EKWB custom loop configurator

[ChaosandWaffles]

Not sure if this has been posted yet but I think this is pretty cool.

 

EKWBs now has a custom configuration system for finding fittings, blocks and the supplies you'll need to do your loop (hard tube or soft tube). I ran my system through there and came out with a cart full of tools and pieces totaling about $800 for a hard tube loop which is like 100 less than loop I priced out on my own. 

 

The coolest part by far is probably the fact it asks what case you have. Not so sure how much it takes this into consideration beyond just radiator mount points. I can't imagine they run that through a database that has a "res mount points" field so that might be a problem in some cases.  

 

https://www.ekwb.com/custom-loop-configurator/

[Daniel644]

yeah it's been there for a while, several months at least and the case question is for a database of what rads can fit where like if I pick some obscenely large case that can handle multiple 480 rads it will call for my system to have 2 360 slim rads, but in something like a 570x that on;y supports a single 360 rad it will split the second one to a 240 in the top and a 120 in the rear.

[ChaosandWaffles]

1 minute ago, Daniel644 said:

yeah it's been there for a while, several months at least and the case question is for a database of what rads can fit where like if I pick some obscenely large case that can handle multiple 480 rads it will call for my system to have 2 360 slim rads, but in something like a 570x that on;y supports a single 360 rad it will split the second one to a 240 in the top and a 120 in the rear.

Dang, I thought it was new. I felt like I was just on their site a week ago and it didn't have it. 

 

I'm getting a NZXT s340 which is already a tiny case but I don't think it has reservoir mounting points unless your drilling into the case or mounting to your rads. 

 

I will say I noticed it also doesn't quote you out some plug fittings. I haven't tried watercooling yet so I'm not sure if rads, blocks and reservoirs come with plugs but I can't imagine they do. 

[Enderman]

It's not a good idea to buy all of the components from a single watercooling company.

[MkaiL]

31 minutes ago, ChaosandWaffles said:

Dang, I thought it was new.

It's been out for a long time now. Here's a video from Jay dating feb 2017 on the ek configurator.

 

[seba7661]

16 hours ago, Enderman said:

It's not a good idea to buy all of the components from a single watercooling company.

why not?:0 i bought all of mine from ek

[Enderman]

6 hours ago, seba7661 said:

why not?:0 i bought all of mine from ek

Because there is no single company that makes all of the best watercooling components.

For example, EK fittings are crap and leak very often, which is why most people buy fittings from bitspower.

[seba7661]

16 hours ago, Enderman said:

Because there is no single company that makes all of the best watercooling components.

For example, EK fittings are crap and leak very often, which is why most people buy fittings from bitspower.

Well fuck. All of the bends in my build i made with fittings

[For Science!]

5 hours ago, seba7661 said:

Well fuck. All of the bends in my build i made with fittings

Dont worry, you'll be fine. Almost all the branded fittings work fine, sure, each company have had bad batches in the past but any repuatble manufacturers fittings will be fit for purpose.

 

The only thing woth EK is that their parts are accessible to many novice users sonce they supply many kits and so user error is large factor here. On the otherhand for bitspower you have to be able to trawl your way through their long catalogue and SKUs.

 

Basically if you havent screwed up any reputable fitting is fine. I have built 5 systems with EK fittings (with many rotary fittings too) with no leaks whatsoever.

[InsufficientSleep]

lol, I have a Thermaltake case so I started by typing thermal....  the first in the list is ThermalFake view 27 

[seba7661]

14 hours ago, For Science! said:

Dont worry, you'll be fine. Almost all the branded fittings work fine, sure, each company have had bad batches in the past but any repuatble manufacturers fittings will be fit for purpose.

 

The only thing woth EK is that their parts are accessible to many novice users sonce they supply many kits and so user error is large factor here. On the otherhand for bitspower you have to be able to trawl your way through their long catalogue and SKUs.

 

Basically if you havent screwed up any reputable fitting is fine. I have built 5 systems with EK fittings (with many rotary fittings too) with no leaks whatsoever.

had my loop for 2 months now and i have 6 rotary fittings. no leak what to ever.

[bling]

Also don't trust completly the configurator about the radiators size, it tend to be conservative, at least in my experience. I'm using a combination of radiators that the configurator didn't listed as possible

[Scitesh]

On 23/06/2018 at 2:06 AM, Enderman said:

It's not a good idea to buy all of the components from a single watercooling company.

Sir explain.. Watercooling noob (aios only so far) 

[Enderman]

6 hours ago, Scitesh said:

Sir explain.. Watercooling noob (aios only so far) 

EK makes good waterblocks and pumps, bitspower makes good fittings, mayhems makes good coolants and tubing, hardwarelabs makes good radiators, etc.

There isn't one company that makes all of the best parts, so if you care about performance and reliability you will research to find out what component you should get where.

[Enderman]

On 2018-06-24 at 9:54 AM, For Science! said:

Dont worry, you'll be fine. Almost all the branded fittings work fine, sure, each company have had bad batches in the past but any repuatble manufacturers fittings will be fit for purpose.

 

The only thing woth EK is that their parts are accessible to many novice users sonce they supply many kits and so user error is large factor here. On the otherhand for bitspower you have to be able to trawl your way through their long catalogue and SKUs.

 

Basically if you havent screwed up any reputable fitting is fine. I have built 5 systems with EK fittings (with many rotary fittings too) with no leaks whatsoever.

 

On 2018-06-24 at 11:58 PM, seba7661 said:

had my loop for 2 months now and i have 6 rotary fittings. no leak what to ever.

 

Linus had EK fittings leak at least twice.

Jayztwocents had EK fittings leak too.

If you search with google you can find hundreds of other people who also had EK fittings leak.

 

Just because your anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise does not mean that the probability of a leak is any lower.

Anyone who cares about reliability will never use EK fittings.

[For Science!]

 

 

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

Linus had EK fittings leak at least twice.

Jayztwocents had EK fittings leak too.

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

Just because your anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise does not mean that the probability of a leak is any lower.

Their anecdotal evidence is as good as mine, the fact that a high-profile youtuber had a leak means nothing. 

 

We've had this discussion before. Bitspower is Asia, EK is in Europe. An english search will always yield more results about EK since they are a bigger player in the European/US market. Please also remember that EK now has a completely different line-up of rotary fittings that were supposedly causing  issues in 2015-2016.

 

A big reason why people have leaks with EK are often down to the requirement of port-extenders on many of their reservoirs and terminals. Also the chances of leaks have a large correlation between your skill level, and as I mentioned before, EK's kits are accessible to a wide range of novice users. By far the biggest factor is user skill, and honestly those who take it to forums to say "my fittings are leaking, what should I do?" are clearly not in the correct mind set of "just replace it".

 

If I had a leaky fitting, I would replace it, and make it not leak, it wouldn't require a forum post. I am certain that if you are of a skill level that can order fittings individually from bitspower in an english speaking country, even if it leaked it would result in a forum post. Therefore how many reports there are on forums are only reflecting the novice user base, which EK most probably has a larger share.

 

Anyway, you do you as you always do. Hope that you one day actually build a watercooled pc so you can share you own anecdotal evidences.

[Enderman]

1 hour ago, For Science! said:

Their anecdotal evidence is as good as mine, the fact that a high-profile youtuber had a leak means nothing. 

 

We've had this discussion before. Bitspower is Asia, EK is in Europe. An english search will always yield more results about EK since they are a bigger player in the European/US market. Please also remember that EK now has a completely different line-up of rotary fittings that were supposedly causing  issues in 2015-2016.

 

A big reason why people have leaks with EK are often down to the requirement of port-extenders on many of their reservoirs and terminals. Also the chances of leaks have a large correlation between your skill level, and as I mentioned before, EK's kits are accessible to a wide range of novice users. By far the biggest factor is user skill, and honestly those who take it to forums to say "my fittings are leaking, what should I do?" are clearly not in the correct mind set of "just replace it".

 

If I had a leaky fitting, I would replace it, and make it not leak, it wouldn't require a forum post. I am certain that if you are of a skill level that can order fittings individually from bitspower in an english speaking country, even if it leaked it would result in a forum post. Therefore how many reports there are on forums are only reflecting the novice user base, which EK most probably has a larger share.

 

Anyway, you do you as you always do. Hope that you one day actually build a watercooled pc so you can share you own anecdotal evidences.

1) I never said that they will leak, just that there is a higher probability.

 

2) I don't think you understand how anecdotal evidence works. If you have no leaks, but someone else does, you cannot say that it will never leak just because of your anecdotal evidence. The other person also cannot say that they will ALL leak because of their anecdotal evidence. But the fact that someone (or many people) did have it leak gives a good idea about the probability distribution.

 

3) If EK has fixed their leaky fittings then great, but there is no question that hundreds of leaks have happened with their fittings (not just the rotary ones too). Please link a source about the new redesigned fittings, I am interested in knowing more.

 

4) If you have a leaky fitting, then something is seriously wrong with the product because computer liquid cooling products should never leak if used correctly. Mixing liquid and electronics is risky and that's why people should only buy the BEST and most reliable components.

 

5) Yes there is always the case where someone doesn't screw in their fitting tight enough or incorrectly, but you can just see from all posts on the internet that the leaks from EK fittings almost always come from the o-ring and are not user error. For example linus and jayztwocents.

 

6) Plenty of people use bitspower fittings in the US. Almost all of the high end builders who know their stuff use bitspower because they don't like taking risks of killing PC components, especially for customer builds. Other than the defective rotary incidents back in 2012 I haven't found anyone that's had them leak, but maybe you've found otherwise? Let me know.

[For Science!]

28 minutes ago, Enderman said:

-

1) & 2)

Probability is an interesting prospect when it comes to leaking. Unless if there is one person who has sample tens of thousands of fittings from each company, I wouldn't think it is fair to assume that counting forum posts is significant. Just like how for some people, the Kraken AIO has "failed" 8 times in a row, product failure needs to be de-coupled from user error - if four fittings out of 8 purchased are leaking, that is beyond what I would call "bad luck". I would be intrigued to see somebody who can afford it to do this kind of test and put some numbers on these probabilities. Obviously I am happy to accept that my own sample size of about 80 fittings with a probability of leak being 0 is not going to be significant, but that is an interesting question all together.

 

3)

The CSQ varients of the fittings are what stars the when I look for leak reports. 

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-csq-adapter-90-g1-4-black

These are EOL now, and replaced with another sku.

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-af-angled-90-g1-4-black

 

4)

Indeed, the product should not leak if used correctly, and that is my point, they are not likely to leak if used correctly. I also agree that risk management is an important concept, but it is only what it is, risk management. We can both agree that no component has an absolute 0 risk, even Bitspower parts, and therefore it comes down to whether if you are willing to stomach the cost. If Bitspower parts were the same price as EK, then I think we wouldn't be having this debate, but since that is not the case, I am happy to recommend the triple O-ring compression fittings and their rotary fittings as fit for purpose. 

 

At the end of the day, it is a "bang-for-buck" argument. Obviously if you cheap out so much that you get 5th hand fittings with half-sliced O-rings then no matter how cheap it was, you will have no "bang".  But as far as I can see, in 2018, any "named" brand fittings is of sufficient enough quality to be comfortable without being shaking in fear for the next big leak. This is exactly like how I see power supplies, I wouldn't recommend super-duper cheap no-name power supply but I wouldn't bat an eyelid if somebody used a "tier 2" PSU to power their system. 

 

5)

Yes, but most of them are because the recessed ports making the O-ring not connect. If anything this is down to bad reservoir and connector design from EK, but nothing beyond reading the manual and seeing which ports require a port extender.

 

Additionally, watercooling is a highly complicated of chemical reactions. While we are happy to talk about the quality of O-rings and fittings and metals, a commonly overlooked aspect is the coolant. Many people are happy to use completely undocumented coolants such as from Mayhems and Primochill. These O-rings don't arrive ripped or get ripped by people (outside of user error), they also do not spontaneously fail unless if they get degraded by heat or chemicals. 

 

6)

Bitspower fittings are high-quality, that is fine, no debate there. But again, the barrier for carting out individual fitting makes the user base naturally more experienced than the people who just pick up an EK-kit and wonder later "how do I drain this thing?" 

 

Anyway, I think it will not be productive for us to argue this any further. You will forever be an elitist who only accepts the "best" components, I will not fear-monger people unnecessarily and promote all "respectable" components.

[Enderman]

12 minutes ago, For Science! said:

 

I guess we shall see over time how the new EK fittings perform.

Part of the reason the bitspower ones are more reliable is that they have a much tighter seal which makes them difficult to rotate.

Tighter manufacturing tolerance or harder o-ring or something, not sure exactly what.

Do you have any of the new EK ones? Are they stiffer around the joint than the previous EK fittings?

[For Science!]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

-

I have not used the CSQ fittings so can't comment. I have done comparisons with Bitspower rotary fittings and can confirm that at least on a qualitative "feeling" the Bitspower ones are higher quality. However since I am yet to see an leaky EK fitting first-hand, as of yet I have no personal reason to discourage the EK ones at the price they are offered.

 

When it comes to the compression fittings, the EK ones actually feel somewhat stiffer (harder to yank a tube out when tightened) and I think this is because of the extra height the HDC fitting has compared to the multi-link Bitspower one which has a slightly shallower grip height. Having said that I think a proper loop should not have pulling forces applied onto the tube if done properly, so I think "how difficult it is to pull a tube out of a compression fitting" is not necessary an indicator for anything.