Building New Water Cooled i7-3960X Rig

[Waco]

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

Second this. This is how my current build is set up (this is an older picture of my Phenom II build but it looks identical now minus the mobo/CPU).

 

 

Note that is an XSPC RX360 up top with 25mm fans in push/pull. There's more than enough room between it and the motherboard. The bottom 3 (maybe 4 with a short component) 5.25" bays are usable on the front of the case:

 

 

 

That's a Koolance bay reservoir / pump housing.

 

 

I'd definitely go for as much radiator as you can manage to fit. My rig was seriously undercooled with a single 360mm radiator. The loop order matters extremely little if you have decent flow rates throughout the loop. I wouldn't bother with splitters or anything, just go 3/8" serial all the way through in a single loop. As for fans - I run 12 Yate Loon low speed fans. They're quiet enough and have enough static pressure to efficiently move air through a radiator (especially when in push/pull).

Edited December 6, 2011 by Waco

[NikoDG]

I'd definitely go for as much radiator as you can manage to fit. My rig was seriously undercooled with a single 360mm radiator. The loop order matters extremely little if you have decent flow rates throughout the loop. I wouldn't bother with splitters or anything, just go 3/8" serial all the way through in a single loop. As for fans - I run 12 Yate Loon low speed fans. They're quiet enough and have enough static pressure to efficiently move air through a radiator (especially when in push/pull).

 

Undercooled? You mean it STILL wasn't getting the heat out fast enough?!

[Waco]

Undercooled? You mean it STILL wasn't getting the heat out fast enough?!

Yup. Water temps got pretty outrageous. Remember - I had essentially four 4870s and (at the time) a very hot Phenom II X3 unlocked to X4 that took a lot of voltage to run stable.

 

Adding the second 360mm radiator made a MASSIVE difference in load temps. I literally went from 50+ C water temps to barely 7-8 C over ambient when really pushing my system. My idle temps are ~2 C over ambient.

 

It runs a fair bit cooler now that I have my 2600K at 4.8 GHz but my GPUs still dump a pretty massive amount of heat. 6990s (or 7990s) will be no different. You're going to need a lot of radiator, a lot of fan, or a decent amount of both to keep your water temperatures within reason.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Waco

[NikoDG]

You're going to need a lot of radiator, a lot of fan, or a decent amount of both to keep your water temperatures within reason.

 

Would 60C or under be a fairly decent goal for this kind of set-up?

[Waco]

Would 60C or under be a fairly decent goal for this kind of set-up?

60 C on what? CPU, GPU, etc, temps all are determined first and foremost by your water temperatures. A good rule of thumb is to not let your water temperatures exceed 15 C over the ambient temperature. Your water temperature will be the absolute minimum temperature that you'll ever seen from any component cooled by the water - so the lower it is, the lower your component temps will be.

 

It really all comes down to how much heat you dump into the loop and how quickly you can shed that heat with the radiators. Offhand I'd think that you'll need at least the equivalent of two 360mm radiators to keep 4 GPUs and a hot CPU cool.

[NikoDG]

Offhand I'd think that you'll need at least the equivalent of two 360mm radiators to keep 4 GPUs and a hot CPU cool.

 

Alright, this is my first water cooled PC so I'm kinda a n3wb

Thanks for the help

Would you say extra thick radiators count for more than normal sized ones? (Maybe 50% more) Making an extra thick 120mm and 240mm, plus a normal sized 240mm approximately equal to two 360mm rads?

[Waco]

The thickness ends up mattering a lot less than you'd think. See http://skinneelabs.com/triple-radiator-comparison-v2/4/ for reference.

 

I have both the RX360 and the MCR-320 in my loop. Based on the reviews I've seen around the difference is essentially zero when you take everything else into account. You may gain a degree or two from a thicker radiator - it's really all about surface area and the number of fins per inch on the radiator. Low FPI works well with quiet fans, high FPI essentially requires fast and loud fans to dissipate heat (but they will also dissipate more with faster and faster fans). Anything under 15 FPI is pretty good for low speed fans IMHO.

 

Dual 240s and a 120 is nearly as much area as I have in my loop. It'd probably be okay as long as you have a decent pump. High water temperatures won't kill you - but what's the point in doing all the extra work to get only slightly better temperatures?

Edited December 6, 2011 by Waco

[NikoDG]

High water temperatures won't kill you - but what's the point in doing all the extra work to get only slightly better temperatures?

 

Very true

Would you say 21Lpm is very fast for a pump? Or do you know of some pumps that can go considerably faster?

And also is the noise given off by 30FPI radiators (with matching fans) really as herendous as some people say?

[Waco]

And also is the noise given off by 30FPI radiators (with matching fans) really as herendous as some people say?

YES!

 

 

I run 1300 RPM fans and they are borderline for me. Everyone's tastes are different. I don't mind the noise of moving air but the drone of a fan is absolutely one of the most annoying sounds in the world.

 

 

A single Laing D5 keeps my rig extremely cool.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Waco

[NikoDG]

YES!

 

Haha, I will avoid those then. What would you suggest for the best balance between noise and cooling?

Also, someone suggested I try using a Silverstone TJ07 to get a better cooling set-up, which got me looking at the TJ11, it's quite a bit larger and has support for USB 3.0, hot swap drive bays, a ton of 5.25" bays, and even a couple 2.5" bays. So I think that might be an accaptable alternative as far as cases go. Do you have any opinions on that case, do you think it could accomodate a suitable liquid cooling set-up?

[Stonerboy779]

YES!

 

 

I run 1300 RPM fans and they are borderline for me. Everyone's tastes are different. I don't mind the noise of moving air but the drone of a fan is absolutely one of the most annoying sounds in the world.

 

 

A single Laing D5 keeps my rig extremely cool.

I need to get off my butt and do that rad/fan testing don't I?

 

Edit: Hey Niko

 

I had a really hard look at the case and found a few pics around of the top with out is plastic shell and well i found some things that should make you happy.

 

First up you could fit a rad even up to the thickness of the rx up top with one set of fans inside and if you remove the carry handle from the top another set up there between the case and the ventilated plastic shell.

If you spin both cooled HDD bays you could drop again another rx with just fans in pull or possibly push/pull dependant on motherboard heatsync heights.

 

All this install should go down with only needing to drill out a few rivits on the handle. this is due mainly to the design of the HDD racks. Also if you want more there is always the possibility of dumping a 360 rad off the back.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Stonerboy779

[NikoDG]

I need to get off my butt and do that rad/fan testing don't I?

 

Oh, please do! I love test!

Opinions can be biased and change rapidly from person to person, heck even people's opinions change rapidly over time. But numbers and test results can't be argued, they are what they are, and can be highly informative.

Also, what is your opinion on the TJ11 Stonerboy? It's larger than the TJ07 and is a little more current in the options that it offers as far as connectivity and bays space, and it looks like it has a ton of room to mount some nice radiators.

Edited December 6, 2011 by NikoDG