Corsair Air 540 Water Cooling Loop -- Suggestions Welcomed

[32degrees]

So I'm planning out my first water cooling loop for my system that I just recently migrated into a Corsair Air 540 from my Corsair 700D. I have a pretty good idea of how the layout of everything will be but I am more than open to critiques and suggestions. As it stands right now the only thing in my loop will be my CPU... possibly the RAM but I'm still out on that one.

Unfortunately as it stands right now there is no full-cover water block for my Gigabyte GTX 770 Windforce 3 OC since it is a non-reference pcb but hopefully someone will make one soon and it will be added into the loop as soon as I can.

So my current idea for my loop would be to go from the 1) Reservoir, 2) Pump, 3) 360mm Radiator (intake), 4) CPU, 5) 240/280 Radiator(exhaust) and then returning to the reservoir to complete the loop. The fittings for the 360mm radiator would be at the bottom more than likely to allow the best possible clearance of the top radiator. Then the 240/280mm radiator would have its fittings at the back of the case for the same reason pretty much. I'm still deciding on whether to do hard acrylic or rubber tubing, but leaning more towards hard acrylic to allow for the look I am envisioning in my head. Also the 2x 3.5" base in the bottom of the case are going to be removed, holes covered, and the two 3.5" storage drives currently occupying that space are going to be replaced by a single 2.5" 1Tb SSHD so it can be installed in the second compartment of the case.

The image below lists the components I have for sure decided on plus a rough layout of the major components. Also any suggestions are welcome especially regarding the radiators as I am still completely undecided on those at the moment.

 

[silverstonec2d]

The Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 360 Radiator may be worth a look for your 360mm front radiator as it's only 30mm thick. What thickness requirements are you looking for regarding the 240/280 rad? Also, for ram watercooling, are you contemplating this for functionality or the "bling" factor? From my understanding, it serves little purpose for removing heat as the heatspreaders do a good job already.

 

[Croak]

Stick the pump on the other side, it'll be cleaner, easier to decouple without being an eyesore, no worries about fouling the GPU, and there's no lack of room on that side either below the 5.25 cage, or above the PSU. Take advantage of the fact that it's a 540 and not a "conventional" case.

I'm running a XSPC AX360 and AX240 and it's a tight (but manageable) fit, means I had to put the fans outside the chassis and lost the factory filter in the process. 30MM rads will let you keep the fans inside with no worries. Fittings on the top are also possible with a slimmer profile rad.

That said, loving the looks and performance of the thicker AX rads (and the low fan speeds), and the case is so damned light it's not a big deal to rotate it when bleeding so fittings on the bottom of the 360 isn't really an issue other than longer tubing runs connecting the two radiators.

Here's mine:

First loop with the 240 fittings at the rear, Photon reservoir feeding the 360 and just there for bling mostly since I was using a bay res on the other side. There's only about 15mm of clearance at the top between the two radiators, both of which are 40mm units:

Re-worked loop feeding from the now necessary Photon 170 directly to a D5 pump only (bay res removed) and the 240 flipped with ports in the front (note the 2mm of clearance between the two rads now), and new non-Corsair (and therefore non-buzzy) fans:

There's ample room with my particular motherboard (M5E) and RAM to run push/pull on the AX240 if I so desired. Didn't feel the need myself, the AX rads perform very well in low RPM push only.

Also, the Photon 170 is easy to mount with extra Corsair thumbscrews in the spot you selected, and just two screws on one side hold it very secure, no need to drill and the mounting holes are the same standard thread pitch as expansion slot screws.

Also note no drives in the front side. First, I don't like the looks of drives on the floor, and with the Photon and 360 fittings, there's clearance issues besides...ended up flattening the rails into the floor again,and removing the hot-swap connectors. Ran a single SSD in the Corsair cage, and put my 3.5" 2TB HDD in the 5.25 bay. The 3.5 drive has since been replaced with a second SSD (1TB) since the HDD was the loudest thing in the system by far at idle, and I was only using about 500GB on that drive anyway.

Then again, I'm not a huge internal storage user, 1.25 terabytes is plenty internal storage for me, and I've got a big network drive along with external USB 3.0 and mSata enclosures if needed.

 

[32degrees]

Stick the pump on the other side, it'll be cleaner, easier to decouple without being an eyesore, no worries about fouling the GPU, and there's no lack of room on that side either below the 5.25 cage, or above the PSU. Take advantage of the fact that it's a 540 and not a "conventional" case.

I'm running a XSPC AX360 and AX240 and it's a tight (but manageable) fit, means I had to put the fans outside the chassis and lost the factory filter in the process. 30MM rads will let you keep the fans inside with no worries. Fittings on the top are also possible with a slimmer profile rad.

That said, loving the looks and performance of the thicker AX rads (and the low fan speeds), and the case is so damned light it's not a big deal to rotate it when bleeding so fittings on the bottom of the 360 isn't really an issue other than longer tubing runs connecting the two radiators.

Here's mine:

First loop with the 240 fittings at the rear, Photon reservoir feeding the 360 and just there for bling mostly since I was using a bay res on the other side. There's only about 15mm of clearance at the top between the two radiators, both of which are 40mm units:

Re-worked loop feeding from the now necessary Photon 170 directly to a D5 pump only (bay res removed) and the 240 flipped with ports in the front (note the 2mm of clearance between the two rads now), and new non-Corsair (and therefore non-buzzy) fans:

There's ample room with my particular motherboard (M5E) and RAM to run push/pull on the AX240 if I so desired. Didn't feel the need myself, the AX rads perform very well in low RPM push only.

Also, the Photon 170 is easy to mount with extra Corsair thumbscrews in the spot you selected, and just two screws on one side hold it very secure, no need to drill and the mounting holes are the same standard thread pitch as expansion slot screws.

Also note no drives in the front side. First, I don't like the looks of drives on the floor, and with the Photon and 360 fittings, there's clearance issues besides...ended up flattening the rails into the floor again,and removing the hot-swap connectors. Ran a single SSD in the Corsair cage, and put my 3.5" 2TB HDD in the 5.25 bay. The 3.5 drive has since been replaced with a second SSD (1TB) since the HDD was the loudest thing in the system by far at idle, and I was only using about 500GB on that drive anyway.

Then again, I'm not a huge internal storage user, 1.25 terabytes is plenty internal storage for me, and I've got a big network drive along with external USB 3.0 and mSata enclosures if needed.

That is actually very close to what I am looking to do right now and I completely understand what you mean about the pump. I've seen a lot of 540 builds where the person hides the reservoir and pump in the back and just didn't like the way it looked with just the rads and tubing in the front.