Building New Water Cooled i7-3960X Rig

[NikoDG]

This link will take you to the initial build post:

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=188879&pid=1976882&st=0entry1976882

 

After reading a post on OCC about the quality of various companies that produce water cooling components and their general quality I find myself wondering if my current set-up is any good. The post in question says Koolance is basically crap (and most of my loop is made by them). You can find the post here:

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=80390&st=0#

 

While I realize the post isn't exactly current, it got me wondering if there were better alternatives I could use, so I'm creating this post in hope that some fellow OCC'ers will see it and either approve my set-up, or give me some nice alternatives.

 

Thanks in advance for any insight you may give me.

[Black64]

Do you mean like other brands? How about DangerDen and Swiftech?

[NikoDG]

*Duplicate post deleted*

Edited December 5, 2011 by NikoDG

[ccokeman]

The Koollance of the past was garbage, that is correct. What they are today is a complete turn around from their past and they offer extremely high end parts that offer excellent thermal performance. EK had some issues with their nickel plating and may or may not have gotten it under control but other than that it comes down to preference and cost. THere are plenty of suppliers out there from Swiftech to DangerDen XSPC and many more. THe differences in most blocks come down to 1-2 degree differences so you can buy what looks good and fits your needs. I have my 3960 water cooled now for some OC testing with a 2x120 Black Ice GT rad, D5 pump and Swiftech Appogee XT block. At 4.6GHz I get load temps in the high 50's to low 60's C. A better block and rad should improve upon that performance but that's the start point for the test

[NikoDG]

Other brands, or maybe a more efficient way to set up the loop. For instance I was originally planning to do a dual loop in an attempt to keep the Crossfire 6990's apart from the CPU and memory, and also have two different colored fluids for nice visuals. But I was wondering if maybe I could make it more efficient by running a single circuit through two radiators in this order: reservoir, pump, CPU, memory, dual 140mm radiator, 3/8" to 1/4" splitter, GPU, 1/4" to 3/8" merger, dual 120mm radiator, then back to reservoir. This would effectively get rid of the need for a second pump, but if I do this I may need a stronger pump, and maybe larger tubing (1/2" and 3/8"). So yeah, any thoughts or reccomendations you have would be greatly appreciated.

Edited December 5, 2011 by NikoDG

[treboRR]

Other brands, or maybe a more efficient way to set up the loop. For instance I was originally planning to do a dual loop in an attempt to keep the Crossfire 6990's apart from the CPU and memory, and also have two different colored fluids for nice visuals.

 

word!

[Stonerboy779]

Other brands, or maybe a more efficient way to set up the loop. For instance I was originally planning to do a dual loop in an attempt to keep the Crossfire 6990's apart from the CPU and memory, and also have two different colored fluids for nice visuals.

I think you would be better going with a swiftech pump and single res with config designed for on single flow no splitters with the smoothest and shortest curves between components to keep up high rates of change. you will get much better cooling this way. Splitting then joining for GPUs will not do what you hope it will. And if you put GPU and CPU in one loop you can achieve better GPU cooling with only a little sacrifice in CPU cooling which will be made up times over by the money saved being invested into a better pump and fans.

 

If you end up going dual for looks then do not split for GPU just run one into the other into the rad then res, pump and back again.

 

Also my recommendation is on the xspc rx rads although bare in mind they are monsters and choosing a case you would need to take that into careful consideration. The storm trooper would fail at taking them as they are too thick. Them and a swiftech or laning pump to really get the water flowing.

[NikoDG]

What case would you suggest to allow more room for liquid cooling?

[Stonerboy779]

What case would you suggest to allow more room for liquid cooling?

Corsair 800D is huge and allows very easy light modding for those that want to put some big rads in. Although it's price can be off putting at ~$250-300 however support for internal 480 and 240 rads.

 

Silverstone TJ07 while more expensive allows for a better cooling set up with no hot air vented into the case and with all fresh air brought directly into bottom chamber rad. Even more expensive at ~$300+ sorry, but can take a side by side 480 and 240 rad in the bottom of the case still allowing for room to mount the PS down their too.

 

The HAF 932 is probably used quite a bit by a lot of people but with a small amount of modding internal 360 rad and if you want to you can put a second 140 or 120 down the front. Far cheaper at ~$150

 

Probably the best budget Case for great cooling features is the Cm 690 II Advanced as it can take two 240 rads.

 

It would be a far harder mod but you could do it with lots of patience and time you could get 2x 240 rads in the storm trooper but you would need to very carefully measure a=out and think of where you will cut and mount things. As it's design doesn't lend itself to easy mods like the 690 II or to a degree the HAF 932 the 800D and the TJ07 hardly need modding or really hard modding to get them to be water cooling beasts.

 

Also with your rads I would choose anything other than 30fpi unless you love the sound of hurricanes and vacuums.

[Boinker]

What case would you suggest to allow more room for liquid cooling?

 

Haf932 advanced or the original haf932. You can stuff an xspc rx360 in the top without a care and then you can use a radbox from swiftech to carry a second radiator at the rear outer of the case. Bare in mind you will have only three or less 5 1/4 bays left after that monster of a radiator but that radiator alone can cool a lot of things and should be enough. I would look into a 5 1/4 bay Res for the pumps as you can get a single es dual pump appreatus from a couple of mc35x pumps or the old mcp655 pump but it all depends on what you want to do. The bay pump Res sense you are doing a long serial loop will benefit as it will make 2 components of one assembly.

 

Other then that as far as case go your next step up IMHO is a mountain mods case with plenty of holes to put radiators in. LOL

[NikoDG]

Other then that as far as case go your next step up IMHO is a mountain mods case with plenty of holes to put radiators in. LOL

 

Lol, I'm not quite at that point yet, I'm gonna exhaust every other option available before I result to one of those behemoths

[NikoDG]

Alright, so, I'm gonna admit that I love the CM Storm Trooper Case, I mean it's amazing in almost every way. Firstly the connectivity and ease of assembly are outstanding; 2x USB 3.0, a fan speed controller, X-Disk, and more HDD and SSD space then you can shake a stick at, not to mention the 9+1 expansion slots which is frankly staggering. The aesthetics are jaw-dropping, in my opinion anyway, this case with Red-LED fans and a cooling loop would look insane. Not to mention the name, Storm Trooper? Who was the genius who came up with that one?

You know, I'm getting a real Star Wars vibe, first the name, then all the red, can anyone say Sith Lord? Anyways, I'm just starting to sound a little too nerdy

So getting to the point, if CoolerMaster says that it is possible to mount a +400mm radiator vertically by removing the HDD cages, then wouldn't it make sense that by removing one you could mount a vertical radiator in it's place? (With a little modding of course)

Now the cages are cooled by 120mm fans, so it would make sense that you could fit at least a 120mm radiator (maybe a 140mm if I'm lucky) in place of a case, and since I only plan on using four 3.5" HDD's I don't think I'll miss one cage. So this should give me the ability to mount two 2x120mm radiators, one at the top rear, one at the bottom front, and then a single 120mm radiator. So I'm hoping I may be able to get a decent amount of water cooling power out of it without heavy modification.

The best way to increase the efficiency of your water cooling loop is by increasing three things: radiator surfact area, water flow, and airflow through the radiators.

Now, Stoneyboy779 gave me a few suggestions, one was to use XS-PC RX style radiators, thought he was concerned that they would probably be too thick to fit into the Trooper (that sounds kinda dirty). Now, due to the size of the HDD cage I plan on removing I think it should be no problem fitting an RX120 radiator in it's place. The bottom front of the Trooper looks pretty cramped so it's very doubtful I could fit an RX style radiator there, I would probably end up mounting an EX240 there, but the top back of the case looks a lot roomier so it may be possible to mount and RX240 in the space.

He also suggested I use a Swiftech pump, so the MCP655 comes to mind. Now the pumps I were planning on reach about 17Lpm together on a double circuit, but this beast reaches speeds near 21Lpm on it's own at the maximum speed setting.

That covers my first two bases, now there's only one thing left that I can improve on, the fan power. Now this should be fairly easy to take care of by both; getting higher RPM fans that are able to move more air, and putting fans in a push-pull configuration where I have enough room.

 

Now a lot of this is theory but this is what I'm thinking of as far as a revised cooling loop for the Trooper (and if this still fails it really is time to find a different case sadly).

Reservoir -> Pump (MCP655) -> CPU Water Block -> Memory Water Block -> Radiator (EX240 w/ normal fan config) -> GPU Water Block #1 -> Radiator (RX120 w/ push-pull config) -> GPU Water Block #2 -> Radiator (RX240 possibly w/ push-pull config) -> Reservoir.

If anyone knows if this level of modification on the Trooper case is possible I would greatly appreciate some input. Thanks in advance