Water cooling noob checklist.

[DeFex]

Water cooling checklist:
speaking of being a noob, i guess it should be moved this to the water-cooling sub-forum


Ok i am a noob when it comes to water cooling, but i decided to give it a go, mainly because i can put the radiator in the window and blow the hot air outside in the summer.
and if i can get a few more mhz thats a bonus.

ill bring it inside in the winter or reverse the airflow.

anyways i have accumulated some water cooling stuff over the years from trades and so on, and want to make sure i order everything else i need.

what i have is a thermochill 120.2 radiator (with no barbs), a swifttech MCP655-b pump, a d-tek fusion CPU waterblock (which will fit my board, it has holes for lga775) and a swifttech water reservoir

I am going to run everything 1/2 inch since that is what size the pump uses.

what i have in my shopping cart is this. Please let me know if i have missed something or one of those items is crappy. (oh and i know i need hose clamps as well, ill get them from the hardware store)


Swiftech MCW60-R2 GPU Water Block for Most NVIDIA & ATI Video Cards 1/2 & 3/8 & 1/4 Barb Fittings

Swiftech Hydrx Water Additive Coolant 2 oz Bottle

Primochill Primoflex Pro LRT Black 1/2IN ID 3/4IN OD Tubing (10 Feet)

Bitspower 1/2IN High Flow Nickel Plated Thermochill G3/8 Barb Fittings (2 Pack)

and maybe a chipset block as well. i havent decided yet.

The system is an i7 920 on a P6T-SE with 12 GB OCZ reaper 1600 mildly overclocked to 3480Mhz which is the most i can get without increasing the voltage. xp64.
and a 8800GT video card (good enough for a couple of games i play and 3ds max)
The case is a Lian Li PC 05b which is very small, i will have just the blocks inside the case and build something to keep all the other stuff together with the radiator.

thank you for your time.

 

[Ringhal]

Fans for the radiator? Make sure you have enough barbs for your radiator, pump, radiator and water blocks. Lastly, I'd check to see if you need something to cool the ram on your video card. I use that Swiftech block to cool my 2 gtx 280's and I have a backplate for the ram. I have no idea if a similar thing is needed for your card, but I'd double check if you haven't already. The last thing you want to do is to have to wait for that last part to arrive in the mail. I know because I made that mistake last week...

 

[DeFex]

Thanks for the reply!

well the current video card cooling is only for the GPU, but some air blows on the other components.
I have some ramsinks, but ill look in to a kit for that

The pump has plastic barbs which cant be changed the reservoir has plastic ones that can be changed, and that waterblock for the GPU also has changeable ones., is it a good idea to replace all the plastic ones i can with metal?

I was thinking that i might want some quick couplers for where the hoses exit the case in case i need to move anything. is there such a thing?

I forgot to mention i have plenty of 120mm fans including 2 that came with that radiator. ill use faster ones and speed control them with a dial because i like the quiet when im working on sound, which generally doesnt require much CPU

and i dont mind putting a slow fan in the case over the video card to help the ramsinks either if it helps. currently the GPU idles at quite a hot temp, but it doesnt give me any trouble in games ( i think the fan speed conroller is busted, on that card it never changes when i play a game)