Liquid cooling in a NZXT H2

[Jaymzkerten]

So I'm new to liquid cooling, I've wanted to mess around with it for awhile but didn't have the budget for it. I recently pulled the stock cooler off of my i7-2600K and put an H55 on it and so far I'm loving the noise reduction on that alone, but now I'm wanting to take it a step further and liquid cool my R9 290, ideally in a single system with the CPU (I still have time to return the H55). I've been starting to look around but one of the biggest limiting factors now seems to be my NZXT H2 mid-tower case. I don't know how big of a rad I would need for both the CPU and the video card (I was planning to do the full card and not just the GPU), is it pretty much guaranteed I would need a 120.2 or would I be able to get by with a smaller rad? The only options I appear to have without modding the case are a 120 like the H55 or a 140 on the top vent.

 

[Jaymzkerten]

So I'm assuming by the complete radio silence and from the research I've done so far that it won't be ideal to stick with the H2 if I want a custom setup. I've started looking around at other cases and so far I'm leaning toward a Corsair 760T or 780T (760 I was able to look at at a local Fry's). I figure if I'm going to be tacking on a new case to this build I might as well pick one that gives me room to expand the system later if need be. Does anyone have experience with a custom loop in either of these cases? Would you recommend it or something else if so?

 

[Gideon]

I built my own custom system about 8 months ago. I used a NZXT Switch 810 for my case and I am cooling a 290x with a full coverage block and my overclocked 8350 which is at 4.7 ghz. I used a ut60 360 and a 240 for radiators. That keeps my gpu at 56 C and my cpu at 60 C under full load. It would likely do a bit better but I keep my house a bit warmer than most at 78 F. I love the case as it has tons of room for water cooling and was not horribly expensive. Anyway I hope that helps you out a bit.

 

[Jaymzkerten]

Yeah the 810 looks like a good alternative to the 780, though the black seems to be out of stock everywhere...

 

[Dangman]

So I'm assuming by the complete radio silence and from the research I've done so far that it won't be ideal to stick with the H2 if I want a custom setup. I've started looking around at other cases and so far I'm leaning toward a Corsair 760T or 780T (760 I was able to look at at a local Fry's). I figure if I'm going to be tacking on a new case to this build I might as well pick one that gives me room to expand the system later if need be. Does anyone have experience with a custom loop in either of these cases? Would you recommend it or something else if so?

I've worked on a few custom loops for the Switch 810: It's not a bad choice at all for those custom loops. But between the 760T and the Switch 810, I'd go for the 760T since it's a tad better engineered/designed and looks better IMO.

Yeah the 810 looks like a good alternative to the 780, though the black seems to be out of stock everywhere...

More than likely NZXT is trying to phase out the Switch 810. Also, black is always the more popular color for cases. Hence why that one sold out and the white is still available.

 

[Jaymzkerten]

So do you think that a new version of the Switch might be around the corner? Otherwise the only thing I have against the 760/780 is the large rad blocking the 5.25 bays issue. I can probably get by with just 1 5.25 bay (currently have a DVD and bluray drive in my H2, can probably ditch the DVD drive at this point), it's just semantics at this point.

 

[Dangman]

So do you think that a new version of the Switch might be around the corner? Otherwise the only thing I have against the 760/780 is the large rad blocking the 5.25 bays issue. I can probably get by with just 1 5.25 bay (currently have a DVD and bluray drive in my H2, can probably ditch the DVD drive at this point), it's just semantics at this point.

Yes and no: NZXT is pretty consistent with their case numbering with their cases in a semi-ranked format. So while there is no new version of the Switch 810 itself, there is the Phantom 820. Technically the 820 is higher than the 810. If you look inside the Phantom 820, there's a lot of similarities between it and the Switch 810. Other cases to check out would be the Phantom 530 and 630 cases.

Or the Phanteks cases:
$100 - Phanteks Enthoo Pro Full Tower Case
$230 - Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

 

[Jaymzkerten]

Thanks for that, I ended up getting the Enthoo Primo, should work out quite nicely. Now I just have to see about swapping out the blue LEDs to green LEDs when I get the money to do the water cool (I have intentions on a black/green setup when it's all said and done).

 

[Dangman]

NIce! Good luck!

 

[celwin]

Thanks for that, I ended up getting the Enthoo Primo, should work out quite nicely. Now I just have to see about swapping out the blue LEDs to green LEDs when I get the money to do the water cool (I have intentions on a black/green setup when it's all said and done).

Excellent choice if I say so myself. I just got that case and man is that sucker HUGE; With a ridiculous amount of radiator mounting locations. Best case for it's price in it's segment IMO.

 

[Jaymzkerten]

Yeah one of the biggest (harhar) things I was looking for in a case was making sure it could easily support more rads later on down the line, and this one feels perfect without being as expensive as something like the 900D.

 

[Gideon]

Yeah i just could not fit that big of a case on my desk, and I really did not want to put my case on the floor. Looks like you have plenty of room for all the water cooling you could want.

 

[Gideon]

I used to do phase change cooling on my processor, but the power it ate and how heavy it made the computer case finally wore me down to just settling for water cooling. Truth be told I only had to slow down the processor a little bit from what phase change allowed me to do anyway. Course I should probably sell that unit I have one day.