Need general opinions...

[bilbat]

Am planning first water cooling system; have no experience; thinking this:

using these:

1x Danger Den DD-CPX-Pro 12V Pump
1x Black Ice® GT Stealth 360 XFlow High Performance Radiator
1x Swiftech MCRES-MICRO Rev. 2 Reservoir
2x Zalman VGA Water Block for ATI Radeon HD3850, 3870 Series
1x EK-Supreme Universal Premium High Performance Water Block - Acetal
1x EK-SB GA-X38 Northbridge Water Block - Acetal
1x EK-NB/SB 5 Southbridge Water Block - Acetal
1x EK-Mosfet GA X38/48 Mosfet Water Block for Gigabyte Motherboards LGA 775 chipset X38/48
1x Koolance INS-FM17 Coolant Flow Meter & Adapter Board
2x Delrin/Acetal 90 Degree Fitting
4x Delrin/Acetal "T" Fitting

Is this flow diagram optimal, or -

do I need to somehow re-order the flow/splitting?
will I need ball valves after the 'in' tees and ells, to trim up flows?

Any ideas welcomed at this point, BEFORE I start committing cash!!!

Thanks,

Bill

 

[Arcygenical]

No... Three parallel loops, with unbalanced restrictions, a HUGE tubing run and a multitude of elbows and very restrictive waterblocks?

Your diagram is sound, and would work great, provided you use an incredible pump... We're talking, a 24v Iwaki RD30 here... Which is about 5x more powerful than the pump you selected.

Also, what parts are you cooling?

 

[soulesschild]

What Arcy said.

It's better to use two loops.

Cool the GPUs on an MCP655 using a triple TFC/TC.

Then for the CPU/NB/SB/mosfets, use a MCP355 with custom top to overcome the restrictiveness of mosfet blocks. You could probably use a double rad here and be fine.

 

[bilbat]

Am cooling:
GB GA-X48-DS5 w/f8a BIOS - Q9550 stepE0 @ 3.825Ghz:
Arctic Cooling Freezer7Pro w/92mm PWM 'daisy-chained' to CoolIt Systems RamFan w/EverFlow F126025BU 60mm PWM;
Sunon KDE1204PFV2 40mm/NorthBridge; EverCool EC3010M12CA 30mm/SouthBridge;
8Gb (4x2) 1066 G.Skill F2-8500CL5D @ 1080 (DDR2-8640) 5-5-5-15 on 2.4(6:5)mult/1333strap...
CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 w/Silverstone SST-CMD01 ESA 5ch fan controller/4ch temp sensor:
3 Arctic AC12L exhaust (top x 2 + rear); 2 Scythe SF12D (HDD cage top + rear); Scythe SF12E bottom intake...
Koutech IO-FPM220 3.5" Floppy & Card Reader; 2 IDE DVD's;
4 150Gb WD Velociraptors in two RAID0 pair-OSs & swaps; 2 1Tb WD RE3s in RAID1-data; 1 Sg 1.5Tb backups...
Multiboot via BootIt NextGeneration:
VistaUltimateX86/VistaUltimateX64/XpProX86/XpProX64(courtesy of TechNet)

Will lope over 4Ghz, but heat dump into small room is atrocious...

Some revisions per suggestions so far:

1x Swiftech MCP655 Water Pump - $80
1x Swiftech Radiator - MCR320 Quiet Power Res Series 120mm Heat Exchanger - $76
1x Swiftech MCRES-MICRO Rev. 2 Reservoir - $25
2x Koolance VID-385 VGA Water Block for ATI Radeon HD3850 Series - $75
1x EK-Supreme Universal Premium High Performance Water Block - Acetal - $75 (Still out on this...)
1x EK-SB GA-X38 Northbridge Water Block - Acetal - $45
1x EK-NB/SB 5 Southbridge Water Block - Acetal - $45
1x Koolance INS-FM17 Coolant Flow Meter & Adapter Board $39 w/noz
2x Koolance Crossover SLI/xFire Slide Fitting

and throw a couple finned heatsinks on the MOSFETs?

 

[soulesschild]

you're still probably going to run into not enough pump head/pressure using only one pump, unless its a iwaki rd-30.

Also for CPU i'd choose the swiftech GTZ.

 

[theseeker]

I agree with all of the above and I would rethink your vga coolers. The EK's are a much better solution.

 

[Arcygenical]

Can you not run 2 lines from the reservoir, each with their own pump, that both feed into the radiator?

 

[bilbat]

Revisions per feedback:
1x Swiftech MCP655 Water Pump - $80
1x Swiftech Radiator - MCR320 Quiet Power Res Series 120mm Heat Exchanger - $76
1x Swiftech MCRES-MICRO Rev. 2 Reservoir - $25
2x Koolance VID-385 VGA Water Block for ATI Radeon HD3850 Series - $75
1x EK-Supreme Universal Premium High Performance Water Block - Acetal - $75 (Still out on this; several people have suggested Fusion, gotta look into it...)
1x EK-SB GA-X38 Northbridge Water Block - Acetal - $45
1x EK-NB/SB 5 Southbridge Water Block - Acetal - $45
1x Koolance INS-FM17 Coolant Flow Meter & Adapter Board $39 w/noz
2x Koolance Crossover SLI/xFire Slide Fitting

w/MOSFETs cooled by finned heatsinks (MOBO has heatpipe assembly on NB/SB/MOSFETs - cool one, coll 'em all...
Video card assembly:

Tubing run not 'huge', drop to basement, from res to rad/pump will be ~3 ft.

 

[soulesschild]

Uh.....how are you going to mount this in your basement? attach it to the ceiling?

Like we said before, you're not going to get great temps with a setup like that, maybe acceptable. Any particular reason why you can't do internal mounting?

 

[bilbat]

Going between a couple of floor joists (in the 'ceiling' of the basement0, 9" deep x 14 1/2' wide; will probably put the three 120cfm+ fans on top, to blow warm air down into the basement, so heat doesn't collect in the 'box' formed by the joists (but they're sixty feet long, so it probably doesn't matter); will use a relay triggered by the comp's aux 12V to switch on a thirty amp 12V power supply for pump & fans, so THAT heat isn't in the PSU... Found that the 655 has a 'tach' output, so don't need the flow-meter (I'm willing to bet that if the rotor is turning, it's pumping); three fans & pump feedback will be run to the four available (and alarmable) fan sensing channels on the MOBO.

Any particular reason why you can't do internal mounting?

Whole reason is to get the heat out of the room - it's ~125 ft^2, and is four degrees warmer than the rest of the house, with the room heat vent turned off in negative centigrade outside temps - don't want to wait & see what it's like when summer gets here!

 

[xBabyJesus]

What's the system going to be used for?

If it's for gaming, you'd be better off just ditching the 2x 3850s and all the associated VGA watercooling, doing a simple single loop to the CPU with a 120x2 rad, eliminate the unnessecary NB+SB blocks, and take the approx $250 you'll save and go buy a nice 4870 1GB. You'll get the same over clocks, and probably overall less heat by the more efficient vid card.

 

[bilbat]

The thread title says "general opinions", not lame ones!

What's the system going to be used for?

If it's for gaming, you'd be better off just ditching the 2x 3850s and all the associated VGA watercooling, doing a simple single loop to the CPU with a 120x2 rad, eliminate the 'unnessecary' NB+SB blocks, and take the approx $250 you'll save and go buy a nice 4870 1GB. You'll get the same over clocks, and probably overall less heat by the more efficient vid card.

Don't game; engineering workstation; two cards for four monitors: logic design, win-based touch-screen developer, AutoCAD electrical for schematic and P&ID design, and Visual Studio to write the 'glue' that binds the logic controller, the interface, and the management Office systems together; ever occur to you one might pick the 3800s specifically for their relatively low power, and enough balls to handle aero on four hi-res monitors? Notice that a 4870 1G has either two six, or a six and an eight pin extra power plug(s)? They draw between 50 and 75 watts more power than a 3850; that's 100-150 extra watts in the box - has to go somewhere... You think that 'efficient' 4870 is stirring a 'magic pot' and spitting that power out as streams of extra-fast photons from your monitor? It's sitting there dissipating BTUs!

 

[Gazmtk]

unless your planning on removing or modifying the EK Supremes Accelerator plate ditch it! trust me on this, tho the EK Supreme LT (only $50!) would be a far better block as it wont be as restrictive!
If you want my honest opinion, because your stacking up on multiple blocks for 1 loop consider going DD TDX-MC and the DD NB and SB blocks they are very free flowing otherwise looking good
ohhh and one last thing, if you can get some high flowing 90degree joints, stack 2x MCR320 together, it will help drop the temps and it wont add much restriction.

 

[psyshack]

I have plans for a massive WC setup. have had some of the parts for a few years. Just can't get off my lazy butt to work on it.

I have a Air Handler Coil to mount under my house with a Attic fan and 120v B&G PL-30B and a PL-36B pumps. Need to get the copper pipe and fittings and make my supply and return headers and blocks.