Suggestions for my first custom water cooling loop.

[guskline]

Well, I've finally decided to build a custom water loop. It will be installed in rig 2 below.

My case is a CM HAF 932 Adv.

My cpu is a 3930k which at present is cooled by a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme.

My mb is a MSI X79 MA-45 which is the micro mb. Nice little OCer which I bought from Gillbot along with the cpu.

The gpu is a PNY GTX 680

Ram is 16gig of DDR3 -1866

HDD 1 Intel 530-180g ssd for OS (win8-64) and storage is WD Black sata3 500g.

PSU is a PC Power & Cooling MK II Silencer 950Watt.

I started this custom water cooling "adventure" by snagging a slightly used XSPC RX360 radiator for a great price.

So far I have the following

Radiator: XSPC RX360
Rad Fans: 3 Corsair SP120 High Performance fans - Scythe fan controller
Reservoir: XSPC Acrylic D5 Dual Bay Reservoir
Pump: Swiftech MCP655-B
CPU Block: Swiftech Apogee HD
GPU Block: XSPC Razor GTX680 original

Should I use another Radiator since I might want to cool the gpu at the same time

I also ordered 8 ft of 1/2"ID 3/4" OD tubing and 2 bottles of XSPC EC6 High Performance Liquid Cooling Premix Coolant - 1L - UV Blue

Suggestions???

 

[dma0991]

Should include an extra 240mm radiator at the bottom(if it supports) or a thick 120mm at the back. The setup with only a 360mm radiator should be enough if you're not overclocking the CPU or GPU. Skip the coolant. Its cheaper to use distilled water and silver coil, which works just as well. If you want the color, colored tubing is better than having colored coolant.

 

[Agent11]

Looks like you have tons of room. You shouldn't have too much trouble setting another radiator behind the drives, or in the front, bottom or even perhaps on the door panel.
You could even stack 2 3x120 radiators in that top space and sandwich some fans in between as well as push pull.

One should be sufficient though, unless you plan on high overclocks or live in a really hot climate.

What fan controller are you going to get?

Aquacomputer Poweradjust 2 USB

Mounting Plate for Poweradjust 2 USB

I've been thinking about picking up some of these.

Here's a link to some good guides and whatnot.

 

[guskline]

Thank you all for your input. My plan is to add a Swiftech 120mm rad and fan to replace the 140mm exhaust fan.

With the RX 360 at the top and the Swiftech 120 rad to the rear with 4 Corsair SP120 HP fans on a Nexus fan controller I should have adequate rad capacity to cool the 3930k and GTX 680.

I have the 3930k OC'd to 4.2 Ghz with it being cooled by a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme. When I run Prime 95 maxing all 6 cores and 6 logical cores (12 threads) at 100% load temps on the hottest core never exceed 69C with the others in the low to mid 60s. OCing was simply done through the MSi OC Genie II windows software by adjusting the multiplier. Since my memory has the 1866 XMP feature I enabled that also.

My goal is to achieve decent cooling of the gpu with perhaps a slight OC ( it's stock now) and run the 3930k cooler at max with the same OC. I think this rad system will do that ( hopefully). If the max temps on the cpu are low enough I might try to pump the 3930k to 4.4Ghz.

I have a lot to learn about custom water cooling and have been reading non stop.

Due to the mb being a micro LGA 2011, running gpus in sli is too difficult so the setup is likely to remain the cpu and a single gpu. Also I updated the VGA cooling to EK cooling as the PNY gtx680 is apparently not compatible with the original or improved XSPC cooling cover.

I'll keep you posted and hopefully take before and after photos with my I Phone to upload.

 

[guskline]

Well my custom loop is finished. Picture and a detailed log will follow.

Specs:

MB --- MSI X79MA-45 (Micro mb but a sweet OCer)
CPU ---- Intel 3930k OC'd to 4.3Ghz by merely increasing multiplier to 43
RAM --- 2 sticks of 8gig DDR3 -1866 set to XMP mode running at 1866
VID --- PNY GTX 680
HDDs ---- Intel 530ssd 180 gig with Win 8-64 OEM OS installed and WD Black SATA III 500G
PSU ____ PC Power & Cooling MK II Silencer 950 watt

CPU Block --- Swiftech APOGEE HD - SWEET!
VGA Block --- EK FC680 GTX+ full cover copper acetal
Rads - --------1 XPSC RX 360 and 1 Swiftech MCR120-qpk
Rad fans -----4 Corsair SP120 HP fans controlled by a NZXT mesh 5 channel 30 watt per channel controller.
Reservoir----- XSPC Acrylic dual D5
Pump ------- Swiftech 655-b
Tubing ------ 1/2" ID and 3/4" OD. All connections are barbs with Swiftech hose clamps.

Performance is stunning. Previously I had the cpu cooled by a Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme (not a bad cooler) and running prime 95 all 12 threads 100% load my max core was 71C with the lowest being 66C and most being 67-69 C

Now? 50C-47C-50C-50C-50c-51C-53C with fans running mid level. At lowest level the hottest core is 54C! Ungodly performance.

Now to the case. It's a new Corsair HAF 932. Good case for a single 360 rad but you are limited to an additional 120mm rad internally without serious modding. For the price I would spend a bit more and buy a NZXT 810 Switch which will hold a 360 and 240 rad internally without mods.

All in all I spent some serious bucks and knew I would. However I have an incredibly cool system. I'll run Furmark and measure the vga temp and post later.

BTW a shout out for BrightCandle who gave me excellent advice prior to the build. His advice was VERY helpful. Thanks BrightCandle!

 

[aigomorla]

if u think cpu is wow...

get ready to fall out of chair when u see gpu temps.

 

[guskline]

if u think cpu is wow...

get ready to fall out of chair when u see gpu temps.

YEPPIR I ran Valley benchmark last night, early this morning and sat there with my jaw dropped. The highest temp I saw on my PNY GTX680 was 43C when it was at max overclock! The new EK FC680 GTX+ Copper/Acetal water block is stunning and keeps both the gpu AND all memory etc very cool.

BrightCandle wrote me a very kind PM. He pointed out that true custom water cooling is facing the gauntlet of Intel's new Haswell power savings and the plethora of AIO.

I started this "adventure" by the allure of finding a slightly used XSPC RX360 at a fantastic price. The $$ costs sure do add up. HOWEVER, once the sytem is up and running you simply sit there stunned by the dramatic thermal improvement to only in your CPU but also your GPU.

For any I7 3930k, 3960X, 3970x users who want to OC and keep heat down custom cooling is the way to go. My temps at 4.3Ghz on my 3930k dropped at least 12 degrees.

My PNY GTX680 never gets over 43C. Temperature is no longer the enemy.

I've learned that you need a BIG case if you want both cpu and gpu blocks.

I maximized my cooling potential of the Corsair HAF 932 advanced case by adding a single 120 mm Swiftech MCR rad internally mounted in the rear exhaust using the same Corsair SP120 fan as the 3 on the XSPC RX 360. Tubing is tight but you have room if you are patient with you installation.

The Swiftech 655-b is a brute of a pump! Incredible performance. Right now the "sweetheart" is the Swiftech Apogee HD waterblock. I now understand why it got RAVE reviews.

Spent some serious $$ but EXTREMELY pleased. BTW only used Distilled water and this IandH Silver KillCoils - Antimicrobial .999 Fine Silver Tubing / Reservoir Strip.

 

[aigomorla]

<--- father of the kill coil...

those are my conception which iandy made for me originally turned into a product for him..

 

[monkeydelmagico]

<--- father of the kill coil...

those are my conception which iandy made for me originally turned into a product for him..

Outstanding usage of the inherent properties of silver. My hats off to you sir.

 

[guskline]

<--- father of the kill coil...

those are my conception which iandy made for me originally turned into a product for him..

Kudos!!!!!.

 

[aigomorla]

Guys note..
(sometimes silver is very misunderstood.)

silver only works when u start a new system, or a clean system.
Its not a magic nuke, where it will kill things in an existing system.

Silver ions get released over time making your coolant less and less friendly to microbs.
Your essentially racing the sweet spot with said microbs making it less and less friendly to them, so they can never flourish.

This is why its important u have silver when ur starting the system, and not add it later on to an existing system as it wont help you.

It gets me kinda sad when people think its an antimicrob out of the box.... if ur already seeing nasty stuff inside your loop, silver wont fix that.

 

[guskline]

Guys note..
(sometimes silver is very misunderstood.)

silver only works when u start a new system, or a clean system.
Its not a magic nuke, where it will kill things in an existing system.

Silver ions get released over time making your coolant less and less friendly to microbs.
Your essentially racing the sweet spot with said microbs making it less and less friendly to them, so they can never flourish.

This is why its important u have silver when ur starting the system, and not add it later on to an existing system as it wont help you.

It gets me kinda sad when people think its an antimicrob out of the box.... if ur already seeing nasty stuff inside your loop, silver wont fix that.

Good. System is brand new and silver coil was in the res at startup!

 

[smackababy]

Guys note..
(sometimes silver is very misunderstood.)

silver only works when u start a new system, or a clean system.
Its not a magic nuke, where it will kill things in an existing system.

Silver ions get released over time making your coolant less and less friendly to microbs.
Your essentially racing the sweet spot with said microbs making it less and less friendly to them, so they can never flourish.

This is why its important u have silver when ur starting the system, and not add it later on to an existing system as it wont help you.

It gets me kinda sad when people think its an antimicrob out of the box.... if ur already seeing nasty stuff inside your loop, silver wont fix that.

Don't the ions make the water more and more electrically reactant as time goes on though? Given enough silver and enough time, wouldn't it conduct electricity?

 

[aigomorla]

Don't the ions make the water more and more electrically reactant as time goes on though? Given enough silver and enough time, wouldn't it conduct electricity?

when ur down that road it wont matter as everything in your system will be conductive once water hits it.

Ie.. Dust...

Also Copper ions leeched off your blocks, do the same thing.
Only Silver is a lot more aggressive then copper is at doing the same job.

So i say its moot...

The only time i say distilled is non conductive is probably in a new build.
After 2-3 momths time... anything it come in contact with will make it conductive..

 

[guskline]

Picture of my rig. I need a course on cable management!:|

 

[dma0991]

Could've been a little bit tidier by making shorter runs and 90 degree fittings.

 

[BrightCandle]

This is a well specced loop. It has sufficient cooling resources for what its doing such that it cools the system so that even on full load of the CPU and GPU the water temperature shouldn't ever exceed about +10C over ambient. So the CPU temperature when overclocking will be about 50-55C or so when clocked similar to high end air (~70C) but it also gives you the thermal headroom to go 100-200Mhz more. All the while being almost completely silent.

What Anandtech just did with their review was all wrong. Their loop may have looked pretty but they had far too much heat being dumped into the loop and put their components in jeopardy. Custom watercooling isn't simply about putting together what you think is good enough, its cold hard physics. Anandtech really undermined their credibility with that review when it comes to watercooling.

If you want to clean up the loop a little you want 3 90 degree barbs, 2 for the GPU and one of the radiator. Should help with the potential kink problem on the GPU inlet. For the cables a few cable ties to bundle them up in a nice package with 5 minutes effort will clean the look up a lot. Sleeving obviously makes things a lot cleaner because its dark and groups the cables together but personally I don't bother I instead bought a PSU with black cables! I kind of wish cases came with a little area specifically for the cables out of the PSU so we could just hide the mess they leave.

 

[Aikouka]

What Anandtech just did with their review was all wrong. Their loop may have looked pretty but they had far too much heat being dumped into the loop and put their components in jeopardy. Custom watercooling isn't simply about putting together what you think is good enough, its cold hard physics. Anandtech really undermined their credibility with that review when it comes to watercooling.

Honestly... I think you may be looking at their article a bit wrong. While they may have listed results, I really don't think it's meant to be a review. It was more of a deep dive from a complete novice as Dustin stated that he has never built a custom water cooling loop before. There was some guy in the comments that said the article turned him off because he thought water cooling would be quieter. I flat out told him to not take the article that way. Custom water cooling is custom. If you want it to be quieter, then you can do that!

If you want to clean up the loop a little you want 3 90 degree barbs, 2 for the GPU and one of the radiator. Should help with the potential kink problem on the GPU inlet. For the cables a few cable ties to bundle them up in a nice package with 5 minutes effort will clean the look up a lot. Sleeving obviously makes things a lot cleaner because its dark and groups the cables together but personally I don't bother I instead bought a PSU with black cables! I kind of wish cases came with a little area specifically for the cables out of the PSU so we could just hide the mess they leave.

It looks like the biggest contributors to the "mess" are the choice in GPU block and the 120mm radiator. Most GPU blocks that I've seen have the G1/4 ports parallel with the card, so I'm surprised to see this one has them perpendicular to the card. It seems like that would make it a bit harder to do multi-GPU. I used to have a 120mm radiator in my old build, but I just found that it added so much clutter where there's already a lot of action (near the CPU and GPU).

I have to say though... it's so easy to say, "Well, I bet I could use a slightly different adapter and make this cleaner!" In other words, don't get into water cooling if you are saddled with OCD. I know I've adjusted builds that already worked by swapping in different adapters that I thought made it cleaner.

 

[BrightCandle]

I personally don't care what the system looks like. I have wires connected in connector blocks for fans that look totally out of place, random coloured bits and all sorts. I dislike faffing around with it and I just want it built and working quietly.

 

[BrightCandle]

Honestly... I think you may be looking at their article a bit wrong. While they may have listed results, I really don't think it's meant to be a review. It was more of a deep dive from a complete novice as Dustin stated that he has never built a custom water cooling loop before. There was some guy in the comments that said the article turned him off because he thought water cooling would be quieter. I flat out told him to not take the article that way. Custom water cooling is custom. If you want it to be quieter, then you can do that!

I think we can clearly see in the comments the problem with the way he drew conclusions and what people took away from that. He designed a flawed loop that didn't perform well because he didn't do his research. He then concluded that watercooling was useless and noisy. So then most of the readers had their fears "confirmed" and decided that it didn't bring any benefits. I see that as clearly misleading, because unfortunately the guy didn't do the very first thing one does when choosing a loop which is choose the right number of radiators. There are a lot of questionable other choices in there but that is the one that invalidates everything else the guy tried to do. If he had asked about his build in this forum I could have stopped that from happening, instead he jumped to the conclusion that he was right and all these watercoolers were wrong.

Its a bad article and systems like this one and mine prove that its just wrong. Its not even as if the method I use for estimating the number of radiators/fans is difficult, its actually trivial.

 

[guskline]

Could've been a little bit tidier by making shorter runs and 90 degree fittings.

Correct. Ordered some 90 degree and 45 degree fittings. On the upper left hand corner I can reroute the bigger rad barb to the lower rad outer barb and move the long supply from the pum/rad to the rear upper rad barb. As to the gpu block, 90 or even 45 barbs will help. Thank you for the suggestion. BTW, though the Corsair SP120 HPs work OK, they hum too much even when reduced by the fan controller (really no need to run higher speed). I have Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP 15s on the way. Thanks for the input and critique. I'm learning!

 

[guskline]

Prior to purchase of the EK water block for the PNY GTX680 I had bought on auction an original XSPC GTX680 Razor block. Fearing it would be incompatible due to the XSPC chart, I opted to spend the $$ and buy a EK GTX680 block that stated compatability with the PNY GTX680. Tried to sell the Razor block but no bites and the "answer" was staring me right in the face. I decided to move both EVGA GTX670 FTWs to this rig and use both the XSPC and EK block because both ARE compatible with the EVGA GTX670 FTW. My problem is rad capacity so I have ordered a XSPC EX360 rad to be mounted to the rear of the HAF 932 externally. I should receive the rad and new fans (6 Aerocool Sharks) on Monday or Tuesday and keep you up to date when I have done the mods.

Also you can see from my sig I spent the $$$ (my wife will yell at me then go to Talbot's and buy some new clothing to "calm down") and bought the Asus X79 Sabertooth mb. The switch out was not bad AND it is a MUCH beefier mb designed for OC with much more room to run SLI. The MicroCenter in Philly had one in stock so I made the plunge. I was debating a new case also but to get 2 360 rads internally I would have to go to a Corsair 900D and just opted for a rear mounted external rad. I'll keep youi posted.

 

[BrightCandle]

Now you are starting to get into the serious territory. You might find now is the time to get that case replaced with something large enough to house the radiators and fans. There are plenty of watercooling cases out there that come with significantly more space and make it much easier to mount all your parts. Caselabs, little devil and Mountain mods are the three that spring to my mind as I looked in December. Each has its own trade offs, none of them are cheap but all of them do make a significantly better looking machine and more maintainable loop.

 

[guskline]

Now you are starting to get into the serious territory. You might find now is the time to get that case replaced with something large enough to house the radiators and fans. There are plenty of watercooling cases out there that come with significantly more space and make it much easier to mount all your parts. Caselabs, little devil and Mountain mods are the three that spring to my mind as I looked in December. Each has its own trade offs, none of them are cheap but all of them do make a significantly better looking machine and more maintainable loop.

I hear you! Next move up will be a bigger case. I looked at the Corsair 900D at MicroCenter but thought I would wait. I'm going to have the case on the floor so there's plenty of room for the rear mount. BTW, I added the included casters to the CM HAF 932 Advanced. I'm going to mount the EX 360 to the rear using the XSPC mounting brackets. I bought extra tubing (plenty) and enough Alphacool 90 degree swivel barbs to choke a horse! Now that I've gotten into this, draining the system isn't bad ( have a perfect Pampered Chef rectangular plastic container that fits perfectly.

My next issue will be whether to run the 6 Aerocool Shark fans at 12v (1500rpms) or at 7V (800rpms). Each fan has a step down extension.

Again BrightCandle thank you. Per your info, I calculated my thermal needs as follows:

3930k at 4.4Ghz = up to 240W ( actually showing up to 180 Watts when I measure)

2 GTX 670s OC'd = up to 460W (230W per card)

Total = 700W max

Using your formula of @115 Watts per 120mm rad I need slightly more than 6. I feel sure that I overestimed wattage but I built in a safety margin. This will allow a cushion.

 

[BrightCandle]

...
Total = 700W max

Using your formula of @115 Watts per 120mm rad I need slightly more than 6. I feel sure that I overestimed wattage but I built in a safety margin. This will allow a cushion.

Looks good to me