Water Cooling questions. [First time]

hey guys just I'm planning on setting up my first water cooling system real soon and have even brought a few parts from someone on H on it but I have a few questions that was not covered on the stickies posted on the forums.

Fittings
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1. I see in E-tailer shops there are two types of fittings; Barbs and compressions. every guide I see mentions using Barbs but not compressions. my question is can Compressions fittings be used to connect all blocks to tubes without using Barbs? I am worrying about not properly tightening the tube if I use Barbs.

2. Quick Disconnects; where would these be placed in your loop?

3. T-Line is this really needed?

Reservoir
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1. Does it make a difference in what kind of reservoir you get? Are there any highly recommended ones?

2. If using distilled water how often you have to refill your water cooling system?

GPU Blocks
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1. The motherboard I am planning to use for this system supports tri sli/xfire and I have 3 cards. (using only 1 at the moment) When all cards connected there is little to no room between card slot 1 and 2 (maybe a milimeter or less.) my question is will I be able to use full blocks on all 3 cards? I am worried of not enough space for full blocks on cards 1 and 2.

Radiator
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1. I plan on getting a Mora 3 Pro (9x120m Fans) as I will be cooling 3 GPU's + CPU + (possibly full board block) my question is what kind of fans are needed for it. Is it normal Case Fans? If so what is the difference between fan bearing types? more specifically what bearing should I go for?


Thats all for now. Though I might ask more later.

I am far from a water guru or anything, and I have only just completed my own first water build, but I will try to give you a few answers.

shatterstar said:

1. I see in E-tailer shops there are two types of fittings; Barbs and compressions. every guide I see mentions using Barbs but not compressions. my question is can Compressions fittings be used to connect all blocks to tubes without using Barbs? I am worrying about not properly tightening the tube if I use Barbs.

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Yes, you can use compression fittings on your entire system. That is what I do.

shatterstar said:

2. Quick Disconnects; where would these be placed in your loop?

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Dunno about this one, since I don't use them. But I would guess between an outside radiator and the case.

shatterstar said:

3. T-Line is this really needed?

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Nope. Of course it can be useful when draining a loop, but it is far from needed. I personally don't use a T-line. Instead I usually drain the reservoir and tilt the case to fill it again - and repeat. When I have drained enough to disconnect a lower tube, I can then drain the entire system.

shatterstar said:

1. Does it make a difference in what kind of reservoir you get? Are there any highly recommended ones?

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I guess the main difference is how you mount the reservoir. You can go with 5.25" bay or a tube. The second difference to consider is whether or not the pump can be mounted together with the reservoir. I went for a reservoir where I could mount the pump underneath, so I wouldn't have the hassle of mounting the pump in the case. In my limited experience, this also helps when filling the loop.

shatterstar said:

2. If using distilled water how often you have to refill your water cooling system?

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At the moment I run purely on distilled water, and I aim to refill every couple of months, but I also plan on getting some additives to prevent algae and corrosion. I know this is a place where you will find loads of different opinions throughout the water cooling community.

shatterstar said:

1. The motherboard I am planning to use for this system supports tri sli/xfire and I have 3 cards. (using only 1 at the moment) When all cards connected there is little to no room between card slot 1 and 2 (maybe a milimeter or less.) my question is will I be able to use full blocks on all 3 cards? I am worried of not enough space for full blocks on cards 1 and 2.

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It won't be a problem at all. If there is room to mount the cards with stock coolers, then the waterblocks will only use half of that space. My two cards used to be sandwiched together with a mm of space when using stock air coolers. You just get the waterblocks and a SLI/CF connector or bridge.

shatterstar said:

1. I plan on getting a Mora 3 Pro (9x120m Fans) as I will be cooling 3 GPU's + CPU + (possibly full board block) my question is what kind of fans are needed for it. Is it normal Case Fans? If so what is the difference between fan bearing types? more specifically what bearing should I go for?

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That radiator is crazy huge. I would personally go for something a little smaller, which you are able to mount in or on your case - but really a matter of opinion.

But yes, you use regular case fans. It is usually a compromise of sound levels and performance, but if you want high performance, you should look for fans with a high static pressure.

As for the bearing types, I know of sleeved and ball bearings. From what I understand, ball bearings are preferable, and should produce less noise. I think the Scythe Gentle Typhoon series use double ball bearings, and I can only recommend these fans.

1. I use worm-gear clamps with barb fittings, they provide a much tighter fit than any compression fitting. Also, compression fittings are about 3-4 times or more expensive than barb fittings, and since you need two per component, it quickly adds up. However, you can use them for aesthetic reasons and if cost is not an issue.

2. Quick disconnects should be placed around the components most likely to be removed a lot. Or, since you're using an external radiator, at the external radiator so you can quickly disconnect it and move your computer around easily. Place them where it makes the most sense to you, since they're designed for quick swapping of components.

3. Not needed if you have a reservoir. I personally do not have a T-line.

1. I recommend the Swiftech Micro-Res V2 as a great budget reservoir. If not on a budget, get one that suits your needs and appeals to you aesthetically, I'm a big fan of those fancy looking Frozen-Q T-virus reservoirs. Also, I recommend you staying away from the 5.25" bay reservoirs that integrate the pump. Pump vibrations can and do travel through the reservoir into the case, causing unnecessary noise. It's always a good idea to place the pump on some padding.

2. Refill just to keep it topped off. Completely change the water about once or twice a year.

1. Fullcover GPU blocks turn your cards into single slot cards. Only the universal ones take up more space than just one slot.

1. Why a Mo-RA Pro 3? I would get Gentle Typhoons if you can afford them and find them. They're the best noise/performance fans on the market.

Tsumi said:

1. Why a Mo-RA Pro 3? I would get Gentle Typhoons if you can afford them and find them. They're the best noise/performance fans on the market.

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I had private messaged someone a while ago about a water cooling for a different build that has tri Nvidia 580's and he recommended the mora 3. While I am not using tri 580's I do have Tri Ati 6970 I am using in the build so I'm guessing its similar. Reading a few threads I seen that people say it will take at least 2 120m fans to achieve better cooling than stock on a GPU. so my build is:

Gigabyte P67 UD7-B3
Intel 2600k
16gb ram
3x ati 6970's
2x Intel 160gb SSD in raid
1x WD 2TB drive.
NZXT Phantom Case

As said will be cooling: 3x GPU's, 1 CPU and Motherboard block (possibly)

My casing will not let me mount the radiator to the top of the case because of its odd design. I can possibly place inside the case in the top of case but then I will be sacrificing 200m fans which I don't really want to do. I wanted a external radiator. I have the space for it (Huge Desk) but I didn't want to have multiple rads henceforth the reason I chose Mora 3.

Motherboard does not count. Heat output by motherboards are minimal at best, and not necessarily unless you're aiming for high overclocks with outrageous amounts of voltage.

Heat output of three 580's is much higher than the heat output of three 6970's. Not even similar.

Single 4x120 (480) radiator would be sufficient with medium speed (approx 1500 RPM) fans. Or you can get a 4x140 (560) radiator. If you want to go with the Mo-ra Pro, I would suggest going ultra-big and just getting the 140mm fan version of it. 9x140mm worth of area cooling is just massive, and should be sufficient to cool at least 2 systems of your caliber with medium-low speed fans.

That radiator is ridiculously overkill for that system. But since you're looking for an external radiator, I think it's kind of cool that you just go all-in with the Mora 3.

But the advice that you need at least 2x120 for each GPU to achieve better temps is just WAY off if you ask me. You will easily cut the temperatures in half on those GPUs.

i have two points to make here:

1.a cougar point will never need to be water cooled:

Max TDP 6.1 Watts

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from intel datasheet
1.b
cougar point doesnt need overvoltage unless your doing extreme overclocking, likely nothing you can accomplish at water cooling

2.
Sandy bridge only yields you two options:
a: two 8x slots
b: one 16x slot
cougar point yields you:
3 pci express lanes, used for all devices

not sure what that motherboard is claiming it can do to give you two 16x and two 8x slots, maybe its somehow converting from pci-e 2.0 to 1.0 at double the ports?

2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots.
2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2)
* The PCIEX8_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_1 slot and the PCIEX8_2 slot with PCIEX16_2. The PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode when the PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2 is populated.

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couldnt find any documentation, but i think i follow what they are doing:

they take the 16 lanes, run the two cards in parallel on the bus (slot 1, and slot 2) that will convert the pci-e spec down to a 1.0 spec
if you run more then two cards, it will run the cpu in 8x/8x mode (cant only do it on one slot, per architecture specs)



edit:
if your really into the idea of multi gpu i suggest going after gulftown, or wait for ivy bridge, which will share the same price bracket as gulftown from my understanding of what i looked at for roadmaps

ryuji said:

2.
Sandy bridge only yields you two options:
a: two 8x slots
b: one 16x slot
cougar point yields you:
3 pci express lanes, used for all devices

not sure what that motherboard is claiming it can do to give you two 16x and two 8x slots, maybe its somehow converting from pci-e 2.0 to 1.0 at double the ports?



couldnt find any documentation, but i think i follow what they are doing:

they take the 16 lanes, run the two cards in parallel on the bus (slot 1, and slot 2) that will convert the pci-e spec down to a 1.0 spec
if you run more then two cards, it will run the cpu in 8x/8x mode (cant only do it on one slot, per architecture specs)



edit:
if your really into the idea of multi gpu i suggest going after gulftown, or wait for ivy bridge, which will share the same price bracket as gulftown from my understanding of what i looked at for roadmaps

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I don't know if you've ever heard of it, it's called the NF200 chip. It doubles the amount of PCI-E lanes available on the motherboard. Of course, there's still only 16x available bandwidth between the CPU and the cards, but the cards now have more bandwidth available to communicate with each other.

Additionally, [H] testing has proven that with the superior overclockability and performance of Sandy Bridge, a NF200 Sandy Bridge system is superior (has higher framerates/performance) to a regular X58 Nehalem system.

i looked up the motherboard, no note of the nf200 chip, i checked for that, plus i suggested gulftown, which shows similar performance to sandy bridge at least stock vs stock. Does the nf200 coprocessor even support crossfire? thought it was a nvidia only deal

either way, if it does have the bridge gigabyte did a bad job at flaunting it, and i suppose it is a solution to the issue

ryuji said:

i looked up the motherboard, no note of the nf200 chip, i checked for that, plus i suggested gulftown, which shows similar performance to sandy bridge at least stock vs stock. Does the nf200 coprocessor even support crossfire? thought it was a nvidia only deal

either way, if it does have the bridge gigabyte did a bad job at flaunting it, and i suppose it is a solution to the issue

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Read this, it clearly has a NF200 chip. Actually, any P67/Z68 board that is certified for tri-SLI has to have the NF200 chip. And they don't need to flaunt the NF200 chip, they just need to flaunt the fact that it is tri-SLI/crossfire certified. Which more people understand than "has nf200 chip." Most people would be "what the hell is a nf200 chip and what does it do?"

Yes, the NF200 chip does support crossfire. It is just a bridge chip afterall, nothing more.

Please do not derail my thread. If you have comments (positive or negative) about my choice of water cooling I am more than welcome to hear it, but do not bring up my choice of hardware if its not relevant to water cooling.

Thx.

Is a fan controller needed for a radiator?
If so are there any fan controllers that supports 9 fans?

Threads get derailed all the time when people have questions about things. It's part of being on a forum, I would suggest not getting so worked up over it, and just ignore it.

Fan controllers are not needed.

Fan controllers with 9 channels to control them individually? I have not seen any like it. Most I've seen is 6 on one individual fan controller. However, you can put multiple fans on a channel up to the rated wattage of the channel. For example, if you have 5 watt fans, and a fan controller with 20 watts per channel, you can put 4 fans on that channel. Typically, most fans use 2-3 watts, maybe 4 for LED fans.

Well, I slightly changed my mind and ordered Mo-Ra 3 Pro (9x140) on Friday had also brought 18 Yate Loons for the rad as I saw threads that this rad supports 18 fans for a push-pull set-up. I know this overkill, but I've read on other threads most people are not satisfied with their first Water Cooling setup and end up replacing parts. At least this way I'm sure I won't be replacing this.

I still have to purchase my GPU blocks but that will have to wait for now as I dont have enough money to purchase 3.... (God I cant wait to finally put this together) will also need to buy a fan controller as these Yates can get pretty loud.

Very noobish question.... Now I've heard the term "push and pull" in many threads before but what does that exactly mean?

shatterstar said:

Well, I slightly changed my mind and ordered Mo-Ra 3 Pro (9x140) on Friday had also brought 18 Yate Loons

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Sweet - please post a picture once you get that beast up and running.

shatterstar said:

Very noobish question.... Now I've heard the term "push and pull" in many threads before but what does that exactly mean?

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It simply means you have fans on each side of the radiator. One pushing air through the radiator, and one pulling the air through the radiator.

I ie. only have a pull configuration on my rads due to lack of space in my case (and it rhymes too).