Watercooling upgrade

[Animekid117]

Hey all, my dad wanted me to work up a full custom loop water cooling system for him and since I have very little experience in this field I'm wondering if you guys could recommend some kits for me. He has an AMD FX-8350 on an ASUS M5A99FX R2 motherboard with 16 GB of RAM, 2 Gigabyte Windforce 3 GTX 770 2 GB GPU's all inside of a Cooler Master Storm Trooper case. I need CPU blocks, radiators, VGA blocks and backplates, fittings, pumps, radiators and resevoirs. Any help would be great, so far I am looking at EK and Coolance water blocks.

[Equilibrium_FOOL]

Has he considered upgrading the CPU and Mobo before spending extra money on watercooling?

[RedSphyxis]

Has he considered upgrading the CPU and Mobo before spending extra money on watercooling?

Definitely consider an upgrade to the intel platform before thinking about watercooling IMO.

 

if you he has the money to watercool he should consider the move.

[Skrizzles]

Hey all, my dad wanted me to work up a full custom loop water cooling system for him and since I have very little experience in this field I'm wondering if you guys could recommend some kits for me. He has an AMD FX-8350 on an ASUS M5A99FX R2 motherboard with 16 GB of RAM, 2 Gigabyte Windforce 3 GTX 770 2 GB GPU's all inside of a Cooler Master Storm Trooper case. I need CPU blocks, radiators, VGA blocks and backplates, fittings, pumps, radiators and resevoirs. Any help would be great, so far I am looking at EK and Coolance water blocks.

Go to EK and use their configurator. And if you have questions, write a support ticket. Around here, you're just gonna get people to tell you that your idea is a "bad idea, waste of money, you bought the wrong mb/cpu, you bought the wrong gpu, etc."

 

As for the posters above: how about not just shooting people down, but also offering to help...that way they don't feel like you're insulting them.

 

Example: "I wouldn't water cool that cpu; but if I were to do it, here's how I would go about it....."

[Skrizzles]

^^That said...You could be looking at an easy 500-800 dollars for custom loop for said system.

[Animekid117]

^^That said...You could be looking at an easy 500-800 dollars for custom loop for said system.

Okay yeah I was looking at EK's configurator but I couldn't find all of the compatible parts so I figured I would try here. My dad doesn't want to spend the money to change his PC other than cooling because where we live it gets to 90 degrees F and higher throughout the course of the day and only room where the PC is able to sit has bad airflow from the AC. Anyway thanks for dealing with the berating jerks above. I'll do some more digging and see what I can do from there.

[brandishwar]

Okay yeah I was looking at EK's configurator but I couldn't find all of the compatible parts so I figured I would try here. My dad doesn't want to spend the money to change his PC other than cooling because where we live it gets to 90 degrees F and higher throughout the course of the day and only room where the PC is able to sit has bad airflow from the AC. Anyway thanks for dealing with the berating jerks above. I'll do some more digging and see what I can do from there.

 

I'm going to guess that the GTX 770s are the concern. Unfortunately custom PCBs like that are going to be problematic when it comes to finding blocks. Only the most popular custom PCBs are going to get full-cover blocks. But if you're serious on going full-custom, a couple considerations.

 

First, go with EK on the CPU block. The Supremacy EVO is one of the best blocks on the market today, have a pretty wide range of aesthetic options, and the same block has mounting options for both AMD and Intel -- the latter will come in handy for future upgrade options if you decide to switch over to Intel later.

 

Second, you'll have little choice but to use a "universal" block for the GPU. This means you'll need heatsinks on the VRMs and VRAM on the cards and will need to guarantee good airflow to the cards. Depending on the case (and how much you care about looks), you might be able to set up fans to direct air across the cards to ensure good airflow across those heatsinks.

 

An alternative: consider AIOs for everything. For the CPU, get a good 240mm AIO, and for the GPUs you can use the Kraken G10 with an Asetek-style AIO. Use only a 120mm or 140mm option on those, though. You won't need anything more than that, and the G10 has fans that can keep airflow directing over the cards. Some low-profile heatsinks for the VRMs and VRAM will be useful, though. Performance-PCs has low-profile heatsinks of various sizes, so having the coolers off the cards and a ruler handy should help you determine what sizes you'd need -- they are typically listed in millimeter dimensions, just as a heads up. This will be much less expensive overall, and a lot less complicated to figure out, but still work very well at keeping things cool -- the G10s are only about $30 each, and the AIOs can be as much as $100 (or more) or as little as $60.

 

Edited to add:

 

Regardless, though, airflow is going to be needed to keep the system cool. If you don't already have one, definitely consider a room fan to keep air pushing toward the computer. It doesn't need to be a huge oscillating fan or a box fan, even something smaller (12" or something like that) should work fine if it's a smaller room.