Rundown of the components needed for a watercooling system?

[Shmee150]

I've been looking at the kits available from Scan, and every one has some reason why it may not be suitable, which isn't very helpful!

I'm at the moment after cooling the CPU and GPU (being AMD 939 and NV 78GTX).

I've been trying to create a list of the components I would need, please could you check this over and add/remove as required!

Pump
Tank
CPU Block
GPU Block
Themal Paste
Tubing
Radiator (Can you get a radiator smaller than a 12cm fan? Like 2x8cm sized? And can it live inside the PC safely or not?)
Fans ?
Something to add to the water?

It seems that the only GPU block offered by Scan is the Alphacool NexXxos something which I make to be just short of £70 at the moment, is that what it costs? or is this a particularly high end version?

Thanks!

ShMeE

[Shmee150]

This is my attempt at working out how to put everything in:

Ignore the hard drives for now, was looking at possibly doing that eventually, but not immediately.



Where is the best place for the radiator? I was thinking it might be able to attach onto the side vent somehow, but even still it won't be a very good attachment, any other ideas?

Thanks,

ShMeE

[Butcher]

Yeah you'll need fans for the radiator.
I think 2x80mm rads are available, but I wouldn't recommend something that small for multiple blocks. You'd be wanting a 2x120mm or bigger really. It's fine to put the radiator in the case as long as you have good airflow through it (and you can fit it). It's uncommon to fit the whole system into a case smaller than a full tower.

You'll want some sort of anti-corrosive additive for the water, antifreeze is the cheap and easy option or there are various more specialised additives.

£70 sounds pricey for a water block for any component, you should be able to find something for about half that. Even my matched pair of asymmetric blocks for SLI cost less than £70 each!

[Dark Horse]

Points (in no particular order)

Have a look at the swiftech apogee, its a good block and in most systems performs as well as the storm.


80mm rads are utterly useless for todays computers and I have just upgraded to 2x120 as 1x120mm was struggling.
Something like a radbox would be easier than trying to fit the radiator into the case:

http://www.swiftnets.com/products/MCB-120-R2.asp

Although I made my own radbox (and fan shrouds) by chopping the fan out of a crappy 120mm fan and used the fan casing as a support.


Hdd cooling is pretty pointless, it decreases flow and dumps unnecessary heat into the loop.


Most graphics card waterblocks are vertical in out so your loop that goes round the end of the graphics card would in reality go over the top of it.


A res isn't really necessary as you can have a fill port.


Antifreeze isn't great but it does the job, something like water wetter is a bit better.


Fitting the pump/res there wouldn't be ideal as it would be a bitch to fill up (unless you had a fill port)