Coolers, radiators, what's the difference?

A radiator is the cooler for a liquid cooling system eg H100i. A cooler is for air cooling systems eg Coolermaster Hyper 212 evo.

Air coolers are generally more quiet than water coolers. The best of the air coolers are made by Noctua.

Another name for an air pump is a fan. If you fit larger diameter fans, they don't have to run at so many rpm as smaller fans and so are quieter.

If you want active cooling then you need to do custom work like including a mini fridge or hooking up an a/c unit to the intake of the case or w/e. Otherwise you can only get as low as ambient air temp. I have 6 rads in my loop and I can only hit minimums of 23'C in my loop. But, good thing is I don't get above 30'C either.

Okay, this is my full system so you can get a proper idea of what I'm running. I'm adding the two pictures as well to help out.

Corsair 900D
Intel i7-4790K
ASRock Z97 OC Formula
EVGA GTX 780 ti Dual Classified x2 (SLI)
Samsung 480 EVO 250GB SSD x2 (Raid 0)
Seagate 3TB HDD x2 (Raid 0)
Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400Mhz 16GB
Corsair AX1200i

EKWB Water Blocks:
780 Classy Water Block x2 Acetal/Nickel
Supremacy Full Nickel
Monarch x4 Acetal/Nickel

Alphacool Rads:
Monsta 480mm
XT45 480mm
ST30 360mm
XT45 240mm x2
XT45 120mm

PrimoChill UV Pearl Yellow 3/8”x5/8” Tubing
Swiftech Dual Extreme Duty Industrial Pump (MCP35x2)
Bitzpower Z-Multi 250 Inline Water Tank
Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 Smoke Case Fans x16
Distilled Water
Mayhem's UV Yellow/Green Dye


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Ya, all said and done it was about $5,500.00-$5,600.00. The 780ti classys were about $1400.00 alone and the cooling system was about $1,500.00 by itself. I also took out that LED plug in the reservoir and put in the mayhem dye. Bad thing is I had to RMA one of the GPUs, so I'll be getting it back pretty soon. Until then I'm running one 780ti classy.

And here is a fair warning, The i7-4790K when stressed by Prime95 always hits high temps. At stock it hits between 80-90'C and at a 4.7Ghz OC from 4.0Ghz it stay about the 90'C range even with my cooling system and at 90-100% load. Otherwise it stays about 25-50'C depending on the cooler you have on it and that's real world loads not stress testing. If you keep the stock cooler on it then when you stress it will hit 100'C easily. I'm also not the first one to have this problem. I've run into at least 2 others that have the same and there are not many people out there right now messing with this chip and posting results as it is a new chip.

As for radiators, I prefer Alphacool since they have the most variety in sizes. However, EKWB and others make pretty decent radiators as well. All radiators will need fans on them to pull or push air through them and thats how the heat is taken out of your water loop and released to the room. Keep in mind you room will be much warmer as the water loop is very much more efficient than air coolers on their best days. Some will say air coolers are better, but I've had nothing but bad results with air coolers when speaking of noise to performance ratio. The water loop with distilled water and not coolant is the most preferred way. However, if you want a cool visual with coolants then they are okay to use. Your maintenance will be higher using coolants and your temps will vary only by maybe a degree or two at most compared to distilled water. I use the mayhem's dye which is great since you don't need a lot and you can mix it with biocide and distilled water with no issue.

You actually only need one loop, two loops is advanced and has been shown that it doesn't really improve your temps that much. So one loop is good. Means that you only need one pump for that one loop, however, you can put a double pump in (like mine) or use two individuals in serial setup. You will need one block for every component you plan to cool as well. So, you will need a water block that fits the AM3+ socket for the CPU, and you can use universal or full card water blocks for the GPUs. Universal block are cheaper for the GPUs, but you have to get the VRAM heatsinks separately. The full card waterblock you just install and go. There are many videos out there to help you take off the stock coolers on the cards if you don't know how already.

If you plan too water cool you RAM sticks like I have then you need a waterblock for those as well. They should come with DIMM modules that will be on the sides of each RAM stick (In order to water cool RAM, you have to remove the stock coolers as well. This can be tricky and you can damage the sticks of RAM to where they cannot be used anymore). Order of the water blocks and the radiators DOES NOT MATTER. There will only be a degree or so difference if you try to have a radiator in between every block. So, in short just hook up the tubing to the radiators and blocks in a way that does not kink, looks good, and clean. Use of compression fittings is recommended for easy install. I don't use them, I use barbs with no clamps. This is not recommended, but it has a very clean look to it.

On the radiators, the fan setup does not really matter. Meaning, if you have a push or pull configuration on each radiator. If you have static pressure fans (the fins almost touch the chassis for easy recognition) Then a push/pull setup (fans on both sides of radiator) is not needed and you actually can save money by not having so many fans. The difference between push and pull configs is near nothing so don't worry about the difference. Set it up how your case will allow you.

For intake and exhaust, have your exhaust as the top fans in the case. If you don't have any then put it as the rear. If you have your exhaust going out the top, then all other fans should be intakes. This creates a positive pressure environment that will reduce the amount of dust in you computer case. (IT IS REALLY NICE BTW).

To get really specific, I don't like All-in-one (AIO) CPU coolers like the Corsair H100i. However, they are very nice for beginner water coolers and are a much quieter solution compared to some air coolers. There are some starter kits for custom loops out there if you want to skip the AIO coolers. The AIO coolers take up less room, but do not have the performance like a custom loop will have.

If you want more specifics on this or on how I would setup a case then shoot me the info about the case you would like to have with all of the components and I'll take a look and let ya know how I would set it up. But do remember that the kits will be a bit more expensive than the AIO coolers, but they are so worth it.

Edit: I have a bottom chamber in my case that the fans push and pull the air across from one side to the other. This allows for better air flow, so I actually have two areas for exhaust due to how my case is setup.

I also based my build of off this youtube vid I found. Linus has many videos that go pretty in depth about how to setup stuff and there are also videos from Singularity Computers that I used to help me better understand things.

http://youtube.be/JtHDgdo5pR0