First time building a WC loop. Advice Needed

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dovakhiin

dovakhiin

Forerunner
Hi,
I'm planning on building my first WC loop. I'm hoping folks here can lend me some advice.

My current rig is as follows, just FYI-

CPU : AMD FX 8350 with Corsair H100i
GPU : AMD R9 290x(x2)
MB : ASUS Sabertooth 990fx Rev 2.0
PSU : Seasonic 850W
Case: NZXT Phantom 630
RAM : Corsair 8GB

I've been doing some research lately and here's the list of parts which I've come up with:

CPU Block : EK Supremacy
GPU Block(s) : EK R9 290x(2x)
Reservoir : XSPC Dual Bay with Laing D5 pump - 1/2 x 3/4
Tubing : Primochill Advanced LRT(Red) 1/2 x 3/4
Fittings : Monsoon Free Center Compression Fittings
1) Two 6 packs of straight fittings G 1/4 - 1/2 x 3/4
2) A couple of 90 degree fittings for any tight bends
Radiators : 1) XSPC RX360 on top mount (thinking about reducing to EX series to save space/cost)
2) XSPC RX 240 (thinking about reducing to EX series to save space/cost)
Fans : Corsair SP120(x5)( purchasing in india)
Thermal paste : Arctic Silver 5( purchasing in india)
Coolant : 1) Distilled Water
2) I&H Silver Coil
2) Feser Base Corrosion Blocker( if required)
Other stuff : 1) Bitfenix sleeved extension cables( Red)
2) Swiftech Fan Controller
3) Cross-GPU links - Bitspower
4) Koolance Drain

The cost has come up to around 1000$ with shipping. It would be good if I could optimize and reduce costs a little.

I'm tagging a few guys who know have experience with watercooling - @mav2000 , @Infected , @rakesh_sharma23 ,@cranky

Would be great if you guys or others too could comment on my configuration.

A few other queries:-

1) Customs & Import
How much will I have to pay for import? Is there anyway to get an estimate.

2) Corrosion Blocker
Does anyone have experience using a corrosion blocker. I'm not convinced about how well they work and they are a little expensive. 15$/2L of water. Refilling can become very expensive.

3) Sleeved Extension Cables
They're much cheaper than buying full braided cables. Are they safe to use?

Thanks.

wc3.jpg
 
Pump before block, pump outlet into CPU block which is usually highest restriction in a system. Rad has very little restriction and does not need pump. Intermediate rad should be single to keep overall loop length smaller. You may need a second pump. A single D5 is asking for trouble with two full cover blocks.

Customs is ~20%.

I use water from the aquagard filter and a silver kill coil. No sedimentation or growth. Distilled water, be careful. Most battery products are slightly acidic and will corrode blocks. The med store ones are slightly alkaline. Pure distilled water is difficult to find, double UV purified out of a filter works just as well.
 
Dont use drinking or filtered water. Also dont purchase Distilled water from Petrol pumps usually they are not pure distilled water.

Purchase distilled water from any Chemical shop. At my place 1 liter distilled water cost about Rs.60. Chemical shop usually have laboratory grade distilled water 100% distilled only.
Just use pure water dont add any UV color.

One more think .. In you flow diagram pump is receiving hot water, that's not good for pump. D5 pump generates some heat by them self and you are heating it more.

Water flow should be like thing
PUMP + RES >> GPU >> 360 RAD >> CPU >> 240 RAD >> PUMP+RES.

So thermal flow will be
COLD (at Res) >> WARM (at GPU) >> COLD (at 360 RAD) >> WARM (at CPU) >> COLD (at 240 RAD) >> COLD (at Res)

and so on. So that Pump + Reservoir always ends with cold coolant.
 
Ok.. thanks for the quick response. A few follow up questions for you guys.

1) Rad Space and pump
@cranky - The first concern I have is regarding rad space. I have three really hot parts with high TDPs - FX 8350 Oc'd(~200 W) + R9 290x's( 2x 250W). That comes up to a totol of around 700W.

I hardly think I have any application that can stress all the parts to 100% TDP but still as far as TDPs go this is pretty high. Do you think one 360 RAD + one 120 RAD as you suggested will suffice?

I will be connecting both GPU blocks in parallel. So from what I've read the restriction will half as that of putting but blocks in series ie. restriction will be equivalent to 1 GPU block , the downside being that flow to each card will be half and GPU temperatures will be slightly higher. Do you think in this case an additional d5 pump will still be required.

A reservoir with two D5's costs about 275$, pretty expensive.

2) Loop flow order
I think the flow @rakesh_sharma23 suggested looks good,
COLD (at Res) >> WARM (at GPU) >> COLD (at 360 RAD) >> WARM (at CPU) >> COLD (at 240 RAD) >> COLD (at Res)

but from what i've read I would like to take into account what @cranky suggested too, ie. put CPU block first since it has highest restriction.

So how does this look-
COLD (at Res) >> WARM (at CPU) >> COLD (at 360 RAD) >> WARM (at GPU) >> COLD (at 240 RAD) >> COLD (at Res)

I've just switched places for CPU and GPU

3) Customs
I'm thinking of asking my friend to bring some of the parts, the more expensive parts so that I save on customs. Will he run into issues at the airport?
 
No issues at airport. If it is sidewinder, talk to Gary and he will help. He knows the drill. Max he will have to declare correct value and pay the duty.

You do not have enough pump with one D5. I use one and it's just about enough for my loop. I have 970 over clocked and two 6970s, so the heat load is similar if a little lower. You can either get less rad or more pump, your choice.

As to loop design, read up properly first, there are plenty of resources online to understand loop design and how pressure and temperature are used to balance each other. For combo res pump the pump will always be at res exit, and this is true of custom loop as well.

The pump should always be used to get highest head pressure into highest head restriction, which is almost always the CPU block - this could be different in your case but unlikely. The final, larger rad should always be before the res for the coolest water in. The intercooler, as in your design, should be between the two blocks. This is where you add the second pump, to create good pressure before the GPU blocks. You do not need an expensive pump. Even a D5 basic is enough for the next stage.

You never put a pump before a res or rad because it is a waste of pressure when it looks into a low restriction path.
 
Ok. I think I'll take your advise and add an extra pump mid-loop, the redundancy is also an added benefit. Will try to read up on loop design a little. I hadn't really focussed so much on water pressure and loop order.

Taking what you've said into account this is what the loop should look like. It looks a lot more complex now. I guess I should try and chalk out all the turns and fittings.

COLD (at Res/PUMP1) >> WARM (at CPU) >> COLD (at 240 RAD) >> COLD ( at PUMP2) >> WARM (at GPU) >> COLD (at 360 RAD) >> COLD (at Res/PUMP1)
 
Can you just write it without hot and cold, we know what heats and what cools the water in the loop. Very difficult to follow.
 
Looks good to me.

Arrange your flow direction downward for cool and upward for hot. Colder water tends to be slightly denser and little tougher to pump. Likely very little difference, but still worth it if you can.

On fan airflow, try and arrange them so the fans push cool air into the radiator. Pull arrangements do work, but most PC fans are optimised for push (high H2O pressure at air exit). Often we've seen gamers buy AIO coolers that blow hot air from inside the case through the rad exiting through the top. This is plain wrong, if you have heatsources inside the PC the fan should blow air from outside the case.

Your drives are going to run a touch hot because they will be at exit point of the intermediate rad.

Good Luck.
 
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One pump is more than enough and a single D5 will be more than happy to run that loop. I dont think you think you should have any problems there. A single D5 will easily run 3 blocks and two rads.....I have run 2 blocks and 3 rads of off a single MCP355 for more than a year, without any issues whatsoever and the pump still runs fine. Run it at the speed of 4-5 and you should be fine.

Other points have been answered. One thing I would like to add here, stay away from the XSPC res. Its been problematic since it came out. If you are keen on a bay res, look at EK, Monsoon etc. I am sure there are others who have a single pump res for the D5 like Alphacool.

Lastly, there is no such thing as "cold hot cold hot" or whatever it is you guys are trying to figure out. The water aross the loop will have a single temperature....maybe a few fractions of a degree here and there, but, just because it just passed through a rad the water does not suddenly become cold in that part of the loop. Just go with a loop order with the shortest tubing lengths and also make sure that the pump is below the res to make bleeding and filling easier. And yes I have tested this with multiple temp probes at different points in the loop.
 
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mav2000 said:
One pump is more than enough and a single D5 will be more than happy to run that loop. I dont think you think you should have any problems there. A single D5 will easily run 3 blocks and two rads.....I have run 2 blocks and 3 rads of off a single MCP355 for more than a year, without any issues whatsoever and the pump still runs fine. Run it at the speed of 4-5 and you should be fine.

Other points have been answered. One thing I would like to add here, stay away from the XSPC res. Its been problematic since it came out. If you are keen on a bay res, look at EK, Monsoon etc. I am sure there are others who have a single pump res for the D5 like Alphacool.

Lastly, there is no such thing as "cold hot cold hot" or whatever it is you guys are trying to figure out. The water aross the loop will have a single temperature....maybe a few fractions of a degree here and there, but, just because it just passed through a rad the water does not suddenly become cold in that part of the loop. Just go with a loop order with the shortest tubing lengths and also make sure that the pump is below the res to make bleeding and filling easier. And yes I have tested this with multiple temp probes at different points in the loop.
Click to expand...

Thanks, about the res, I already ordered an XSPC, so nothing I can do there, hope it works fine. I've ordered just the blocks and the res for now. Will get the rest of the parts maybe next month.

About the single D5, yes I really want to know if a single pump will suffice. I'll probably try a single pump first and see if I'm happy with the performance.

About the discussion we had about loop order, I see your point, If the water flows through the loop several times in a second then the loop order should not matter much and the deltas will be very low when the loop reaches equilibrium, but on the other hand the order we arrived at doesn't overly complicate the loop and it definitely feels like it's closer to the optimum configuration. So I think I'll stick with that.
 
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