Hi guys,
I'm going to invest in water cooling for the first time.
I've never found liquid cooling cost effective for all the time and effort one puts in research and building, but I want to start now to get the most out of my system and have an awesome project to work on, as I'm bored as *** lately.
For the past few months, I've delved into many websites to gain information on liquid cooling.
Now, I feel confident enough that I have a basic understanding of what today's liquid cooling is all about, so that I can start work on making a parts list, ordering and building.
First off, I found that a lot of sources have very old information. Although the information often was very in-depth and many of the items used/tested are still being sold, there have also been numerous new items/techniques/inventions since those posts. (Again, on various websites!)
At this point, it's getting to get a bit confusing for me as to where I should look for reliable up-to-date information.
Hence, I decided to just register on this awesome site and ask other enthusiasts!
Let me begin with what my current rig looks like:
Case: HAF X
MoBo: ASUS P8Z68-v pro
CPU: I7 2600k
CPU cooler: Prolimatech Genesis + 2 × Thermalright TY140's
RAM: 4 × 4GB Corsair Vengeance
GPU: ASUS 580GTX Direct CU II
PSU: Corsair TX750
SPU: Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro (I think it's this variant)
SDD: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB
HDD: 2 × VelociRaptor 450GB in RAID 0
ODD: Samsung Blu-Ray combodrive
I make Let's Play videos on Youtube (www.lotgl.nl) and I chose for a number of these components for better performance when transcoding.
I picked the 2600k over the 2500 due to HyperThreading, in the understanding that it would give a performance boost when transcoding. I picked the K variant, because the price difference was small change and the rest of the system lends itself for overclocking as well, to further future proof this machine.
Same goes for the amount of RAM, 8GB would have been enough otherwise.
HDD's are still preferable over SDD's for transcoding due to two major arguments;
- HDD's sequential read & write should still be faster than SDD's sequential read & write.
- As recording gameplay and transcoding it requires a lot of workspace that gets rewritten over and over, HDD's over better life expectancy for the given task.
I picked the VR's because they have the best performance of all HDD's, but with hindsight in mind, the performance difference isn't really that big over the next fastest hard disks and not worth the price difference.
Unfortunately, after many months of research, I found out one big flaw in the whole mindset of getting an awesome rig for transcoding; both transcoding software and codecs of today do not utilize modern components very well.
For instance, most transcoding software does not utilize multiple cores or CUDA cards well.
Codecs still are made in a serial mindset, instead of parallel. They'll do one job at a time.
All this aside, I do game a lot and I'm an IT enthusiast, so transcoding wasn't the only reason to spend a little more, this time around.
That brings me to today. Liquid cooling.
As I've explained why I want to go this route in the intro, I'll skip to the questions.
1a: I would like help in getting a parts list together. What will I be needing?
1b: What are the best options for each required part, today?
2: Are two seperate loops for CPU and GPU(perhaps SLI in the future) cost effective? (Cost effective meaning time/effort/money spend) I was thinking that both of these are the major heaters, wouldn't one be getting warm water from the other in a single loop?
3: Does anyone know what the maximum amount of radiator space is that I can put in my case?
4: Is there an ultra handy thread that you think I've missed?
I'm going to invest in water cooling for the first time.
I've never found liquid cooling cost effective for all the time and effort one puts in research and building, but I want to start now to get the most out of my system and have an awesome project to work on, as I'm bored as *** lately.
For the past few months, I've delved into many websites to gain information on liquid cooling.
Now, I feel confident enough that I have a basic understanding of what today's liquid cooling is all about, so that I can start work on making a parts list, ordering and building.
First off, I found that a lot of sources have very old information. Although the information often was very in-depth and many of the items used/tested are still being sold, there have also been numerous new items/techniques/inventions since those posts. (Again, on various websites!)
At this point, it's getting to get a bit confusing for me as to where I should look for reliable up-to-date information.
Hence, I decided to just register on this awesome site and ask other enthusiasts!
Let me begin with what my current rig looks like:
Case: HAF X
MoBo: ASUS P8Z68-v pro
CPU: I7 2600k
CPU cooler: Prolimatech Genesis + 2 × Thermalright TY140's
RAM: 4 × 4GB Corsair Vengeance
GPU: ASUS 580GTX Direct CU II
PSU: Corsair TX750
SPU: Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro (I think it's this variant)
SDD: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB
HDD: 2 × VelociRaptor 450GB in RAID 0
ODD: Samsung Blu-Ray combodrive
I make Let's Play videos on Youtube (www.lotgl.nl) and I chose for a number of these components for better performance when transcoding.
I picked the 2600k over the 2500 due to HyperThreading, in the understanding that it would give a performance boost when transcoding. I picked the K variant, because the price difference was small change and the rest of the system lends itself for overclocking as well, to further future proof this machine.
Same goes for the amount of RAM, 8GB would have been enough otherwise.
HDD's are still preferable over SDD's for transcoding due to two major arguments;
- HDD's sequential read & write should still be faster than SDD's sequential read & write.
- As recording gameplay and transcoding it requires a lot of workspace that gets rewritten over and over, HDD's over better life expectancy for the given task.
I picked the VR's because they have the best performance of all HDD's, but with hindsight in mind, the performance difference isn't really that big over the next fastest hard disks and not worth the price difference.
Unfortunately, after many months of research, I found out one big flaw in the whole mindset of getting an awesome rig for transcoding; both transcoding software and codecs of today do not utilize modern components very well.
For instance, most transcoding software does not utilize multiple cores or CUDA cards well.
Codecs still are made in a serial mindset, instead of parallel. They'll do one job at a time.
All this aside, I do game a lot and I'm an IT enthusiast, so transcoding wasn't the only reason to spend a little more, this time around.
That brings me to today. Liquid cooling.
As I've explained why I want to go this route in the intro, I'll skip to the questions.
1a: I would like help in getting a parts list together. What will I be needing?
1b: What are the best options for each required part, today?
2: Are two seperate loops for CPU and GPU(perhaps SLI in the future) cost effective? (Cost effective meaning time/effort/money spend) I was thinking that both of these are the major heaters, wouldn't one be getting warm water from the other in a single loop?
3: Does anyone know what the maximum amount of radiator space is that I can put in my case?
4: Is there an ultra handy thread that you think I've missed?
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram