Ultimate Water-cooling Setup

[Aristotelian]

Dear all,

So with this thread I am going to be asking you for a significant favour. I'll be updating the thread periodically, but really have only an idea of what I want, but not how to achieve it, as my posts in other threads in this sub-forum show. So, in advance, I'd like to thank you for reading and for any help that you can provide.

I am going for a watercooled setup in the future - likely Skylake-E, with at least 2 16nm GPUs. I want to build a rig that will easily handle 4K or 5K games, and hopefully get a monitor at that time that can do 4K at 100hz or higher.

I thought I would start by choosing a case - now the S-Frame from In-Win is my dream case, but since I want to heavily overclock this machine (and replace graphics cards once in a while) I am thinking that I want to achieve overkill in the design. And the S-Frames that I saw for heavy overclocking have a pack built onto the back for all the radiator space that is needed.

I am thinking 2x 480mm rads. Loads of Noctua (or whatever is the king in silence/inaudibility + cfm) fans. The idea would be:

1. To maximize radiator capacity to ensure that I can run the fans nice and low.
2. To ensure that the flow rate is sufficient by using multiple pumps. I would be looking for premium, quiet pumps that can maintain a solid flow rate.
3. To buy the best quality radiators (I read that EK seems to be quite dominant on the marketplace) to keep the temps down
4. To ensure that the case air-flow runs smoothly (I'll be working on a diagram in MS Paint for the idea)

But my problem is that I am stuck on a case. Now the reason I wanted to go with an S-Frame in the first place is the style, but it seems to only be able to hold a 360 radiator without extra modding, which for me ruins the appeal.

I am ready to be told that 2x480mm is overkill - please let me know if you think so even with my requirement that this project ends up being both cool and quiet under heavy overclocking.

And at this preliminary stage, I am requesting a case recommendation. I have been looking all over, including Mountain mods, but the large rectangle option destroys the bling I want to achieve. And yes, I know that bling and elite cooling can become antagonistic to one another, but there has to be a way to get this done. A PC that is super cool, extremely quiet, that runs super damn fast.

My budget for the case alone is up to EUR 1000. I live in Belgium if this helps and normally order from idealo.de

For the more experienced contributors here, what is the ideal in terms of - connectors (I saw some sweet SLI bridges), the pipes, the pumps, the radiators, the waterblocks - are there "best in class" - is it touch and go between models?

That's it for the start. My posts tend to be a bit long but I hope that they are clear.

I want to build a slightly blingy (colour coordinated for sure - if I was going to get the gold S-Frame I'd want to sand it down and do a new paint job) case that is extremely fast and would also be future proof to an extent that I could swap out everything aside from the pipes, pumps, radiators, case, fans etc and simply do new builds whenever I want with the hardware, accepting the fact that the waterblock switching alone could be very expensive.

Thanks again.

 

[aigomorla]

have you thought about racks?

http://www.dangerden.com/store/dd-torture-rack.html

 

[dlerious]

How about a Caselabs Magnum STH10 for your case (i have the Mercury S8).

http://www.caselabs-store.com/magnum-sth10/

A build log using the STH10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cb0j4AO1aE&list=PLbF2MPzbagfwMaJGHtSMS3z4l1lTDcvEx

 

[MrTeal]

LOL.. I think my ultimate water cooling setup would be the CPU and GPU blocks, connected to a tap. Noiseless 10C water all year long. At my utility rate of 0.012 cents per gallon running 0.5gpm would cost me $52/year, but I could have done that for over a decade for what I spent on rads and fans.

 

[Aristotelian]

have you thought about racks?

http://www.dangerden.com/store/dd-torture-rack.html

Hi aigomoria, thanks for the response. I created this thread in part because of your response in MiRai's thread, to ask my questions publicly.

Now, I never considered racks before and always understood them to be for server purposes. I checked out the torture rack on the dangerden website - do you think it's possible for me to mount 2x480mm rads on it?

I have never done watercooling before and I know some readers might be rolling their eyes right now wondering why someone wants to go from never having done a watercooling build to an elite watercooling build but it's just something I want to achieve, and that's why I asked you for a favour at the beginning of this thread.

How about a Caselabs Magnum STH10 for your case (i have the Mercury S8).

http://www.caselabs-store.com/magnum-sth10/

A build log using the STH10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cb0j4AO1aE&list=PLbF2MPzbagfwMaJGHtSMS3z4l1lTDcvEx

Thanks a lot for this too. I watched the first video so far with him going over all of his parts. I checked out the case on the website but I guess I need to read a bit more - advantages about rotating the motherboard tray, etc.

The racks seem to be significantly cheaper than cases as well which would allow me to push an even more extreme hardware configuration if that would work out.

 

[aigomorla]

Hi aigomoria, thanks for the response. I created this thread in part because of your response in MiRai's thread, to ask my questions publicly.

Now, I never considered racks before and always understood them to be for server purposes. I checked out the torture rack on the dangerden website - do you think it's possible for me to mount 2x480mm rads on it?

I have never done watercooling before and I know some readers might be rolling their eyes right now wondering why someone wants to go from never having done a watercooling build to an elite watercooling build but it's just something I want to achieve, and that's why I asked you for a favour at the beginning of this thread.

those are 2 x 480 radiators mounted on that rack. :sneaky:

the only down side to a rack is if u have kids / pets / or drunk friends.

 

[Aristotelian]

those are 2 x 480 radiators mounted on that rack. :sneaky:

the only down side to a rack is if u have kids / pets / or drunk friends.

Thanks again. I don't have kids yet but I'm married; no pets planned but kids are; drunk friends won't be allowed into the room housing this machine which will have this beast, my wife's hippy corner (Pfaff sewing machines etc, Etsy inclined); and a mattress/swing for adult fun - yeah, I went into the TMI zone.

I'm going to get the danger den torture rack - decided. Edit - should ATX be sufficient for a single cpu, with 3 video cards, and say, up to 5 SSDs, one optical drive? Or, should I order an E-ATX which might give more room for the cabling, allowing for a neater presentation even if the case is larger?

I want to buy 2 great 480mm radiators but this isn't easy. It seems to depend on how many fans + how fast the fans rotate + the air moved by the fans as variables. From reading it seems that the EK coolstream XE 480mm radiator is good at higher fan speeds whereas the Black Ice Nemesis 480 GTX is better at lower fan speeds.

I want to keep this as quiet as possible, I'm not naive enough to think that I can make it silent, but I'd rather produce a low, low rush of air than any whine, click, buzz, or anything else.

The advantage I see of the EK coolstream is that I can remove the core, so I can spray paint the radiator (I guess?) - recalling that I want to do a colour coded build.

I would like to design something like the danger den torture rack but have -

1 Radiator + 1 Pump on one side, and 1 Radiator and 1 Pump on the other side. I don't know where I'd put the reservoir yet, but I read that you can buy combo pumps and reservoirs.

And also that radiators restrict flow rate. So I need to be able to decide on 2x 480 mm radiators, a whole load of fans - apparently EK designed a bespoke fan for this radiator - as well as the pumps and reservoir to go along with it.

Where does the bling begin to start? If I keep a black theme with the EK radiators, I'll probably order the torture rack in Smoke colour or something, and perhaps try to get it engraved in some way.

 

[aigomorla]

I want to keep this as quiet as possible, I'm not naive enough to think that I can make it silent, but I'd rather produce a low, low rush of air than any whine, click, buzz, or anything else.

racks are not an option then...

since there is no enclosure, you will hear the full force of the fans, even quiet fans when u have 8 of them will make noise...

another option is a thermaltake Core X9
http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002562

fits 2 x 480's on the lower chamber, and has side panels to baffle noise.

 

[Aristotelian]

racks are not an option then...

since there is no enclosure, you will hear the full force of the fans, even quiet fans when u have 8 of them will make noise...

another option is a thermaltake Core X9
http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002562

fits 2 x 480's on the lower chamber, and has side panels to baffle noise.

Perfect. I think I can work with the Snow Edition as well. It'll easily fit two 480mm radiators.

I know I keep bumping this thread to ask questions but I'll eventually switch the theme here to a build log.

I want to order things together because I qualify for tax off above certain amounts. So as an initial step I'd like to get:

1. Case - the Core x9
2. Radiators and pumps (as I said above - I'm leaning towards 2x EK Coolstream XE 480mm ; if the fans I get are 1500rpm or so; or 2x Black ice Nemesis GTX) - pumps, I'm reading a lot about D5s, but am finding it hard to decide on pump needs.
3. Fans (unsure yet - still reading - noctua's are quiet but others have better air flow, and this depends on the fin density of the raditor)
4. Power Supply (Corsair AX1500i - based on Jonnyguru review)

The idea would be to use the paperclip trick and test this well in advance, at least with the cpu waterblock, since Broadwell-E will be using the same X99 socket.

And this leaves me with pipes and everything too...so thanks again everyone for your help, especially you aigomoria. PS my wife really approved of the drop in price from the s-frame to the core x9, PM me for a small Christmas gift

 

[MrTeal]

Perfect. I think I can work with the Snow Edition as well. It'll easily fit two 480mm radiators.

I know I keep bumping this thread to ask questions but I'll eventually switch the theme here to a build log.

I want to order things together because I qualify for tax off above certain amounts. So as an initial step I'd like to get:

1. Case - the Core x9
2. Radiators and pumps (as I said above - I'm leaning towards 2x EK Coolstream XE 480mm ; if the fans I get are 1500rpm or so; or 2x Black ice Nemesis GTX) - pumps, I'm reading a lot about D5s, but am finding it hard to decide on pump needs.
3. Fans (unsure yet - still reading - noctua's are quiet but others have better air flow, and this depends on the fin density of the raditor)
4. Power Supply (Corsair AX1500i - based on Jonnyguru review)

The idea would be to use the paperclip trick and test this well in advance, at least with the cpu waterblock, since Broadwell-E will be using the same X99 socket.

And this leaves me with pipes and everything too...so thanks again everyone for your help, especially you aigomoria. PS my wife really approved of the drop in price from the s-frame to the core x9, PM me for a small Christmas gift

You should be ok with a single D5s, but you might want to go with a dual pump system. I'm running two Black Ice 420mm GTS rads which are 3x higher restriction than the GTX rads, along with a 480mm EK PE and 360mm EK XE in that same case with a CPU and two GPU blocks off a single D5 vario. It can only muster about 0.75GPM with that loop, but it is very high restriction. A D5s or dual D5-PWM system might be in my future.

 

[aigomorla]

1. Case - the Core x9
2. Radiators and pumps (as I said above - I'm leaning towards 2x EK Coolstream XE 480mm ; if the fans I get are 1500rpm or so; or 2x Black ice Nemesis GTX) - pumps, I'm reading a lot about D5s, but am finding it hard to decide on pump needs.
3. Fans (unsure yet - still reading - noctua's are quiet but others have better air flow, and this depends on the fin density of the raditor)
4. Power Supply (Corsair AX1500i - based on Jonnyguru review)

xspc also makes great rads.
2 of my personal friends helped develop them... (Skinnee + Vapor)

Pump needs follow in regards to how much heat you have in your system and how much restrictions you also have.

Heat is a simple value... just add up TDP for all your components in which your watercooling and use that... theoretically your actual heat value will be lower then the TDP, unless ur overclocked, in which TDP also increases, but taking a ballpark TDP is still accurate as nothing will put out 100% heat in energy draw.

.75-1.25gpm is your window for optimal efficiency @ 350W.
1.25-1.5 is about the normal flow rate for a single pump with 1 cpu block + radiator or 2 SLI blocks with a dedicated SLI bridge.

1 cpu block + 2 sli bridge + 1 radiator of 360 class + 8 feet tubing will normally push you at about .75~.80 gpm.

The more you add, the lower your flow rate will become, and less efficient your system will be, however 2 big cards in SLI will easily push you over 350W heat limit when both are loaded.

Dual pumps adds redundancy in regards to protection as well.
If one fails, you do not have a downtime, and can run your system on the single surviving pump while you get a replacement.
(its basic statistics here.... lets say u have 10% chance of a pump failing... then you have 10% of 10% chance or a 1% chance that both will fail, unless its your PSU which fried both of them.)

I would probably run a single loop, since skylake has such a low TDP.
Having everything on 1 loop will also be cleaner unless u intend to use a Mount Mods type case.

I would probably go with black instead of snow white, unless u live in low dust environment, because dust will make a white case look really ugly when u see smugs of black on them.

I love koolance reservoirs because they have a thicker diameter... 80mm vs 60mm standards, and they are entirely modular, so you basically build them part by part.

You will not be able to use a bay res, because 1x480 will need to be up top, while the other at bottom, which will block your 5 1/4 bays.
From relooking at the pictures on the X9, i do not think you can have both on the bottom and have your PSU fit without chocking one of the rads.
not to mention you will need a gap anyhow for a res.

Anyhow best to have fun and try to visual stuff on google sketch, or use the old fashion method of paper and pencil.

Lay down a scale drawing of the floor, and then add the PSU and rads and res by diameter.

 

[guskline]

In my 5960x below I'm using the Core X9 from Thermaltake with 3 XSPC RX480 Ver 3 rads ( 2 on top and 1 on the right side bottom) with 12 Gentle Typhoon AP15 fans and an XSPC twin D5 bay/res. TONS of cooling capacity. I removed the HDD bays and mounted my ssds (raid 0) in an old Chieftec 2.5" mounting bracket and mounted my 2 TB WD Black HDD to the floor. There is a ton of room if you do that. It allows me to also mount the bay/res internally. I can monitor the water level by looking in the window.

 

[aigomorla]

In my 5960x below I'm using the Core X9 from Thermaltake with 3 XSPC RX480 Ver 3 rads ( 2 on top and 1 on the right side bottom) with 12 Gentle Typhoon AP15 fans and an XSPC twin D5 bay/res. TONS of cooling capacity. I removed the HDD bays and mounted my ssds (raid 0) in an old Chieftec 2.5" mounting bracket and mounted my 2 TB WD Black HDD to the floor. There is a ton of room if you do that. It allows me to also mount the bay/res internally. I can monitor the water level by looking in the window.

you can fit a bay res in the 5 1/4 bays?
i would assume the thickness of a 480 + length would block it no?

 

[pooptastic]

Hmm, what about this cheapie wall-mounted case?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133283

only one 480 though...

 

[Aristotelian]

You should be ok with a single D5s, but you might want to go with a dual pump system. I'm running two Black Ice 420mm GTS rads which are 3x higher restriction than the GTX rads, along with a 480mm EK PE and 360mm EK XE in that same case with a CPU and two GPU blocks off a single D5 vario. It can only muster about 0.75GPM with that loop, but it is very high restriction. A D5s or dual D5-PWM system might be in my future.

and

In my 5960x below I'm using the Core X9 from Thermaltake with 3 XSPC RX480 Ver 3 rads ( 2 on top and 1 on the right side bottom) with 12 Gentle Typhoon AP15 fans and an XSPC twin D5 bay/res. TONS of cooling capacity. I removed the HDD bays and mounted my ssds (raid 0) in an old Chieftec 2.5" mounting bracket and mounted my 2 TB WD Black HDD to the floor. There is a ton of room if you do that. It allows me to also mount the bay/res internally. I can monitor the water level by looking in the window.

I wanted to ask you two - since you both run custom water, and both run more than 2x 480mm - I originally thought that I was shooting for the moon, but you're making me second guess myself. I could fit up to 4x 480mm radiators in the Thermaltake Core X9 as I understand the specifications. I thought two was overkill. But I want to get the 10 core Broadwell-E as soon as it comes out (140w) and overclock it as much as I can, along with two flagship videocards (and overclock them as much as possible too). So perhaps I should revise my build to incorporate 3x 480mm radiators.

On the radiators, I was leaning towards the two I mentioned before because of this review: http://thermalbench.com/2015/06/07/ek-coolstream-xe-480mm-radiator/ with the vardar fans, or the Nemesis 480mm GTX which is better with lower RPM fans and I think Noctua at around 800rpm would be fantastic for such a build.

So, 1) why go with 3x 480mm? Because 2) I want to push my new build pretty hard as well.

xspc also makes great rads.
2 of my personal friends helped develop them... (Skinnee + Vapor)

They do, but from this review: http://thermalbench.com/2015/06/07/ek-coolstream-xe-480mm-radiator/5/ it seems like the two I mentioned trade blows for top spot depending on fan speed.

Pump needs follow in regards to how much heat you have in your system and how much restrictions you also have.

Heat is a simple value... just add up TDP for all your components in which your watercooling and use that... theoretically your actual heat value will be lower then the TDP, unless ur overclocked, in which TDP also increases, but taking a ballpark TDP is still accurate as nothing will put out 100% heat in energy draw.

.75-1.25gpm is your window for optimal efficiency @ 350W.
1.25-1.5 is about the normal flow rate for a single pump with 1 cpu block + radiator or 2 SLI blocks with a dedicated SLI bridge.

1 cpu block + 2 sli bridge + 1 radiator of 360 class + 8 feet tubing will normally push you at about .75~.80 gpm.

The more you add, the lower your flow rate will become, and less efficient your system will be, however 2 big cards in SLI will easily push you over 350W heat limit when both are loaded.

Dual pumps adds redundancy in regards to protection as well.
If one fails, you do not have a downtime, and can run your system on the single surviving pump while you get a replacement.
(its basic statistics here.... lets say u have 10% chance of a pump failing... then you have 10% of 10% chance or a 1% chance that both will fail, unless its your PSU which fried both of them.)

I would probably run a single loop, since skylake has such a low TDP.
Having everything on 1 loop will also be cleaner unless u intend to use a Mount Mods type case.

I would probably go with black instead of snow white, unless u live in low dust environment, because dust will make a white case look really ugly when u see smugs of black on them.

I love koolance reservoirs because they have a thicker diameter... 80mm vs 60mm standards, and they are entirely modular, so you basically build them part by part.

You will not be able to use a bay res, because 1x480 will need to be up top, while the other at bottom, which will block your 5 1/4 bays.
From relooking at the pictures on the X9, i do not think you can have both on the bottom and have your PSU fit without chocking one of the rads.
not to mention you will need a gap anyhow for a res.

Anyhow best to have fun and try to visual stuff on google sketch, or use the old fashion method of paper and pencil.

Lay down a scale drawing of the floor, and then add the PSU and rads and res by diameter.

This is a lot of valuable information. Basically, I want to remove flow rate as a possible limiting factor by ensuring that the pump(s) I have can easily move something like this:

1 Reservoir -> 1 Pump -> CPU Waterblock -> 1x 480mm radiator -> 1 Pump -> 2x GPU waterblocks/SLI bridge -> 2x 480mm radiators -> back into the 1 Pump.

I wanted to run that idea past you guys to see if it makes sense. On a lot of other forums I see people mentioning running pumps in "series" which, if I understand, means that they run in the same part of the loop pumping almost twice as fast as a single pump would.

@guskline - what pump(s) are you using?

Also I don't plan to have that many drives - up to 6 ssds I guess, some legacy sata ones, some m2, and some pci express. I might look around at some nifty ways to velcro the drives on sides of the case or something like that to hide them away from the piping etc.

And aigomorla - I'll work on a drawing soon, once I can get a rough idea of all the parts I'll need. 3x 480mm should be easy within the core x9

 

[MrTeal]

I wanted to ask you two - since you both run custom water, and both run more than 2x 480mm - I originally thought that I was shooting for the moon, but you're making me second guess myself. I could fit up to 4x 480mm radiators in the Thermaltake Core X9 as I understand the specifications. I thought two was overkill. But I want to get the 10 core Broadwell-E as soon as it comes out (140w) and overclock it as much as I can, along with two flagship videocards (and overclock them as much as possible too). So perhaps I should revise my build to incorporate 3x 480mm radiators.

On the radiators, I was leaning towards the two I mentioned before because of this review: http://thermalbench.com/2015/06/07/ek-coolstream-xe-480mm-radiator/ with the vardar fans, or the Nemesis 480mm GTX which is better with lower RPM fans and I think Noctua at around 800rpm would be fantastic for such a build.

So, 1) why go with 3x 480mm? Because 2) I want to push my new build pretty hard as well.

You can only (only?) really get three 480s in the X9. Two on the top, and one on the side. Technically you can put one on the bottom, but it would interfere with the side one, and the PSU is on the other half of the case. You could do a 360 in the front though.

I have so much radiator because when I started buying I just kept doing it, and apparently I have more money than brains. I don't think the extra rad space makes a noticeable difference given my load peaks at 1kW AC; I would probably drop my core temps if I removed the 480 and 360 but replaced my TIM with CL Ultra.

That being said, three 480s should be manageable. With my build I think I went a little too hard, and it's packed enough that it actually make the X9 a little tight to work in.

This is a lot of valuable information. Basically, I want to remove flow rate as a possible limiting factor by ensuring that the pump(s) I have can easily move something like this:

1 Reservoir -> 1 Pump -> CPU Waterblock -> 1x 480mm radiator -> 1 Pump -> 2x GPU waterblocks/SLI bridge -> 2x 480mm radiators -> back into the 1 Pump.

I wanted to run that idea past you guys to see if it makes sense. On a lot of other forums I see people mentioning running pumps in "series" which, if I understand, means that they run in the same part of the loop pumping almost twice as fast as a single pump would.

@guskline - what pump(s) are you using?

Also I don't plan to have that many drives - up to 6 ssds I guess, some legacy sata ones, some m2, and some pci express. I might look around at some nifty ways to velcro the drives on sides of the case or something like that to hide them away from the piping etc.

And aigomorla - I'll work on a drawing soon, once I can get a rough idea of all the parts I'll need. 3x 480mm should be easy within the core x9

Running them in series means the output of the first pump goes into the input of the second pump. Parallel would have the inputs of the two pumps joined together, and the outputs of the two pumps joined together.
A gentleman named Martin has an excellent source of information on watercooling and did some testing on series/parallel pumps. Long story short, never put pumps in parallel, always go series.

As for the ordering of the parts, it doesn't really matter. Connect them in a way that makes sense for your install.

 

[dlerious]

I love koolance reservoirs because they have a thicker diameter... 80mm vs 60mm standards, and they are entirely modular, so you basically build them part by part.

Have you looked at the Monsoon Modular Reservoir System (MMRS) yet? Overview vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Di1xuhT-E

 

[aigomorla]

1 Reservoir -> 1 Pump -> CPU Waterblock -> 1x 480mm radiator -> 1 Pump -> 2x GPU waterblocks/SLI bridge -> 2x 480mm radiators -> back into the 1 Pump.

flow is uniform.... loop order has no impact to flow.
you go with the shortest loop possible.

adding 2 pumps will not double flow... it doubles head pressure.
2 pumps will only add 1/3rd more flow.

 

[Aristotelian]

Thanks everyone for weighing in. I'm keen to get towards a parts list (and write off some of these as christmas gifts - to me - by my family):

How does this look for a start:

1) Radiators: 3x 480mm EK Coolstream XE.
2) Fans: 24 Gentle Typhoon 120mm fans - set in push/pull on each of the three radiators - I'll take the option to fully sleeve it in black.
3) Case: Thermaltake Core X9
4) Reservoirs/Pumps: One Koolance RP-452x2 (Rev2.0) Dual D5 Pump Dual Bay Reservoir Combo - this one I'm not 100% certain about. I want to have 1 loop with 2 pumps in series - with 1 shared reservoir (both reservoirs connected)

Still to work on:

(i) tubing - this I'll know more when I get the case and I'll measure things out.
(ii) mid-loop sensors;
(iii) Fittings.
(iv) lighting, bling.

Basically I'd like to try to build the entire shell around parts to come, notably: Broadwell-E; the motherboard for it; the gpus; the ram. I read a bit about monoblocks for motherboards and they don't really seem worth it - any of you have experience with them?

 

[dlerious]

review of the RP-452x2. Are you adding the PMP-450
http://www.xtremerigs.net/2015/01/31/koolance-rp-452x2-rev2-0-dual-d5-pump-dual-bay-reservoir-combo/

 

[guskline]

Looks awesome!

 

[guskline]

you can fit a bay res in the 5 1/4 bays?
i would assume the thickness of a 480 + length would block it no?

Here's the way I did it. I took out ALL of the HDDcages. Too big and blocked too much. I mounted my twin Samsung 850 EVO 500g ssds in a 2.5" old Chieftec bracket painted black. They are mounted behind the WD HDD as you look at it. Direct mounted my WD Black 2 TB HDD to the case in front of my PC P&C 1200W psu AND mounted my XSPC twin d5 bay res in the left side bottom in front of the WD HDD with the fill side of the bay res facing out. Here is a photo:

 

[guskline]

You will notice with the Thermaltake HDD cages removed you have TONS of room to mount the bay/res etc inside. I used the 5.25 front slots for my Blue ray player and my 6 channel NZXT fan controller.

 

[ddogg]

Thanks everyone for weighing in. I'm keen to get towards a parts list (and write off some of these as christmas gifts - to me - by my family):

How does this look for a start:

1) Radiators: 3x 480mm EK Coolstream XE.
2) Fans: 24 Gentle Typhoon 120mm fans - set in push/pull on each of the three radiators - I'll take the option to fully sleeve it in black.
3) Case: Thermaltake Core X9
4) Reservoirs/Pumps: One Koolance RP-452x2 (Rev2.0) Dual D5 Pump Dual Bay Reservoir Combo - this one I'm not 100% certain about. I want to have 1 loop with 2 pumps in series - with 1 shared reservoir (both reservoirs connected)

Still to work on:

(i) tubing - this I'll know more when I get the case and I'll measure things out.
(ii) mid-loop sensors;
(iii) Fittings.
(iv) lighting, bling.

Basically I'd like to try to build the entire shell around parts to come, notably: Broadwell-E; the motherboard for it; the gpus; the ram. I read a bit about monoblocks for motherboards and they don't really seem worth it - any of you have experience with them?

I'm not sure why you need 3x480mm. I have a 480mm and a 360mm in my Corsair 900D with the CPU and 2x780s watercooled and could easily add memory, and a monoblock to it with no issues whatsoever. My GPUs see a max of 38C under 100% load. General rule of thumb is 120mm for each component and anything more is generally overkill. You also need to take note of how thick the radiators are. 40mm vs 60mm vs 80mm(monsta!) etc.
Monoblocks are really more for looks than anything else however they are nice to have if you can afford them and I will be getting one once I do a full upgrade next year.
I have the swiftech mcp655 and I highly recommend it. It is an extremely powerful pump with a life of 5+ years (24x7) and probably the best pump on the market. I also got one of these http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...l_D5_Mod_Top_-_POM_Version_BP-2D5TOPP-BK.html which allows you to put 2 swiftechs pumps in series. Just note that if you do decide to go with a single mcp655 pump you will need to modify it to accept G1/4 threads for compression fittings.
I bought Bitspower compression fittings in my loop and a few Koolance Quick disconnects QD4 for my drain outlet and GPUs. They are pricey but extremely high quality. Just note though, fittings could easily run you $100s if you go fancy and try to avoid angled fittings.
I went with 1/2"x3/4" tubing since that is the largest size tubing available and supposedly provides the best flow rate.
Also make sure you use distilled water instead of colored fluid as they gunk up your loop.
Here's an image of my system after I had finished building it

And at night

 

[guskline]

ddogg, nice rig.