How is my custom water loop

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 22, 2013

manofchalk · Jul 22, 2013

Looks fine to me, its largely personal preference from here.

I dont like bay mounted pump/reservoirs, I prefer an internal one or a separate pump and reservoir. Its quite difficult to absorb vibration on bay mounted pumps, and you will get some vibration induced noise.

GPU block is the same as I have, check my build log if you want to see how it looks on my card and results (2nd page).

No need for coolant, Distilled water will serve you fine.

I would personally go for more rad space, thermal headroom is always good as it allows you to turn down your fans. For my CPU+GPU loop I have 2x360mm rads and the fan speed doesnt even matter to temps.

Those fan controllers aren't all that great.
This is what I use (and I'm surprised you can get it, went out of production ages ago) and will serve you much better. 6 channels @50W each, you could run your pump off one of the channels quite comfortably.
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/NZXT-Sentry-Mix-6-Channel-LED-Illuminated-Fan-Controller--Sentry-Mix-pid-14946.html

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 22, 2013

What reservoir and pump do you recommend? I don't have enough space for 360 radiators. I'm using my two top fan spaces and my rear fan space. And as for fan controllers, I don't have enough space, I only have 3 5.25" bays and " 3.5" bays. I have an optical drive that takes up one 5.25" bay, and the reservoir I might be getting (depends if you can recommend a better one), takes up 2 5.25" bays. Oh and the two single fan controllers have nothing to do with the custom loop. Oh and I'm using a coolermaster 430 elite.

manofchalk · Jul 22, 2013

Reservoir: doesn't matter really. Get whatever you like and works well with your loop. I use a Swiftech MC-Res V2.
Pump: That's for you to decide, but I will say your previous choice of a D5 isnt a bad one.

Its called externally mounting (this is my rig).
http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o537/Manofchalk/IMG_20130216_120524_zps4608b88f.jpg

Why would you need multiple fan controllers? You can use fan splitters to run multiple fans off the one channel, and with 50W per channel you can run a fair few of them off the one channel, of which there are 6.

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 22, 2013

manofchalk :

I think I prefer the radiators being internal, no offense but it looks really ugly being external.

Oh and for the fans, I'm a little OCD which is a real pain, I'd prefer to have a controller using 3 fans (which is my custom loop), and then 2 on my misc. fans.

Meoricin · Jul 22, 2013

While I like the concept of it (and have considered something similar myself), the hot/cold tubing thing is purely a visual effect. The water in a loop may differ by 1 or 2 degrees - but the whole point of a watercooling loop is that it normalizes the temperature throughout. You don't get hot and cold sections.

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 22, 2013

Meoricin :

Of course, like you said, it's only aesthetical.

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 22, 2013

I've made a diagram.

Ignore the disproportionate sizes, I am NOT good at drawing.

Buzz247 · Jul 22, 2013

remember what we discussed in your original cooling thread - front/bottom/side fans intake air, top and rear exhaust

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 22, 2013

Buzz247 :

The radiators are at the back and rear, so should the fans be exhausting? Could the dual 120 radiator have a push pull system on it?

Buzz247 · Jul 22, 2013

yes exhausting, and I doubt you will have the clearance in a Coolermaster 930 Elite case to do a push/pull setup even with a slim rad - best stick with pull only. You will hit mobo components

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 22, 2013

So when you say exhaust, do they go on the top or bottom of the radiator?

Buzz247 · Jul 22, 2013

you want hem in between the rad and the case - pulling air thru the rad blowing out the case

Buzz247 · Jul 22, 2013

I just saw the Y- splitters - why??? You do not want to do that - fluid dynamics rules state that would decrease performance and cause improper flow - get rid of those. shortest path for your tubing (which mean best flow) pump/res>cpu>GPU> 120 rad> 240 rad> res/pump

rofl_my_waffle · Jul 23, 2013

The Y splitters blew my mind. I just can't comprehend the reason or even the logic for them. Regardless you should never use any type of splitters for a watercooling loop.

Also I wouldn't recommend UV Red tubing if you want to install UV lights. The red color tubing has a really poor glow, almost not UV at all. I would recommend UV Orange if you are after a nice bright UV effect.

I agree that you shouldn't get bay reservoirs with pump mount. The vibrations were unbearable when I got mine and I just couldn't get it to work even with padding in the bay so I threw it in the trash and never looked back. You could get a bay res without pump mount but I warn you, bay reservoirs are hard to fill in general. I recommend a tube reservoir, they are easy to deal with. A D5 standalone pump is decent, I just put it in my bay area without any mounting, just sitting on top a pile of foam which is what most people do.

Coolant is a waste of money, get distilled water. You can read up why and basically everyone who gets into watercooling learns this lesson eventually.

manofchalk · Jul 23, 2013

Splitting the flow through the rads I can understand actually. A lower flow through the rads gives the water more time to cool, and since its joining back up the flow through the rest of the loop is effectively unchanged.

Buzz247 · Jul 23, 2013

yes this would work if you insured that restriction was equal, but with different sized rads, different manufacturer, different thickness, and not the same tubing length, you will get disproportionate flow thru the rads, so the aim would not be achieved

edit: Now that I think about it, my setup would be a perfect case study for this with 3 480 on each loop. I might have to try a 3way split rather than series...

manofchalk · Jul 23, 2013

Yep, should have said assuming identical rads are on both paths.

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 23, 2013

I only used Y splitters, because without them, I will not be able to use the other rad.

Buzz247 · Jul 23, 2013

not at all the case. Not sure why you had that impression. pumps res out -> cpu in, cpu out-> gpu in, gpu out->rad120 in, rad120 out->rad240in, rad240out->back to pump/res in

You sure your read that sticky i gave you?

Jonathan Sifleet · Jul 23, 2013

Buzz247 :

All of it, however it gave me a migraine.

Oh wow, how did I not think of that, however I'm getting a new case, so I'll need to rethink my water cooling again...

How is my custom water loop

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