New to WCing

[Chuckls]

I'm new to watercooling and am looking for advice on where to start. The thread pinned for where to start is from 2009, so I'd imagine things have changed.

I'm looking to cool my CPU and GPU. CPU is a i5 7600k and PGU is a 1080ti SC Black edition. I Can get corsair H100 v2's for insanely cheap, but I've read their pump flow is abysmal.

The 1080ti black edition seems to be compatible with Titan XP watercooling components?

Suggestions on where to start?

 

[VanGoghComplex]

Start with JayzTwoCents' YouTube channel, and digest every minute of his watercooling videos. From there, bring any questions you still have here. Jay is excellent at explaining the basics. =)

 

[Chuckls]

Start with JayzTwoCents' YouTube channel, and digest every minute of his watercooling videos. From there, bring any questions you still have here. Jay is excellent at explaining the basics. =)

Thank you! I'll make sure I watch them!

 

[Smoked Brisket]

Start with a budget. If you are looking to cool gpu and cpu, and you want to do it right, be prepared to spend 3-400 dollars. You will need 360 mm of radiator, 3 quality fans, a pump, a reservoir, tubing, fittings, a cpu block and, as you know, a gpu block. You can buy a kit, and save some money, but let me tell you if you go the kit route, and end up liking water cooling, it will cost you money in the long run. I started with a kit from xspc, it worked fine, but within 6 months every component was replaced for more custom parts. You need to look at your case and figure out what will fit and then plan a loop based on that, and plan your purchases based on that loop. A basic loop would be: res to pump to rad to gpu to cpu back to res. Order in the loop does not matter except you must always have your res feeding your pump. As for components, everyone has a preference. I like Hardware Labs radiators, they seem to be higher quality than most others. I have used EK and XSPC as well without issue. Fittings are whatever you think looks best, I assume you will be going with soft tubing for the first time so just make sure the fittings ID and OD match your tubes. Get compression fittings. Get a d5 res/pump combo. You will save a little money, not much though. Here is what I would get if I were to do it for the first time today:

HWlabs gtx 360 rad $110
ek d5 tube res/pump combo $150
ek supremacy mx cpu block $55
bitspower fittings? $50-100 depending on how many angled and rotary fittings you want in your loop
noctua nfp12 120mm fans x 3 $60 (everyone has an opinion on this, any high static pressure fans will suit your needs)
primochill tubing of your choice 10 feet will be about $25
distilled water from the grocery store $2
deadwater biocide to keep the loop free of algae $5
If you are overclocking get another 120mm of radiator $30

Dont waste money on thermal paste, use what EK sends you with the block, thermal paste will make no noticeable difference in temps based on brand.

Hope this helps you get started.

 

[Tsumi]

The thread from 2009 is still fairly accurate. Hardware has changed and gotten better, true, but not that much better to the point the guide is invalid. In particular, pumps and radiators haven't changed all that much.

Don't even bother with any CLC crap. Aluminum radiators, cheaply designed blocks, weak pumps, they're only good at being CLCs and that's it. As mentioned above, budget is the most important place to start. If you don't have at least $300 for watercooling, don't even think about it. It is a money pit, and you can get 90% of the performance at 50% of the cost with CLCs. Food for thought.

The next thing is figuring out what your case can support. You don't want to buy a radiator only to find out your case is not designed for it.

The top tier stuff are so close in performance, I would say aesthetics and cost would be the primary decision makers for waterblocks and reservoirs. Cannot go wrong with any variant of the D5 pump (aka VPP655, MCP655, PMP-450, etc). I am biased against EK, and really like the design of Watercool and Aquacomputer blocks. HWLabs radiators are indeed really nice, and so are the Alphacool ones. XSPC tends to be more on the budget side of things, but still have solid performance.

I use a silver killcoil in the reservoir without any issues.