Overkill may be the name of the game-H2O gurus chime in

[Railgun]

So, this will be my first foray into water cooling. I've been thinking about it for some time but never really cared enough to get on with it. I've recently moved and the reasons are twofold.

-Where the PC is now located gets really hot (loft in the top flat of a London flat (read: no A/C)

-As it's an open floor plan, it fills the whole flat from a sound perspective so it would be a quieting goal as well.

I haven't really overclocked in a hard core way since 1999 with my Abit BP6 and have only (obviously) relied on air since. I will clock to some degree here as well but I'm not going crazy.

So, my setup is as follows:

CM Cosmos S
Asus Rampage Extreme III
i7-970
2 x GTX460s
1 x 8800GT
2 x Corsair CMG6GX3M3A1866C7

I'm looking to cool the CPU and 460s naturally as well as the NB. I've heard the stock coolers are a PITA to remove on Dominator memory so I may opt out of that cooling for the time being, but will leave the option open to add it to a loop.

That being said, and unfortunately I apparently can't attach anything so I'll have to UL and link my drawing later, but here's what I'm thinking. As the 460s are non-ref, I'm just sticking with a GPU block as opposed to that XSPC design that may fit. The goal being to make this as general as possible so some components may be able to be moved over as I upgrade HW.

I'm not going to spell it all out and let the pic speak for itself (when I post it tonight). The questions I mainly have are whether there are any suggestions for better options. I don't need to squeeze every last degree of heat out of the thing so if it's something that's within 2 deg, then it doesn't matter. Though, if there's a more efficient radiator, I'll be open to that.

For ease of sourcing, I'm sticking with Koolance gear. Sure, I could mix and match, but again, I think perhaps from a performance perspective, it's fine.

Well, ok...since I can't put the pic up yet, I will spell it out...kind of...

Pump to a splitter. Seperate loops for GPUs and CPU/NB joined back into a 3x120 radiator. I'll have ball valves on the back end of each loop with flow meters on each as well to balance them. 13mm for the mainline. 10mm before/after the GPU split as those are running parallel as well. All 6mm lines through each block.

400ml, 60mm OD reservoir
PMP-450
Loop 1 - CPU-370 to MB-ASR3E
Loop 2 - 2xGPU-220
HX-CU1020V radiator
All the related lines, splitters, and other misc gear as well.

I'm a visual person, so if I didn't really explain things well, bear with me until I get that image linked.

And cost isn't an issue.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ViviTheMage]

Why not get 2 pumps, for 2 separate loops? Or 1 loop, run 2 pumps in serial? I am a redundency guy ... so the Koolance 452x2 and serial kit are win.

Be visual, draw out how you're going to route things, and where blocks will go.

Personally, I prefer the full cover blocks, I did not want to deal with little blocks for vrm/memory on the gpu's.

Why are you going to get a block for the NB? Seems a bit overkill, unless you plan to OC?

 

[Railgun]

Redundancy is nice, I agree, but room may start to be cluttered. I don't really have any drive bays available as I'm currently running two internal arrays...eight drives.

I do have it drawn out...just can't post it.

I may OC anyway so the NB may cover it and the mobo VRMs. I will be replacing my case door as I have the prolimatech mega and the 200mm fan prevents the door from being closed, so that will go on and may be enough to cool the GPU RAM and VRMs with individual blocks.

The GPU coolers I've found won't cover it for the VRMs anyway since the card I have is non-ref. The XSPC cooler will do RAM, but I don't think I'm going to clock the GPUs anyway...not much anyway.

 

[ViviTheMage]

If you have 2 drive bays get a 402x2 (2xddc) or 452x2 (2xd5) you can run them in serial, or 2 separate loops. You'll only be using up 2 5.25: bays, for 2 pumps PLUS your reservoir.

Koolance products too . You're right on the full GPU blocks ... I can't find any for 460 gtx that isn't for non-reference cards.

 

[QuantumPion]

There's no point in using a split loop like that, it will not decrease your temps but will reduce flow. The most effective setup is two pumps in serial. For a GTX460 there's no point in going full-cover block, just get the swiftech generic GPU block and some ram heatsinks.

The Cosmos S is a good case for water cooling, it is what I have currently (you can see a pic of my setup in the pic thread). I have a single 5870 and a i7-920 on one loop with one pump on a 3x120 radiator with 3 low speed fans, and get great temps while overclocking. For 2 GPU's, you might want higher speed fans or sandwich 6 fans. One DDC pump would probably be enough flow but getting 2 wouldn't hurt.

 

[ViviTheMage]

You also might want 2 or 3 3x120's rads to cover all the heat from 4 blocks.

 

[Railgun]

That's just it...I don't. At least I don't think I do. I'll have to check to see if I actually have two available. I have 2 of the 4in3 modules, my BluRay drive, a fan power distribution and my card reader. That leaves me with one bay left. I will probably maintain the distro as I'll retain the fans for the HDs. The plan for the pump would be to put it in the floor fan spot.

I was looking at those combos and do like them. I'll see if I can't find room to facilitate that.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Drop the card reader, get a USB one? The koolance res/pump combos are major space savers, and very heavy duty.

 

[aigomorla]

mmmm im all honesty i dont think its merit to watercool 460's.

Waterblocks alone cost almost 100 dollars each, which means 200 dollars total.

However if u sell the 460, u can probably get around 100, then add another 100, that would net u almost a 480 which i think u would be much happier....

And thats not including the rest of the h2o gear.

 

[Railgun]

There's no point in using a split loop like that, it will not decrease your temps but will reduce flow. The most effective setup is two pumps in serial.

On the assumption I'm going with the 450, you're saying that 4.5GPM isn't going to cut it? At 1.5GPM, which I would expect this block to see after everything is plumbed in, it seems to cool just fine. Can you elaborate on that?

Drop the card reader, get a USB one? The koolance res/pump combos are major space savers, and very heavy duty.

Yeah...may do that anyway as the one I have is getting dated. I'll be looking for a USB 3 version.

mmmm im all honesty i dont think its merit to watercool 460's.

Waterblocks alone cost almost 100 dollars each, which means 200 dollars total.

However if u sell the 460, u can probably get around 100, then add another 100, that would net u almost a 480 which i think u would be much happier....

And thats not including the rest of the h2o gear.

Yeah...I'm not really interested in getting a new card just yet. The 460s in SLI will suit me just fine for a little while. And I'm sure I'll clock those too. Again, I'm not looking at cost.

 

[Interitus]

On the assumption I'm going with the 450, you're saying that 4.5GPM isn't going to cut it? At 1.5GPM, which I would expect this block to see after everything is plumbed in, it seems to cool just fine. Can you elaborate on that?

I think what he was trying to say was that splitting a loop like that will cause flow inconsistency.

The way I always understood it was that flow will take the path of least resistance leaving you with one part of the loop with a lesser flow rate.

I could be wrong here though.

 

[Railgun]

That's why I'm putting ball valves and meters on both loops so I can adjust the flow on each loop.

 

[aigomorla]

ur gonna put flow meters on everything?

OK STOP...

no seriously...

if your going to setup something that complicated, and that costly... do it with better hardware.

And even then, your gonna realize it wont net you much doing it the simple way vs the complicated way.

So i would really recomend if your doing this to play around, try the simple way first.
Then EXPAND on it to the complicated way.

Instead of going complicated way off bat.

 

[Railgun]

Flow meters on only where the two main loops are. I don't care about the GPU split as they're the same blocks and will have, as close as I can make it, the same length tubing before and after that split.

So here's the setup...

If you're recommending better HW, I'm all eyes/ears. Again, the purpose being to be able to move this to newer setups with a minimal change in HW. Obviously, some blocks may need to change, but relative canges in position may only require some additional tubing.

And the option here being the bay mounted res and possible dual pump setup. Either way, it's not that much reduction in plumbing.