Never watercooled before - looking for some answers/advice/opinions.

[Streamline]

So I'm currently using my 3 year old rig, sporting an i5-76 running a 4Ghz overclock and a Sapphire 7850 that I bought ~a year ago to replace my 5770 that was getting a bit weak for modern titles. In July I want to get an i7-4770k and a GTX 780 which I am planning to watercool in my Switch 810 that I also bought with my 7850.

I have never watercooled before and only built 5 PCs (not even one of them beeing my own, since I only started building myself like a year ago), all of which were air cooled of course. I love silent systems and the look of watercooling, so I thought to myself, why not go all out on my next build. I started to inform myself a bit through youtube videos, reddit and google search, but I still have a few questions:

• Do I need to run the liquid through a rad before going into the res and is it required to have a rad between each part? Or does that not matter and all you need is one 120mm per part you want to cool? In one video it was said that it doesn't matter where the rads are placed, all you need is a sufficiant amount of rads to cool your parts since the liquid is moving through the loop so fast.
• Do crossover crossflow rads have an impact on cooling performance and are they a bad choice?
• How big should the reservoir be? And what difference is there between a big and a small res? Bigger res = more liquid = better performance?

Finally, I have come up with this loop: http://i.imgur.com/PpEvSvF.jpg (Red = GPU/Mobo/CPU, Green = Pump, White = res, Blue = rads, Orange = fans, Purple = tubes (yes cpt. obvious))
At first I wanted one rad in the front, but I couldn't find a solution that was visually pleasing to me and worked. What pump would you recommend for this loop? I know that Linus' favourite is the D5 from swiftech, but with this loop i wouldn't be able to use it unless I have it dangling from the reservoir/bolt it to the side of the case, which would require some modding (not a big deal, even tho I have never done it, my father would certainly be a big help in doing it), however I'd like the whole thing to be as uncomplicated as possible.

[Ghost]

I highly recommend reading he watercooling 101 and FAQ stickies at the top of the forum. Your questions will most probably be answered there. But I will glance over your questions quickly:

 

• Order of loop makes no difference. The only rule is that the res must be before and above the pump. It literally makes no difference.
• What are crossover rads?
• The size of a reservoir makes as much difference as its colour. The only difference with having more water in your loop is it takes more time for all of the water to heat up but that's not a performance benefit because it also takes longer for it to cool down after load.
• There are reservoirs that "dangle" as you so eliquently put it, a d5 from the bottom of the reservoir. as shown in this picture: 

[Streamline]

Ah sorry I meant crossflow rads.

 

Edit: I did read most of the 101 btw and none of my questions were answered there, that's why I made this post.

[Ghost]

Cross flow rads?

[Streamline]

[airdeano]

cross flow is for only when a tubing route issue is needed to be resolved.

they are not really efficient and like its normal radiator brother has better

cooling capabilities. actually they cool half as much as the same sized

normal radiator.

 

cross flow allows the coolant to pass through its tube array once, as the normal

radiators allow the coolant to pass and double back making them cool and

re-cool the coolant. more efficiency.

 

as a first time, id stick to a simple CPU loop. this will provide an understanding

of the layout importance, hardware uses, and reasoning's why one water cools.

 

especially when an issue develops, you'd know how to approach the solution.

 

 

 

airdeano