First Build Opinions and need Liquid Cooling advice

Joey249

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So for the past few weeks ive been posting a few builds asking for opinions, from all the help ive gotten from the other posts ive selected these parts, anyone have any other suggestions?

I cant find anything about this water cooler but on hardwareversand.de (where ill be ordering my parts from) its within the top 10 purchased between fans and water coolers, if just water coolers then its the first one to show.

Liquid Cooling Unit:
Raijintek Triton AIO Liquid CPU Cooler - 240mm
link must be copied and pasted into your browser, clicking it will give an error / different site.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/en/Maintenance-free+Systems/189474/RAIJINTEK+Triton+Komplett-Wasserk%C3%BChlung+-+240mm.article

I don't really know anything about water coolers, will I have to keep re-filling it with water or any other type of maintenance needed after first installation?

Here's my full build:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (€362.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK TRITON 100.5 CFM Sleeve Bearing Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (€279.26 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (€162.33 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€99.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€58.89 @ Pixmania DE)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€125.48 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (€17.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)

Ignore above prices, where I have selected them they're much cheaper, getting mobo for about €200 with assassins creed bundled in. (Yes its new, not second hand)
Total comes to about €1600.

Also one more question, on pcpartpicker it tells me that the ram exceeds intels recommendations, I know I can enable the full 2400 MHz if I wanted but why is it that intel recommends not going over 1.5V? By going over this limit, could this possibly damage the lifespan of my parts or anything else?
The memory that I have selected runs at 1.65V according to pcpartpicker.

Update:
Found this link to this cooling system, can you all check it out and let me know what you all think?
It has specifications and features listed, im just not sure what all of them mean so maybe someone who does can point me in the right direction.
http://www.kitguru.net/components/cooling/henry-butt/raijintek-triton-aio-liquid-cpu-cooler-review/

Thanks for any help!
 
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Thanks for the info. It's hard doing advice when all the prices are so different everywhere.

The Noctua NH-U14S is a premium cooler, the L9i is not worth using for serious overclocking. It is quieter than stock, but does not cool much better. The RAIJINTEK PALLAS is good for low profile. The Cooler Mater EVO 212 Hyper is the standard go-to., But Phanteks makes good stuff too. Look at this site to help you with your coolers.

http://www.frostytech.com/

If you are going to go liquid, you need to go all-in with a 240mm or 280mm radiator. I am planning to try liquid cooling in a new more extreme build we are doing at school. I'm planning to use a Swiftech H220-X for its quietness and configurable flexibility.

The ASRock Extreme 4...

legokill101

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Cant tell for sure since that does not resemble any of the big OEMs but bassed on the parts it looks like it has it should be good if a little more prone to leaks then others and no you should not have to keep filling it with water
 

Joey249

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Just found this:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/cooling/henry-butt/raijintek-triton-aio-liquid-cpu-cooler-review/

Seems to have good ratings, can you check out the link? It has some specifications and features listed, im not fully sure what all of them mean so maybe someone who does know could point me in the right direction?
 
You plan to overclock. Heat degrades components and the more heat, the quicker they degrade. CPUs in overclocked systems tend to run hotter, so their life is shorter, but if you are careful, 8 years of life might be reduced to only 6 years of life, more than we use most high-performance CPUs for. It's not a lot different to car engines. Increasing the performance of an engine usually reduces it's life-span.
 

Joey249

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So if I decided not to overclock (still not 100% sure if i am or not) would it be a waste going for this motherboard and cooler?
Like from what I know this motherboard is this expensive mainly for the overclocking ability, but I could be wrong. If I wasn't overclocking, this board still has a few unique things on it that I haven't seen elsewhere that doesn't involve overclocking.
 

Joey249

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hmm, here they actually state one of the cons being the quality:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/cooling/henry-butt/raijintek-triton-aio-liquid-cpu-cooler-review/8/

Also seen a video and the pump was a little bent because of the angle it was at, the commentator said that was a bad thing but would still recommend it to people and the above site also said it was a good buy so i dont know, they mention bad quality but yet still recommend it?
 

Joey249

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Would evaporation not be bad? Would I be better off just going for an air cooler as I have no experience with liquid coolers and after seeing a few threads of people talking about water leaks.... im just afraid of getting any type of water leaks possibly breaking other parts in my system as even if i notice the leak early on I wouldn't know the best things to do to try and save some parts when going with an air cooler I wont have to worry about this..

If theres 100% no chance of a water leak then i really want to get it as it would look pretty cool in my build with the red tubing to where an air cooler wouldnt look as nice :/...but i would rather having no risk with the amount of money im putting into the build than having a nice looking system.
 

Joey249

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Never mind, got evaporation mixed up with something else.

Also, would I be able to swap out the fans and put different ones in on the cooling unit? If so would you have any recommendations for good red led ones?

Would these ones work or are they specifically for cases?
amazon - Corsair red LED's
fan dimensions on the cooling unit are 120 x 25, ones I linked are the same size.
 

legokill101

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I would keep those fans as they are likely fine and done use the corsair ones for two reason. 1) being round they will leak air around the edges since the radiator is square, and 2) they are airflow as oposed to static pressure optomized
 

Joey249

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Would I be able to use the exhaust fan in the Fractal Design R5 as an intake fan? Would it be static pressure optimized?
What im thinking is having the back exhaust fan put in the front along with a Corsair SP120 (Static Pressure) along with having another 2 Corsair SP120's for the radiator fans, then buying one Corsair AF140mm (High Air Flow) as the exhaust fan?
(I dont really care what fans are in the front, like LED's/looks are not important as they wont be visible in the R5)

Kind of wanting Red LED's to have a cool effect on it :), would the leaked air cause a big problem? I seen these fans on squared radiators in a couple videos.

Thanks for all the help so far btw :)

Links:
Corsair AF140mm (x1 = €15)
amazon

Corsair SP120mm (x2 + x1 = €37)
amazon
 


If you do not overclock, you could use a much cheaper motherboard. What specific features do you want that are not to do with overclocking, perhaps there is another. cheaper motherboard that would do.

Even if you do overclock, unless you pan on something extreme or can get a super deal, I would be looking at air cooling. RAIJINTEK makes some excellent air coolers too. Air cooling is usually easier, quieter, safer, and cheaper than fluid.
 

Joey249

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I think its mainly software which i think is locked to an asus board, some specifically to the one I linked.

Stuff like:
The USB 3.0 boost, ASUS USB Charger+, GameFirst III, LANGuard, Sonic Radar II, ROG GameFirst III,
I forget what exactly but I remember seeing alot about audio, like automaticly detecting Ohm headsets and enabling it/optimizing it as much as possible automaticly when some boards dont even allow you to change it and if they do it would have to be manually set, I think asus are the only board(s) to offer this technology atm.

and then if i was to overclock ASUS AI Suite III would come in handy to get the most performance possible (or at least probably better and safer of what i could get) by setting a max temperature that it cannot go over, like im not really sure what temperatures would be the sweat spot or for better lifespan but lets say i dont want to go over 50 degrees, then the program will overclock as best as it can without going past 50 degrees (if its safe at 50 degrees) after doing several stress tests.

Ive been watching a couple videos about the board for the past few days so I cant remember everything that I seen useful but at the time I seen quite a bit that i think I would've used, some of the stuff listed above are things I find pretty cool, not necessarily use them all the time but something that would come in handy to have every so often like the Sonic Radar, im not really sure what to think of it, seems like a cool thing, also seems like its cheating but either way, i wouldnt be using it all the time as im sure the audio lines would get annoying to see in some games.

And lets say I do overclock, what would be a good temperature for an i7 4790k to be maxed at, like something not to go past for if I do decide to overclock but keeping the lifespan as much as possible, even if its a small overclock?

Like right know im using an i3-2310m @ 2.10 GHz with 6GB of 1333MHz ram along with an 5400 RPM HDD for software and boot device.
This laptop is about 5-6 years old of long use and im finding it decently fast (slow boot but programs and everything else seems fine) so when I get this new build I know im going to be happy with the performance, im just asking in case I do decide but most likely I wont overclock.
(but I did say this with a few other things i ended up doing so yeah...)
 
50C is nothing. You CPU will hit 50C under normal use with moderate-heavy loads without any overclocking at all. A Moderate overclock up to 4.4Ghz, will give you about 10% more clock and, with a good cooler, should keep temperatures modest, and also have only a modest effect on your CPU's life. Even then, life does on mean that it will drop dead, but rather that it will need to slow down and you will lose performance as is ages.

some of what you mention with the board is common and other boards have it, perhaps with a different name. Others, I have no clue about and do not know how really useful they might be to you.

Back to your original concern. If you go with the system you intend, even if you change the motherboard, and you do not plan to overclock you CPU at all or very much, the I do not think that you need that liquid cooler. I would strongly recommend an air cooler, as silent and cheap as meets your needs. RAIJINTEK makes good products. I have a RAIJINTEK Pallas low-profile cooler in for a moderate overclocking build of a G3258 and i5 4690K, and I'll see how it works with an i7 4790K.
 

Joey249

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50C was probably a bad number to use as an example, I know temperatures will easily reach that but if you were to overclock what temperatures would you feel comfortable with under full load to give me an idea as the ASUS AI Suite III has an option to overclock as much as possible while under full load without having the CPU going past a certain temperature(if it finds it to be stable) which I think going that way would be better than having a certain GHz in mind to reach.

If I find that it overclocks easily past 4.4 GHz with the set temperature not to go past then ill probably still drop down to 4.4 GHz just to be on the safe side for when and if temperatures change for whatever reason.

Ill do some more research on what cooler and mobo to use, if I go cheaper I have the ASUS Z97-PRO Gamer and ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer in mind both priced at €130, but if i go with ASRock I wont have the option to use the ASUS AI Suite III to overclock if I do decide to overclock.
 
For 24/7 use, I would not want to go over 70C with that chip (occasional peaks to 75C or so are fine) A serious air cooler should do that easily and get you at least 4.4 Ghz if your chip will run it at reasonable voltages (which it should)

What does the PRO-GAMER cost? 130 euros? PCParpicker won't give me a German price.

I keep forgetting your market and the difference in prices there which causes my advice to be distorted.

Looking at PCPartpicker, I would be spending between 140 and 150 euros, at the cheapest for serious overclocking. The ASRrock Z97 Extreme 4 has 6 good phases with a doubler, and the Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5 has 8 digital phases. If you wanted something very different, the ASRock Z97E ITC/ac is a good mini-ITX board. Our next school build will use it.

The ASRock Fatal1ity Z97 X Killer is good, but for Asus, the lowest good board I'd want to use is the PRO or the GENE at about 200 euros, and there the ASRock Z97 OC Formula is very good if you can stand a yellow themed board. Again the ASUS Z97i Plus is worthy for a mini-ITX solution for 150 euros.
 

Joey249

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Yes the Pro-Gamer costs €130 from hardwareversand (where ill be ordering all my parts from)
I can also get that ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 board for €133, PCpartpicker prices are a bit off, the hero board on that shows up as €280.

Which is better between the ROG Hero and the Geni? I can get either for €200 but with the hero I can get Assassins Creed Unity bundled in with the board.

For cooling, what do you think of:
Air Cooling
NOCTUA NH-U14S (€66)
NOCTUA NH-L9i (€38)
or
Liquid Cooling
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer "C" / All-in-one Liquid Cooling System (€51)
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme S (€103)
Or do you have any other specific liquid/air coolers to recommend?

If you're looking at hardwareversand for prices, I may be able to get them slightly cheaper than what they're listed for as if I click the part from this site https://geizhals.de/ they usually have some pretty good discounts, im getting about 40-50 discounted for the hole build and I have an additional €30 voucher to use on the site.

Also this is practically the only site I can order parts from as I live in Ireland theres no Amazon in this area. The closest would be between amazon.co.uk and amazon.de and after selecting all of the parts that I want some will not deliver to Ireland. I also noticed after pricing my parts on both the uk and de version I can get them ALOT cheaper on hardwareversand even without any discounts.
 
Thanks for the info. It's hard doing advice when all the prices are so different everywhere.

The Noctua NH-U14S is a premium cooler, the L9i is not worth using for serious overclocking. It is quieter than stock, but does not cool much better. The RAIJINTEK PALLAS is good for low profile. The Cooler Mater EVO 212 Hyper is the standard go-to., But Phanteks makes good stuff too. Look at this site to help you with your coolers.

http://www.frostytech.com/

If you are going to go liquid, you need to go all-in with a 240mm or 280mm radiator. I am planning to try liquid cooling in a new more extreme build we are doing at school. I'm planning to use a Swiftech H220-X for its quietness and configurable flexibility.

The ASRock Extreme 4 is a good mid-grade board that overclocks quite well. Overclock specification-wise (excluding other features) The Hero and Gene are near enough identical. I'd get the cheapest or the one with the 'must-have'. You can decide what the Hero/Game is worth. (I got a GTX970 because I know I'd pay about $40 for Witcher 3)

What's the system for? Overclocking is of very limited value for gaming because the limiting factor is the GPU. Your CPU can drive two or three top GPUs at the moment. You might consider a budget air cooler and replace it with something serious when/if you need it for overclocking.
 
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Joey249

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Main use would be gaming and just every day use. Then rendering/editing rarely, maybe something like:
45% Gaming
45% Everyday use eg watching movies/browsing web.
10% Editing/Rendering

Probably overkill going with an 4790k since ill be rarely editing but its within my budget and when I do go editing I would like it to be pretty fast :)

Im guessing no insane overclocking would be needed for my needs?

Thanks for all the help and info, I think ill settle with this:
http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/7349Q7
I also have a the Akasa All in One Internal Card Reader/Writer with 3.0 Port it didn't show on pc part picker but heres the link. US price seems to be 60 dollars but only €14 in euros, but im guessing that's just amazon overcharging just like the hero board..?
Total comes to about €1,575 including delivery and assembly. (and assassin's creed unity bundled with motherboard)

Decided to go with the windowless R5 for a few reasons:
#1 The PC is most likely going to be placed to the left of me against a wall so the window will be blocked
#2 Seen a few completed builds with the noctua fan and didnt really like how it looked in the system.
#3 Its mainly the first two reasons but without the window people say that the case makes it more silent so since the window is going to be most likely blocked I just decided to go windowless, cheaper and quieter.
 

Joey249

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Will do, although I wont have the money to order until late May, all these threads that I was making was me just preparing for the exiting moment of ordering the parts :)