Necessary radiator

Tredien · May 26, 2014

Hello,

I have a i7 2600k (pending possible upgrade with the 4790k for pcie 3) and 2 gtx780's and I'm considering water cooling both the cpu and the graphic cards.

How can I calculate what size of radiator do I need? Is a 360 enough? If so what are the good brands/models?

Also, the water pump/reservoir size will be dependant on the radiator? What size/capacity should I aim for?

Thank you!

Faz592 · May 26, 2014

Depends if you intend to overclock i suppose. really need to know what temps your gear is getting up to to get an accurate answer here.

Tredien · May 26, 2014

I do have the CPU overclocked to 4.6Ghz max it with a noctua nh-d14 was mid 80's (ºC) during summer.

The graphics cards are not overclocked as is, but can overclock them if I get more thermal room.

[Edit]

Sorry forgot, I'm from Portugal so ambient temperatures get all over from 2-5 ºC During winter to 40+ ºC during Summer.

mped · May 26, 2014

240mm as base for one piece, then add 120mm for every piece you add.

So in your case it would be 240+120+120

D3LTA9 · May 26, 2014

A general rule of thumb is that you can cool up to 300w on a 120.1 radiator with high rpm (read: LOUD) fans. What a lot of people go with is a 120.5 for this kind of setup (I do) so that could be 1 360mm for the 2 GPU's and 1 240mm for the CPU. However you could probably get away with a total of 120.4 (say x2 240mm rads) with medium to high rpm fans and still be fine.

Personally, if you have the space I would go for 120.5 then you know you have plenty of cooling capacity.

In terms of radiator brands. XSPC make cheap and fairly slim rad's that perform nearly as good as more expensive thicker rads. Alphacool make very good rads and so do swiftech. The alphacool UT60 is one of the best performers but it is quite thick (60mm) so can cause mobo clearance issues when mounted in the top of your case. The alphacool ST30 (30mm thick) or swiftech MCR-XP (34mm) are my personal picks as they are thin and perform close to that of the 60mm rads.

Hope that answers your questions. Watercooling can be a bit daunting when you first get into it as there is so many different opinions and products/styles to choose from. The key always is to plan everything first, then double check, then triple check as you can waste a lot of money buying the wrong parts that wont fit or work in your specific build.