Thinking of starting a foray into Water Cooling!

[Nemz0r]

Hi guys (and girls?),
I'm thinking of jumping on the water cooling bandwagon, after building three of my PCs I think it's about time! Those experienced in it can you advise on what I would need to cool... lets see...

Giving large leeway on the components:

150W TDP CPU
35W TDP NB
2x 200W TDP GFX cards

So in total 585W TDP to be cooled (maximum, at stock TDP figures come out at roughly 460). That's a heavily overclocked Q6600, X38 chipset using DDR2, and 2x 4870. Would it be wise to have two loops? Perhaps a bay mounted radiator for CPU + NB loop, and a 120.3 rad at the top of the case fuelling the two graphics cards loop?

I've never done any water cooling before so i've no idea if that's practical or what . Please advise :>.

PS. that same MSI "ready for PC2008" ad has been showing for like half a year or something now .

[Webby]

Have you tried checking what your actual power draw is?

For example my overclocked E6550 (3.5GHz) with a 3870 (see "My System" for everything) draws 210W under full load from the wall assuming 85% efficiency in the PSU I am only using ~180W on my CPU, graphics, memory, motherboard, 2x hard drives, DVD and 3x 120mm Fans. Not sure what the TDP's on all that would be but guessing that it probably should be more than I'm actually using.

As to how much radiator you will need it will all depend on how much noise you can except from the fans. If you can handle 3 fans at ~2000rpm (loud as a loud things loud bits) then a single thermochill PA120.3 would be sufficient but I would probably suggest going for as much as you can fit in so if you can get a triple rad in the top to your case and duel at the bottom perhaps or just a single that would be good. I wouldn't want my CPU attached a bay rad (unless the is a good one I know nothing about) they will just dump the heat into the case reducing the efficiency of the other rad.

As for single loop or duel loops remember that a pump will add to the heat load of the system ~90% of the heat generated by the pump will be dumped to the water so for arguments sake just assume that whatever the pump needs power wise will be added to the system. A decent pump DDC 3.2 uses 18W so by having a single loop you remove a pump and 18W of heat dump from the system. The problem will come when you try and find a pump which can pump enough water through all the blocks, this is where Martins Flow rate calculator comes in handy go here http://www.martinsliquidlab.com/ and have a go with it (requires excel). Just had a quick play with it and with 2 XSPC Razor full cover GPU blocks, a D-tek Fuzion v2 and a swiftech MCW30 (chipset) with a Thermochill PA120.3 and a PA120.2 a Laing DDC 3.2 with an XSPC res top should give you plenty enough flow for decent cooling.

[Nemz0r]

Thanks Webby, i'll have a gander at that excel thingy and read around a bit more!