Advice on water cooling setup

Hey everyone, have not been on here in awhile but have something to run by ya....



I am setting up my first water cooled rig and this is my layout.
Anyone thats done this before might be able to tell me if i am on the right path or not so please, give me input!

I would personally go Pump > Y splitter > both CPUs > Y splitter to bring them back together > big rad..

Also, what are the CS things?

Oh, and why not go res > pump instead of pump > res? I'm not sure if you can pump directly into a res... I'm not an expert on these things though, I just went with the brute force approach

Sorry, i should of said. The "CS's" are the dual chipsets and the "I/O" is the PCI Controller and the "Y" is a splitter. This is the Tyan S2915 board, so it will be dual quad core opterons as well as DDR2 ram and most people that have dealt with tyan know their stock coolers on the chipsets are not to great. just like my s2895 board.

I was pumping into the res because it has dual outs to kinda be used as a splitter anyways, but i was splitting off for the 2nd smaller loop, Here is the res i am going to use. I thought about doing the Y to the CPU's but i was worried that the flow would be favored to one then the other would heat up more due to lack of flow. I was thinking this way they would both get 100% flow and with the single 120 rad in between they would both get good cooling.

I thought the radiator's were to take the heat out of the water, not cool it before it hits the blocks, thats y i had the 3x120 rad at the end of both loops, to get the heat out before it was sent back around.. or should i do it with a different thinking?

But, like i said i am new to this kind of cooling so i will think about these recommendations.

You will kill you're pump very very fast having that many blocks in a single split loop.

Also, when you start your loop, have your reservoir feeding your pump, and then your pump going to a block or radiator, you will lose most of your flow pumping straight into a reservoir.


Also what hardware will you be cooling? And what blocks, rads, pumps were you looking at?

I would suggest running CPUs in a loop, and your gpus in seperate loops. You will need to run at least too, you don't have enough rads right now to cool the hardware first off, and there is way to much resistance for your pump. It will just die..

Forget about water cooling ram and hard drives its pretty much pointless.

Ok, i will keep that in mind...

Cooling:
Aqua Computer Pump
IceBox Reservoir
Swiftech CPU Blocks
Black Ice 2x80 Radiator
Koolance Chipset and I/O Blocks
Koolance Ram Coolers
Koolance HDD Coolers
Koolance 3x120 top Radiator
Koolance 1x120 Radiator

Hardware:
Tyan S2915 Board
Dual quad core Opterons
Dual Quadro 5600s
8 sticks of DDR2 2GB each
1 Raptor 150 HDD
5 1TB HDDs

The reason i want to cool everything is because the place i am going to have this rig gets warm and does not have much space..

but i will take the HDDs and RAM out of the loop for now and plan them for later if i need it. I will re work the layout picture with the advice i have got and upload it when its done. I will also see where else i can fit some more rads...i have 3 rads with a total of 5 120mm fans planned now, how many would be needed for like a dual loop for the CPUs and GPUs only.. i will do a different setup for the chipsets, they do need it but as u said, i will keep them on a different system and pump..

Scratch the whole watercooling loop...

Budget?

The blocks and pump are good.. but we can do better...

Plan on a dual loop, and no ram and hdd cooling.

ok...Well i am open, i would like to keep it around $500 but, if i need to go more i can plan for that...

EDIT:
If you have an idea on what i need just let me know and i will see if there is a way to fit it into the case i am using. BTW, This is the case i will be using. Lian Li V2000

Well that loop you had was quite a bit more than $500.. even just the parts you listed. And you didn't even have any gpu blocks yet.

Thats just an awfully tight budget for what you want to cool.

A few questions first, why do you want to overcool in the first place? Especially when running quadros as your graphics cards. And running dual opterons (they don't overclock well)

Watercooling can be very high maintenance, its not quieter, in fact its probably louder, it dumps just as much heat into the room as air cooling would. Is there any particular reason you want to watercool? And at that watercool your whole computer?

I would be able to fit a Koolance EHX-1320 on top...That worth thinking about? and then maybe another quad 120mm mounted off the back of the case? that will be 2600 watts of heat dissipation then...

well my current set up, dual 285 opterons and smaller video cards with just air cooling with the amount of renderings i do i have quite a bit of heat problems and have spent lots on air coolers that just are not going to cut it anymore so for this new rig, i am not going to go through air again, this thing is loud as hell and its not as good as i would like it...

and i was planning anywhere from 500 to 800 for my first order, like i said, if i need to order a 2nd round of parts later i can...

Don't bother with koolance their products aren't that good.

Well ok...

CPU Loop -
Those blocks are fine (the apogee gt) - Link
Pump - Laing D5 or DDC with petras top - D5 Link - DDC Link
Rad - Thermochill 120.3 - Link
Res - Swiftech Micro Res - Link

GPU Chipset Loop -
Pump - Laing D5 or DDC with petras top - same as above
Rad - Thermochill 120.3 - same as above
Res - Swiftech Micro Res - same as above
GPU - Swiftech MCW60 - Link
GPU Mem - Enzotech Ramsinks - Link Not sure how many you will need...
Chipset - Swiftech MCW 30 - Link

And of course fans, tubing (Masterkleer is good and much cheaper than tygon), coolant (I would just go distilled water), and the thermchil rad shrouds wouldn't hurt either... Link

That is like 800 when its all said and done...
You could save some money buy going with these rads instead, Swiftech MCR-320s -Link

Or even.. if you have having heat issues in the case, have you thought about just cooling your CPUs for now? See how the gpus run (Make sure you have good fans right over them), then if you wanted you could make a loop for the GPUs, then the chipsets should be running cooler. Even just eliminating the chipsets saves $60-$100...

yeah, i want to get at least the CPUs first...the only things that are a MUST are the CPU's and the chipsets, those are what i have problems with the most. The only thing with the chipset blocks is i need SLI compatible (low profile)..Any idea on a low profile chipset block that will take 1/2" by chance?

Anyways, thanks for your input and help. I know this is not going to be a plug and play deal, in fact, thats what i dont want. i need something to customize and get great cooling 24/7. I sometimes have renders going for weeks and months and seeing my CPUs now sitting at 86F and 115F/Full is not bad, but could be better and when i get into the quad core opterons, i know it is going to be even better to keep them as cool as i can during those times.

I will get all my bookmarks together and start getting this stuff together and set up. Thanks again and please, if you or anyone has something to add, please do, i will check back as much as i can and if this post is still around, i'll post some pics of the rig set up but thats still a little ways off..

P.S. I now see that i posted this under overclocking cooling, my bad as i just wanted high end cooling of stock clocks. Sorry and thanks!

Thread location is fine... most people here consider watercooling extreme...


Why do you need to cool your chipsets? Yes they run hot sometimes, but have you put nice aftermarket coolers on them? They shouldn't take that much to cool.

But all coolers are really low profile.. more so than air, its the barbs that get in the way.. and you will have that will any waterblock.

well my current board, the chipsets run very hot, and even when i have AC in the room and good flow through and a fan hitting them, they are still hot and give me laggish performance... I looked into the Jing Ting JTS-0006 because it was the only *good* cooler that would fit under the video cards and clear them as well... Thats y i was looking at the koolance chipset blocks because they were low profile and the barbs would clear as well. But sense they are only 1/4", they would be a big bottle neck. Plus i hear the new board is just as bad with heat...

Have you thought about these?

They work great for dual video card setups as you can adjust the fins so they will fit around the cards and whatnot.