Upgrading Help

[weetam]

Hi all, I have been an OC3D follower for over a year now, and have decided to make myself an account, so a hello to everyone

Ok...

I'm looking to upgrade my case rather soon, with the hope of upgrading to watercooling closer to the end of the summer, and wanted to start getting parts over the next few months, however, I have a few questions. So here I go (bear with me on this one

)...

Well, I'm after a case that its quiet and has support for a full size 360/420mm radiator (preferably in the roof), and 4 or 5 optical drive bays (yes, I use them) and I think I've narrowed it down to the NZXT Switch 810. So my first question is, fans. I'm after fans with good air flow, but still remaining silent (or rather, quiet). I know the Noctua NFF-12's are great at this, however, they only come in 120mm, and seeing as the Switch 810 has support for 140mm, then why not use this feature. I was thinking possibly the Bitfenix Spectre's, but any suggestions would be appreciated

My next question is, seeing as this is my first watercooling build, I'm a bit unsure on 1 or 2 things. The first being, rad's. What rads are better for keeping temps low, or rather, what manufactures. For instance, is there any differance between the likes of a Phobya 420mm 60mm thick rad and a Aquacomputer 420/60mm rad?

Another question is resivoirs. I've noticed companies such as Koolance and Alphacool have released res's where you can fit a D5 pump directly to the res, such as the Koolance RP-452X2 which I really like to make things neater within the rig. Does anyone have any experiance with these and are they any good, or would it be better to buy a separate D5/DDC pump and then floor-mount the pump in the case?

My final question is regarding CPU water blocks. Is this again a chose of preferance in looks, or is there any thermal pro's/con's between the differant manufactures. For instance I'm a fan of the looks on the Koolance 370 block, but is there any benefit getting this block, than one 1/2 it's price?

Any feedback is appreciated on this

Oh, Im currently running a 2600k OC to 4.5Ghz with an ASUS Sabertooth P67 mobo and a D-14 and all in an Akasa Infinity case (I hate the case, hence the reason for upgrading).

Cheers guys

 

[S_I_N]

first welcome to

I love my 810 so I wont dissuede you from that. Let me say first and formost since you mention 4-5 optical bays the 810 has 4 but you lose one with any 360 or 420mm rad in roof. Secondly I'd go with a 360 in the roof and be done this way you can use the noctua fans for excellent flow to noise. If you go 420mm you will have to mod the top as the fan spacing is off for most 420mm rads (the good ones) Its not a huge mod but you will have to elongate the top mounting holes. On to blocks most are within 1-2c of each other the koolance 370 is a very decent block and should do ya well. Rez with a d5 mounted is good saves case room and works very well. I have the danger den monsoon d5 bay rez but if the alphacool d5 bay rez had been out when I built mine its what I would of used. Simply for that front fill port that pops out for filling. I have to remove my fan controller everytime I fill my rez. Rads I went with the phoyba 420mm and 280mm rads great rads all screws provided that ya need as well as one set of rubber mounts. But performance wise i'd say there on par with the lot of them.

 

[weetam]

Hi mate, thanks for the reply.

I wasn't aware that you lost a drive bay with a 360 rad in the 810.

The reason I'm asking is that I currently use 3 (ROM, burner and card reader), but the 810 has an internal card rader, so I could get rid of that, and then a Dual res which would take me to 4 bays.

I'm now thinking I could lose the ROM and just stick with the burner... It's not like I "need" the ROM per say. Just that I do, or used to, do a lot of disk-to-disk burning, hovever not so much now though.

I see your point on the 360 rad with NFF's, howerver, what about case fans, what would be best regarding that. Up until now, I've either just used stock fans that hae came with a case, or just bough cheap-ish fans to fling in.

Cheers

 

[S_I_N]

every spot in the case has 140mm or 120mm support. so you could do Noctua's throughout. If all your going to cool is the cpu a 240mm 60mm thicj will be enough. This will give you all 4 bays. I have a fan controller dual bay rez and an optical drive and its full.

 

[Lauralarry]

Nothing else to say here they're all right you even got a switch 810 user saying go for it, can't go wrong with nzxt

 

[Jason-CL]

I think for Rads, if you go Aquacomputer, you're going to be spending twice as much as any rad out there. YEs, they're nice, and perform extremely well, but again, they're pricey.

The Switch 810 has room for 9 fans. 3 in the top, 2 in the front, 2 on the HDD cages, 1 on the bottom, 1 on the rear exhaust. That's stock. You could awlays remove the lower HDD bay and fit another fan on the bottom, and 3 more fans in push/pull in the top for a total of 13. Though, that's overkill and the case really doesn't need push/pull configs for watercooling as temps are nominal with just push or pull fans on the radiators.