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How reasonable/doable is this for a Watercooled Setup


pezcore

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Ok, so I was thinking of watercooling, but space is tight in my case. I want to keep the inside looking much like it already does, with the white LED fans INSIDE the case, and the radiators OUTSIDE it.

 

I made this diagram to show what I had in mind. Is daisy chaining two small radiators a good idea?

 

Feel free to make changes or suggest ideas. I've never done WC before, so if I put things in the wrong order let me know :)

 

 

 

H20.png

 

*edit - I may even get one of those reservoirs that have the pumps built in. Either way, the res has to go in the drive bays.

Edited by pezcore

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Ok, so I was thinking of watercooling, but space is tight in my case. I want to keep the inside looking much like it already does, with the white LED fans INSIDE the case, and the radiators OUTSIDE it.

 

I made this diagram to show what I had in mind. Is daisy chaining two small radiators a good idea?

 

Feel free to make changes or suggest ideas. I've never done WC before, so if I put things in the wrong order let me know :)

 

 

 

H20.png

 

*edit - I may even get one of those reservoirs that have the pumps built in. Either way, the res has to go in the drive bays.

The order is wrong but the layout is sound - I am waiting on one more rad with a similar setup, but overkill with 2x 3x120 rads. No GPUs in the loop as well, just the CPU.

 

The res should be the last thing in the loop, not the first. It will need a strong pump, but I would run it from pump-CPU-first rad-GPU-second rad-res then back to pump. That way you are not directly cooling the GPU with the hot CPU water.

 

FWIW, with one 3x120 rad and the deltas the water entering the res is .5-1c over ambient during idle(verified with dual temp probes), but ~6c higher after extended load...with a second 3x120 I want the load water to be within 2c or so at load and for the water to always be ambient at idle.

 

Note that these are COOLANT temps, not chip temps. Basically I want to always have the nice low startup temps, and not have them rise so much after extended use as the coolant heats up.

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Why use a reservoir at all? Why not just use a t-line setup and put a fill-port in the top of the case. Then just check your t-line weekly and add a little coolant if needed.

 

And as Puck mentioned, the order should go from rad 1 -> pump -> CPU -> rad 2 -> GPU -> rad 1. That way the water is always cooled before it enters a heat source and needs to draw heat away. Honestly, I might just suggest one 360mm rad mounted on the back of your case with it's own fans and one of these.

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@Puck: I see what you're saying, but my case only has 2 holes for tubes to pass through. I suppose I could figure something out with some Y adaptors (or whatever is used) to make that work, but I want it to look clean.

 

Hmm...

Edited by pezcore

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@Puck: I see what you're saying, but my case only has 2 holes for tubes to pass through. I suppose I could figure something out with some Y adaptors (or whatever is used) to make that work, but I want it to look clean.

 

Hmm...

Lol cut some!!! If I showed what I had to do to my case to get my watercooling to fit most people would flip :lol:.

 

I am posting from my blackberry and did not notice your sig though...with a quad and a hot GPU two singles will run hotter then high end air cooling!

 

I am a big fan of using rads since they increase the cooling capacity considerably...the load temps will be the same eventually, but it will take a LOT longer to get there. I use a dual 5 1/4 drive bay res from DD.

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I have a separate thread for my own setup in progress, but what are the advantages to running independent loops vs one single loop? Perhaps I'm missing something, but if the heat transfer capacity of each individual loop (assuming you aim for a multiple loop setup) is great enough to adequately cool the water-blocks independently, why would the radiators suddenly be less efficient? The only difference I'm aware of is the additional strain on a single pump, though adding an additional pump to a single loop setup isn't an unorthodox tax.

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I have a separate thread for my own setup in progress, but what are the advantages to running independent loops vs one single loop? Perhaps I'm missing something, but if the heat transfer capacity of each individual loop (assuming you aim for a multiple loop setup) is great enough to adequately cool the water-blocks independently, why would the radiators suddenly be less efficient? The only difference I'm aware of is the additional strain on a single pump, though adding an additional pump to a single loop setup isn't an unorthodox tax.

The radiators are just as efficient, they just have more heat to deal with. The same reason why you may be able to run a TRUE passive on a stock clocked low end dual core, but not a quad core of the same speed. The TRUE is not getting any less efficient, it just cannot deal with the extra heat. It can cool each set of two cores independently, just not at the same time :). Also, like you said many DC pumps are not up to the task of multiple rads and blocks and will lose a ton of flow, causing even worse performance.

 

The coolant itself starts to heat up, and the more heat sources you add to the same loop, naturally, the more the coolant will heat up. This will make you end up with nice cool startup and initial idle temps, but then after continued use the load temps will be high and will take a long time to drop once the coolant is saturated with heat.

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New question (maybe I should make a new thread?)

 

Since I'm sticking with air cooling, would it be worth upgrading my Lion Square if I'm already idling in the low 40's at 4GHz?

Looks like it's doing it's job just fine. I wouldn't upgrade the cooler with that kind of performance unless you are wanting something that will carry over to another build like an i5 or an i7. Even then I'd just wait until the new build to upgrade.

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