I am working on a liquid cooled micro atx Haswell gaming build in the 350D featuring the Asus Gryphon mobo 4670K and GTX 770. What I would like to know is what brands and even specifically what series of parts the liquid coolers in the Tek community use and why.
For radiators, I almost always go for fat ones, specifically, the Alphacool Monsta NexXxos radiators, a full 80mm thick. They really are monsters, but are massive, and may not fit in the 350D that well. For slim radiators, you can't go wrong with XSPC AX, or even smaller, the Black Ice GT Stealth.
For pumps, I stick to Swiftech, specifically the 655, 35X, and 35X2, all being D5 variants, which are known for silence and reliability.
Reservoirs are pretty much all the same, but I love Bitspower Multi Z inline reservoirs, which are just fantastic, clear, and solid.
For fittings, it's a tie between Monsoons and Bitspower Black Sparkles... There are many more options with Bitspower, but Monsoons are just so luxurious.
I have been really enjoying acrylic tubing, but have never used myself. What I trust is Primochill Advanced LRT, because it doesn't kink, it's very nice quality, has no plasticiser, and isn't terribly expensive.
I don't use any coolant unless it is Mayhems Pastel for looks, or deionized water for performance.
For cases, you can't go wrong with Case Labs, Little Devil, Mountain Mods, or the higher-end Corsair cases, specifically the 900D.
Koolance 380 for the CPU and Heatkillers for my GPUs essentially because they do extremely well in performance reviews with the added bonus of aesthetics. For fittings I like the aesthetics of Bitspower. For my rads I chose Hardware Labs rads because of the excellent build quality. If I could have I would have went with Monsta rads (alphacool brand I believe), but due to size constraints I was unable. My tubing is Durelene only for the fact that it was a suggested brand by numerous users on the OCN forums.
I am looking for opinionated input so anyone that looks at this thread can get info for their own builds but for anyone interested ill include core component list and my thoughts on liquid cooling parts for my build. My case is the 350D so it does have a hefty impact on picking parts like rads and res/pump configs.
For rads because I Dont want to do any interrior modding to the 350D so I planned on going with a 60mm 240 for the front (to leave room for pump and res) and a 35mm 280 for the top and XSPC is kinda where I was leaning.
For pumps I planned on going for either a D5 variant or a standard D5 with Bitspower mod kit I will likely go for the second option so I can use the Bitspower 150 res kit.
For fittings I love Monsoon I have used them a few times in past builds but I will probably go with Bitspower just to make sure the colors match up with the D5 pump mod,
For tubing I will be using Tygon because I plan to use Mayhems pastel ice white coolant and the Mayhems founder swears by it for use with his products.
For blocks there are many great choices from companys like EK, Koolance, XSPC, Seiftech and many others but I will likely be going with the XSPC Raystorm CPU block and Razor GPU block to brand match with the rads I plan on using.
My core components include an Asus Gryphon Z87 mobo, i5 4670K CPU, GTX 770, Corsair HX850 psu (overkill I know but I already had it), dual Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB SSD raid0 boot drive, 1TB WD black storage drive, and as already mentioned the Corsair 350D case,
Tygon has plasticiser and tends to be stained easily; I'd stick with Primochill Advanced LRT.
I'll look into it going with white coolant I dont think staining is going to be an issue but I'll bounce around forums and send an email to Mayhems to see what brands their products have been long term tested with just to be sure.