Anotherone wanting to go h2o

[MRCL]

Ka-ching, paycheck time! And I finally decieded to go water. Not that I desperately need it... I just want it Well it certainly would help and be nice. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

CPU: EK Waterblocks EK-Supreme universal - Plexi
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_69&products_id=1848
with the appropriate backplate http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_184_232&products_id=1911

GPU: EK Waterblocks EK-FC4850 CF
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_74&products_id=1935

Northbridge: EK Waterblocks EK-NB S-MAX
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_26&products_id=1849

Southbridge: EK Waterblocks EK-NB/SB ASUS4
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_26&products_id=1898

I checked with EK's compability list; this stuff all fits on my Maximus Formula. However, I'm not sure about the GPU coolers. They are for a 4850 reference design, but I use two Gainward Golden Sample. I read that they use an 8pin connector and a reference 4850 uses a 6pin, does it have other differences that would prevent an installing of these blocks?

Aaand further we go:

MOSFET: EK Waterblocks EK-Mosfet ASUS3a - vernickelt
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_99&products_id=1808
---> Are these like necessary? or will the MOSFETs be cooled enough by Asus' heatpipe stuff?

Reservoir: Aqua-Computer aquabox 5.25" silber
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_66&products_id=1108
---> Well I dunno. I like the look of it. Would other reservoirs be better?

Pump: Laing D4-Basic 12Volt
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_121&products_id=1757
---> Well I have NO clue about pumps, but I heard this one is pretty good.

Radiator: ThermoChill PA120.3
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_47&products_id=1611
---> Revievs state that monster is doing pretty good?

Now... fact is, I have no real idea about water cooling, just some rudimentary knowledge gathered by looking over some threads here. So naturally I've got some questions...

- EKs blocks feature 1/4" thread. But as for the tubing, the diameters are given in milimeters on this site. 1/4" equals 6.25mm, but the tubes here:
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/index.php?cPath=167_46 are all bigger... whats the deal here? I do need one of these here don't I?
http://www.xtreme-cooling.ch/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=167_185_40&products_id=66

- Speaking of scews, as far as I get the mechanism, I need 10mm to 1/4" tulles, right?

That would be like my setup I plan on getting. Do you pros out here have any comments/criticism/suggestions?
By the way: When you browse the site I linked, some translation:
Chipsatz = Chipset
SPW = MOSFET
Wärmetauscher = Radiator
Ausgleichsbehälter = Reservoir
Screws nd such are in Anschlüsse/Adapter


Thanks to everyone who can and is willing to help me Enlgiht me!

 

[MRCL]

*cough* bump *cough*

 

[technicks]

Hi mate.

If i where you i would go for:

http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_in...Pump-12V-DDC-1T--Swiftech-MCP350--Retail.html

http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_info.php/info/p2699_Swiftech-MCR320-360mm-Radiator.html

http://www.aquatuning.ch/index.php/cat/c272_Swiftech.html

http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_info.php/info/p4519_Swiftech-Apogee-GTZ-775.html

http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_info.php/info/p2982_EK-Water-Blocks-EK-S-Max-Acetal.html

http://www.aquatuning.ch/index.php/cat/c552_10mm--3-8--.html

http://www.aquatuning.ch/index.php/cPath/31

Just for a start. You need more stuff but you can figure that out your self.

 

[Binge]

#1) do not get a D4, you will regret it.
#2) Do not cool your chipset... it's a waste of time and will add extra thermal mass to your loop.

The way water cooling works is that water has amazing heat transfer properties, but even more interesting is that the head dissipated is taking advantage of surface area. That means the surface area the water can touch, and likewise the entire surface area of the water you're pumping through the contact points. The water as a whole ends up staying at a pretty low temperature because some small surface area of heat is being spread through the entire surface area of your water, and then to the surface area of your radiator, and then out into the air. The funny thing about water is while is has great thermal properties, in a loop the thermal mass you pick up from one component, will be present from one component to the next unless it is somehow dissipated. Meaning... The heat carried from your CPU, will take up thermal mass in the water, and when that mass moves to your north bridge, and then to the south bridge the cooling will not be as effective because of how much heat the water is holding on to. This makes things interesting! What you can do is use a manifold to split the water to the components and then have it meet up at the radiator. The problem with this approach is that the thermal mass that can be dissipated, while not so taxing on your system will eventually overload the radiator and your temperatures will rise over time.

WHEW!!! That being said you can chain radiators, or get a CRAZY AWESOME radiator and use manifolds. When you use lots of radiators or some of the more crazy radiators you're going to want to get a stronger pump. While D5 pumps have very high flow stats the important aspect of a water cooling pump is how much water can be moved through a loop with tubing. The rating you want to look for is how many feet(meters in your case) of heat pressure the pumps have. The best way to achieve head pressure is to grab yourself a Laing 3.2 or 3.25 and put an XSPC/XSPC res top/EK X-top V2 on the pump instead of the stock top to allow you to use your own fittings as well as increase the head pressure and flow.

Little Top- A video I made to show visually about water flow. It's not a comparison, but you can tell by my reaction that what's happening in that video I've not seen with a stock Laing 3.25 or with a Laing D5 (which I also own but is not mentioned in the video).

::breathes::
#3) Do NOT get that aquabox res. Get a Swiftech Micro Res v2 so you won't have to worry so much about bleeding your rig. Also that aquabox is made of aluminum. Aluminum will destroy the copper in your loop and likewise your copper kill the aluminum.

You can use the Micro Res much like this picture:

]

The two pumps, outer right and outer left, both have micro res connected directly to the pump via connection fitting (male/male g1/4" 1/2"ID) like what you would use to connect two graphics cards.

As for cooling your graphics card I've found that a number of graphics card blocks warp the damn PCB... So you have to check the weight of your blocks.

You live in the EU so I would also re-think your investment into EK and use Watercool blocks instead. http://www.watercool.de

Their Heatkiller Rev3.0 CPU block outperforms the EK supreme in all areas, and their graphics blocks are beautiful/efficient. They do offer radiators but the best one they have is the MO-RA 2 which is a monster of a radiator. You would be able to use a PA 120.3 without any problems. It handles my i7, and I've used less to handle an overclocked Dual Core @ 4.4GHz and 2x overclocked 4870. The PA 120.3 is a fantastic radiator and very inexpensive for you because of where you live.

 

[SystemViper]

Hi, I look deeper at your components, but i have 2 thoughts/idea's,

When starting a new area of adventure, it's always best t start out smaller and progress to a full blown water cooling system.
Maybe just do the cpu first or figure out a smaller loop and run that for a while.

that is just a thought, because it is a big job, it time, knowledge and skillz and to jump right in and do everything, you might be overloading yourself rather then dipping you toe in the field and learning at a more manageable pace.

remember you are cooling your system, that lump of electronics that is your pride and joy....

slow and steady wins this race, i will look at the parts when i rool into my office and give you my opinion, but one thing I see is like you r using a PA 120.3 rad, and it's over 100 for that where the 120.3 swiftech is almost as good but 12 the price. so you neeed to defign you goals, and we can work from there...

 

[technicks]

Why not cool the chipset?
Do you even know how hot these things get on a Maxuimus Formula?

 

[Binge]

Yes I do know how much heat they make, and you'll be dumping that thermal mass into the water that cools your CPU/GPU. A waste of water cooling because your temps will match AIR temps cooling that much on a single loop without a manifold.

I've also got to mention that while water blocks tend to hold their value... north/south bridges are starting to become more popular as single piece blocks, and so individual water blocks are less desirable to enthusiasts which lowers your chances of resale after your chipset blocks become useless on your next upgrade. CPU blocks are different. You can always make a different bracket, and we all know how hard it is to justify a full cover GPU block.

 

[technicks]

You are right about that one but i really needed to cool down my nb because i did want the board dying from such high temps on it.
The thing did a freaking +60 idle.

 

[Binge]

Use a fan. Active air cooling lowers temps greatly, and what's more important to cool while overclocking... the board or the CPU?

 

[technicks]

I might try that. Thanks.

But on the other hand i am really impressed with the performance of my kit so far.
The cpu only gets to 42C load on 3.4Ghz and the northbridge stays nice and cool to.
Plus it looks great. Also my idea was to reduce the noise that was coming from all the fans.

Also isn't the cooling capacity dependent on the size of the rad?

 

[SystemViper]

Also isn't the cooling capacity dependent on the size of the rad?

yes and also what else is in the loop plus fan speed and ambient temp./

Also I have had the Maximus Formula and it has a great heatpipe setup, i think you might take it off and re tim it but just get some fans on there and it will work great. ASUS also makes those fans that stick right to the top of those fins, so you cna put a fan on the northie, top mosfit and side mosfit, they are sold a bunch of places.
I still run my Maximus extreme.... on air...




the hottest spots on your board are you mosfits, with that being said, they are designed to run hot and are pain to watercool. Same with the northbridge, it's a much more resilient chip then the CPU or even a gpu so you need to not think of it in terms of your cpu, like if your cpu is running at 60c you think you are running it on the hot side, well the northie can do that without any issues, but if you are going to run crazy high FSB then you might want to cool it.

But for starters I would do CPU only, if you add the heat from the northie you have to bump up all your loop components since the northie will raise your level temps by 10degrees. And that is not optimal for your CPU, the best built WC systems have an isolated CPU loop to keep the CPU the coolest and most constant of all yoru components.

But if you think about this in realistic terms, the main question is "why am i watercooling", main answer other then " just because i can" is performance. So the CPU and GPU are your main targets there, the rest of the components, like Binge said, can be kept at very reasonalble temps by 2 things.

Good airflow thru your case.

Spot fans on the individual components,. And most boards today are designed with very nice northie and mosfit cooling solutions.

So to me it's/

Cool for performance!

- CPU first, one loop, isolated from everything.
- second loop on GPU's again isolated.
- beef up case cooling till your have consistent air replenishing every 30 seconds.
- look into solutions that bring more fans to spot cool the mosfets and northie....

my 2c

 

[technicks]

Thats why i put the nb in front of the rad and the cpu after it.

Like i said some people don't go for performance only. A quiet pc that has good cooling is enough for me. Of course you can go performance only but thats all up to the user.
For the nb part. I already got here up to 475 FSB and planning to go higher. So i am pretty pleased with the fact that it dropped so much in temps.

Well i tried re tim'ing it and it still was very hot. Also i think the Maximus heatpipe system sucks bawls
Did you ever took it apart? They just taped 2 pieces against each other. Pff.

Many Maximus users are having this problem and also many boards die from the heat. Just read the Asus forums.
But like said each has his own opinion about how and why.

 

[MRCL]

Thanks to you all. Lol it became brutally apparent how little I know about water cooling...
Its a science. I'llreconsider the parts then. So no D4 and no to that reservoir... makes sense.
Tonight is gonna be some serious review-reading time.

As for the subject of not rushing it and buying all the parts at once... I didn't want to do that in the first place, since water cooling is expensive. And man in my country everything is. If I calculate it, its gonna cost me roughly 600 - 700CHF, I don't wanna spend so much money at once. So I like the idea of doing a CPU loop first and add things later. Tho that would mean draining the system before expanding it, right? Oh, and:

technicks- thanks for showing me this site, didn't know about that one. Shopping for good PC components here (especially cooling) is like trying to buy a BigMac at Burgerking... its hard

binge- I live in Europe, but we're not in the EU:lol: So ordering parts from Germany can ruin you...

 

[viczulis]

MRCL - I just finished mine and I knew nothing about water cooling. Look up EastCoastHandle & Fits thread on water cooling a lot of knowledge will be gained on those two threads. Here's eastcoasthandles


http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=52032

Fits will be in that thread to.

I also did my north & south bridge with my CPU.

Was pretty easy once I did all my home work.

Good Luck

 

[technicks]

You are right it is expensive but the chipset block will only set you back another 50CHF so thats not so bad.

The shop is pretty good and cheaper then others. Also they ship pretty darn fast.

Also i would recommend not get the cheapest parts you can get.

Also. If you want to look at here http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=86718&page=1

I knew nothing about wc and these guys helped me out a lot.

 

[MRCL]

You are right it is expensive but the chipset block will only set you back another 50CHF so thats not so bad.

The shop is pretty good and cheaper then others. Also they ship pretty darn fast.

Also i would recommend not get the cheapest parts you can get.

No it ain't that bad. They ship fast? To the Netherlands? So they must be really supersonic here

Not I wouldn't do that. I look on prices of course, but I don't make my choices depending soley on that.

 

[Binge]

binge- I live in Europe, but we're not in the EU:lol: So ordering parts from Germany can ruin you...

The Aquatuning website you link a lot carries Watercool.

 

[MRCL]

Ok after taking all of your posts into consideration and reading some more reviews AND decieding to go with the idea of cooling the CPU only first and add other stuf later, now I lost the plot...
Oh yeah. I came up with this list of things:

Pump - Laing DCC http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_in...umpe-12V-DDC-1T--Swiftech-MCP350--Retail.html
Rad - Thermochill Pa 120.3 http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_info.php/info/p1749_Thermochill-PA120-3-Triple-Radiator-G3-8.html
Res - Swiftech MCRES http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_info.php/info/p1765_Swiftech-MCRES-Micro-AGB-Rev--2.html
CPU - Watercool HK http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_info.php/info/p5001_Watercool-HK-CPU-LGA775-Rev--3.html

And all the approprieate screws, hoses and such.

So now, do you think this will be okay for a start?

 

[technicks]

Yes that would be a nice setup to start with.

I like the rad. Are you going for 13mm id tubing or 10mm id?

 

[MRCL]

Yes that would be a nice setup to start with.

I like the rad. Are you going for 13mm id tubing or 10mm id?

10/8 mm tubing.

 

[technicks]

Thats ok then you don't have to buy a pump top.
But this way you cant mount the res on the pump.
If i where you i would search for a XSPC res/pump top.
So then you have the option to go for bigger size tubing later on and you will take some length out of the loop.

If you cant find one i would advice to get the pump top and the micro res.

On the left the res/pump top and on the right the res with a separate pump and top.

 

[nailzer]

I tried water cooling. A block cracked and took out the motherboard. Never again for me.

 

[technicks]

Good for you. What? You want to scare us or something? Go troll somewhere else.

 

[MRCL]

I tried water cooling. A block cracked and took out the motherboard. Never again for me.

Well my first system I build together; the motherboard made contact with some metal and took down everything. But i'm still doing it. Likewise if the water setup would go wrong and kill some hardware, I'd do it again.

Hell I almost broke my back when I fell from a tree, I did not stop climbing them. I risked breaking several bones while skateboarding, I still do it. I broke my hand while Snowboarding, I still ride the slopes.

You get my opinion I assume

Thats ok then you don't have to buy a pump top.
But this way you cant mount the res on the pump.
If i where you i would search for a XSPC res/pump top.
So then you have the option to go for bigger size tubing later on and you will take some length out of the loop.

If you cant find one i would advice to get the pump top and the micro res.

On the left the res/pump top and on the right the res with a separate pump and top.

http://img.techpowerup.org/090328/Capture013.jpg

You mean something like that? http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_in...-Ausgleichbeh-lter-komplett-inkl-Aufsatz.html

 

[technicks]

Yes that would be perfect. Then you could skip the micro res.

Also don't get plastic fitting just go for the Highflow ones they are cheap and look very nice.

http://www.aquatuning.ch/product_in...8---fitting-G1-4-with-O-Ring--High-Flow-.html