Help me plan my loop?

[malawar]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm excited to be putting together my first custom loop! I've gone over a whole bunch of material - including the resources provided by this awesome forum - to prepare myself.

 

Before buying any cooling components; I wanted to get some different opinions on what different people might do. Looking for component recommendations, layouts, color schemes, etc. All ideas are welcome.

 

Here are some points I'm using as a guide to help me find the components I need:

• Nothing Exotic. Getting the maximum performance isn't the goal. I want to learn the process, and enjoy putting it together.
• Reliability. I keep reading that the pump is where I might want to spend a bit extra.
• Maintenance. Anything to help make things like draining or filling the loop to be relatively easy.
• No Bends. Straight hard tubes with angled joints wherever needed.
• Compatibility. I'd rather buy parts from the same manufacturer to make things easier for myself. If I'm not mistaken; the ROG Formula VIII board has EKWB blocks to cool the VRMs? I'm thinking that might be a good place to get the rest of my components?

Here's a link to the rest of the parts I got to go with the motherboard: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GBhB9N

 

Looking forward to hear from you all.

 

Thanks!

[For Science!]

4 hours ago, malawar said:

Hi everyone,

 

I'm excited to be putting together my first custom loop! I've gone over a whole bunch of material - including the resources provided by this awesome forum - to prepare myself.

 

Before buying any cooling components; I wanted to get some different opinions on what different people might do. Looking for component recommendations, layouts, color schemes, etc. All ideas are welcome.

 

Here are some points I'm using as a guide to help me find the components I need:

• Nothing Exotic. Getting the maximum performance isn't the goal. I want to learn the process, and enjoy putting it together.
• Reliability. I keep reading that the pump is where I might want to spend a bit extra.
• Maintenance. Anything to help make things like draining or filling the loop to be relatively easy.
• No Bends. Straight hard tubes with angled joints wherever needed.
• Compatibility. I'd rather buy parts from the same manufacturer to make things easier for myself. If I'm not mistaken; the ROG Formula VIII board has EKWB blocks to cool the VRMs? I'm thinking that might be a good place to get the rest of my components?

Here's a link to the rest of the parts I got to go with the motherboard: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GBhB9N

 

Looking forward to hear from you all.

 

Thanks!

Pump = D5 pump (brand does not matter as long as it is a genuine D5)

Maintenance = Drain port is a must (i.e. T-splitter, ball-valve, male-to-male fitting, soft tubing, soft tubing fitting)

If you want to stick to one brand, I guess EKWB would be the "standard", Bitspower for "expensive", and Barrow/Bykski for "budget"

 

For purposes of design, consider the following:

Case has XYZ axes that are unmoving, this is your canvas, components also generally follow this XYZ axes so your runs should either match these axes, or purposely go against them.

PCs often have a north/south divide implemented by the GPU, make sure you balance your tubing run above the GPU and below the GPU, otherwise you end up with a build looking top heavy where all the tubes and watercooling related stuff ends up above the GPU, and it looks really sad underneath it.

 

[malawar]

8 minutes ago, For Science! said:

Pump = D5 pump (brand does not matter as long as it is a genuine D5)

Maintenance = Drain port is a must (i.e. T-splitter, ball-valve, male-to-male fitting, soft tubing, soft tubing fitting)

If you want to stick to one brand, I guess EKWB would be the "standard", Bitspower for "expensive", and Barrow/Bykski for "budget"

 

For purposes of design, consider the following:

Case has XYZ axes that are unmoving, this is your canvas, components also generally follow this XYZ axes so your runs should either match these axes, or purposely go against them.

PCs often have a north/south divide implemented by the GPU, make sure you balance your tubing run above the GPU and below the GPU, otherwise you end up with a build looking top heavy where all the tubes and watercooling related stuff ends up above the GPU, and it looks really sad underneath it.

 

Thanks, those are some great tips!

It's looking like EKWB is the most accessible to me at the moment.

I was wondering if you know where I could get tubes similar to ones in this video? 

They have a kind of satin finish.

Is that a mod using sand paper?

[For Science!]

28 minutes ago, malawar said:

s that a mod using sand paper?

Yes, I believe bit-tech had some tutorials, but in essence you just sand it down. 

[malawar]

1 minute ago, For Science! said:

Yes, I believe bit-tech had some tutorials, but in essence you just sand it down. 

Just found out Corsair make some satin tubes: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Custom-Cooling/Tubing/hydro-x-hardline-tubing-config/p/CX-9059005-WW

 

Is it a bad idea to mix and match between EKWB products and Corsair tubes?

[For Science!]

3 minutes ago, malawar said:

Just found out Corsair make some satin tubes: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Custom-Cooling/Tubing/hydro-x-hardline-tubing-config/p/CX-9059005-WW

 

Is it a bad idea to mix and match between EKWB products and Corsair tubes?

I wouldn't go far as to say it was a bad idea, but generally my recommendation is to get tubing and fittings from the same brands to make sure that the "14 mm" they mean is the "14 mm" for their fittings. Sometimes companies interchange between metric and imperial units, and other times its just a matter of tolerances. Corsair uses Bitspower fittings, so they should be both metric, but yeah, my personal recommendation is to either get both fittings and tubing from Corsair, or from EKWB.

[malawar]

3 minutes ago, For Science! said:

I wouldn't go far as to say it was a bad idea, but generally my recommendation is to get tubing and fittings from the same brands to make sure that the "14 mm" they mean is the "14 mm" for their fittings. Sometimes companies interchange between metric and imperial units, and other times its just a matter of tolerances. Corsair uses Bitspower fittings, so they should be both metric, but yeah, my personal recommendation is to either get both fittings and tubing from Corsair, or from EKWB.

Makes sense. Also, after watching how easy it is on the bit-tech tutorial I think that's the safest route. Great resource btw thank you!

 

 

[bowrilla]

TO my knowledge, you can't get an EK block for your GPU - they simply don't have one in the catalog. Alphacool however DOES have a full cover GPU block for the XFX Merc 319 cards on preorder - it's also significantly cheaper than what you get from EK these days.

 

Sanding can come at some risks. Since you're removing material you might increase the risk of leaks. If you want satin tubes, get satin tubes. 

 

And buy more adaptor fittings and fittings in general than you think you'll need. Paying for shipping twice or thrice and waiting for days if not weeks to finish your build is worse than having some laying around on the shelf (imho).

 

And get HWLabs radiators if you can. They are the best. Corsair uses HWLabs as OEM but I think it's a special version that performs a little worse than the ones HWLabs sells under their own name. 

 

Double (at least) the amount of tubing you think you'll need.

 

Make sure the coolant is compatible with your tube material.

 

Personally I wouldn't buy the EK Vardar fans nor would I buy Corsair fans - there's better and/or cheaper around. Noctua is the gold standard but also costing their own weight in gold. The Arctic P line performs as well (or even better) for half (or less). They might not look as great.

 

Don't buy flow meters unless you know they are actually accurate (to my knowledge that's only true for the aquacomputer sensors). Most of them are a waste of money and a source of noise.

 

Before you build everything: make sure there is a way to assemble everything (some hardline configurations might be impossible to put together without some forceful bending and pushing) and that there's a way to fill it up (that port needs to be the highest point) and a way to drain it later (lowest point). 

 

And remember flow direction - don't just plug things into the nearest ports. On radiators it's mostly irrelevant, on GPU blocks it has an impact, on CPU blocks it has a huge impact and pumps only work in one direction.