Radiator Purchasing Decision.

[Newbisgood]

I've began planning for my first watercooling setup and began with purchasing the fans.  I'd like to buy the radiators next: 2 240mm within the range of 25-30mm but am undecided on which brand.  I'll be attempting to run them inside of an Ncase M1.  I've gone over the product info on various online stores, checked out various youtube channels for setups but still have not made a final decision.  So far I'm torn between Alphacool and EK but if you guys and ladies in this community can shed some light between these and possibly other products with reasons and educate me some I would greatly appreciate it. 

[SPG]

get what ever has a higher fpi, you'll get better performance since there is more surface area to dissipate heat
you'll have to run fans slightly faster to push air through them though. Personally I find it worth it
http://www.performance-pcs.com/ek-coolstream-se-240-slim-dual.html#Specifications
I'd go with this...though its not in stock on this site, I'm sure you can find it somewhere else (remember not to buy from frozencpu)

[Dietrichw]

as a warning alphacool rads can be very dirty and require a lot of flushing to get out excess flux

[Newbisgood]

21 minutes ago, SPG said:

get what ever has a higher fpi, you'll get better performance since there is more surface area to dissipate heat
you'll have to run fans slightly faster to push air through them though. Personally I find it worth it
http://www.performance-pcs.com/ek-coolstream-se-240-slim-dual.html#Specifications
I'd go with this...though its not in stock on this site, I'm sure you can find it somewhere else (remember not to buy from frozencpu)

What's wrong with buying from frozencpu?  I spoke to the guy of the store on the phone he said not to order from the website and to make requests by their email to place orders? 

[jpow007]

 

this guy knows all about watercooling. maybe not all but i feels hes a great source and he answered all my questions

[Newbisgood]

8 minutes ago, Dietrichw said:

as a warning alphacool rads can be very dirty and require a lot of flushing to get out excess flux

How much work and what type of fluid is needed to flush out the flux?  (what's flux?  lol)

[SPG]

Just now, Newbisgood said:

What's wrong with buying from frozencpu?  I spoke to the guy of the store on the phone he said not to order from the website and to make requests by their email to place orders? 

unless something changed some shit went down and you can't order anything at all...period and your money would be lost undtil you filed a claim to paypal or your bank or what ever you used

[ExcaliburVII]

27 minutes ago, SPG said:

get what ever has a higher fpi, you'll get better performance since there is more surface area to dissipate heat
you'll have to run fans slightly faster to push air through them though. Personally I find it worth it
http://www.performance-pcs.com/ek-coolstream-se-240-slim-dual.html#Specifications
I'd go with this...though its not in stock on this site, I'm sure you can find it somewhere else (remember not to buy from frozencpu)

Lots of people prefer low fpi rads so they can run fans at lower rpms, achieving quieter operation. If you don't care about that then great but I'd say don't worry about the fpi too much, anything in the 10 to 20 range should be fine.

[SPG]

1 minute ago, ExcaliburVII said:

Lots of people prefer low fpi rads so they can run fans at lower rpms, achieving quieter operation. If you don't care about that then great but I'd say don't worry about the fpi too much, anything in the 10 to 20 range should be fine.

generally you get lower fpi the thicker the rad, from the looks of it (at least on performancepcs) anything 30mm> thick is 16 fpi or higher
its all preference really, personally I don't think the extra speed adds enough noise for it to matter. To each their own though

[Newbisgood]

5 minutes ago, SPG said:

unless something changed some shit went down and you can't order anything at all...period and your money would be lost undtil you filed a claim to paypal or your bank or what ever you used

Has there been any reports or posts recently of people attempting to buy from them and never got their stuff or their money back? 

[SPG]

1 minute ago, Newbisgood said:

Has there been any reports or posts recently of people attempting to buy from them and never got their stuff or their money back? 

I haven't seen anything about them at all. If they finally got their shit together and fixed everything then I apologize for being wrong in advance

[Newbisgood]

2 minutes ago, SPG said:

I haven't seen anything about them at all. If they finally got their shit together and fixed everything then I apologize for being wrong in advance

They're still in business unless the dude on the phone was bullshitting me lol.  He mentioned that the site was broken and the orders wouldn't go through properly but that they can take orders via email-which in itself is kind of suspicious tbh because why not fix the website?  I'll need to investigate further, maybe negociate the transaction through paypal to make it legit and work it that way. 

[Newbisgood]

49 minutes ago, jpow007 said:

 

this guy knows all about watercooling. maybe not all but i feels hes a great source and he answered all my questions

Yeah I watch that channel for sources of information, thx. 

[0ld_Chicken]

What kind of fans are you going to be using? Are you hoping to keep things quiet or just go for maximum cooling?  I spend a lot of time here when comparing radiators and you've kinda got to look at the rest of the setup to decide. Or just a couple medium density (15~ fpi) that are within your thickness requirements

[Newbisgood]

2 hours ago, 0ld_Chicken said:

What kind of fans are you going to be using? Are you hoping to keep things quiet or just go for maximum cooling?  I spend a lot of time here when comparing radiators and you've kinda got to look at the rest of the setup to decide. Or just a couple medium density (15~ fpi) that are within your thickness requirements

Noctua NF-F12, Hoping for quiet.  How loud can it get during max cooling? 

[0ld_Chicken]

7 hours ago, Newbisgood said:

Noctua NF-F12, Hoping for quiet.  How loud can it get during max cooling? 

Those are good quiet fans when ran around 1000rpm or so. What are you cooling with these 2-240mm rads? I should've asked before, it makes a pretty big difference. Also are you planning on using a heavy overclock on your hardware?  I'm using a 4790k and gtx 980, both with a solid overclock on them.  My XSPC AX 240 AND EX 280 are not keeping up as well as I hoped with low fan speeds so I'm adding more rad space this weekend.  I definitely have enough to get by, but since when is watercooling about getting by lol

[Newbisgood]

18 minutes ago, 0ld_Chicken said:

Those are good quiet fans when ran around 1000rpm or so. What are you cooling with these 2-240mm rads? I should've asked before, it makes a pretty big difference. Also are you planning on using a heavy overclock on your hardware?  I'm using a 4790k and gtx 980, both with a solid overclock on them.  My XSPC AX 240 AND EX 280 are not keeping up as well as I hoped with low fan speeds so I'm adding more rad space this weekend.  I definitely have enough to get by, but since when is watercooling about getting by lol

4790K and I'm working on acquiring a reference HD7970 for $125 and overclocking that for the time being until new gen gpus.  is that price a bargain?