Watercooling experts needed

[beasty54]

Hi guys, i'm looking at watercooling my pc in the next few weeks but its something ive never done before so any help would be appreciated. I build PCs on a regular basis so i'm far from a novice BUT when it comes to water cooling i have no idea
As you can see from my sig i dont have a massively high spec machine but its in a hot room, runs 24/7 and is extremely noisy with its stock cpu cooler. The PC is in my cinema room and its very near my seating so i need it to be as quiet as possible. I've had a quick look myself and the Zalman Reserator keeps popping up, is this a good kit or is it best to stick with buying individual parts? I'm assuming its a good idea to remove the GPUs heatsinks and fan and replace this with a waterblock?

Any help at all would be appreciated guys

 

[booyaka]

things to consider :

• Budget for a good cpu & gpu watercooling setup will be £200 plus
• Is the case big enough for watercooling
• Personally a separate list of components would be better than a kit
• A bit more ongoing maintenance than standard air cooling but nothing major

 

[zchan28]

What maintance is needed for water cooling?

 

[booyaka]

What maintance is needed for water cooling?

general cleaning of fans from dust/radiator dust etc and should really replace the coolant in the system every 9/12 months generally.

 

[kinghell]

I've built two watercooled PCs so far and updated my current one twice. The first one I built was just to get a feel for it and I did run into problems with different size tubes which caused a small leak which dripped onto the graphics card ! Fortunately it was a very cheap (<£5). One time when I drained the system and had the pipes disconnected another trickle found its way out while I wasn't looking and dripped onto the PCI slot. Fortunately I noticed fairly quickly, mopped up and stored the motherboard in the airing cupboard overnight and it was okay.

The second PC was a much more professional job with a dedicated watercooled case. My tip here was to install a quick disconnect valve at the bottom of the case. When pulled apart only a drop of water comes out and then you can guide the pipe into a container and press the end of the value to release the water. In my first attempt I watercooled the gfx card as well which was a royal pain as the was absolutely no room to move and I have to drain to move gfx card to then access the other PCI slots and hard drive. Since upgrading the gfx card I didn't bother putting it back in the watercool loop.

Just be aware that going watercooled doesn't mean going completely silent. You've still got the PSU fan, hard drive clicking and the hum of the pump. That said the reserator looks nice and I believe the pump is less noticeable. When you come to build it be much more methodical than you normally world be.

 

[beasty54]

I understand it wont be completely silent because of intake and exhaust fans but its just the cpu cooler that makes tons of noise in mine. This could obviously be sorted by purchasing a nice silent cooler for the cpu but theni still have a really hot system and i'd like to take away that heat and hence the water cooling. Do you guys think the reserator 1 V2 would be a good option, i like the idea of it being external since my current case isn't really big enough for a completely internal system.

 

[Razor]

I have a reserator xt connected to my htpc and its very quiet. I cant hear it on its auto setting.

 

[ColinB]

Built a few water-cooled machines in my time, they're good fun as long as they don't leak, so don't scrimp on the parts, buy decent stuff.

I've always gone with the idea cooling the cpu, gpu, mainboard, and sometimes a passive HDD cooler... use big pipes with a high flow pump, a big rad and big fans - the bigger the fans, generally the slower you can have them, but not reduce air-flow - and of course, the slower the fans, the less noise present.

All depends how extreme you want to go. I've seen some impressive setups, some as far as using big water butts, household radiators, industrial water pumps. The list goes on...