I want to build a custom water loop but I'm debating whether or not to just get a AIO cooler. I've only been building computers for a year, but I've taken out 4 motherboards in that time. I'm worried about how hard it will be and if it is worth 800$ for cooling 2 graphics cards and my cpu. I'm using rigid tubing.
Custom Water loop
- Thread starter JadeGames
- Start date
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jossrik
Distinguished
- Sep 26, 2002
- 1,549
- 1
- 20,915
Rigid tubing will up the difficulty quite a notch or so. Performance wise, not worth it. If you like to tinker and think it's pretty cool and you won't lose your house if you lose 800$ or more, then maybe a custom loop is for you. Also you should keep in mind, you're gonna need a good amount of radiator space to cool a high end CPU/GPU/GPU. If you've got room in your case for a pair of 3x120mm radiators, then keep reading. Not necessarily a pair, but around the same surface area. I have a 6700K and a 980Ti under custom water and a 3x140mm radiator and it chugs along but the coolant gets warm if I don't have an aggressive preemptive fan profile. Be prepared for doing your loop at least a few times before you get it where you want it. Planning ahead sounds good, but there's no trade for experience in this case, read everything before hand, you still are gonna want extra tubing and stuff. Upkeep, redo your pipes every 9 - 12 months, redo the coolant every handful of months, drain and fill are your friends, make it as easy as you can on yourself. Careful planning, asking questions even when you're pretty sure, and good luck can take you a good way, and it's nice to let it ride at idle near to dead silent.
n0ns3ns3
Illustrious
- May 25, 2016
- 8,065
- 4
- 42,715
it's not hard. and using flex tubing is better for beginners. bending might be tricky.
The cost of flex tubing is relatively low - 10-20$ for tubing and 2$ per fitting (seems like you are going to need 8-10 of them).
Once you've built your loop and tried few configurations, you can switch to rigid.
I'd recommend going this rout since your loop is "complex", and you have no experience with building one.
watercooling is more of a hobby since for the price of liquid loop you can get better components. If done right, it makes system cooler and quieter. but perfromance gains over air cooled system are very small. couple of hundreds of MHz for CPU and GPU at most.
if you want to make your life easier, you can get expandable AiO like EK Predator.
but keep in mind that having 2 GPUs + CPU in the same loop, you are going to need at least 480mm of radiator surface. It also requires strong pump to push the liquid through the loop. Usually, people using dual pump or just building two separate loops.
If you are going to have a single pump, connect the GPUs and CPU in parallel to reduce flow restrictions of the blocks.
The cost of flex tubing is relatively low - 10-20$ for tubing and 2$ per fitting (seems like you are going to need 8-10 of them).
Once you've built your loop and tried few configurations, you can switch to rigid.
I'd recommend going this rout since your loop is "complex", and you have no experience with building one.
watercooling is more of a hobby since for the price of liquid loop you can get better components. If done right, it makes system cooler and quieter. but perfromance gains over air cooled system are very small. couple of hundreds of MHz for CPU and GPU at most.
if you want to make your life easier, you can get expandable AiO like EK Predator.
but keep in mind that having 2 GPUs + CPU in the same loop, you are going to need at least 480mm of radiator surface. It also requires strong pump to push the liquid through the loop. Usually, people using dual pump or just building two separate loops.
If you are going to have a single pump, connect the GPUs and CPU in parallel to reduce flow restrictions of the blocks.
n0ns3ns3
Illustrious
- May 25, 2016
- 8,065
- 4
- 42,715
according to corsair, you have option to mount:
front: 240/280
top: 240/280/360
rear: 120/140
Generally, going 280 front + 360 top is enough to keep the system both cool and quite.
here is my system (before hard tubes): https://goo.gl/photos/eAq2RNbxogVebc3k9
i7-4770K @ 4.5GHz
GTX 1070 @ 2100MHz
If i run a system stress test (prime95 and Heaven simultaneously), my overclocked CPU consumes ~120-130 watt + GTX 1070 with power mod ~240 watt. At ~22-25C room temperature, the CPU cores are below 70C and GPU up to 40C. All that with noctua fans ~1400RPM. It's audible, but far from loud or annoying. at idle, or gaming it's silent. while gaming, if i turn of the sound, it's between silent and very quiet.
And this in mini ITX form factor. In your full tower, temps should be even better.
front: 240/280
top: 240/280/360
rear: 120/140
Generally, going 280 front + 360 top is enough to keep the system both cool and quite.
here is my system (before hard tubes): https://goo.gl/photos/eAq2RNbxogVebc3k9
i7-4770K @ 4.5GHz
GTX 1070 @ 2100MHz
If i run a system stress test (prime95 and Heaven simultaneously), my overclocked CPU consumes ~120-130 watt + GTX 1070 with power mod ~240 watt. At ~22-25C room temperature, the CPU cores are below 70C and GPU up to 40C. All that with noctua fans ~1400RPM. It's audible, but far from loud or annoying. at idle, or gaming it's silent. while gaming, if i turn of the sound, it's between silent and very quiet.
And this in mini ITX form factor. In your full tower, temps should be even better.
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