Space Problems with Watercooling (in HAF-X)

[PhilDrummer]

Hello Guys!

I recently wanted to upgrade my 1/2 year old system with a watercooling loop, to get some more power out of my overclocks while still keeping low temps. But when planning the whole thing out, I noticed a problem. I do not seem to have enough space inside the case for all this! I should probably also mention, that I am new to watercooling, so I don't even really know for sure, what my system really needs, what would be overkill and what are good parts for this setup etc.

So these here are my specs of the system currently:
CoolerMaster HAF-X
Intel i7 3930K
ASUS DCUII OC GTX680
Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5
Corsair H100
G.Skill RipjawsX (16GB @ 2133)
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1050W PSU

I was looking around (especially on the TTL Youtube channel and frozencpu.com) and was trying to find radiators and parts that would fit in to my system. Inside my Case I would probably find space for a triple 120mm at the top (not very thick, probably max. 30-40mm) and a single 140mm at the rear exhaust. On the bottom I would probably be able to fit pump and reservoir. I was looking around though and found, that these numbers of rads would probably not do their job quite yet, especially if i would add another 680, wich is going to happen in the near future.
I am pretty much helpless since I don't have any experience, so I would be glad if someone could help me out with some tips!

Btw, a big concerne is also to get the system as quiet as possible, so I could also use some hints to very quiet fans that still do their job

Thank you in advance!
-Phil

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

Just to get you thinking...

Have you considered an EXTERNAL assembly for your cooling? At first I wanted to put everything neatly in my CM 690 II case, but as soon as I went SLI, the cooling potential wouldn't have been enough and the case would have been rammed.

I'd helped a friend do an external build quite some time ago using a phobya 1080 rad hung off the side of his case using custom-made brackets. It provided fantastic cooling but, unlike me, he was about pure performance and seems to be able to ignore fan noise. He had NINE 120m fans push and a further nine pull, all running at the full 12v. Imagine a vacuum cleaner on your desk and you get an idea of the noise level! It worked well though on his OC'd 2600k and 2x 480's.

Anyway, when I started to look more seriously at my own build, I wanted something that was both cool and near-silent as well as neat (in my view) to look at. I went with an external rad chassis (free-standing) with the same 1080 rad as my friend. A cylinder res with pump underneath bolted to the side. Two quick-release fittings on the assembly, with pipes going into my PC case kept things very neat, as easy to move if I ever needed too.

I got myself a small, external 90w PSU - think laptop PSU but it terminates in a molex - to power the pump and the four 200mm fans. The thing is near-silent, yet runs very cool indeed.

So, I ended up building near the exact opposite of my original tidy internal build. However, as my system doesn't get taken to LAN parties or anything like that, it works well. If I do need to move / change things, I just use the QDC's and can move PC / External assembly separately.

Tom did a video on this some time back, which cemented my desire to do something similar having done a not so neat solution with my friends PC.

I must admit, I delayed months and months trying to figure how best to get everything in my case. Then I looked at other cases, but all of them were compromised (in my view) in some way or the other and would need modding to come close to what I wanted. I wasn't adverse to case modding at all, in fact the idea appealed to me, however I wanted to do something a little different.

I would like to add though that there are MUCH better rads available now that do allow for a lot more flexibility in builds. I'm a little out of touch at the moment having had some time off PC-related stuff - I've been a pure user for a while, rather than an enthusiast it seems lol.

There are some rather crappy photos attached to my account, the build might not be to everyones taste, but I'm really proud of it.

Actually you know, I wrote a full build log for it but forgot to upload it - I went through a phase of "other stuff" getting in the way, so pretty much dropped off the forums for ages. This is my first post in quite some time!

Anyway, just thought I'd throw this in there so you can consider possibly other ways of doing things.

Best of luck,

Scoob.

 

[PhilDrummer]

Have you considered an EXTERNAL assembly for your cooling?
I'd helped a friend do an external build quite some time ago using a phobya 1080 rad.
He had NINE 120m fans push and a further nine pull, all running at the full 12v. Imagine a vacuum cleaner on your desk and you get an idea of the noise level!

Hey Scoob!

Thanks alot for the input!

Actually I did consider exactly the same methode with a phobya 1080 Rad and an external Case from phobya and 120mm fans. I watched a video from Tom about it (it's about a year old), he did a great review on that setup. However of course, he also mentioned (and you were clearly able to hear that) that these 9 fans are incredibly loud, wich kind of threw me off for a second.

I then watched the rest of the video, where he also showed off the 4 bigger 180mm fans on that 1080 nova radiator, and I was really pleased with the results. BUT I was worried, that the rad would not do it's job anymore as well as he did there, when I add a second GPU to the loop. Because even though I will never be running Prime95 for ages, I am still going to put CPU and GPU under a lot of pressure, and I don't want my temps to rocket skyhigh in such cases, obviously

Do you think I would be able to get a good cooling performance out of that radiator, or do you think I should go with 3 separate thicker 3x120mm that I could fit in to that external stand? Would those even give me any better cooling performance?

Btw., I do not have to carry my rig around either, so I do not care about mobility either. My two main big concernes are Performance (as I said, I like my rig cool ) and noise. I really want a nearly silent system if that is in any way possible. I was first thinking I could also go with 9 Corsair SP 120's, but I haven't found a lot of reviews on those, so I am affraid that they might also be too loud for my taste. (Look is not too important to me, it's cool though, if it looks somewhat good )

Anyways thank you for your help!

Have a nice one

-Phil

 

[Scoob]

Hi Phil,

That Phobya 1080 rad provides plenty of cooling for your needs. It's the same area as 3x 360's of course and is about 50mm thick. I myself have a 2500k @ 4.5 (~1.35v under load, it's not the best of chips) and a pair of GTX 570's at between 732 and 850mhz. In normal gaming, assuming a fairly demanding title like Skyrim maxxed out (demanding cos it's not so efficient) I see a CPU temperature in the low 50's and the GPU's touching 40 rarely - that's at a usual room temp of 20ish.

I use four 200mm fans - I'll have to check exactly which, but I think they're similar to the ones Tom used - they are low-rpm but good static pressure and work well while remaining very quiet indeed. I can hear my D5 pump over the fans, and the pump is pretty quiet. Just a gentle hum really, I can hear my Laptop at idle over it.

I do run some case fans too, just to get some air flow over the HDD (it's a spinner at the mo) as well as ensuring the VRM heat sinks get some flow - I wanted to get a chipset block for my P8Z68-V Pro, but could not find any at the time of the build. These case fans are on a 5v restrictor so they are silent to all intents.

As an FYI: I use parallel flow between the GPU's so my loop goes:

Res (on External chassis)
Down to Pump (below my Cylinder res)
Push into Radiator
Out of Radiator
(QDC)
In to PC Case
to GPU one (AND two as it's parallel flow)
CPU
Out of case
(QDC)
Res.

This works very well.

Note: I use some Phobya extendable SLI links between the GPU's - these are quite restrictive so I may replace them. Previously I made some custom fittings using pipe and barbs which had better flow, but were tricky to fit and didn't look nice.

Scoob.

 

[airdeano]

Btw, a big concerne is also to get the system as quiet as possible, so I could also use some hints to very quiet fans that still do their job

for the space consideration, the alphacool st30 all copper is about your best
option for radiator selection. you might be able to ease the XT45, but that lil
more might be the deal-breaker. based on a low fin-per-inch (9fpi) usually
will regulate the fans speed operation.

600-1200rpm - 12fpi or less
1000-1600rpm - 15-20fpi
1400-2000rpm - 18-25fpi
1800-3000rpm - 30fpi or greater

upping the static pressure above 1.00mm/h2o generally also adds to wind
noise. and some fans do not under-volt well. they may exhibit a click or
whine as the voltage is decreased.

airdeano

 

[Deejeta]

240 in the top, 120 as the rear of case. plus a bay d5 pump/res. should be enough for a modest loop.
External loops are fun though.

 

[Scoob]

I forgot to add, one of the key features - at least for me - of my external loop is that it's easy to move to my next system. So, say I buy a new system, block it up in the usual way which is fairly straight forward. I then just plumb in my external assembly using the QDC's and I'm done. Of course I'd need to go through the usual leak test and bleed cycle, but that should be it.

Also remember, I use a small external PSU for the assembly so there are no additional wires to route or anything. This means my main PSU is just for the PC, so minimal internal cables assuming a modular supply. Note: said external PSU means that when I hit the switch on the wall my loop powers up, only then can I in turn power the PC up so there's no risk of me forgetting to turn the loop on!

I am quite proud of my build. Ok, it was more expensive than an internal build would have been. However, said internal build for me would not have cooled so well at all, nor would it have been as quite. I had a good time assembling it all too!

Doubtless with my setup I could get slightly better cooling with faster / noisier fans. However the large surface area of the 1080 rad means it still works very well with my near-silent fans.

Regarding the fans. Ages back when we did my friends build we had looked into using shrouds to help the fans air flow, so we made our own. Since then, you can now get pre-made shrouds, so I run 4x 200mm fans with 4x 200mm shrouds so I can feel good, strong air flow coming through my rad despite the minimal RPM.

The funny thing is, I have a 2nd PC to my left I use for a Gateway and general surfing etc. It's my old Gamer, a Q6600 back @ 2.4 (from 3.6) and my ancient 8800GT. The system is cramed with hard drives in an old Antec 900 case. I always though it was really quite with it's low RPM fans, no overclock or anything yet with a massive Titan Fenrir CPU cooler on the now stock Q6600, but it's soo noisy compared to my gamer now...yet it really is a quiet PC. Indeed, people used to comment on how quiet it was.

Water cooling is fun. I actually want to cool my media PC now just for the fun of it! I already have some spare kit laying around so would just need a res, pump and GPU block....lol

Scoob.

 

[PhilDrummer]

Thank you guys for the answers!

I decided to go with the external solution, and have the phobya 1080. But I will also add a dual 120 or triple 120 (Alphacool ST30) in the top of the case. I will be using my Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1050W PSU to power the cooling loop, because I think I'll mount pump and reservoir inside the case if that works out.

I am not sure yet though, how I am going to do the loop. I will cool 3 components with it. The 3930K @ 4.5 GHz, and the two DCUII GTX680's.
I am also not sure yet wich fans I will use, and wich pump's the best for this kind of config, allthough I'm guessing that it'd be the D5.

Also with the waterblocks I'm not completeley sure yet, but I was thinking about the EK-FC680 GTX DCII CSQ - Nickel for the GPU's and the XSPC RayStorm for the CPU.

What do you guys think about it?
And also do you have any more suggestions, especially considering the fans?

Thanks for your help!

 

[PhilDrummer]

I do run some case fans too, just to get some air flow over the HDD (it's a spinner at the mo) as well as ensuring the VRM heat sinks get some flow - I wanted to get a chipset block for my P8Z68-V Pro, but could not find any at the time of the build. These case fans are on a 5v restrictor so they are silent to all intents.
Scoob.

I will probably also end up keeping 1 or 2 of my case-fans and when I have the additional rad in the top that guy needs some fans aswell, so I think I shouldn't have to worry about the temperatures on VRM, Chipset and RAM.

 

[PhilDrummer]

I use four 200mm fans - I'll have to check exactly which, but I think they're similar to the ones Tom used - they are low-rpm but good static pressure and work well while remaining very quiet indeed. I can hear my D5 pump over the fans, and the pump is pretty quiet. Just a gentle hum really, I can hear my Laptop at idle over it.

You mean the black 180mm normal thickness?
If they really do perform so well on that low noise level they sound pretty good to me

 

[Scoob]

@ PhilDrummer: Yes, sorry - I was thinking of another build. My fans are (I just checked my original parts list) Phobya G-Silent 18 700rpm Slim Red LED (180x180x25mm) and work very well indeed.

Note: I did buy an adaptor mount to go on the 1080 Rad as it come supplied with a 9x120mm fan mounting only.

Also, my Rad is in the Phobya Bench Edition chassis, with the res and pump mounted on the side which works really well. Also makes filling the loop really easy.

Having a top-mount 360 rad as well is overkill really, plus it'll mean a lot more work building the loop. We did that on my friends build - so SIX (push-pull) more fans to add to the EIGHTEEN already on the external rad...plus the other case fans...yeah, it's crazy.

His cooling solution doesn't seem to offer anything over and above mine other than noise. Which is surprising when you consider the extra radiator area and all those fans running at 12v! We did observe however that his older Phobya 1080 rad appears to be a slightly different design to mine, so possibly there's been some improvement there.

Scoob.

 

[PhilDrummer]

Having a top-mount 360 rad as well is overkill really, plus it'll mean a lot more work building the loop. We did that on my friends build - so SIX (push-pull) more fans to add to the EIGHTEEN already on the external rad...plus the other case fans...yeah, it's crazy.

Ok thank you, I'll probably leave the top 360 away then.
But I won't run push-pull with the fans on the rad, I will only run pull.
Thanks

-Phil

 

[Scoob]

Hi Phil,

I'm just running push on my 1080 rad...works lovely.

Scoob.

 

[PhilDrummer]

I'm just running push on my 1080 rad...works lovely.

Ok so that means I shouldn't have any problems with pull only, since there is no performance difference.. The reason why I preffer pull over push is because of occasional dust removal. With pull the process is a bit easier.

- Phil

 

[Scoob]

Yes, in real terms it makes very little difference indeed. I cannot recall the exact fins per inch of the 1080 rad, but it doesn't appear to be particularly restrictive to air flow. Additionally, it's only about 50mm thick of course, which is fairly modest compared to the 80mm thick monsta rads.

Just had my friend over, the one who we did the other build for, and he is totally amazed at how quiet my system is. I reminded him that it's actually the air-cooled box next to it he's hearing at the moment! lol.

Scoob.

 

[PhilDrummer]

Just had my friend over, the one who we did the other build for, and he is totally amazed at how quiet my system is. I reminded him that it's actually the air-cooled box next to it he's hearing at the moment! lol.

Awesome
I hate it when the PC itself makes too much noise

-Phil

 

[Scoob]

I endured a pair of overclocked GTX 570's during a hot summer - I do NOT want to go there again lol.

The noisiest thing on that PC now is the old 1tb spinner in there lol.

I'd say that while the cooling is great, I find the quiet to be one of the most satisfying aspects...oh, and the fact that I'm quite proud of what I built for my first WC loop.

Scoob.