Anyone doing watercooling these days?

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Qzrx just posted a very intriguing, high performance build.

EK still looks tops.

Yep, I am

More than happy to chat custom loops.

EK is good gear, but there's plenty else out there as well.

EDIT for instance:

Hardware Labs Radiators; I especially like their Crossflow range, which can considerably simplify tubing runs, something I took advantage of in my build(s) linked above. They also have the thicker and higher FPI (Fins Per Inch) GTR range, which give you more heat dissipation capability in situations where your radiator mounting options may be limited but you can accomodate a deeper radiator. They also make some white painted versions which can be handy in themed builds (if that's your thing).

AquaComputer and Watercool both offer really nice German made blocks and reservoirs, however both being smaller outfits than EKWB the availability is not as widespread and pricing probably not as competitive, especically in North America.

Fans - if you don't need RGB and bling, Arctic Cooling's PST fans are really good value for w/c, as are the "basic" Corsair ML fans that come with the grey impeller.

Bykski are a relatively new entrant into the W/C market, they are based in China but now have a US webstore (and US based shippign and support) so their products are more accessible than when it was all on AliExpress. The main advantage seems to be they have a really wide range of full cover blocks for GPUs.

There's also Corsair, who are new entrants but have come to market with a wide range of parts.

For pumps, the best options remains the Laing D5 and DDC, depending on how much space you have available. Lots of companies rebrand these, what arguably matters more is whether you go for a separate reservoir and a pump top (as I did), or a pump/reservoir combo (which are undisputably more convenient and easier to mount). I went for separate because it made it easier to softmount the pump and reduce the noise. They are actually considerably more pump than most loops really need, mine runs at "only" 2200rpm and I don't see any loss of cooling potential vs full speed (over 5000rpm, which is quite a bit noisier, both directly but mainly in the potential for vibration being transmitted to your case).

Other recent posts that might be worth reading:

On Reliability of watercooling
On Cost Effectiveness of watercooling

Worth deciding before you start whether you're building a custom loop for looks, or performance, or quietness, or some combination of the above, because the recommendations (and price!) can vary widely depending on the answers.

Cool Modine said:

I'm still in the phase of soaking up information, and figuring out who good brands and vendors are for components. So any suggestions would be nice.

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Good brands nowadays are most of the same that it's been for years: HardwareLabs, EK, Aquacomputer, Watercool, Swiftech, and Koolance all make gear that you can pick up without worries--some components will perform better than others but build quality, reliability, and performance across all of them will never leave you wanting. There's a few newcomers on the block like Optimus (very, very high-end equipment) or Bykski, Barrow, and Bitspower who do a lot of OEM work for others. Corsair is offering their own kits and components but everything they're selling is just a rebrand of one of the aforementioned vendors so it works, but you're paying extra for a Corsair logo on the side (and imo far worse design).


Re: my own builds, I have a water-cooled build that was originally in a Sliger Cerberus and just moved to a beta/preproduction Winter One. While air cooling can be quite good nowadays, you need massive coolers like the NH-D15 or Accellero 3 to run high-end gear at low temperatures and noise levels and those just aren't feasible in an SFF rig. Plus, water cooling is just fun for me.


Cerberus build:



Winter One build:

Cool Modine said:

Biggest limitation on ITX is that I want to go 10GbE on this system... No second PCIe slot on ITX. There are Thunderbolt 10Gbe adapters, but there's one ITX board with Thunderbolt...X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3. There are USB multigig adapters, but I don't have any multigig, and don't really want to replace my Brocade.

Kickstarter ends tonight on that Winter One, though... I might just impulsively get one no matter what.

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Could use a bifurcation riser maybe? Would require a little elbow grease but it's exactly the thing for this kind of problem.

https://peine-braun.net/shop/index.php? ... duct_id=81

Yep, it's LTT and it's (partly) air cooled, but if you're wanting to go ITX / x8/x8 slot bifurcation, this video may be of interest https://youtu.be/Z2s-q34FX7c?t=216. I know some folks love to cram as much as they can into a tiny little chassis; I (and my big hands!) salute them but for me, unless you really want or need an ITX build, a compact ATX case makes things an awful lot easier (not only to build, but to maintain and upgrade as time moves on).

All of my commissioned builds for marketing new games etc over past three years have used AIO coolers. They're Reliable and maintenance free. The Reference GPU's by AMD & Nvidia don't "need" to be water cooled. That said, I do enjoy water cooling my personal builds, not for the necessity, but for the fun of it! my 917 tribute build is still going strong, running in the workshop 24/7. I swap out the distilled water twice per year. That's all you need, cause aftermarket cooling liquids are snake oils.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/06/26/lo ... -pc-tower/

I've done a few water cooled builds. I'm working on my 4th right now waiting for CPU and GPU availability like everyone else.

If I was going to do a build for the 1st time, I'd start with a high-end, kit and buy additional parts separately. This will save a lot of money. It will also be a lot easier to standup, at least because you'll have all the compatible parts.

I'd get a good kit with: CPU waterblock, pump/reservoir combo, radiator, tubing, and fittings. Then I'd buy a separate either off-the-shelf waterblocked GPU or a GPU waterblock for an owned GPU and the extra fittings.

Before you buy any kit make sure you have room in your case for the radiator and pump/reservoir.

An EKWB kit I like with a lot of head room is the EK-KIT P280. This kit is recently End-of-Sale at EKWB, but they are still available from: MicroCenter, Amazon and eBay. It would be hard to exceed the cooling capacity of this kit. All the parts also match in capacity and looks.

The Alphacool Hurricane Copper 45 3x 120 mm is another kit you should look at.

Then I would buy a waterblocked GPU like a EVGA Hydro copper or get an EKWB Full Cover GPU water block for whatever GPU you own and an additional FOUR EK-ACF Fitting 10/13mm - Nickel compression fittings (or the matching fittins for your kit). Compression fittings are also available at Microcenter, Amazon and eBay. Titan Rig is a reliable on-line store for small parts, but shipping is expensive. If you buy an aftermarket waterblock for an already owned GPU-- don't get nervous. Its pretty easy to convert a GPU from air to water.

Follow the directions in the kit. Plumb-it: pump/reservoir to CPU to GPU to radiator to pump/reservoir.


Working-up from a kit or adding to a kit can take a lot of the uncertainty and reduce the cost of your first water cooling build.

That's all you need, cause aftermarket cooling liquids are snake oils.

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If you're diligent enough to swap the coolant out sufficiently often, and you're confident the galvanic potential of all your loop components is close enough, distilled water can (and clearly does, for some) work as an approach. Equally, using a product with ethylene glycol (for corrosion protection) and Benzotriazole (as an anti-microbial) will allow the same coolant to run for years. In my case (ha, literally) two years, still clear as crystal and no degradation in performance whatsoever.
Now, that's a fluid with exactly three ingredients, all of which have a very specific functional purpose - it's not snake oil, it's chemistry. That said, when you get into the "pastel" fluids, or even coloured ones with dyes in, all bets are off, as I've written about before.

I mention this because I don't want people to get the impression that a owning a computer with a custom loop has to involve changing the coolant every six months. It doesn't, because AIOs (which as mentioned are typically very reliable and need no maintenance) work on the same physical principles. In fact they make things more difficult for their coolant because they often have an aluminium radiator to save cost, whereas custom loop builders typically use copper radiators.

steelghost said:

That's all you need, cause aftermarket cooling liquids are snake oils.

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If you're diligent enough to swap the coolant out sufficiently often, and you're confident the galvanic potential of all your loop components is close enough, distilled water can (and clearly does, for some) work as an approach. Equally, using a product with ethylene glycol (for corrosion protection) and Benzotriazole (as an anti-microbial) will allow the same coolant to run for years. In my case (ha, literally) two years, still clear as crystal and no degradation in performance whatsoever.
Now, that's a fluid with exactly three ingredients, all of which have a very specific functional purpose - it's not snake oil, it's chemistry. That said, when you get into the "pastel" fluids, or even coloured ones with dyes in, all bets are off, as I've written about before.

I mention this because I don't want people to get the impression that a owning a computer with a custom loop has to involve changing the coolant every six months. It doesn't, because AIOs (which as mentioned are typically very reliable and need no maintenance) work on the same physical principles. In fact they make things more difficult for their coolant because they often have an aluminium radiator to save cost, whereas custom loop builders typically use copper radiators.

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Echoing this 100%. My last loop used:

Pure/lab water
A pair of silver coils
A couple of drops of copper sulfate

I haven't changed the water in almost six years and it's still crystal-clear. It slowly evaporates over that many years but all that meant was I topped off the reservoir maybe twice in as long a period and everything was fine.

Be careful with using silver kill coils if you've got nickel plated blocks, they can interact.

But yes, if you're not after looks and the attendant additional maintenance it implies then distilled water and a simple additive will work best and require the least amount of additional work.

I'd also consider using EPDM tubing if you're not using a bling coloured fluid. It's far less interactive when it comes to using additives in your loop and doesn't suffer from leeching effects like some other tube types. EK's ZMT is the primary branded version of this in the water cooling world but you can get it elsewhere.

teubbist said:

Be careful with using silver kill coils if you've got nickel plated blocks, they can interact.

But yes, if you're not after looks and the attendant additional maintenance it implies then distilled water and a simple additive will work best and require the least amount of additional work.

I'd also consider using EPDM tubing if you're not using a bling coloured fluid. It's far less interactive when it comes to using additives in your loop and doesn't suffer from leeching effects like some other tube types. EK's ZMT is the primary branded version of this in the water cooling world but you can get it elsewhere.

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You can also look at Tygon R6012 (which is Norprene - PDF link), sold by a number of vendors, eg https://www.aquatuning.co.uk/water-cool ... 8-id-black.

Even if you are building a "blingy" rig, I think with the right fittings etc you could still make use of this kind of tubing; you'd get a different "look" for sure, but the payback (avoidance of plasticiser leaching) is well worth it IMO.

Weirdly Norprene has been accused of generating black residue, but it turns out that loop had copper and silver in it, and no other form of galvanic corrosion inhibition. My guess is the residue was copper (II) oxide. Norprene (and EPDM) tubing is widely in industry precisely because of their impressive resistance to all sorts of chemicals, the idea that it would break down because of some lukewarm water is mildly hilarious.

Equally amusing is the recommendation to use PrimoChill instead, which has a long history of interacting and leaching with anything more corrosive than a gnats fart.

I've had good results from distilled water and EK's cryofuel additive. I recently drained a 3 year old loop to swap in a new video card, and everything looked pristine still. The red cryofuel didn't even stain the hard tubing (some EK branded acrylic, some Bitspower branded acrylic) at all. The two tube types were definitely not the same tubing either. They were wildly different to bend. But these are hard tubing and you're talking flexible.

Cool Modine said:

I really need to put together a CPU&MB thread. I'm pretty set on water, but I've got to figure out motherboards and things as well. I may have to go for an X570/ATX board to get the features I want, or see if I can find a B500/mATX board that doesn't compromise too much.

My current favorite ideas for this build are:
- Sliger Cerberus / CerberusX with an external radiator. MoRa-3 360?
- Lian Li PC-O11D or possibly Mini with multiple rads.

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The O11 is probably the more practical build of the two, but an overkill external radiator appeals enormously to my inner silent computing enthusiast!

I'd totally forgotten that I am, indeed, doing watercooling, and have been all along - I have a Corsair AIO cooling my CPU. It's been there forever, quietly cooling the CPU with out fuss or bother. My last PC, all of ten years or so ago now, also had an early Corsair AIO (before we called them AIOs). I considered it a very neat device at the time, much like my OCZ Revodrive...

I've never done custom-loop water cooling but I'd like to. It's definitely on my to-do list but then AIO cpu coolers do the job very neatly and simply by themselves. Custom-loop seems quite an indulgence actually.

I'm curious how many use external radiators or indeed pumps for their watercooling. I've seen quite a few cases with twin holes to run tubing through. I've owned a couple of different Zalman Resorators, one black and one blue, though I never did use them and ended up selling them again.

Doomlord_uk said:

Custom-loop seems quite an indulgence actually.

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It absolutely is. I've spent around £500 on my loop, and for the CPU it's just sheer overkill. A bit less so for GPUs, but the factory coolers on modern GPUs are getting better at not deafening you (and being silent at idle), so arguably not strictly needed for them either, if you ventilate your case properly.

That said, I have found considerable satisfaction in building something that has earned my main PC the system name "Monolith", specifically a black box that is close to inaudible under almost any normal load, and remains very quiet, even under power virus abuse. Plus, the majority of the hardware I've used should have a very long service life, so I can enjoy the benefits for a long time to come.

Now this is SFF Watercooling!

FWIW I think one of the benefits of the AIO solutions is that you actually have fewer fans in your case - the CPU cooling fan IS the hot-air extraction fan, for instance. Though, I note a growing number of people put fans on both sides of the radiator. I'd always thought that was a bad idea, though I can't say why.

Putting fans in "push pull" on both sides of the radiator has been a thing for as long as water-cooling has. It's most effective when you have a radiator that's thicker than usual, and / or has high fin density, as it helps to overcome the pressure drop that would otherwise occur. With "slim" radiators (ie the normal 30mm ones) the pressure drop isn't that great and push pull fans are diminishing returns, although they can help maintain performance at low fan speeds / noise levels (which is why my 360 rad has six fans on it!)

The only downside to adding fans these days is cost, as long as you're using PWM fans and taking advantage of the sophisticated fan controls that UEFI and software applications offer.

The great advantage of AIO coolers is the simplicity and ease of installation, and that they offer quite a lot of the advantages of custom loops, but for a lower price. I'd argue that they aren't really worth it until you need the performance level of a 280 or 360 radiator, smaller AIOs don't really make sense vs. high end air cooling (unless you're talking about SFF builds etc).

Push-pull makes less sense these days with pressure optimized fans. You can generally get a greater performance increase by just switching to a thicker radiator for the same space sacrifice.

But, if your fans are more case fan optimised or you're going old school with some Black Ice GTX's, and refuse to use 38mm Delta's, push pull can help.

Cool Modine said:

Just saw this posted on reddit. It's not what I really want, but it is pretty badass.

https://www.warmoob.com/

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Intriguing design, but I can't get behind a product that is named for battle-ready man boobs. It's just too neckbeardy.

There's some pretty awesome semi-custom stuff going on out there. Not sure about the name though. Warm Oobs? War Moobs?!

The AquaComputer Airplex radiators are also pretty nice looking, although not on the same level. Check out their Gigant and Modularity ranges though!

steelghost said:

There's some pretty awesome semi-custom stuff going on out there. Not sure about the name though. Warm Oobs? War Moobs?!

The AquaComputer Airplex radiators are also pretty nice looking, although not on the same level. Check out their Gigant and Modularity ranges though!

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I'm a little skeptical of that case, mostly because of how poorly radiators like the Airplex perform; "big pipes and lots of copper" seems nice on paper until you see the results:



Source

It only gets worse as you increase fan RPM's and try sandwiched modes. The big issues in these designs are the number of flow paths (that case has fewer than a HWLabs GTS!) and the flat fins that result in far less surface area than dedicated PC cooling radiators.

Whilst it's true they are not as good as the really optimised stuff you see at the top of the chart, there comes a point where there's just so much thermal mass and surface area that it doesn't matter. But yeah, I read the heck out of that site back in 2018 when I was researching my loop. Sadly it looks like it's pretty much dormant now

For reference, the radiators I went with were the GTS X-Flow 280 and 360 (https://www.xtremerigs.net/2016/02/19/13271/ and https://www.xtremerigs.net/2015/09/19/h ... or-review/ ) - the 360 in the same config as the graph above "only" rated at 161W/10dT. It improved dramatically in push pull, which is why I ended up putting the three extra fans on it. The 280 by contrast, got excellent results just in "pull" config.

Between the two radiators, with the fans running at 700rpm, they can dissipate ~400W. That's when you realise you don't need the absolute best radiators to get decent results, although it's absolutely also useful to understand how much difference there can be between different radiators, in different scenarios.

steelghost said:

... The 280 by contrast, got excellent results just in "pull" config. ...

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280mm radiators are underrated. I've been using the 280 format radiators for my last 3x water cooling builds. There was a thread here years ago that started me looking into them.

Most cases, even many SFF ones can handle a single 280mm radiator.

I like the 480 format for the fewer, quieter, number of more performant fans you can use with them versus the 360mm radiator. Generally, 2x 140mm fans of the same quality for water cooling cost less than 3x 120mm fans. Individually, the 140mm fans run slower than 120mm fans to move the same amount of air making the build quieter. The 280mm radiator of the same depth also costs about the same as a 360mm radiator, although it has a little less (<10%) surface area.

The comparison changes with a 280mm vs a 240mm radiator. A 280mm radiator has 40% more surface area than a 240mm radiator. Although, the the 240mm radiator is generally less expensive, along with the cost of the fans.

I've been using EK and Alphacool 280mm radiators cause I'm familiar with them. The EK radiators are more performant. The Alphacools are less expensive. The EK Coolstream CE280s have been for single radiator builds and the Alphacool ST30s for double radiator builds. For the double builds, I've found using one Alphacool 'X-flow' with a 'regular' NexXxos gives some flexibility with the tubing topology.

My current favorite fan for a 280mm radiator is the Noctua NF-A14 industrialPPC-2000 PWM. Its a good compromise between: looks, radiator performance, noise and cost. Nothing sucks more than replacing a dead fan on a water cooled build. I've never, ever, had any Noctua fan fail. I've had two EC 140mm Varder failures. I've been getting the black Chromax pads for the Noctuas to get an 'all black' fan. With glass-sided cases some folks hate seeing Noctua brown.

I usually mount the fans in a 'pull' vs. the more cooling efficient push. The pull mounting silences these slightly noisy fans.

Aside from radiators, I just scored an EK-Quantum Kinetic FLT 240 Reservoir with D5/DDC Body on a Pre-Black Friday sale. I've been using tubular, combo radiator/pumps for my builds. It takes up less volume and takes less plumbing than the alternative. I'm thinking this 'flat' reservoir/D5 pump combo should be interesting? A problem I see already is the part is on a 240mm radiator mounting template.

In the same order I bought a Alphacool Eispumpe VPP755 for the flat reservoir. The EK part that came with a D5 had already sold out. I've used the VPP755 a couple of times. They're inexpensive and reliable. I'm hoping that it will seamlessly mount in the flat reservoir's D5 mounting? Otherwise, I've got a spare Alphacool pump body waiting that I know it will fit.

Cool Modine said:

280 and 360 are pretty close in size, 280 is maybe 10% smaller.

I've settled on going the ATX route for this build, so I can start thinking about case options a little more.
- Sliger CerberusX with an external radiator. MoRa-3 360?
- Lian Li PC-O11D or possibly Mini with multiple rads.

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I'm not sure I'm wild about that 'everything's an option' strategy with the Slinger? Its like buying an American car, everything you'd want to have costs extra. I'm less wild about the Lian Li with the 2x sides glass.

There are a couple of build logs out there using 2x 30mm thick, 280mm radiators 'out there' for the Slinger.

I'll bet you could get those 2x 280mm radiators internal on the Slinger? One on the floor, one on the front. I 'back of enveloped' there to be ~30mm to spare internally with a 6800 XT GPU. This also looks like a good use for a single Alphacool 'X-flow' with a 'regular' NexXxos. I'd put the X-flow on the bottom and the 'regular' with both ports 'high'. The Alphacools are not an ideal radiator, but 2x can soak-up enough heat and they're inexpensive.

Using that EK-Quantum Kinetic FLT 240 Reservoir hanging from the ceiling would free-up a lot of space above the tail of your GPU and the rear internal radiator. The 240-model gives you a large 265ml reservoir. The smaller 120-model gives you 100mls. The D5 pump is a given. You might be able to get the 120-model onto one half of one of the 280mm radiators with a 'spider' holder that has both 140mm and 120mm mounting holes or the top?

Have you looked at the Corsair SF750 PSU? It will save on internal volume and easily handle both a Ryzen 9 and either an RTX 3080 or 6800 XT. Problem is, they're as hard to find as: Ryzen 9 5000-series CPUs, RTX 3080/90s or 6800/XTs GPUs.

You don't need to put a radiator in the bottom of the O11D, you can go with a 360 in the top and either a 280 or 360 in the side, drawing in through the side panel. Something like this:



Fans in the bottom bring in additional cool air (which will improve the effectiveness of the top radiator and also cool your 10G NIC), and can help to "fill out" the appearance of the case if you want a place to put more RGB

Cool Modine said:

My plan for using a 10Gb NIC is actually a bit of a problem, as it mean using the PCIe slot in the chassis. That’s probably going to limit using a bottom radiator in any of these cases. O11D and mini can probably fit fans, but not a rad. O11 XL has more space below it though. Cerberus X might be able to do it more easily, it has more space below the bottom slot. 45mm, I’d guess...

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I was thinking the Cerberus X is the better choice. This is despite it not having the same fishbowl viewability as the Lian Li, although the plumbing quickly fades into the background.

I would consider putting a MicroATX motherboard in the Cerberus X? That would give you a PCIe/16 slot for a GPU, a PCIe/4 or 8 slot for a dual port 10GbE NIC. It would raise the lower edge of the motherboard above the 55mm of the fans and a thin radiator on the case floor. The ASRock X570M Pro4 or the MSI MAG B550M Mortar Wifi are examples.

I provisioned a Cerberus X as a 'thought experiment'. I cringed at the price of the Cerebrus X. US$265 is steep for a case. The DEMCiflex filters are an extra US$45. Although the compact size and with a black top is growing on me.

Cerberus X

Description: Cerberus X, Small Form Factor ATX / EATX PC Case [HTS: Sheet Metal Computer Case 8473.30.00.02]
Panel Color: Gray (Slate)
Panel Option (Open Side): Vented
Panel Option (Right Side): Unvented
PSU Mount: SFX Plate
Feet Option: Black SBR Feet
Top Panel: Vented Top Panel (same color as front and side panels)
Top Mount Bracket: Yes
SSD Bracket: None
Quad SSD Bracket: None
Dual HDD Bracket: None
Single HDD Bracket: None
Code:

I suppose $265 is the price of manufacturing in the US (and relatively small volumes with custom options, at that).

I'll be honest, I really like the idea of the Sliger X + MoRa, if you're looking for a statement PC it doesn't get much better!

steelghost said:

... I'll be honest, I really like the idea of the Sliger X + MoRa, if you're looking for a statement PC it doesn't get much better!

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I'm not seeing it. I think its going to be more: expensive, noisy, cumbersome and easily broken.

Besides being an expensive part by itself, I think its going to be even more expensive when you put good fans on it? Those exposed fans are also going to be noisy. Their visible motion will be distracting, even if you don't use RGB parts. Another problem I see is how awkward it will be having your box split across two enclosures? Horizontal space on or near your desktop is always at a premium. Your footprint with that radiator will be larger over an extended area. I find just the external, shielded cabling on a single PC a problem. Shifting or cleaning the thing while keeping all the connections (tubing and cabling) intact will be slow and hard to do. Its potentially disastrous should a vulnerable, exposed, coolant tube separate.

I just think keeping everything in a single, robust, enclosure will be cheaper and long-term less a maintenance problem.