Water Cooling a Fractal Design XL R2

[johnstac]

Some years ago I built a water cooled system but didn't care for it much as it was loud and that was when water cooling was in its infancy.

I'm wanting to cool the CPU and the two GPU's and have a couple of preliminary questions as I plan this out.


1. Does it make sense to cool the CPU and two GPUs using one line? (I'm not sure if people use two lines or not.)

2. With my lack of experience should I invest the hours to learn about all of the water cooling methods and equipment available or does it make sense to purchase one or two water cooling kits?

3. In the past I was told that water cooling kits were of cheaper quality. Is that still the case?

4.Will using a kit make it easier for me to accomplish what I want to do here?

5. Does anyone have first hand experience installing water cooling in the case I mentioned above?

The primary goal of this computer is silence. At some future point I will also play with overclocking but not right away and I'm set it and forget it when it comes to OCing.

 

[manofchalk]

1. Yes

2. You should invest the hours learning about water-cooling regardless of whether you go for kit options or not. but considering that you want to include GPU's, you at minimum have to make decisions on the GPU blocks and extra fittings for them, as no kit includes them. And because of the GPU's, you will also have to factor in pumping needs as well.

3. Nope.

4. Possibly, in that you will have to do a lot less research when it comes to the configuration of the loop. Downside is that you might not be getting exactly what you want or is best for your interests (ie: silence rig and a bay mounted pump, they tend to vibrate in the bay and near impossible to decouple them).

5. As far as I know, none of the regulars here have used a Fractal Design XL R2. Might want to search abroad for build logs using this case, Google images is a good place to start looking.

How to achieve silence with water-cooling
- A very well decoupled pump.
- Way too much radiator space.
- A fan controller.

 

[johnstac]

Thanks for the response. I did some reading tonight with regards to the Noctua NH-D14 that someone proposed I use to cool my CPU. It appears that this air cooler has been put up against many of the all-in-one water cooling kits in side by side tests. From what I read here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/water2.0-extreme-kraken-x40-hydro-h90-elc120,3434.html

it appears that the D14 holds its own against these closed loops. So two things come in to question. How will the D14 fair against a custom system of better performing equipment, ie. fans, rad, pump? Based on the response above, I'm getting the impression that they don't offer these kits for gpu loops so my inquiry about using two kits to water cool the cpu and two gpu cards probably isn't a possibility.

The bottom line is this; I want to cool both the cpu and gpu x2 with water to achieve a quieter system than the alternative which would be a D14 and probably stock fans on the video cards. Is this achievable with one water loop?

If I can confirm the above, then I can begin to get input on putting together a loop. I want to learn which parts are available to me and how best to install them. According to documentation provided by Fractal Design, the case options for water include:

Front – 240mm radiator when HDD cages are removed or repositioned
Top – 240 and 280mm when using slim radiators
Bottom – 120mm radiators
Rear – 120 and 140mm radiators

 

[rubix_1011]

t appears that the D14 holds its own against these closed loops.

Significant difference between closed loop coolers (Corsair H80/H100) and actual watercooling.

 

[manofchalk]

^ +1
A custom loop will outperform a D-14 by a long stretch.

You can include the CPU and GPU's in the one water loop yes, just make sure your pump is up to it.
http://martinsliquidlab.org/pump-planning-guide/
Also that the rads you get can handle the sum TDP of whats in the loop. The sticky will tell you how to calculate the TDP.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/277130-29-read-first-watercooling-sticky
I advise reading through the whole thing a few times if you havent already.

 

[dweddle]

Hey, I'm currently starting to gather resources for a very similar build (fractal design xl r2)! I've been measuring everything out, and I think I'm gonna get an 80mm thick dual 120 rad in the front (move the hd cage way back) and have a push-pull on that, then a 45mm thick dual 140mm rad on the top of the case with just push fans. I was really bummed about not being able to fit the dual 140 on the front just because it's too tall, but oh well.

After all that, there might even be enough room for another single 140 rad at the rear exhaust, but it would be tight. And of couse if you want to just get rid of the hd cage all together and find somewhere else to put them you could do a bottom mounted rad.

 

[johnstac]

This is helpful because I will need specific options for this case. Please post when you have confirmed your plan. What will you be cooling with your build? CPU and two video cards?

Hey, I'm currently starting to gather resources for a very similar build (fractal design xl r2)! I've been measuring everything out, and I think I'm gonna get an 80mm thick dual 120 rad in the front (move the hd cage way back) and have a push-pull on that, then a 45mm thick dual 140mm rad on the top of the case with just push fans. I was really bummed about not being able to fit the dual 140 on the front just because it's too tall, but oh well.

After all that, there might even be enough room for another single 140 rad at the rear exhaust, but it would be tight. And of couse if you want to just get rid of the hd cage all together and find somewhere else to put them you could do a bottom mounted rad.

 

[dweddle]

This is helpful because I will need specific options for this case. Please post when you have confirmed your plan. What will you be cooling with your build? CPU and two video cards?

An AMD 8350 and just one 7950, but I'll leave the possibility of adding another 7950 eventually.

 

[plu2]

I recently finished my first custom water cooled loop using the Fractal Design Define XL R2. For inspiration you can find my build log googling for fractal plu29um.

 

[toolmaker_03]

Wow, I am sorry to here that your temps are so high, with that much hardware they could be so much better, but only with a different configuration behind it. I would parallel the radiators together and the GPU block would be in parallel with the CPU block giving the system optimum performance for the hardware provided.

I have a build log and another that I am working on now so have a look and ask questions if I have peeked your interest.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/284615-29-build
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274855-29-experimental-radiator-build/page-14

 

[dweddle]

Well I got my gpu block and figured out my radiator orientation. I'ts CRAAAMPED! Also I'm not quite done yet, I was sent the wrong size fitting.. but everything is generally in the right place!

 

[toolmaker_03]

Well as far as placement it looks fine, even the general order of the components is fine. What I would change is adding a Y splitter right before the first radiator so that I could pipe to both radiators at the same time than on the outside of the radiator I would have another Y splitter to recombine the line into one line so that I could pipe that to the bottom of the video card and have that line continue straight up through the video card block on the same side up to the CPU block in. The out on the CPU block will pipe straight down to the top of the video card block, with will continue through the video card block on the same side to the bottom of it. That will pipe into the reservoir and into the pump and back to the first Y splitter again. I hope that makes since, I can see it in my head but it can be a little hard to explain.

 

[dweddle]

Well as far as placement it looks fine, even the general order of the components is fine. What I would change is adding a Y splitter right before the first radiator so that I could pipe to both radiators at the same time than on the outside of the radiator I would have another Y splitter to recombine the line into one line so that I could pipe that to the bottom of the video card and have that line continue straight up through the video card block on the same side up to the CPU block in. The out on the CPU block will pipe straight down to the top of the video card block, with will continue through the video card block on the same side to the bottom of it. That will pipe into the reservoir and into the pump and back to the first Y splitter again. I hope that makes since, I can see it in my head but it can be a little hard to explain.

I understand what you're saying; I don't really care about a y-splitter, 'cause once I get the water in and running I won't be messing with it for quite some time. And as for the order, I think you have it backwards. The pump shoots straight up to the gpu, then cpu, etc.