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

I hardly ever see people mention how typically nobody actually needs their machine to be water cooled. That's usually a pretty rare one. You never get great "should I water cool in the first place" advice from people who are enthusiasts and have zero problems doing it.

Exactly watecooling is a just because you can situation. If you need a dead silent system you go passive cooling or do a big massive heatsink on the gpu cooling.

[For Science!]

1. Make sure you are 120% sure you want to do it, if you have doubts, probably better steer clear

2. If you want to do hard tubing, regardless of whether it is your first time or not, just do it. No amount of soft tubing experience will prepare you for hard tubing

3. Buy cheap and you will buy twice, so invest in quality

4. If shipping is not free, better buy in slight excess as time is money too (regarding fittings, tubing, etc)

5. Get a proper coolant

[emosun]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

If you need a dead silent system you go passive cooling or do a big massive heatsink on the gpu cooling.

or put the machine in a different room , turns out every pc is silent when it's nowhere near you

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, emosun said:

or put the machine in a different room , turns out every pc is silent when it's nowhere near you

Exactly. That and it's never been easier and with usb4 it's going to be even easier.

[-rascal-]

There is a place / time / condition for AIOs, but if you are going for a "high-end" AIO, just go for a custom loop... IMO.

 

There's a couple of 'Water Cooling 101' guides on here... so reviewing those would be useful.

 

 

 

I'm sure other water / liquid cooling brands / manufacturers has something similar, but EKwb sells custom water loop "starter kits."

They basically do all the guess work for you, pick out the needed parts for you into a box (e.g. water block(s), fittings, tubing, radiator, fans, etc).

Once you get the hang of it, you can expand on it, swap parts out, etc.

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/kits/classic-d-rgb-series

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/kits/quantum-power-series

[Xii-Nyth]

If you want the most for the money id focus on amount of radiators first thing, and consider looking into chinese/russian brands for certain parts so you dont pay ek 200 for a glass of water with a lid on it called a reservoir. My rule is if it does leak it can only do harm if there is something under it. Pay more for tubing and fittings, cheap out on radiators and reservoirs. Dont pay more than you need for a block. Custom watercooling people always get scared but an aio is just made of mass produced parts in china and thats why they are cheaper than a single block from ek

[Xii-Nyth]

Personally im getting these

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001097859640.html?mp=1

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000910701432.html?mp=1

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000087546832.html?mp=1

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000945294447.html?mp=1

 

the intel block is actually for a hybrid cooler on an amd card which will be face down.

as for the cpu block bykski is actually a name brand in the eastern world, as well as barrowch.

 

im in canada so I have parts picked off of shipping to here etc, shipping often varies a bunch on stores without dhl/fedex/ups. 

[PacMan1337]

Thank you everyone for you're feedback it is a tremendous help for sure. For those of you that were saying water cooling is unnecessary that is you're point of view. I do understand I can cool my cpu and gpu with air cooling but I like the way custom water cooling loops look and I am a experience irrigation technician so working with tubes and fittings plainly comes natural to me. I love the way some of the soft tubing rigs I have seen look, But I also love the way a lot of the hard tubing rigs look. Either way I most likely will go hardline because it seems like the more challenging of the 2. I don't want to buy any of the kits that they sell on amazon like corsair or thermaltake they just look cheaply put together. I would like to go all EK but is there any pumps or water blocks any of you may recommend? I hear petg is better then acrylic because it doesn't shatter like the acrylic does so I was going to buy that. Also does anyone here have any advice on any brands they may have used in the past for color? I see on amazon they have a company called PrimoChill anyone know of them and if they're quality? Thank you again for all the feedback I am def taking notes.

 

[For Science!]

2 hours ago, PacMan1337 said:

Thank you everyone for you're feedback it is a tremendous help for sure. For those of you that were saying water cooling is unnecessary that is you're point of view. I do understand I can cool my cpu and gpu with air cooling but I like the way custom water cooling loops look and I am a experience irrigation technician so working with tubes and fittings plainly comes natural to me. I love the way some of the soft tubing rigs I have seen look, But I also love the way a lot of the hard tubing rigs look. Either way I most likely will go hardline because it seems like the more challenging of the 2. I don't want to buy any of the kits that they sell on amazon like corsair or thermaltake they just look cheaply put together. I would like to go all EK but is there any pumps or water blocks any of you may recommend? I hear petg is better then acrylic because it doesn't shatter like the acrylic does so I was going to buy that. Also does anyone here have any advice on any brands they may have used in the past for color? I see on amazon they have a company called PrimoChill anyone know of them and if they're quality? Thank you again for all the feedback I am def taking notes.

 

Get a D5 pump, and any waterblock that is compatible. Water lock design and brand makes very little difference to performance so you can pretty much choose  by looks after compatibility (for this reason I think EKs newer stuff is overpriced and prefer watercool) 

 

PETG is easier to work with (cutting and bending) and that’s it’s only relevant pro against acrylic. This shatter resistance is really a moot point popularised by Jayztwocents as your tubes should never have any chance of receiving that kind of impact force in the PC. If it does. Either your components themselves or other acrylic parts will die before any acrylic tubing comes into consideration.

 

Acrylic has superior chemical resistance properties and therefore maintain a glass-like clarity more so than petg that looks more “plasticky”. I’ve used both, and honestly they’re about the same in all aspects, so I use acrylic now for its chemical resistance.

 

For coolants I recommend clear coloured coolants from EK, and if you want opaque fluid,from Mayhems (though I do not recommend opaque fluids). I have a thread in my signature about my thoughts on coolants more generally.

[Allyxxx]

You can go with EKWB brand, but I personally I stayed cleared from that because I wanted to try building my own custom loop at a lower cost after seeing other peoples successful results with AlieExpress products. It can take 45 days to receive something from AliExpress so I've only been building a custom loop for 6 weeks now counting from the time I completed a water cooling build. Bykski, Barrow, Freezermod and IceMan from AliExpress are the brands that I have tried. I also bought some stuff from Dazmode, but shipping cost kind of adds up to extra costs. I really wish there were more options from Canadian retailers. Some generic fittings I bought from Amazon seem to work just as good as other brands, but may not have a clean finish as branded fittings. The only EK product I bought to this day so far is black matte tubing for my 2nd build.

 

After the first week of completing my system I learned that most of the bubbles seem to go into the reservoir if you have the pump upright with the reservoir directly on top and you use the in and out on the side of the pump. Once the bubble are cleared the it's not really noisy.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Custom Loop and Exotic Cooling

[jaslion]

19 hours ago, PacMan1337 said:

Thank you everyone for you're feedback it is a tremendous help for sure. For those of you that were saying water cooling is unnecessary that is you're point of view. I do understand I can cool my cpu and gpu with air cooling but I like the way custom water cooling loops look and I am a experience irrigation technician so working with tubes and fittings plainly comes natural to me. I love the way some of the soft tubing rigs I have seen look, But I also love the way a lot of the hard tubing rigs look. Either way I most likely will go hardline because it seems like the more challenging of the 2. I don't want to buy any of the kits that they sell on amazon like corsair or thermaltake they just look cheaply put together. I would like to go all EK but is there any pumps or water blocks any of you may recommend? I hear petg is better then acrylic because it doesn't shatter like the acrylic does so I was going to buy that. Also does anyone here have any advice on any brands they may have used in the past for color? I see on amazon they have a company called PrimoChill anyone know of them and if they're quality? Thank you again for all the feedback I am def taking notes.

 

NO need to go with one brand or a high end brand. Doesn't really matter at all really. If you want to save some money do not be afraid to go with a more budget brand for rads, tubing, reservoirs, blocks and fittings it barely even matters. The only thing I'd get from a very very well reviewed source is the pump.

 

Also just a headsup but you can easily cool a 3090 + 10900k without a hitch on a 360mm rad and have plenty of headroom to spare.

 

As for primochill sure but nothing beats distilled water + anti bacterial agent. Why? Well simply put the opaque fluids leave residue (some more than others) and that affects cooling performance and you will have to clean out your loop fully (I do mean open blocks and whatnot to scrub it out) to get it back into shape and not look messy. The only other way of coloring that is totally safe to do is non biological ink coloring. A few drops is enough to give a clear coloured loop and it will not clog up the system.

 

Oh also a tip I forgot to add do not fill the reservoir to the top you want a gap of air to allow for thermal expansion and pressure relieve.

[PacMan1337]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

NO need to go with one brand or a high end brand. Doesn't really matter at all really. If you want to save some money do not be afraid to go with a more budget brand for rads, tubing, reservoirs, blocks and fittings it barely even matters. The only thing I'd get from a very very well reviewed source is the pump.

 

Also just a headsup but you can easily cool a 3090 + 10900k without a hitch on a 360mm rad and have plenty of headroom to spare.

 

As for primochill sure but nothing beats distilled water + anti bacterial agent. Why? Well simply put the opaque fluids leave residue (some more than others) and that affects cooling performance and you will have to clean out your loop fully (I do mean open blocks and whatnot to scrub it out) to get it back into shape and not look messy. The only other way of coloring that is totally safe to do is non biological ink coloring. A few drops is enough to give a clear coloured loop and it will not clog up the system.

 

Oh also a tip I forgot to add do not fill the reservoir to the top you want a gap of air to allow for thermal expansion and pressure relieve.

I really appreciate everything you have given me for feedback. You seem very knowledgeable with building loops so I really appreciate it mate. I'll keep everyone posted when it gets a bit closer to the build time. I am currently putting all my capitol towards the crypto markets at this time lol. Trying to make that 100k this year lol.

[PacMan1337]

18 hours ago, For Science! said:

Get a D5 pump, and any waterblock that is compatible. Water lock design and brand makes very little difference to performance so you can pretty much choose  by looks after compatibility (for this reason I think EKs newer stuff is overpriced and prefer watercool) 

 

PETG is easier to work with (cutting and bending) and that’s it’s only relevant pro against acrylic. This shatter resistance is really a moot point popularised by Jayztwocents as your tubes should never have any chance of receiving that kind of impact force in the PC. If it does. Either your components themselves or other acrylic parts will die before any acrylic tubing comes into consideration.

 

Acrylic has superior chemical resistance properties and therefore maintain a glass-like clarity more so than petg that looks more “plasticky”. I’ve used both, and honestly they’re about the same in all aspects, so I use acrylic now for its chemical resistance.

 

For coolants I recommend clear coloured coolants from EK, and if you want opaque fluid,from Mayhems (though I do not recommend opaque fluids). I have a thread in my signature about my thoughts on coolants more generally.

Thank's a bunch for this feedback on coolants and on the petg / acrylic tubing and yeah I got that from jayz2cents he is one of the many youtubers I watch to learn from so very good observation there. Anyhow I do appreciate the information and will keep posted on with what I end up going with. The acrylic does make much more sense if it has the resistance. Maybe I will just buy both and see which I like more and send the other back who know's! lol. Thank's again.