Advice on parallel loop design

[DASH-D]

Hey everybody,

I'm designing my future loop and would kindly request your help on loop design...

Would in your experience the following sequence be possible:

Pump -> rad -> T-fitting on CPU inlet, flow continues to vga -> RAM -> T-fitting on CPU outlet -> reservoir

Here is a link to a small drawing I did to visualize the project.

My main concern is about restrictiveness. What happens if the CPU block is much more restrictive than the VGA block? Imho the flow would pass more through VGA and less through CPU. That would result in bad temps.

I plan on using the following components for that system:

• EK Supremacy Acrylic CPU block
• EK Full cover Acrylic GTX 760 block
• EK RAM block Acrylic
• EK D5 X-Res and pump top
• Laing D5 vario
• XSPC 360 X-Flow radiator or equivalent
• Bitspower multi-link fittings
• Bitspower T-Fittings
• Akrylic tubing

 

[Tsumi]

Any particular reason why you're using EK?

Why an X-flow radiator?

For a system with that few components, parallel loops are not worth it. Ideally, when you do parallel loops, you want each component in the loop to have the same resistance.

 

[M0Dark]

Why would you pump water from a hot source back into your res? The hotter the liquid the more effectively the rad will remove the heat. Flow should go: Reservoir-Pump-Waterblocks-Radiator-Reservoir.

 

[DASH-D]

Thank you guys for the replys.

It might be worth to mention that this is going to be a scratch build and that the components will be mounted vertically on a black or smoked acrylic pannel. The grafics card will be mounted flat by using a PCI-E extender and in order to show the water block. The radiator and pump config will be next to the itx motherboard and to the graphics card.

The goal of this build will be more aesthetic oriented than performance.

@Tsumi:
I go with EK because of their range of products with transparent acrylic. In my knowledge, no other manufacturer has CPU + RAM + VGA blocks in acrylic. If you can point me to one, you're welcome.
The X-Flow rads fits the architecture just fine. Having the in and outlet on the same level makes things more complicated.

I am aware that the few components are not "worth" for parallel. However working with T-fittings on the CPU will give me better aesthetics. It will allow me start and finish the loop with the CPU block and get symmetric tube routing. BUT I'm worried that the CPU block does not get enough flow at all.

@M0Dark:
The order of components does not matter. Water heats up gradually through many revolutions across the loop. There is maybe a 2°C differences at maximum between the in and the outlet of a radiator or between the beginning of the water blocks section and its end.

 

[Imitation]

@M0Dark:
The order of components does not matter. Water heats up gradually through many revolutions across the loop. There is maybe a 2°C differences at maximum between the in and the outlet of a radiator or between the beginning of the water blocks section and its end.

This is correct. Really the only thing some people need to worry about is having a res before the pump to make sure it can be easily primed and your component selection takes care of that issue.

But to your original question, I agree with Tsumi that in general parallel isn't ideal for performance. If you're worried more about how it looks then how it performs then I'm not sure why you're asking for our opinion?

 

[DASH-D]

If you're worried more about how it looks then how it performs then I'm not sure why you're asking for our opinion?

Because in the end I was a little too worried about bad performance. I guess now it is not a big deal.

However the discussion here made me consider a normal non x-flow rad and that improved the layout! So it was already worth.

Thank you guys.

 

[M0Dark]

@M0Dark:
The order of components does not matter. Water heats up gradually through many revolutions across the loop. There is maybe a 2°C differences at maximum between the in and the outlet of a radiator or between the beginning of the water blocks section and its end.

Granted it may not make a massive overall temperature difference but neither does that extra 100 MHz or 0.1Vcore so to quote Tesco's "Every little helps"
If you are in this for the aesthetics then by all means fit the loop in whichever order looks best but for pure performance everything in water cooling has to do with temperature differentials (Delta T). You will have a Delta T between the hot water after the block section and the Water in the reservoir. If you put the hot water from a block section into a reservoir it will average out the heat of the 2 volumes of water cooling the hot and warming the cool. Then this with this averaged water you have a lower Delta T between the ambient air flowing through your rad and the 'hot' input to your rad. This will lower the effective cooling capacity of the radiator. This is how thermodynamics works, why not make the most of the system you just spent a lot of money and time on.
Flow will of course make a much bigger difference than loop layout.