How would you plan this loop?

[SilverState]

Hey there.

 

This will be my first experience with rigid tubing, as all my watercooling so far was done with flexible tubing. I'm having issues finding the best setup for the loop. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

I've attached a photo of the setup. (apologies for the quality, took the picture with a phone).

Disclaimer: I am very well aware of the epicness of my paint skills.

 

Green circles=positions of the fittings on all the components except one: the pump. I have no idea where to place it. 

Red rectangles: The old position of the pump and the front 240 rad.

Yellow lines: My attempt at a possible routing. The messed up line from the cpu to res is there because i have no idea how to route that tube.

The PETG tube on the case is the level of the fittings on the front 240 rad.

 

I can drill/cut if needed, and I would like to avoid placing anything on or through the PSU shroud. The res->pump tube barely clears the shroud, but it fits, there will be no stress on the tube or fittings.The pump cannot go  directly underneath the res, as there would be clearance issues with the PSU shroud. The EK pump top is too big and clunky. If placed above the shroud and underneath the res, there are clearance issues with the fans on the top 360 rad.

The res can also go at the read of the case, but that means losing out on my 140 mm case fan.

 

How would you plan the loop?

Where would you place the pump?

[Leonard]

 

I would come from the top radiator to the CPU instead of the GPU then from the CPU outlet to the GPU inlet then to the reservoir, everything else seems fine

[SilverState]

I was thinking about that as well, but that would require 3 bends if i'm not mistaken, as the VRM heatsink on the motherboard interferes with the possible pathing of the tube. That radiator port and heatsink will be a nightmare to deal with

 

Also, the inlet of the cpu lines up perfectly with one of the ports on the gpu, this is why I chose it that way. I'll double check clearances to see if the 360->cpu is possible

[Leonard]

I was thinking about that as well, but that would require 3 bends if i'm not mistaken.. Also, the inlet of the cpu lines up perfectly with one of the ports on the gpu, this is why I chose it that way. I'll double check clearances to see if the 360->cpu is possible

You will have the same bends if you do it how i said. I put my runs in red.

 

[SilverState]

Just checked the clearance. Yes, that heatsink is in the way. What i'll have to do is 4 bends: 1 to clear the heatsink (towards the camera), 2nd to go down, 3rd to go right, 4th to go into the cpu block. 

 

There's 2 cm of clearance between the motherboard tray and the edge of the rad port, and the heatsink is slightly taller than that.

 

I'm assuming this will take a few tries, good thing that i boght 5m of tube. Should be enough though, I dont think I'm that incompetent.

[Leonard]

Just checked the clearance. Yes, that heatsink is in the way. What i'll have to do is 4 bends: 1 to clear the heatsink (towards the camera), 2nd to go down, 3rd to go right, 4th to go into the cpu block. 

 

There's 2 cm of clearance between the motherboard tray and the edge of the rad port, and the heatsink is slightly taller than that.

 

I'm assuming this will take a few tries, good thing that i boght 5m of tube. Should be enough though, I dont think I'm that incompetent.

I would reverse the top radiator and just do three bends for the first run. Most radiators don't have a dedicated inlet or outlet, i know the XSPC ones don't.

 

You won't actually be on the MOBO tray, it will actually be along the top of the GPU then make a 90 degree bend downward then another 90 degree bend to the reservoir.

 

Yes it does take a few tries and a few more to get it correct. I am sure you may muck up some bends just to get the hang of doing a bend let alone getting measurements correct. I would have done 6-7 meters as it is your first try. You know the saying less is more well in this case more is actually more.

[SilverState]

Reversing the radiator would not work, as the ports are diagonally opposite. If i rotate it, the ports end up in the same location. The only way to actually change the position is to flip the radiator with the ports up, which doesn;t work for me, as the tubing has nowhere to go on the top.

 

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. I will mark this as answered.

[SonoDanshi]

Assuming you can add the fitting to the underside of the GPU block, have you considered rotating the CPU block 90 degrees and having the tubing routed like this?

 

[SilverState]

I made a couple of changes to the config, as I had nowhere to put my HDD. One option was to drill into the plate with the phanteks logo (where the pump sits in the picture) and hide it on the other side, but that would only allow me to mound a single HDD. If i ever needed another HDD, I'd have no place for it. So I added the top 5.25 bays bac where they were and mounted the HDD there. Drilled 4 holes and it sits in place of the ODD. As linus said, praise GabeN for inventing steam.

 

That forced me to move the res from that position, attaching it to what would have been the HDD bays, and place it lower. The 240->360 is no longer possible, as the HDD sits there now, which also means i have to go to either CPU or GPU from the 240.

 

I finalized the res->pump and pump->240, though the position of the pump changed a bit. I got a bit adventurous with the bending, but it's working out fine so far.

 

Thanks for the CPU block tip, i'll see what I can do.