New at Liquid Water Cooling
 

Hey, guys

As the title says, I'm pretty much just a complete noob if it comes to liquid water cooling. In fact, it's why I chose a Corsair H70 as my CPU cooler, because it's an all in one tool that's (relatively, I had my issues with it) easy to install.

But what am I working for? Just to leave the money I get, everytime at the end of the month, leave it there on the bank? No, I wanna keep upgrading my PC! :o

So I don't care at all how much this is gonna cost me. And though I realize that installing Liquid Water Cooling is a very complicated thing to do, I have got more than enough experiences with installing and repairing PCs. Besides, if most of the things come with a manual, I'll be just fine.

But here's my question: if I gave you the stats of my PC, would you be able to tell me what to buy, and if possible, where to buy it?

So, what I want, is something like...



Obviously not exactly the same, but you know, with the tubings, and the nice glow and all that. As I already mentioned, I don't care what it's gonna cost me, money is meant to be spent anyway, so why not spend it on a hobby...

Anyway, I live in Halle, which is very near to Brussels. So any website or shop that would deliver the stuff in that area would be great. :)

And here are my stats:

Case: Antec DARK FLEET-85
Processor: Intel Core i7 980X (as you see, I don't care about money :D )
CPU Cooler: Corsair H70
RAM: 6x Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8
Graphic Cards: 2x ATI Radeon HD5770 in CrossFireX
Power Supply: Corsair HX750W
HDD: All are SATA: 1x 500GB, 3x 1TB, 1x 750GB and I've also got an external HD of 3TB, I love downloading with my unlimited internet :D
Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2

Of course, if any part I mentioned above needs to be upgraded before I can start with Liquid Water Cooling, please mention it and I will do so. :)

So, what I want to have cooled, is my CPU and my two Graphic Cards.
If you could tell me what to buy (preferrably always in the best quality. Don't go all mad, but quality has got priority over price most of the times for me), which parts and such, it would be deeply appreciated.

Please, any guidance would be appreciated.

I think your first issue is where to house the radiator(s) in that Antec case...

Good affordable and quality products are from eg EK waterblocks... (you can corder straight via their website or on of the below shops)

solid shops : http://www.highflow.nl and http://www.aquatuning.nl

Parts I use :



EK waterblocks CPU HF cooler
Thermochill PA 120.3
Laing D5 pump with EK D5 top ( removable 3/8" barbs )
EK 150 Reservoir
Tygon black tubing

Before you cool down the GPUs... either you go for full cover blocks ( with the annoying feauture if you ever upgrade the GPUs, the blocks are useless ) or you go for eg a MCW60 Swiftech solution...(cools only the GPU , use heatsinks for the mosfets and co...

If you don't overclock the GPUs much, I wouldn't opt for watercooling and would just use an aftermarket heatsink with silent fans...

Just my 2 cents

I use:
D-Tek FuZion V2
SWPM01 Swiftech D5-MCP655 12V - 1/2" pump
Thermochill PA120.3 rad
525CL XSPC 5.25" bay reservoir clear
3x Yate Loon D12SH-12 120mm 88CFM fans with fan controller.
to cool my Phenom II 955BE
Rad is big, not that many cases which can take it. I managed to install it in the top part of my Cosmos S but it required some additional holes as the holes of the rad didn't match the ones in the top part of the case.

As Leeghoofd mentioned, EK waterblocks are also good perfomers.

Sorry for the late reply, been busy lately.

Teemto and leeghoofd, thanks for the replies. :)
To Leeghoofd, you wouldn't happen to know any website shops located in Belgium, would you?

And another question (sorry for the noob questions, but I'm an experienced PC builder but liquid cooling is entirely new to me), so how does this all work? I mean, you've got a radiator, wires, pumps,... Could you explain the whole process to me, or is there a website that does this decently? Or will everything be explained in the manuals that come along with it?

Also, knowing my case, do you think I should buy a new case if I went with this?

Another question: is there like... an AIO kit? Like a box with everything included? I found a few made by asetek, but they all date from the time of the P4, which is old school now.

And what about this phase change cooling? Any good, or just way overpriced?

Any replies will be appreciated. :)

I also ordered my stuff at highflow, very good shop.
Transport cost is somewhat compensated by the lower tax in Holland.

If you buy a kit, everything is explained in the manual.
It's not that difficult. Connect in this order: pump OUT goes to CPU in - from CPU OUT you go to RAD IN - From RAD OUT you go to reservoir IN - from reservoir OUT you go to pump IN. For RAD and reservoir there's usually no difference in IN and OUT. Only with the pump and the CPU cooler.

If you want a high overclock 24/7 you'll have to buy seperate components to get the best performance, but then it can be a bit more complicated to get everything installed in your case. Especially the RAD, but also the tubing (if you use 1/2") and pump take up some space.

Personally I'd keep your Corsair H70 and use the money on a better GPU if you're taking the 980X as CPU, 2x 5770 seem cheap :D . Even better is to use a 2600K with 2xGTX580 which would probably cost you the same or less.

I use the H70 in my bench setup to keep a 2600K cool at 5.3GHz :-) So it's quite impressive. And it has the advantage that the system doesn't need much space and it's basically pre-assembled.

If it's style you want then a custom designed system will always look cooler.

My first watercooling system was the Zalman Reserator 1 (http://www.silent.se). It relied on passive cooling (no fan). You could only do a mild overclock with a dual core, but it was silent and above all great looking. The big blue tower was always an eyecatcher.

My second system was a complete kit called the 3D Galaxy II (what's in a name) from Gigabyte (http://www.digitalsaonline.co.za/cat...ducts_id=4648). I used that to OC my E8400 on a daily basis. It was not high performance but it had an additional fan which you plugged on top of the CPU block. Which helps to cool it down further and also cooled the surroundings of the CPU socket. It also came with some handy valves, if you wanted to flush the system.

New kit's tend to go more in the direction of the Corsair design: 1 RAD with short connection to a pump integrated with the CPU block.

Phase change is the way to go if you really want to start benching and get scores. For 24/7 use it's overkill and it'll also kill you're electricity bill :D

Oh and while we're at it: dump one of the harddisks and get an SSD as OS disk, that'll give you a noticeable speed improvement.

hmm, about the H70, I'm absolutely sure I installed everything as described in the manual, but strangely enough, I see no difference at all. None whatsoever. Not one decimal of a degree cooler, nothing.
Anyone here has any idea how this is possible?

And then there is this Phase Cooling. The concept of having a PC cooled down to freezing levels sounds awesome. But I've read it's pretty expensive. And what brands offer quality? And is it easy to install?

About the SSD: I would indeed love to have one. Well, actually, I've already bought one but it only had 40 GB of space which is waaaaay too small. I gave it away to my brother. If I do this, the SSD size should be about 500GB large, which is gonna cost me... more than I want to afford on a HD for now, you see.

Really? Does phase changing consume that much energy? Hmm, gotta think it over then. Is it a huge addition of consuming energy or just noticeable?

About kits: I've been searching for watercooling kits, but most ones I find are in fact made for old P4s, core 2 duos and the like. Could anyone recommend me a kit that works well (I mean, something with quality) but that works with an i7 980X?

And lastly: doing it manually: do you think I could do it with my Antec Dark Fleet 85? Admittedly, there isn't an open ocean of space, but it's not like it's half full either.

You don't see a difference compared to what exactly?

Don't know if there are any active vendors left; I recall Vapochill and Prometeia.
Most of the ones still in use are custom built phases.

Just buy a 120GB version SSD and store all data on a large regular drive.

About energy consumption, you'll notice it on your energy bill. But all depends on how often and how long you use it. You need to think of it as a refrigerator. But where a fridge only uses it's compressor once in a while (when internal temps rise too much), this one is running constantly.

hmm, I'll think about it.

And I'm not noticing any difference between using the stock air cooling and the Corsair H70, which I find odd.
EDIT: same thing with the Corsair H50, btw.

If you pull the power out of a fridge, it'll all warm up obviously. Now, if you plugged the power cable back in, it'd take a couple of hours (I know nothing of fridges, but I've heard that) for it to get as cold as it should be. Is this the same with a Phase-Change cooling? I mean, I would only put it on when I boot up the PC, and keep it running as long as my PC runs, which is averagely... 6 hours a day. I see no need to keep the current in the phase-change cooling when I'm not using my PC, so hence the question: if you shut it down, does it take a while for it to get as cool as it should be?