A truly custom water cooling loop

[Balde]

I'd love to see what you guys think of my nice and sketchy custom water cooling loop.

 

 

It all started off when I started looking into water cooling after Linus' 7 gamers 1 CPU video ( It was technically two but we'll gloss over that  ). The idea of a custom loop doing something like that made me think of water cooling my own computer, a slightly less powerful machine mind you. The All-in-one loops were affordable but very limited in terms of expansion and the custom water cooling gear such as the excellent stuff from EK was way too expensive for what I wanted. So I made a compromise: Using the cheapest possible components off Amazon and 3d printing to make my own loop.

 

I made my own loop all with purchasable parts a while back which you can find here:

However that only handled the CPU, and that's boring!

 

So for why I needed to 3D Print... All the cheap radiators are made of aluminium which would be fine, except most of the water blocks are made of copper. (This mixing metals would probably corrode sooner or later as was pointed out to me in the above thread) However there were also a few made of aluminium, the only catch is: no mounting hardware. So since I was making custom mounting hardware for the CPU anyway I decided to make some for the GPU too, I mean, how hard could it be?

 

So I fired up OpenSCAD and made up some mounting hardware. If you want to build a similar loop the .scad files included are parametric so you can change the GPU holes if you want to use it on your card. The mounting hardware uses 4 short screws and 4 longer screws and the 4 screws around the GPU die. It mounts two of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BQLZR-40x40x12mm-Radiator-Aluminum-Cooling/dp/B00L2869NG?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

One for the CPU and one for the GPU, all other parts other than the copper water block were reused from my old loop.

OpenSCAD Files:

Spoiler

i4.scad - The waterblock holder

plug2.scad - The holddowns

 

As far as performance goes:

It's not much better than an air cooler but it is MUCH quieter. The CPU maxes out at about 60 degrees on its own, same for the GPU ( Using FurMark ). When both maxed out they reached a peak of about 70 degrees on CPU and about 60 degrees on the GPU after 10 minutes.

 

Anyway here are some pictures of the system and the mounting hardware:

Spoiler

 

 

[mikat]

nice

[done12many2]

8 hours ago, Balde said:

As far as performance goes:

It's not much better than an air cooler but it is MUCH quieter. The CPU maxes out at about 60 degrees on its own, same for the GPU ( Using FurMark ). When both maxed out they reached a peak of about 70 degrees on CPU and about 60 degrees on the GPU after 10 minutes.

 

Anyway here are some pictures of the system and the mounting hardware:

What route is your loop flowing?

 

Nice job on being creative!

[Balde]

9 hours ago, done12many2 said:

What route is your loop flowing?

 

Nice job on being creative!

Pump > CPU > GPU > Radiator

No performance reason, just the shortest pipe runs

[Guest]

You lost me at 3d printing, and not much better than air but much quieter, isn't a cheap 3d printer 500 bucks? , all your efforts with non ek parts you could build a system to out do air cooling, but cheap and water cooling don't belong in the same sentence lol

[Balde]

8 hours ago, Slickwicked said:

You lost me at 3d printing, and not much better than air but much quieter, isn't a cheap 3d printer 500 bucks? , all your efforts with non ek parts you could build a system to out do air cooling, but cheap and water cooling don't belong in the same sentence lol

While yes the 3D printer is expensive I already had it so it's not really another cost to the loop itself. While my CPU runs slightly hotter than with my TX3 my GPU is about 30 degrees cooler under load ( albeit the thermal compound on my card was a little dodgy ). The main benefit is how quiet it is, as before it was amazingly loud with the GPU under load. So in a sense it does out do air cooling, just not in thermals.

 

I disagree that cheap and water cooling don't belong in the same sentence. It shouldn't be something restricted to those willing to pour hundreds into their rig. You get what you pay for I guess, and EK stuff will undoubtedly last longer, but you shouldn't give up just because you can't afford the best. 

 

I'm not saying what I did would be affordable for the average gamer but for my needs it was the best option