Should I Go All Out

[Activatemyrem]

I keep bouncing back between building a custom loop and just getting an aio closed loop and additionally if I did a custom I’d get some better parts that require a little more cooling. I have a few reasons to justify a custom loop, but the biggest issue I have is the difficulty of a custom loop along with the risk of a custom loop. If I did this, it would easily be a 10k build. I don’t want to take a risk and mess it up and have to save it all up all over again. 

 

Reasons for the expensive build: longevity, handling anything I throw at it while streaming, the maximum of encoding power, gaming at 1440p 60fps or higher at 144hz even when streaming, rendering and gaming and streaming at the same time

 

Now this is all well and good, but do I need the super powerful stuff for this (7980xe, TitanXp, 128gb of ram, custom loop) or could I get that with the lowest i9 and a 1080ti. That and that is all a luxury right? I keep hurting my head with trying to decide what I want and I think if I get the peak of what there is then there isn’t any real consequence except losing all of my hard earned money. Would it even be losing when I have the single most powerful and satisfying thing I’ve ever boughten. I still don’t have responsibilities that take up all of my check just yet so I could do this and there wouldn’t be any negatives, so that’s out of the bads. The final hoop I guess is the custom loop. I feel like I have the ability to build it if there’s a guide for beginners. So do you all think I could learn it and accomplish my goal or do you think there’s a large chance of flooding 10k of pc parts? 

 

Reasons for water cooling (custom loop): my room is always hot and a large percentage of it is from my already existing old pc and I can’t handle it anymore, I want it to be quiet even at load, like to the point that I could barely hear it from a few feet away at load and wouldn’t get picked up on stream, if it means not overclocking to achieve the aforementioned results I am ok with that

 

So that’s it, I’m tired of trying to decide for myself so please help me out and give me your opinions. I guess another question is should I use a heat gun to bend some petg for the build or should I just use straight tubes with fittings to minimize risk when building, but would this increase the likelihood of a leak? Thanks guys. 

[RollinLower]

get a low i9 and a 1080Ti. that's definitely enough power for gaming and streaming. 

custom loops are very easy. if you can do a PC build, you can definitely do a custom loop build. there are tons of guides for beginners on channels like Jayztwocents and bitwit.

[redtute]

Just use a 8700k who needs an i9 unless your streaming or editing for a living.

8700k does a good job at streaming with its fast 6 cores.

[joshuawi99]

Go custom loop it is worth the experience

[Jekub]

Just thought I'd point out that the better your cooling solution the hotter your room will be. The more heat your taking away from the CPU, GPU the more your putting into the air around your rig.

 

[Tam3n]

If you are already going to put that much resourses and effort into your build, I would recommend going with the custom loop. It's pretty easy and safe if you use soft tube and compression fittings. Hard tubing needs a bit more work. The cooling performance will def be worth it. It's also about wether you like to assemble and research (important to do beforehand) new stuff yourself, or go with the easy option of AIO... If you go with custom, make sure the case has space for rads and get a reference design GPU, that has the widest availability of GPU water blocks. Tho that should not be an issue with Titans.

[AngryBeaver]

You could also take the middle ground and pick up an expandable AIO. Then pick up a 240-360mm radiator and gpu waterblock (or two). Then This would be a much cheaper options and will also take a good bit of trouble out of planning the parts.

 

The performance should be very similar depending on which expandable AIO you pick. Swifttech for example uses a version of their mcp35 ddc pump (great pump), they also use their mainline radiator and cpu block. So you end up saving money using this setup. The only downside is their pump the mcp30 (for their expandable aio) is slower on the rpm side than the originally mcp35... so it has less flow overall, but being a ddc the head pressure is good and it still pushes more than enough gpm to cool a 2 rad 3 block loop.

[Activatemyrem]

10 hours ago, Tam3n said:

If you are already going to put that much resourses and effort into your build, I would recommend going with the custom loop. It's pretty easy and safe if you use soft tube and compression fittings. Hard tubing needs a bit more work. The cooling performance will def be worth it. It's also about wether you like to assemble and research (important to do beforehand) new stuff yourself, or go with the easy option of AIO... If you go with custom, make sure the case has space for rads and get a reference design GPU, that has the widest availability of GPU water blocks. Tho that should not be an issue with Titans.

I want to use compression fittings and hardline. But I guess I didn’t get anyone to answer how much of a risk it is to watercool. It looks amazing, it cools everything great, makes them live longer, it’s fun to put stuff together, but I just want to be safe. I know I can learn it but is it safe? I feel like this is a really stupid question of me because it seems suggestive from case to case stories and it’s not set in stone so I’m just nervous. So it’s probably just if I want to and that’s it right? Kinda just in the air?

[Tam3n]

3 hours ago, Activatemyrem said:

I want to use compression fittings and hardline. But I guess I didn’t get anyone to answer how much of a risk it is to watercool. It looks amazing, it cools everything great, makes them live longer, it’s fun to put stuff together, but I just want to be safe. I know I can learn it but is it safe? I feel like this is a really stupid question of me because it seems suggestive from case to case stories and it’s not set in stone so I’m just nervous. So it’s probably just if I want to and that’s it right? Kinda just in the air?

Well, the risk is to get a leak - water shorting exposed electrical components when you have power on, in the worst case. I have had custom water cooling loop for 4 years and I actually got one leak... It was an old model EK rotary 90 degree fitting that started to leak (after maybe a year of use) slightly from the rotary joint. I was lucky and noticed it before any damage was done. So it's not like leaks cannot happen. Even so, I continue to do water cooling, because I think it's worth it for me.

I don't have personal experience with hardline, since my setup is not so much about the looks and soft tubing is a bit more practical in my mind. From my general impressions hardline is at least as leak resistant as soft tubing, usually requires a bit more fittings and planning to get the routes lined up and a bit more work and precision with bending and cutting the hard tube for good results.

Back to risks of leaking, I think the connection between lets say soft tube and compression fitting is pretty much guaranteed to not leak under normal use. I actually had hard time pulling the tube off of the fitting when I was changing components, and when assembled there is the compression nut pressing on the tube on top of that... But I guess if you want to be 100% sure of no leaks, you are left with air cooling, or maybe AIO, but even those are not 100% safe as nothing in life is However, properly done, leak tested and monitored custom loop does not significantly increase the chances of the system failing overal in my opinion.

[iiNNeX]

If it must be an i9, then the 7900X is plenty, no need for the XE, waste of cash unless you are actually going to use all of it's cores. Also 128GB ram is pointless, especially at today's price and vs your actual needs. If you really need a lot, I'd say 64GB max, but get a decent speed kit (3200 minimum with good timings).

 

As for custom loop, I went full AIO (cpu and gpus) first and then custom loop after. 2 Years later and a few PCs in between I am back to AIO setup and air cooled card. Honestly, it's nice and all having a pretty cooling solution, but temperatures and performance will not change as much as you think the will, the only thing that does is noise. That said, it depends how far away you are from the PC, how many fans, how many radiators, ect....

 

PM me if you want more help with the loop, as I've so far done 5 (both soft and hard tubing) and have some do's and don't s that I can share.

[andrewmp6]

If you use good fittings and everything is done right the chance of a leak is very small.And even a aio can leak or the pump can go out since they don't use the best pump.We have members with the same custom loop running for 5 years and no problems with the normal up keep.It really comes down to budget and are you willing to do the up keep,Like changing the fluid when needed.

[AngryBeaver]

I noticed you mentioned hard line tubing. I would highly recommend you start with soft tubing and worry about hard tubing maybe in 6 months to a year when you flush your system.

 

It is a much better idea to get your feet wet with soft tubing and get comfortable with water cooling before you try to tackle a hard tubing build. It is a completely different animal and there are lots of little risks that go with it.

 

One thing that people make for example is having a pump and tubing setup where a lot of vibrations from the pump transfer to the hard tubing.. this will pass on to other components in the loop and in some scenarios the constant vibrations eventually leads to a catastrophic leak in the system.