watercooling Watercooling my phantom 630 with a 200 x 400mm, 360mm or a 280mm radiator?

[racingjames]

Hi guys,

 

I was wondering whether I should get a 400x200mm, 360mm or 280mm radiator or other for the top of my phantom 630 case, I have currently got 3 200mm fans in it and a PUNY EVO 212 cooling my 4.4Ghz i7 5820k.

Also I will probably have a radiator in the front as I want to try to keep the fan speeds down even though I am adding my GPU('s, may add another for some sick crossfire). 

Just as a note somehow my little 212 keeps my CPU at a comfortable 50C at 100% load and GPU sits at 60-70C under heavy load with 70% fan speed. although I only hit 100% while rendering for like 30 mins or less and my room has great ventilation, 2 air vents + window.

 

The part list is as follows,

Cpu + cooler mentioned above,

Case mentioned above also,

Sapphire R9 390 Nitro (OC'ed with stock cooler ATM, going to be adding a waterblock),

MSI X99A SLI Plus,

1x 500GB Samsung 850 EVO,

1x 2TB Seagate 7200RPM Baracuda HDD,

4x 4GB HyperX XMP Predator 2400Mhz 12CL Ram (OC'ed),

HX750i 750W Platinum Corsair PSU

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I have never watercooled before. This is my first pc build and I would like it to basicly stay the same for a few years with minimum changes except usual maintinance of running a watercooling setup.

 

[gazabi]

16 minutes ago, racingjames said:

Hi guys,

 

I was wondering whether I should get a 400x200mm, 360mm or 280mm radiator or other for the top of my phantom 630 case, I have currently got 3 200mm fans in it and a PUNY EVO 212 cooling my 4.4Ghz i7 5820k.

Also I will probably have a radiator in the front as I want to try to keep the fan speeds down even though I am adding my GPU('s, may add another for some sick crossfire). 

Just as a note somehow my little 212 keeps my CPU at a comfortable 50C at 100% load and GPU sits at 60-70C under heavy load with 70% fan speed. although I only hit 100% while rendering for like 30 mins or less and my room has great ventilation, 2 air vents + window.

 

The part list is as follows,

Cpu + cooler mentioned above,

Case mentioned above also,

Sapphire R9 390 Nitro (OC'ed with stock cooler ATM, going to be adding a waterblock),

MSI X99A SLI Plus,

1x 500GB Samsung 850 EVO,

1x 2TB Seagate 7200RPM Baracuda HDD,

4x 4GB HyperX XMP Predator 2400Mhz 12CL Ram (OC'ed),

HX750i 750W Platinum Corsair PSU

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I have never watercooled before. This is my first pc build and I would like it to basicly stay the same for a few years with minimum changes except usual maintinance of running a watercooling setup.

 

You should get a 360mm for the top. A 240mm for the front or bottom, not both at the same time. If you put a 240mm at the bottom you can get a much thicker radiator versus if you put it up front. I reccomend ek for your parts, they are a bit more expensive versus others but their quality is assured.

[racingjames]

Why a 360mm? is it more efficient to have a long thin rad, I am planning on getting at least 2 bitphenix 200mm spectre pro's for a 200mm rad But I don't know if that would be more or less efficient than just using 3 120mm fans? btw I would run fans at 50-60% speed as that I find is best for a balance between noise and performance. Also what thickness should I use, with the fpi I will not be using very high as I know that high fpi would just cause the air to divert because of the side gaps.

 

[Ryoku]

12 minutes ago, racingjames said:

Why a 360mm? is it more efficient to have a long thin rad, I am planning on getting at least 2 bitphenix 200mm spectre pro's for a 200mm rad But I don't know if that would be more or less efficient than just using 3 120mm fans? btw I would run fans at 50-60% speed as that I find is best for a balance between noise and performance. Also what thickness should I use, with the fpi I will not be using very high as I know that high fpi would just cause the air to divert because of the side gaps.

 

Yea you get more from length then you do with thickness when it comes to rads. At lower speeds you'll see a very minor difference between say a 30mm thick rad to a 45-60mm.  Only when you start to crank the rpm up and add more fans that you'll start to see a bigger difference in temps.  Is there even any good 200mm fans I've never really heard of anyone doing builds with them especially watercooling with rads.  Most the good rads/fans are 120/140mm increments.

[racingjames]

I have heard of the Phobya Xtreme 200mm and Xtreme 400mm. I have never heard of anyone using them hence why I came here.

There is a large community here and I would expect at least a few members to know about these rads and more importantly where to get them.

I live in the UK but I can ship if needed.

[racingjames]

Also forgot to add is width or length more important aka would a 360 be better than a 280 for me and why? I know about the thickness it was supposed to say width ops.
 But thank you anyway the info is allways helpful

[W-L]

15 hours ago, racingjames said:

Also forgot to add is width or length more important aka would a 360 be better than a 280 for me and why? I know about the thickness it was supposed to say width ops.
 But thank you anyway the info is allways helpful

As mentioned a 360mm rad would be best, 200mm fans are fairly lack luster compared to the selection of pressure optimized 120mm or 140mm fans. Longer  thinner rads will have more cooling performance over thicker rads, unless you are going for a triple 420mm rad it would have less cooling performance to a 360mm rad. 

[racingjames]

W-L Can you tell me which of width or length is more important.

I will be using 30mm thickness or 45, I don't care about thickness as the main thing is I want it to not only function like a dream but look good as I am planning on using it as an example PC to many others thinking of watercooling and the sort of optimisation of layout you can use.

Also can you tell me how good the 200mm bitfenix spectre pro fans are: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BitFenix-200mm-Spectre-PRO-Fan/dp/B0067LYYI0

[W-L]

6 minutes ago, racingjames said:

W-L Can you tell me which of width or length is more important.

I will be using 30mm thickness or 45, I don't care about thickness as the main thing is I want it to not only function like a dream but look good as I am planning on using it as an example PC to many others thinking of watercooling and the sort of optimisation of layout you can use.

Also can you tell me how good the 200mm bitfenix spectre pro fans are: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BitFenix-200mm-Spectre-PRO-Fan/dp/B0067LYYI0

The 200mm fans are decent as a pressure fans but nothing too amazing. If you can fit a 420mm rad that would be ideal, length usually outweighs thickness but width somewhat depends. If you were to compare a 280mm to a 360mm the longer 360mm would be better but to a dual 200mm that would be a somewhat close race depending on the rad specs. 

[racingjames]

A 420 won't quite fit I checked. ;( So sad. I need to look into the Phobeya xtreme some more, just not much info on it. And US sites are mainly not working here and redirect me...
 

[racingjames]

Just looked at Noctua making a Pressure optimised 200mm fan.... This could be a new generation of overkill massive radiators xDDD http://noctua.at/en/noctua-at-computex-2016

[racingjames]

Looks like if I can hang fire for a bit and collect my other key components I could get a super quiet and efficient 200mm watercooling setup

 

[W-L]

10 hours ago, racingjames said:

Looks like if I can hang fire for a bit and collect my other key components I could get a super quiet and efficient 200mm watercooling setup

Hard to say when those will come out since they've been talked about for a couple of years now but if they are anything like the NF-F12 fans then those would be a good contender. 

[racingjames]

Since I am here, is there any Pumps, tubing or fittings you have had good experiance with for me to use?

 

 

[W-L]

1 hour ago, racingjames said:

Since I am here, is there any Pumps, tubing or fittings you have had good experiance with for me to use?

For pumps the D5 is regarded to be one of the best pumps out there, as for tubing that depends if your going hardline or soft tube. Some good brand however are both Bitspower and EKWB.