Core X9 new water set up help

[*kjm]

I'm new to water cooling and will be setting up my first loop in the next couple of days and could use help with it. Where do I want the radiator, pump and reservoir? I got the case from New egg and it's the Thermaltake Core X9 and the kit from Performance-pcs and it's the XSPC Raystorm D5 Photon AX240 with the XSPC Raystorm pro CPU block, 170mm reservoir, Vario pump and Mayhems Biocide extream.
I would like to have the pump and res vertical if possible in the case. I'm coming from a Cooler Master stacker STC-T01 to the new case so have plenty of 120mm fans. I'm running a 4770K on a H50 Corsair cooler now (it's doing great) and wanted to play with water cooling. Equipment in the case will be....

Motherboard
Video (Gigabyte 970 G1 gamer)
4 hard drives
1 SSD
1 Blue ray player

Down the road I would like to add a 360 or 480 rad and add the GPU in the loop so I need to keep that in mind with the build. The thing scaring me away from doing this right away was the post on the EK blocks with this card(bad VRM cooling). Out of all the posts it kind of seems like a hack job of a water block for the money??

Anyway back to the question “Where do I want the radiator, pump and reservoir?” in this case and if the pump is vertical and the rad vertical would I want the input and output of the res high or low in the case? I hope this makes sense if not let me know what I'm leaving out that would help you help me. Also keep in mind the Compression fittings are straight though that came with the kit no angle fittings.

Last but not least this has tapped me out but if you have any ideas on how to make this setup better when I change the water out next time by all means let me know.... drain valves, fill valves, angle fittings etc. Link to XSPC kit below and case blow.
http://www.performance-pcs.com/hot-xspc-raystorm-d5-photon-ax240-watercooling-kit.html
http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002562

aigomorla your thoughts()

 

[guskline]

kjm: I have the exact same case and will post some pictures below. First I'm using a bay/reservoir internally mounted because I took out both 3 bay hdd cages. I mounted my 2 ssds in a much smaller 2.5' bracket I found from an old Chieftec case and the 2 tb WDD 3.5" drive to the floor. I was able to mout 2 480 rads internally at the top and another 480 rad to the right mounted vertically using the backets from the hdd cages.

If you click on each picture and expand it you can see the detail. In the first picture starting from the rear to the front on the left side I was able to mount my 1200W PC Power & Cooling PSU then my 2TB WD HDD and finally my XSPC twin D5 bay res (both D5s mounted to the rear). I fabricated a mounting bracket to keep the pumps/bay/res snug. You will also notice to the rear of the HDD the 2.5 " bracket holding bothe 500g Samsung 850 EVO ssds.

The second picture shows the right side with the single 480 rad cooled by 4 Gentle Typhoon 1850rpm 120mm fans (have 12 total, 4 per 480 rad).

Finally looking at the top of the second photo you can see the side of one of the two top mounted 480 rads. I used new XSPC RX480 ver3 rads.

I hope this gives you an idea of the versatility of the X9.

 

[rgallant]

Anyway back to the question “Where do I want the radiator, pump and reservoir?” in this case and if the pump is vertical and the rad vertical would I want the input and output of the res high or low in the case? I hope this makes sense if not let me know what I'm leaving out that would help you help me.

well everyone has different design goals
mine has always been easy air bleeding/ filling and no air pockets - air go's up , water go's down.

so having no bleed ports on that rad keep it on the bottom
so it will be on it's side no big deal.
mount the pump res combo as high as possible in the case.
filling/bleeding the res could go two way's with what you have
1 - you have easy access from the top to fill res.

2 -if you don't so I would add a fill port to the res with enough tube connected so it can be pulled out the case for easy filling/water top ups.
[add a tie wrap on that tube so the fitting does not loosen]

with that done connect your tube from the pump out to the bottom port of the rad [having a T before it with a drain tube with a 2nd fill/drain port]
next run a tube to your gpu or cpu block , then from there , connect a tube back to the input of the res.

as you fill the res . water will get by the pump ,filling the rad ,plus the tube to the gpu/cpu until it levels out with the level of water in the res.
you might have to tilt the case if tube are higher than the res. input.

with as much water in the system you can get in it's time to quickly start the pump on and off
[I use a 12v power brick] if you have to use the main psu just connect only the pump , molex to molex [connect - disconnect]

as air moves into the res . top up the res. again do not let it run dry , it will burn out the pump btw in seconds.

once air is out of the tubes / blocks [some tilting might be required]
let pump run and leak check the loop [use paper towels as it shows any wetness]. how long? I do a hour some do 24..
being new to water cooling hope that will give you some idea's

drain / fill port
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._Fillport_-_Silver_Nickel.html?tl=g30c101s460