Water Cooled Video Card Loop Position and Connecting

Spongeman131

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Oct 29, 2012
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Hello everyone, after one year I'm back with a few more question to complete my rig this summer.

I'm going to put two video cards into my loop but I have a few questions about setup and what kind of things I need to be purchasing?

On my board (Rampage IV Extreme) to SLI two video cards, the Manual states I should have them in the first and second PCI-E x16 slots (first and third red slots from the top):

slotswm.jpg


The gap between each finger on the SLI bridge provided with the board for this configuration is 40mm so I'm looking at a 80mm gap between two cards (I think that's pretty common and is called single spacing?).

Now that's not an insignificant gap so I could use fittings and a short bit of tubing to connect the cards but I'm wondering if I'd be better off getting adjustable fittings that are designed for this exact kind of thing?

Would this [Koolance] , this [Swiftech] or this [Bitspower] work? I'm only after one name of these but I'm not sure which would be the better choice.

Unfortunately EK does not make these adjustable fittings. I have a Koolance CPU Block, Swiftech pump and other Bitspower fittings in my build so I'm not exactly sure which might be the better choice here? Would you guys recommend any of the particular fittings I linked over the others based on manufacturer? Will any of these fittings even reach? Would you recommend something else I haven't listed?

How reliable are these kind of adjustable length fittings for leaks? Would I be safer to just get some normal compression fittings and put a bit of tubing between each card?

I can't do a waterbridge because I will be getting two of these which come with their own custom installed waterblock which EVGA does not make waterbridges for.

Can I still run these cards in parallel (which I'm told gives better flow rates) or is that not possible because there would not be enough water to fully cool both cards (only so much water can fit through the tubing). I've spoken with people over at the EVGA forums who have told me that the blocks can have fittings mounted on either side of either port so actually connecting them in parallel isn't a problem

I was also hoping to get a bit of confirmation on position of these relative to a loop. Intuitively I would think that if you have a radiator after each component being cooled the overall temperature of the water should be cooler for each component. But I thought I remember reading that the position of radiators relative to components in the loop don't really matter because of the speed at which the water is pumped around. Is that true?

Thanks for the help guys.