Help with water-cooling.

[siravarice]

So my new build is moving along slowly and instead of going for an air cooled system I have grown the nuts to go for a water cooled one.

I want to cool the CPU and the Graphics card (soon to be an i5 750). The graphics card at the moment is a GTX 260 core 216. But I will be upgrading to one of the fermi cards (most likely) if their performance is a great deal better than the current 200 series cards.

Could someone tot up a total of how much it would cost, and what parts I would need to do this? The main one is the CPU, I will assume a block for the graphics card will cost around £60.

The case is a silverstone TJ07. I was thinking two separate loops, but if it could be done with one that would probably save me money. And yes, I am open to getting one of those massive reservoirs that sit in the optical drive bays.

Any help would be great thanks.

EDIT: Could I mount a Liang DDC 1 T PRO pump on to the back of an optical drive reservoir?

 

[ivanho614]

Im not going to price everything out for you, because honestly I don't know how much you want to spend or how crazy you want to go. But with a Tj07 you have plenty of options. To cool the i5 and a gpu you can drop a 480 rad in the bottom and use a quality cpu block maybe a heatkiller or Ek. If you want a bay res u can use one of XSPC 5.25 bay res pump combos. Personally I dislike bay reservoirs and would just get a aftermarket res top for your pump and keep it in the bottom of the case with your radiator. I don't know how hot the new generation of nvidia stuff will be but like I said with the tj07 you have lots of options for adding a second rad dedicated to the gpu if you want to upgrade later on. So in summary Yes you can cool both things with one loop, and you can get a res pump combo if you want that look. BTW google around for Tj07 builds (there hundreds) you will get some ideas.

 

[siravarice]

Ok thanks ivan. Will have a look at what other people are doing first. I've never done watercooling before so If I work out what I want to cool and with what parts, could you h elp me with length of tubing and the right barbs? They are the things I definitely don't want to get wrong!

 

[tinytomlogan]

get 3 or 4 m of tube, it doesnt cost much so its better to allow for mistakes. get 7/16 hose and 1/2 barbs.

With watercooling its all or nothing, you need to go carefull with 260s as there is loads of different versions. I hope you have a 55nm version?

 

[ivanho614]

Yeah like Tom said you will want about 3-4 meters and half inch barbs, the tubing on another hand is personal preference 7/16 is great but it requires a little effort to get it on the barbs, but as a result will look very clean. If you like the fatter looking tubing what you want is 1/2 id 3/4 od tubing in this situation you will also need some clamps to keep the tubing tight on the barbs. The 7/16 id and the 1/2 id tubing will preform almost exactly the same. I would say pass on the block for you 260 right now because you would be better off saving for that Fermi and a block down the road.

 

[siravarice]

Ok thanks for the advice guys.

Here's a quick GPU-Z for you Tom. It's the 55nm one yes.

Will probs hold off for the waterblock though, as Ivan said it would be better to save for a fermi and waterblock for that.

The 1/2" tubing with 7/16" sounds like the better option. I certainly don't want any leaks and I want it to look as clean as possible.

 

[Epicpccases]

If you are overclocking, do the NB and CPU at the very least. Dont worry about the gfx card, ocing that wont give you much more performance but will dump a heap of heat into your loop.