First watercooling custom loop

texhornsaj · May 13, 2015

So I am building a new pc and I want to do my first water cooling loop. Here is my planned build, please post any suggestions and any tips would be helpful. Theme is going to be orange and black with some white in there as well.Thank you in advance.

PC:

Fractal Design Define R5

Asus X99 Deluxe

Intel 5930k (know a guy who works at intel so get a discount)

16gb Kingston HyperX Fury

Samsung evo 500gb ssd - main drive

Samsung evo 250gb ssd - games and such

1tb 7200rpm disk drive - all other storage

Corsair SP120 and AF120 fans - rings painted orange

Gtx 980ti's x 2 (when they come out)

PSU - still undecided, need fully modular so I can get custom orange and black maxfinder cables

Asus VN247H-P x 3 - always wanted to do surround gaming

Water Cooling:

Alphacool NexXxus ST30 x 2 - One in the top and one in the front

Bitspower black compression fittings

Primochill Primo Flex Advanced LRT tubing (orange)

XSPC d5 Photon 170 reservoir/D5 pump combo

Swiftech Apogee XL or XSPC Raystorm
Two Gpu blocks (when they come out as well)

Again thank you for any advice. Not really in a hurry on this one as my current pc is still plenty, will probably transfer my two 780s over to this one until the 980 tis come out if they take awhile.

Aurora906 · May 13, 2015

Im not gonna be much help in the custom water cooling loop section, but Fractal just came out with the Define-S case.

bigboy678 · May 13, 2015

are you going to be overclocking anything at all? if so id recommened get 1 360 rad and 1 240 if you want (or 2 360's if you can). The case you picked and the define s aurora mentioned are both good cases but if you want to hang a radiator at the top of the case it can only be a real slim one without interfering with the motherboard (i believe so not 100 percent sure on that) but i think the 30mm thick alphacools would be fine.

id also case wise look at the thermaltake core v41. its a mid tower case where the top case fans are off centered so it can hold a 360 rad without interfering with the motherboard (namely the clearance between the rad and mosfet coolers) i also believe it can hold another 360 rad in the front as well. plus the hard drives/ssds mount behind the motherboard so more room for radiators and reservoir

your cpu cooler is fine but might i suggest a watercool heatkiller 4 basic. it performs very well and is not that expensive. (around $60 US)

Power supply wise if you want to overclock i recommend a 1000w psu. the evga supernova g2 series are very highly regarded and if you dont want to sleeve your own cables cablemods has custom kits for it (in orange and black too i believe). those sleeve kits are about $90 US

when it comes to waterblocks for the gpu you cant go wrong with EK

instead of orange tubing why not have clear tubing and orange dye? thats just a personal taste of mine. Mayhem Dyes make non staining dyes that also contain a biocide (the biocide are only found in their non staining dyes) so you wont have to worry about any creatures growing in your loop. To make orange you would need to get red and yellow dyes http://mayhems.co.uk/store/

You seem to know exactly what you want which is very good. Let us know how it turns out

texhornsaj · May 13, 2015

I actually already have the Case and Motherboard so those are pretty set in stone. Got a good deal on both of them. I've considered the clear tubing and orange liquid just didn't know how well that will work in the reservoir with the led in the middle. Didn't know if it would just drown out the light or not.