Point me in the right direction please

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viking87

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Oct 13, 2014
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Hey guys, I could really use a head start from you all on selecting watercooling components. I’ve wanted to build a nice rig and water cooling set up for a long time and while I’ve finally got the money for it, the free time I have is dwindling. My main goals are a silent (-ish) setup that can handle heavy load: I plan to do some occasional gaming but also F@H much of the time. Overclocking only as much as to not sacrifice stability or getting too loud.
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe... really like the case but willing to take suggestions on this as well
CPU: i-7 5820k
GPU: looking for a good block/gpu combo if the price is right... just a single high end like Nvidia 970/980 or 780ti... otherwise may just stick with the strix for quietness and only water cool the cpu... strix may be pointless though if I run F@H on the GPU...
Budget, well I don’t have a number yet but I’d like quality components that would get the job done while not going bonkers. Thanks everyone!
 
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If you plan on multiple video cards, would suggest that you jump up to the 5830K if your budget allows as it has 40 PCIe lanes instead of the 28 on the 5820K. Cosair's AIO coolers are real simple to set up and use even on the vid card as well!
 
Thanks, but I think I'm going to keep it to a single GPU for now... could bump up to 2 later on the road but that's about it. And I'm leaning on the side of custom loop vs AIO cuz I always wanted to do one and I think I could make one that is quieter and performs better if I do it right...
 
Custom watercooling > AIO. All the time. Unless it's a really cheap and old custom system, or a system with not enough radiators for the parts. If you do full custom, I would say cool both the CPU and GPU. Watercooling the CPU alone isn't really worth it.

The Enthoo Luxe has spacing for a 3x140 mm radiator on top. It will be more than sufficient to cool your proposed system. The clearance to motherboard as stated by Phanteks is 65mm. Using traditional 25mm fans, you can put at most a 40mm thick radiator if you don't want it hanging over the motherboard. If you don't mind a 5mm overlap, I would recommend the Alphacool XT45. If you want, you can even fit a 240mm radiator in the front.

I would recommend avoiding EK and XSPC products due to past shoddy support.
 
Thanks Tsumi, that helped. I researched the XT45, for some extra clearance I may go with the alphacool ST30 3x140mm with some good quiet fans if that can keep up. Also considering adding a front radiator too, is there a practical limit to how many rads and blocks a pump can handle for flow restriction? Anybody have any quiet fan recommendations?
You've recommended against EK and XSPC, so I'm thinking about a koolance 380i vs the EK Supremacy. And for a good quiet pump, any qualms with the Swiftech MCP655? Thanks everyone!
 
I owned the Enthoo Luxe for about 10 days before tearing it down because I wasn't happy with it.

Be very careful with that 65mm of clearance, I find it is slightly misleading. I had my H110 in there with 2 standard 25mm thick 140mm fans, and I nearly ran out of room with regards to mobo clearance. The H110 is supposed to be 29mm thick, so the rad + fans should've been 54mm, leaving me about 1cm of clearance. In practice I found there was barely 5mm of clearance between the fans and the VRM heatsink.

Which reminds me, depending on how big your mobo's VRM heatsink is, you may not have a single mm of wiggle room beyond that 65mm (actually closer to 60mm). But there IS enough space between the top cover and the mounting plate to fit 25mm fans, so you can at least put the fans there if you really can't get the rad+fans to clear your mobo. It'll be that much noisier though just be warned.

Actually looking through some of the pictures I took while building, the placement of the various ports, as well as that EPS 8 pin connector could make or break you. The motherboard tray isn't "recessed", so unless the ports, EPS 8-pin and VRM heatsink don't get in the way, there's no room for overhang.

I would seriously recommend getting the Primo over the Luxe if you have any serious thoughts about building a custom loop. I switched to the Primo just in case the water cooling bug bit me, but even for just air cooling the case is awesome since you can fit so many case fans it essentially becomes a windbox lol.
 
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Awesome, thanks for the head's up on the case. I'm not sure if I want to upsize to the primo but I will definitely go do some more homework and see which will work better.
 
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