d5 pump - single or dual?

Hi! I'm planning my first attempt at custom water cooling, and I cannot decide whether I need a single or dual pumps. I'm thinking of utilizing 2 480mm rads (one alphacool monsta and one hardware labs black ice gtx 480) to cool a single loop, which consists of a cpu block (for my 4820k) and 2 gpu blocks for my 780tis. Can a single D5 vario handle that efficiently?
 
A single will be fine, but if you can fit in 2 in series (note parallel is a waste of time and money) and do it so it's aesthetically correct, there's no harm in having a little extra *umf* and a backup if one of them fails.
 
According to some graphs I saw on Google, series and parallel are for different uses. Series tends to give more head (:lol:), while parallel tends to increase the flow rate.

Either way, a single D5 will handle your loop fine mate. People often think a lot of radiator space requires a lot more pumping power, but they're actually quite low restricting components compared to blocks.
 
Personally, the only reason I would consider getting a second pump would be for redundancy, but the mean time to failure on these pumps is so high (around the 5 year of constant use mark if I recall correctly), that it isn't worth it in my view. You would have to be quite unlucky to get one that dies.

Edit: actually there is one other: and that is if I were running dual loops.... But I wouldn't do that.
 
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What is best option of D5 pump... Koolance, Swiftech, XSPC, ...???
I thought on Koolance PMP450 in combination with Photon 170.
I like that glass reservoir.
 
Personally I have the photon 170 combo, but if you want them separate, then the manufacturer doesn't matter much.
 
Yeah they're all the same Laing D5 with a different sticker on. I like the Swiftech best, for no other reason than I prefer the name Swiftech.
 
thanks guys! I'll be going with one d5 then and maybe drop the second 480 for a 240. two more things though that came up:

1. i'll be moving the system/building the loop in an enthoo primo, mounting the pump in the lowest 5.25 drive bay, which is pretty high; that's why I'm considering using two reservoirs, the smallest one from bitspower = 4cm above the pump and a longer one (8cm) beneath it, with the following design/order in mind: pump > res 8cm > rad 1 > gpus > rad 2 > cpu > res 4cm > pump. Does it matter that the res feeding the pump is just 4cm long?

2. that's a crazy one. I saw a picture once of a loop that instead of plastic/glas tubing used metal. Can the same "metal" effect be replicated by using the bitspower adjustable aquapipes (the 4 - 7 cm ones) that were originally thought for connecting SLI blocks as "tubing" of sorts? or would it be too restricting for the flow?
 
Res size doesn't matter at all. It's for aesthetics, a fill and empty port and that's about it. Most of the fluid is held in the pipe work and radiators anyway and you won't see anything more than a marginal improvement in temps with more fluid in the system.

You could make the pipes out of whatever you want as long as it doesn't corrode! 90 degree bends will add a little to the restriction, so don't go crazy, but a D5 with your setup isn't going to struggle.
 
thanks guys! I'll be going with one d5 then and maybe drop the second 480 for a 240. two more things though that came up:

1. i'll be moving the system/building the loop in an enthoo primo, mounting the pump in the lowest 5.25 drive bay, which is pretty high; that's why I'm considering using two reservoirs, the smallest one from bitspower = 4cm above the pump and a longer one (8cm) beneath it, with the following design/order in mind: pump > res 8cm > rad 1 > gpus > rad 2 > cpu > res 4cm > pump. Does it matter that the res feeding the pump is just 4cm long?

You're going to go from a reservoir to the pump, then through another reservoir? That doesn't sound like a good idea to me really. What's the point of having the reservoir in after the pump? I'd just have one before it and leave it at that.
 
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