Corsair 650D + 360 and 240 Rad

[shakal]

What's going on guys i'm currently working on my 1st water cooling build and i went with a Corsair 650d. My main concern is fitting the 360 radiator inside the case even though it is designed for 240 or 280 rad. I will have 2 radiators. A 360 and a 240 cooling a 3930k and a 7970. Now i think i can fit the 360 radiator on top if i remove this HDD holder.

. I think even though the mesh on top is designed for a dual radiator if one of the fans does not have mesh on top of it should still be fine as i've seen people stuff radiators on botton with almost no room to breathe at all. I have majority of the parts on hand with the exception of my water cooling parts for the cpu and my motherboard. Both should be here today. Or should i just put the 360 rad outside and 240 on top?

Thanks!

 

[inzone]

I twould have ben a good idea to post this before you started buying parts for the water cooling. You don't need wo radiators to cool just the cpu and one video card and it's generaly not a good idea to put two radiators in a single loop. The pump has to now pump the liquid throuh two radiators , the resivoir . the cpu block and the video card block. If I was that pump I would be going on strike right about now for more money.
A single 360 radiator will cool both the cpu and video card just fine. I do realize that you have high quality parts there in the 3930K and the 7970 video card but a single radiator will work fine. If you do want to continue with usifg both then you could get a second pump to help out with the pumping through all those parts.
If your not going to be moving the computer around too much you can put the radiators where ever you want. I have a two loop system and both of the radiators are currently in the desk at different places. I am going tobe changing that since I have decided to go with smaller radiators , I have a 480 and a 360 that I'm changing to a 360 and a 240 and the 240 will be going inside the case. The reason for the change is I had the 480 cooling three GTX 580's and I sold one , so the two 580'swill be fine with a 360 and the cpu and ram will be fine with the 240.

 

[rubix_1011]

Radiators are traditionally the least resistant components in a loop, so having more than 1 isn't going to be a huge issue for most pumps. Some 'extreme' radiators like those massive 9x120's and similar are more restrictive because they have so many channel bends throughout them. AquaComputer rads follow the EU design of slower flow at higher restriction, so be aware of that as well.

I do agree that 1 360 radiator is well enough for a 7970 (250w TDP) and a 3930k (130w TDP) and you could even scrape by on a good 240 with very good fans if you absolutely had to.

There are reasons that stickies, guides and Google exist; you are supposed to use them as research tools before you buy, not after.

 

[shakal]

well the reason i went 2 radiator is because down the road i will be adding another 7970 and adding another pump and res making it a dual loop setup. so i figured why not be ahead of the game.

 

[rubix_1011]

You still don't need it to be dual loops...there isn't any need. You can just as easily cool everything in a single loop.

 

[inzone]

Cooling the cpu and two video cards is fine for a single loop , it's when you start adding the motherboard chipsets and the ram that you have to start thinking about two loops. If your the type that just wants to crate a monster setup with all kindsa of parts then fine you can do that it's your computer. Just don't be thinking that you have to have two loops for two cards and the cpu.
I started out with a 480 and 360 rads and two pumps , two resivoirs and 5 different blocks to be cooled and now I'm cutting back because I can cool with less radiator space , although they are rather thick (86mm).