It's down to what you want for the water cooling. If you want it to make your entire system run cooler and quieter then go for it. If you want it for raw cooling power and don't care about sound then forget it and go with a phase change cooler on the CPU alone.
It's going to cost quite alot of money to water cool your comptuer. And I'll do a list of stuff that you should look at if you want to get into it. Though make sure you are willing to do case modding and have a big case because the good stuff is BIG.
You got 3 types of options for water cooling. Custom built, kits, or prebuilt kits. Out of the three the best is custom of course. But you can get some decent prebuilt kits that set on top of your computer. My wife has a Koolance Exos 2 and it cools her CPU and 2x 7800GTXs. It's very silent and looks very nice.
Well here are some stuff for prebuilt kits.
- Koolance Exos 2 - can cool your entire computer but costs $300 + the cost of blocks and everything must be either gold platted or aluminum
- Koolance Aquirum ICM series - they mount internally to a 120mm fan. They come with just the water block
For some kits that come with all you need you should take a look at Swiftech. They have 3 good kits avaliable.
- $200 kit that comes with a pump+res that fits in the CD bay and a 120mm rad with a water block. Very good for a quiet but effective setup that will fit in any case that has a 120mm rear fan. Though it has not much head room for adding stuff.
- $250 (Apex) This kit comes with the same block as the cheaper kit but comes with a double 120mm rad, a MCP655 pump (very large and very powerful), a res that you have to mount on your own in your case and this kit can hold more stuff if you wish to add.
- $300-350 (Apex Ultra) same kit as above but with a GPU block and Chipset block
All of thoes kits are very nice and are woth it. THey also come with 90cfm delta fans and voltage adapters to drop down the speeds of them.
Now for custom kits. These are the parts that you should look in to.
Pumps
You got 2 decent pumps. The Liang DDC and Liang D5. You can either but it from that company or from DangerDen (as their name instead of Liang) or from Swiftech as the MCP355 (DDC) and MCP655 (D5).
What's the difference between them? The DDC is vastly smaller then the D5 but the D5 is vastly more powerful, more reliable, and silent.
So the choice is yours there. The DDC is also 3/8" tube natively while the D5 is 1/2". Most people go with 2x DDC for performance, size and extra reliablity but I would go with the D5. But the D5 will add 30w of heat to the water loop so better have a double or tripple rad for it.
As for price a DDC is about $80usd and a D5 is $85usd.
Rads
You got 3 size options and 3 company options to concider. The sizes are 120mm, double 120mm, and tripple 120mm. The companies are Coolworks, Swiftech, and Thermochill.
What's the difference? With size you need to match up with what you are cooling. 120mm is good enough for a CPU and a low end GPU. If you want to cool a high end GPU + CPU then you'll need a double rad for better cooling and silence. Futhermore a tripple is necessary if you want silence with dual GPU setup.
Now with companies. Coolworks is the cheapest. The cost the same as a Black Ice Pro radiators but perfrom better. Swiftech costs a little more but off the best price-performance ratio. Theromochill is the best. They are of superior quality and 2x as thick. A double thermochill rad with slow fans can perform the same as a Swiftech tripple rad with slow fans. As for price though a 120mm Coolworks is about $30, Swiftech about $35-40, and Thermochill $80-90. For a double rad they cost $40, 50, 100 respectively. And tripple are $50, 55-60, 110 respectively. All USD also.
Res
MRES from Swiftech. Very nice and get the job done.
CPU Blocks
You got 2 brands of CPU blocks to concider. Swiftech and DangerDen. Swiftech has a Apogee which is a good basic block that costs $50 it is also universal and will work with any socket. Swiftech's other block is the Storm which is the best performing block you can get and it works with all but the new AMD sockets (AM2 and Socket-F) and it costs $75. DangerDen has the TDK which is the sesecond best performing block and it only costs $55 but the catch is that you'll have to get one based on the socket you are using and if you change socket you'll need to buy a new block.
GPU Blocks
You got 2 kinds of block and by 2 companies (same as CPU). THe kinds of blocks you have are a GPU only coverage which can be used on any card or a full coverage that can only be used on one type of card. The Swiftech and DangerDen GPU only block cost about the same $45-50 and perform about the same though make sure you buy some ram sinks to go with them. For full coverage blocks. DangerDen makes them and they cost $100-120 for them. They are the best in performance but are expensive and can only work on one type of card.
Tubing
You got 2 sizes to concider. 3/8" and 1/2". The difference is that the 3/8" is easier to work with, cost less and is a good starting point. The 1/2" performs vastly better then the 3/8" but is harder to work with.
For brands you can get the stuff from the local DIY shop or you can buy some Clearflex, Masterkleer or Tygoon. Whats the difference? Masterkleer is very cheap but good stuff. Clearflex is very thick and hard to kink and leak. And Tygoon is basicly Clearflex but can bend easier and costs 2x as much.
For a setup I would go with a Swfitech rad double or tripple based on what you want to cool, a Swiftech storm block (if you are not using AMD), a D5 pump, a MRES res and DangerDen GPU blocks. Wait that is the stuff I have and need to install. =P
I'll show a pic of the stuff latter so you can have an idea on how large the stuff is and if you have the room for it.
NoPeace - out
I'll start pricing things up and checking around as to where I can get them so I know how much it costs and if I should go with it or not.
But cheers loads for the help I appreciate it.
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