Trusted Water Cooling Parts Brands

[piggykid1]

So I don't know much about watercooling just a knowledge about how it works and other things, I want to know more to help others out.

 

What parts are reputable for each component.

 

And what are all the different parts the ones I can think of right now is: waterblocks, fittings. tubing, radiators, pumps, reservoir, tubes and the liquid substance in the tubes

[Tea1337]

Bits power, EK, thecoolroom has some cool products. There is also koolance

[Enderman]

Bitspower, EKWB, XSPC, Koolance, Swiftec, Alphacool, all are good brands for any part of a watercooling loop. Just depends on the price and what you think looks best.

[TheNinjaNextDor]

Reservoirs: anything, really.

Pumps: Not so much brand as model. D5 is best.

Radiators: Koolance, Alphacool, EK.

Tubing: I prefer Primochill

Fittings: Bitspower ones are the best, just not cheap.

Coolant: Mayhems, (certain ones) distilled water with a biocide or kill coil, EK.

[xToFxREAPER]

i useed bitspower, swiftech, ekwb, and mayhems and primochill in my loop

[Hoppa]

Avoid the xspc 45 degree fittings. They're a bit too loose and you'll most likely see a bit of water dribble out.

[Thecrazyswede]

Reservoirs: anything, really.

 

Only brand i've ever had issues with is the XSPC D5 reservoir, once the temp of the water reached over 65 degrees Celsius the fittings and pump mount started warping, and at 75 degrees started leaking.

[MrBucket101]

I went with xspc, got a nice AIO kit for a good price and just decided to have everything match

[Peopie]

Only brand i've ever had issues with is the XSPC D5 reservoir, once the temp of the water reached over 65 degrees Celsius the fittings and pump mount started warping, and at 75 degrees started leaking.

 

Do you think it could have just been a faulty shipment?

 

I hope its not a common issue because I just bought one of those

[Thecrazyswede]

Do you think it could have just been a faulty shipment?

 

I hope its not a common issue because I just bought one of those

 

Its the acrylic, it cant handle more then 60-65 degrees celsius, as long as your loop stays under that it worked great and looked amazing.

 

"Acrylic usually becomes flexible at around 60 degrees Celsius in temperature. At this temperature it becomes very sensitive to damage from pressure or abrasion"

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Rads: XSPC, Aplhacool, Hardware Labs, EK, DangerDen, Koolance

Fittings: Bitspower

Pump/Res configs, pumptops etc. EK and Bitspower

Reservoirs: XSPC, Bitspower, EK

Tubing: Primochill

Coolant: Mayhems 

Pump: Swiftech, EK, XSPC

[rjbarker]

Just be aware that in some cases the Primochill LRT Tubing can have areas whereby the diameter of the tubing is slightly less than adertised....real pita and something I was not aware of until I tried a "test" on one of my Bits Power Fittings...was incredibly difficult to get the end of the LRT Tubing over the Barb on the Compression Fitting.....even after heating the end of the tube in hot water...bad batch of tubing..?....who knows...googled it and others complaing of it.

I go with Feser Tubing now, although I do hav a couple of boxes of LRT in the closet

 

Coolant: Feser 1 Pure "clear"

Pump: Laing D5 Vario

Reservoir XSPC 170 Photon (Glass tube)

Fittings: Bits Power Compression 3/8 5/8

Rads XSPC EX and RX ver3 (the new XSPC RX ver3 Rads perform at the same level or in some cases better than the Alpha Cool Nexus, but a little bit cheaper)

[alpenwasser]

Seeing as Aquacomputer doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet, I'll

throw that one into the hat as well. I got started in w/c with their

products back in 2002 or so, and while I use other stuff as well, I

have continuously used something of theirs in all my machines and

always had good experiences. German engineering and manufacturing at

its finest (AMS Rads, Aquaero, Aqualis res, for example).

And while I don't have any personal experiences with Watercool, they're

also a German company, and I've heard good things about their products.

[rjbarker]

^^^Odd how a lot of the WC'ing good are German made...my Feser Tubing and liquid is "Made in Germany"......

I also like the looks of those Heatkiller GPU Blocks....

[alpenwasser]

^^^Odd how a lot of the WC'ing good are German made...my Feser Tubing and liquid is "Made in Germany"......

I also like the looks of those Heatkiller GPU Blocks....

Back in the day, German W/C parts were pretty much the only ones

you could get where I live TBH. Most of the time you needed to order

directly from the manufacturer, and the British and US-based ones

just did'nt ship to continental Europe (and if they did, shipping

prices were exorbitant, naturally).

Also, back then, at least from the setups I remember, there was

quite a cultural difference between the North American and the

continental European W/C community. NA water cooling usually used

much higher FPI radiators with higher-rpm fans (well, at least

the builds I usually came across), it seemed to be much more about

raw cooling performance, whereas the German-dominated community

seemed to be more about noise-reduction (remember: this was

a time before heatpipe-based CPU tower coolers, powerful air

coolers tended to use high-rpm Delta fans and were very noisy,

such as the glorious Swiftech 462 family).

These days, the market seems to be more uniform, but you can still

find remnants of this in Koolance's high-fpi radiators, which isn't

really something you tend to see in European rad lineups for the

most part.

The thing that Aquacomputer did right from very early on (IMHO) is that

they invested heavily in having an active community on their forums

and very actively engaged with them (I used to be quite active

there).

Quite a few ideas were born out of that relationship IIRC, and existing

ideas refined. Not that they're perfect by any stretch (holy delivery

times, there were times when you would wait weeks if not months for

your stuff, although that was never a problem exclusive to AC, I waited

two months for my second XSPC Raystorm block last year), but I would

estimate that their willingness to engage in such an active relationship

with the community has been quite an asset over the years.

And yeah, build quality for everything I've ever had from them has

been superb, since they do most of their manufacturing in-house.

And from what I can tell, Watercool is also pretty good at that.

[rjbarker]

^^^ Thanks for all that "history" Alpen.....Ithat has got be one of the most informative / interesting reads for me in numerous Forums in a long time.....thanks fr sharing for sure!!!

Myself personally am quite new to WC'ing....built many high end AC'd PC's....but seeing as I always run either SLi or quite often Tri SLi I figured it was about time I quit "worrying" about my GPU Temps and migrte to a cooling method far more adpated to multi GPU and OC'd CPU's....glad I did!

 

Being Canada, and trying to avoid the Customs /Duties fees when ordering from US Based Companies, I purchase most gear from Daz Mode (dazmode.com), Canadian based....funny he's German too Anyhow, he carries my Feser gear which I ytend to have gotten comfortable using. particulalry the tubing.

 

Actually I have also place a couple of Orders with EKWB direct from Europe....again Duty / Customs Fees apply (no getting around it), but extremely fast DHL Shipping Europe to my door on Vancouver Island BC Canada...as in 5 busness day

 

....there is also a great WC'ing community on numerous Forums and everyone tends to be "happy and enthusiastic" to help novices such as myself.....the Rig in my Sig is my first Loop....although now having the bug, I've torn it down and re-built it twice in 2 months

 

Sorry OP for getting off base