1st time water cooling, component advice needed

[ZanderKaneUK]

Hi Guys and Gals

So I have been a longish lurker of the youtube videos and basically made myself a youtube account just so I could post a comment on a video, which has lead me to here.

I have been building, upgrading PC's since about "92" (back in 386/486 days) so I like to think I know my round the tech. side of a system build, but like many I have always wanted to do a water cooled rig. My almost 4 year old system some what on it's last legs (gaming wise) and a new build is calling. I am going to wait for sandy bridge since it seems to promise a lot from the what I read on hardware sites, but I believe it when I see it.

I wanted to go down the i7 route over that of i5. Last time I did a build is was Dual core vs Quad core and I went for the Dual core option because again from reading it seemed to suit my mainly gaming use of the machine. However I have seen my friends who got Quad cores get more longevity from their systems without over clocking Vs my fairly heavily over clocked dual core (2.4 -> 3.5) just to play BlackOps without the graphics (5870) stutter. Do the same arguments hold true for i5 Vs i7 as Dual Vs Quad?

I had planned buying the case and water cooling hardware now, get it installed and leak tested ready for the sandy bridge launch and then buy Mobo/Cpu/cpu block to finish the system. I have a 5870 carry over from old system, as well as a WD raptor.

So to my main question(s).

I had planned on using the Corsair 600T as my build based on this blog: 600T dual loop. So I started to look at the video reviews of the 600T 3Dgamerman, AnandTech, Heliux et al, and they seemed to say pretty much the same thing, until I found the video from tinytomlogan. He pointed out a few things that none of the other video reviews even mentioned which to me would seem fairly obvious and fundamental if you had the case in your hands. The guy from Heliux couldn't even get the front dust filter off LOL fail, so his review I took with a huge pinch of salt (kinda lost all creditability after that) Almost like a doctor who is telling you bad news and farts

.

tinytomlogan pointed out the Cool Master 690 II Advanced, which is growing on me but I am in two minds if two 240's will be enough for what I might want to upgrade too down the line (cpu, SLI/Crosfire, maybe chipset, currently it will only be CPU and 1 GPU full cover). So I started to look at the ATCS 840 since I could get a 360 in the roof and a 240 on the back of the HD bays.

I'm not on the whole band wagon of my machine has to silent, when it's on you can bet I will be gaming with a headset on, much more up my list of priorities is stopping dust getting in, annoying vibration noises and good natural air flow. I had thought I would do a dual loop with a dual drive bay res and pumps in one unit to save space, which I am finding hard to marry up, since the site I am looking at says use X pump with Y res but the picture of the pump has two plastic barb/pipes at the bottom of the pump, when surely the IN should be at the top of the pump from the res and the OUT should be at the bottom ( 8829 XSPC Acrylic Dual 5.25" Reservoir for Laing DDC with 8823 Laing DDC-Pump 12V DDC-1Plus (Swiftech MCP355))? The RP-450X2 Dual 5.25" Reservoir for 1-2 PMP-450/S Pumps seems a lot easier to figure out, which pumps to get? any opinions on both these res/pump combo's?

The rest seems quite straight forward:

Get the 2"/50mm radiators over that of the 1"/25mm since greater surface area equals better cooling, 1/2"/13mm barbs with hose clips over that of compression fittings with 7/16"/11mm tubing. I will have to wait until sandy bridge is released for CPU block? or is the promise of LGA1156 compatibility true? Which block to get?

Any other thought that I have missed totally?

Oh if you got this far thanks for reading

 

[ChrisGT]

Do you have a budget?

I give props to him for using a 600t with those loops, should of ran separate loops though.

It seems like your mind is already made up on everything. I always say to go with thicker rads because the thinner ones are a joke. I like the XSPC RX240 I believe it is 58mm but I have seen it posted to be closer to 60mm. The cool part about it is that the way the fins are placed you can use less airflow to cool off the fins. Then again you said you didn't care about noise

Link to rad

http://www.xspc.biz/rx240.php

On the dual res pump I love that xspc combo using the liang pumps.

On the crossfire / sli subject it depends on the cards but they are all extremely hot now adays.

If you run a thick 240 rad and a thick 200mm up front and separate one loop for the cpu and the other for the gpu you should be alright. I'm not gunna lie to ya the front 200mm rad is not going to be cheap lol.

Honestly I would look into a different case then the 600t imo

 

[ZanderKaneUK]

tinytomlogan pointed out the Cool Master 690 II Advanced, which is growing on me but I am in two minds if two 240's will be enough for what I might want to upgrade too down the line (cpu, SLI/Crosfire, maybe chipset, currently it will only be CPU and 1 GPU full cover). So I started to look at the ATCS 840 since I could get a 360 in the roof and a 240 on the back of the HD bays.

What about these cases? Would the Cool Master 690 II Advanced be big enough internally fit everything I wanted to do (dual loop wise)?

To be honest I don't have a budget but before you think aren't you lucky, I don't have a budget because I don't know enough about the hardware involved. I have visited a few water cooling sites on the web and made what I thought would be a build to suit my needs with some future proofing built in for going to SLI/Crossfire down the road. These builds typically come in at:

CPU Cu Block £50

360 RAD £80

240 RAD £60

Res dual bay £40

Pumps £60x2 -> 120

full cover GPU £65 (5870 ref)

Which comes to about £400/420 that's without barbs, tubing, coolant and fans. So you are look at around the £460 mark, which is a lot of money. Now granted I could just water cool the CPU 1st then add as I go along and save money. So an initial cost could be around £220 250 range. So just need some general advice really. Would I be better off getting a good air cooled case and just skip water cooling. I have a opinion about making your dreams true, like on Top Gear when James May drove the Lamborghini Countach and all of his boys hood dreams where left in tatters. Is just water cooling the CPU a complete waste of time, unless you do the NB. SB, VRM's et al?

 

[ChrisGT]

Which comes to about £400/420 that's without barbs, tubing, coolant and fans. So you are look at around the £460 mark, which is a lot of money. Now granted I could just water cool the CPU 1st then add as I go along and save money. So an initial cost could be around £220 250 range. So just need some general advice really. Would I be better off getting a good air cooled case and just skip water cooling. I have a opinion about making your dreams true, like on Top Gear when James May drove the Lamborghini Countach and all of his boys hood dreams where left in tatters. Is just water cooling the CPU a complete waste of time, unless you do the NB. SB, VRM's et al?

From what Ive seen majority of people on here will tell you to go with a Noctua NH D14 and air cool your system. Personally I'm a fan of watercooling. I'm not going to tell you to drop all that money into watercooling when the noctua does amazing work, however if you are serious about watercooling then to see any real benefits from it you need to run thicker rads.

The coolermaster 690 II advanced is a great solid case. You can run a 240mm uptop and down by the the front as well. True it is only a mid tower case but for the price and how expandable it is I would deff look into it. Now if you can spring for an ATCS then you have tons of room to work with.

Heres a pic to get an idea guess I can't link it with tags lol

[url]http://img3.imageshack.us/f/img1927.jpg/[/url]

 

[ZanderKaneUK]

From what Ive seen majority of people on here will tell you to go with a Noctua NH D14 and air cool your system. Personally I'm a fan of watercooling. I'm not going to tell you to drop all that money into watercooling when the noctua does amazing work, however if you are serious about watercooling then to see any real benefits from it you need to run thicker rads.

The coolermaster 690 II advanced is a great solid case. You can run a 240mm uptop and down by the the front as well. True it is only a mid tower case but for the price and how expandable it is I would deff look into it. Now if you can spring for an ATCS then you have tons of room to work with.

Heres a pic to get an idea guess I can't link it with tags lol

[url]http://img3.imageshack.us/f/img1927.jpg/[/url]

[/quote]

I think I am right in saying that is an ATCS case which I had thought about since its a full tower case with a real nice place to mount dual 120mm rad just behind the HD cage, kind what I had in mind tbh with 600t but I think I could justify the few £ extra for an ATCS. Are there any places in the UK you would recommend for buying the water cooling stuff from?

Been looking at:

[url]http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/[/url]

[url]http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/[/url]

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

I think I am right in saying that is an ATCS case which I had thought about since its a full tower case with a real nice place to mount dual 120mm rad just behind the HD cage, kind what I had in mind tbh with 600t but I think I could justify the few £ extra for an ATCS. Are there any places in the UK you would recommend for buying the water cooling stuff from?

Been looking at:

http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/

 

[ZanderKaneUK]

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/

Lets hope they get some stock in early January since half the stuff I want they do not have in stock, also they only do two 1/2" fittings?