Have never water cooled before!

[cctaylor88]

Alright I have been creeping on many build logs for quite some time now and am completely wanting and willing to dive into water cooling my computer. I have never done this before so obviously I am completely new to it and ask for your patience which has never been a problem in the past. To be honest I have never even seen a water cooled computer up close and personal. Anyways, my current plan is to switch into either an nzxt phantom 01 or 630 or the switch 810. As of right now I am super close to pulling the trigger on the switch 810 case as I have heard these are very friendly to those looking forward to water cooling. Now, I have been reading quite a few threads on WCing but as you can imagine it is all very foreign and reading the terminology can only do so much for me.

I would like to keep it simple for now and limit my "loop" to just the cpu but am completely overwhelmed when it comes to selecting components as there is a dizzying array of choices. From my very limited understanding I need a pump, reservoir, radiator, and cpu water block...is this correct? Also, how many rads do I need? It seems like a lot of people refer to two rads when they talk about their loops but as I am only needing to cool the cpu I'm not sure? For reference I have an AMD cpu and 600w psu. I know this is very vague and limited but that's pretty much where I am as of right now...
Oh and this is a bit off topic but what's the deal with the WC bundles like the Raystorm 750 RS240 kits..they are only $150ish are these worth it...or do you recommend making my own loop from custom parts?

Anything that will help me get started and make a purchase is greatly appreciated and I can't wait! Thanks in advance.

 

[dma0991]

I would recommend getting a 360mm radiator to begin with. This gives you the flexibility of adding in a GPU block in the future. Of course, a 240mm radiator is sufficient for CPU alone but as time goes by, WC will poison you and what you have will no longer be enough. :twisted:

To keep it simple, you could go with this or this. It has a replaceable pump which was a gripe of mine with the older and cheaper version which made pump replacement nearly impossible.

You might want tubing of your choice because there might be a possibility of the tubing inner walls becoming cloudy due to plasticizer leeching. Preferably something with color or a good quality clear tubing. I do not use colored or specialized coolants as there are issues with it. Instead, I went with plain distilled water and silver coil.

 

[dawp]

I would seriously consider the swiftech AIO, it can be easily expanded latter with more parts once you're comfortable with water cooling, unlike the other AIO systems from corsair, antec and others. it was suppose to be released at the end of febuary.

take a look at the videos on this page:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...tem_-_ETA_End_of_February.html?tl=g30c83s1593

 

[cctaylor88]

I would seriously consider the swiftech AIO, it can be easily expanded latter with more parts once you're comfortable with water cooling, unlike the other AIO systems from corsair, antec and others. it was suppose to be released at the end of febuary.

take a look at the videos on this page:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...tem_-_ETA_End_of_February.html?tl=g30c83s1593

You know, someone else suggested that same thing and I REALLY like what I see with it, copper rad, can expand it later on etc. I would honestly probably go with this but of course its sold out

So you think this would be a better option rather than doing my own custom setup? Would it be cheaper I assume to get an AIO kit

 

[cctaylor88]

Alright well i just called Swiftech and they haven't even received their commercial shipments which means no one has these things available for sale to the public yet... what a bummer

 

[dawp]

well, I have the apogee xt block and it does perform well and the block/pump in the AIO is based on that block, the pump is an in-house design that is based on the laing ddc which has been used for years and versions are available from various vendors. those are the 2 main parts and the rad/res is from swiftech stock.

 

[BrightCandle]

Its a shame. I got into watercooling via the Acetek kit, then I moved to a small custom loop and I now have a monster loop after multiple upgrades. Its the sort of thing you do need to start small as there is quite a lot to learn to maintain a loop and buying a bigger more complex loop is going to be harder to do properly without the experience. It took me months to build my recent machine because of some of the unexpected problems I faced and I have been doing watercooling since 2006.