First time working on watercooling, Need advice.

[Scorpionjwp]

I have been working on my case mod for awhile now and I have realized in the past on my other systems air cooling can go so far.

So today, I spent about 130.00 dollars for a Coolermaster Aquagate all in one.
I saw what cpu cooling block it came with it, but I seem to wonder if I should stick with what the kit has or get something better of a cpu block.

All I have got so far is the aquagate, my budget ran out again to buy anything else for sometime.

But I need some advice, I plan to overclock alittle and I know my system will be at least a AMD 64, but not sure of what speed yet.

I would like to have some sort of hard drive cooling and video cooling, but I am unsure of what type.

If anyone would like to swing into this thread and give a watercooling noobie some ideas and direction I congratulate you helping me.

 

[JZL']

Some specs might help. I'm not familiar w/ that kit but I can offer a few general tips.

Plan, plan, plan. And when you're done planning, plan some more. Make measurements. I like to use plastic wire-tube looming to "mock-up" and measure before messing w/ my vynil tubing.
Remember you'll have to have access to the guts of your system later on, so plan accordingly.
It's usualy a good idea to get good quality tubing or if you want you can order some Coolsleeves from Swiftech (fits over tubing and you can bend it more w/out kinking).
Most ppl I know use distilled water since it has lower salinity and isn't as conductive if things go wrong. Use an additive. These reduce the viscosity of the water and keep stuff from growing in your warm water (for which reason I like to call these additives "mouthwash")
Remember that some day you'll have to break the whole thing down. Make sure you have an "escape route" so you can take the whole thing apart without a major hassle. I've found that one of the hardest things in watercooling is getting the tubes back off the barbs and I know some ppl who put a lil vaseline on the barbs before they put on the tubing (it doesn't mix w/ water).

Anyway, just some quick thoughts . . .

 

[SpoogeMonkey]

It's an ok starter kit, but it suffers the same as TT's bigwater kit: small rad, small tubing, weak pump, and noisy fan. From the reviews I glanced at, it won't allow any major oc's and it's very loud at max fan speed. If you didn't overclock, you might be able to add a gpu block...but forget about adding any hd cooling....which you don't really need anyways.......good airflow over the drives will do fine.

But it does look nice and its simple to install. Have a look at the review

 

[Scorpionjwp]

I know right off hand the motherboard I will be planning to get is the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe.
I currently don't know what processor or video card to get at the present moment.

I won't be pushing the overclock on my pc very hard, just mild overclocking. I'll have plenty of Access to my system upon later on I have to work on something. I have been building my case pretty much from scratch, so access to my components will be no problem.

Anyone using a Coolermaster Aquagate, have you used the cpu cooling block that came with the kit or went with something better?

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[SpoogeMonkey]

You'll like that asus board. Mine was a great overclocker, and comes with an abundance of cables, great manual,raid, sli,onboard 5.1,etc.

As long as you know the limitations of a small kit like this, it'll do what you want. But it is selfcontained, and a snap to install. I would cut out the back of the box though for better airflow and less noise, and get a better fan.