How many radiators?

[spartin503]

I am looking to water cool my system, I have a 3930k and I will be getting a GTX 780. How many radiators and what size would I need to get to cool my system and have room for the GPU boost 2.0 to take a good effect and to overclock my CPU to about 4.2-4.4GHz?

[Akula]

1 x 360mm

Or

1 x 240mm & 1 x 120mm

 

That will be plenty.

Ensure you choose your fans carefully, as some radiators are designed for lower RPM fans.

[xToFxREAPER]

depending on size and thickness of raditors. if you go 120mm fan rads then probably a 240mm would be good but if you really wanted to push the temps down for gpu boost 2.0 then 2x240mm rads would be the most you could ever need even if you added a second 780 down the line you would still be pretty good with that

[Chakshu]

I would say 240X60mm and a 120X60mm for a little more headroom go for 240X30mm instead of 120X60mm.

[Elbstrand]

Hard to generalize. Like others said, it's depending on thickness of the radiator(s), and a couple of other minor factors, like fan speeds, pressure needed for the fans to pull air trough, speed and power of the pump, thickness of the tubes and so on.

 

But as a rule of thumb. for 1 cpu and 1 graphics card. 360mm to 480mm of total radiator surface area should be more then enough.

[extremescouter]

Yeah, as others have said there are a lot of variables that you need to think about, but generally in order to take full advantage of your components, and be able to overclock them to the max go for at least a 360mm rad, or even a 480mm rad. In order to get the most performance out of the size of the rad, get a thick (60 or 80 mm) 360 mm rad and high static pressure fans, and you should be just fine. 

[airdeano]

a 360x 60 is the radiator to use. especially overclocked CPU. the GPU isn't that hot-headed.

the CPU on 800rpm fan speed could see 70°, faster (louder) can lower the temps.

don't have 360 room, then 2x 240 x60 will be fine. you might get away with the alphacool

st30 240, but that's getting smallish in capacity. 2x XT45 240 with 4.2GHz overclock and

GPU overclock. 4.4GHz+, get 60mm thick radiators..

 

airdeano

[spartin503]

I have a vengeance c70 so what would be the optimal config in it? Would it be worth the extra money to get a 280mm rad?

[airdeano]

alphacool XT240/XT280 times two would be minimal usage. copper for one and low

fin per inch count allows low fan speed usage. but the case I do not think will allow

any rad thicker than 30mm in the roof without interferences. which now poses

issues in thermals. the ST30 280 in the roof and UT280 in the front intake would hold

the temps, but the fans would be questionable on noise-levels and performance.

 

airdeano

[FluffyNuggets]

120.3 60mm or 140.3 60mm. I like the Alphacool Nexxos radiators since they protect from piercing the radiator from screws. 

[CyberJesus88]

360 at the very least......more if you want low rpm fans