Water Cooling Build

[C4J3]

So a while ago I made a post about hopefully looking to liquid cool my build. Due to a sudden new not so part time job I now have the ability to go a little bigger with this and actually make it happen. HYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

So... the build plan so far:

Case: Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic

Radiators: EK-CoolStream PE 360 (x3)

Pump: EK-XTOP Revo Dual D5

Resevoir: EK-RES X3 250 RGB

CPU Block choice 1: Ncore Naked Die Cooler (If they make a Skylake-X compatible model)

CPU Block choice 2: EK-FB ASUS Strix X299-E RGB Monoblock - Nickel + Der8auer Skylake-X Direct Die Frame

Tubing: As yet undecided between Hard or soft tubing as I like a challenge but I'm not sure if hard tubing first time is more difficult or stupid

Fittings: EK-ACF Fittings I'm thinking Nickel will look best

Thermal Paste: Conductonaut and some old Antec Formula 7 I have lying around for the GPU

GPU Block: undecided as I think I will get a knew GPU but the 2080ti seems a bit... nuts? So I might just buy a second hand 1080ti for half the price and get MOAR RGB!!!!

Fans: looking for suggestions but thinking Noctua NF-F12's

I'm thinking of hiding the pump behind the Motherboard as I have so much room there and just having the res up front with the tubes and blocks.

 

My specs are on my profile if people need them and here on PCPartPicker

 

Wanting to do RAM and Mobo cooling but I think the CPU block does both CPU and Mobo but I have no idea about RAM cooling.

 

looking for suggestions on better parts of equally good alternatives and mainly RAM and ultimately building advice.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Edit 1: New Thermal paste based off of Enderman's reccomendation and clarity for Rads. Thanks Derrk! Also fans

[Derrk]

id get another rad if you're going to cool gpu & cpu. Maybe get an EK 360 PE for the side, and top-mount the 360 SE

[Enderman]

Conductonaut is easier to apply and performs the same.

[C4J3]

Meant to say more than one rad. Was wondering about different types for different areas in the case. I want to do 3 rads so would you say 2 SE's and a side mounted PE?

[Derrk]

2 minutes ago, Chupp4 Jo3 said:

Meant to say more than one rad. Was wondering about different types for different areas in the case. I want to do 3 rads so would you say 2 SE's and a side mounted PE?

it'll be overkill, but it'll work well. More surface area = better dissipation.

 

However, depending on your motherboards form factor, it may be hard to fit a bottom-mount radiator. I'm not too familiar with the case, but the specifications will probably be able to tell you if a bottom-rad will fit with an ATX board or not

[C4J3]

According to the specs at the bottom it supports 120x 360mm / 120x 240mm / 140x 280mm raidator arrangement. Will keep the SE 360 and look at change to a 240 SE as well. going to look at EK's 140mm offerings now

[C4J3]

Anyone know the difference between the SE 280 and the CE 280?

[Derrk]

1 minute ago, Chupp4 Jo3 said:

Anyone know the difference between the SE 280 and the CE 280?

CE is 45mm thick. SE is ~28mm thick.

 

I'd go with SE for top and/or bottom for clearance. For best performance, i'd stick a PE or CE on the side

[C4J3]

11 minutes ago, Derrk said:

However, depending on your motherboards form factor, it may be hard to fit a bottom-mount radiator. I'm not too familiar with the case, but the specifications will probably be able to tell you if a bottom-rad will fit with an ATX board or not

This seems to imply that I should be able to get SE's on both the top and bottom fine though I could be wrong

[Derrk]

yeah, after doing small research, it looks very doable. 

 

You may want to check this out for reference: 

 

[C4J3]

Huh... so 3 PE 360's because why not then

[Derrk]

soft tubing is definitely going to be easier if you fill the entire case. I also recommend getting lots of 90 degree angle fittings because soft tubes kink when you bend them. 

 

also also highly recommend planning your loop layout before you purchase anything

[C4J3]

What would you say is the best way to plan it? Pen and paper or is there something online that can help?

[Derrk]

pen and paper is probably the easiest.

 

you could use something like draw.io just to make sure you have the measurements of the rads and case right, but probably more time than its worth

[C4J3]

I might buy the case soon nad use that to help plan it out. I reckon seeing what I'm working with will make things loads easier.

[MaratM]

13 hours ago, Chupp4 Jo3 said:

Huh... so 3 PE 360's because why not then

You can not fit PE on the side, It requeres to do some front panel mods or rad mods to fit a HWLabs 360GTS which is 1-1,5 mm narrower than PE-360. It is also better to use a slim rad at the bottom.

I'll add some pictures later if your are interested

 

[C4J3]

Please do that would be awesomely helpful!

[C4J3]

21 hours ago, Derrk said:

I also recommend getting lots of 90 degree angle fittings because soft tubes kink when you bend them. 

 

 

Would you reccomend this kind or this kind?

[MaratM]

8 hours ago, Chupp4 Jo3 said:

Please do that would be awesomely helpful!

The front io panel is temperarly removed

this is how i “moded” front panel in order to get the rad fit. Both usb ports had to be turned around. Probably if you shave off a bit more plastic from the back of the usb ports you can fit a PE rad, I have PE 360 as a top rad. But if you decide to do so go slowly on the plastic so you do not cut the wires.

Here is 3 rads are mounted

 

for the waterblocks: you can not use direct die plate and the monoblock it is done to be used with the IHS. Otherwise you will get a gap between the die and the waterblock. The monoblock is better than the direct dye due to fact it also cools the VRM’s which is known to get hot.

about the pump:

there is no need for a dual pump, it looks like the case has a lot of room at the back but it does not!!! There is just enough space for the PSU and Hard drive cage. Unless you place the psu in the middle of the case and mount a dual pump at the psu place. If i had a choice between a dual pump and 3 hard drives I would go fo 3 hard drives even a large hard drive is getting filled up relativly quick)))

 

[C4J3]

Thanks that's really helpful, if you get a moment would you be able to send me a pic of the back inside? I'm used to not having room behind the Mobo as I've used a CIT galaxy case and a Zalman z11 plus (both cases suck) but never with water-cooling so I have no idea what spacing to look for. Thanks again for everything you've given me so far!

[C4J3]

Also would you just recommend a single D5 then? And if I were to get an ncore CPU block I would need to cool the vrm separately anyway, do you know any good solutions for that or are there even any besides monoblocks? (I'm assuming so)

[MaratM]

4 hours ago, Chupp4 Jo3 said:

Also would you just recommend a single D5 then? And if I were to get an ncore CPU block I would need to cool the vrm separately anyway, do you know any good solutions for that or are there even any besides monoblocks? (I'm assuming so)

No, most manufactures stopped producing vrm waterblocks. They switched to monoblocks. Unless you want to go alixpress way)))

one d5 will be enough

[andrewmp6]

5 hours ago, MaratM said:

No, most manufactures stopped producing vrm waterblocks. They switched to monoblocks. Unless you want to go alixpress way)))

one d5 will be enough

Heat killer still makes a few but very very few motherboards,There is a ton of monoblocks vs just a vrm one.

[MaratM]

What is the point of getting x299 platform with 7800x? z370 with 8700k or upcoming z390 with 9900k will do most of the jobs just as well unless you have a spicific application with a need for quad chanel ram

[C4J3]

Wanted to get a 7740x and I didn't realise that you could only use 4 RAM slots with 4 or less core CPU's and I already had 4GB sticks and I need more than 16GB so it turned out to be cheaper to upgrade to return the CPU to Amazon and get the 7800X than sell the RAM and buy 8GB sticks. (got the RAM on offer before hand) I also stream a bit and like the extra cores for future proofing. But mostly because I could (got it last year)