Alright, I am back with some very specific questions and many thanks for everyone.
Questions:
In my case manual, for the top radiator, it states a clearance of 65mm. Maybe I am on the pedantic side, but does this stat mean rad, or rad+fan? generally speaking. I could open my case and eyeball with a measuring tape.
Which leads me to the next question, I sort of alluded to this in an earlier comment about wanting to keep the orders as simplified as possible, all things considered - if I changed the rads to Hardwarelabs SR-2 (provided that I can fit one in the top) and kept the majority of the loop the same would I be more OK? The SR-2 capacity(?) is nearly double that of the EK rads, and with the multi port design I could totally take advantage of the āhiddenā drain port that my case has.
Fans? Vardars are pretty decent at higher RPMs, are they still good slower? Any better fan recommendations?
Anything else I am forgetting?
[/questions]
I havenāt fully decided on how to mount the pump/res. I will probably go for the fan mount type system.
As far as fans go, I have a fan hub in the case. It can control up to 3DC + 4 PWM fans, is powered by SATA and will handle up to a 4A power draw. Itās not the most elegant solution but it does work as a bit of a kludge provided fans are detected properly via splitters. Worse comes to worse, I can run the majority of the fans off of the hub, and the remainder off of individual headers.
65mm should include fans which are usually 25mm thick so no more than 40mm thick radsā¦which isnāt great. Maybe look to thicken the other up if possible.
Mixing parts shouldnāt be an issue as everything is BSP thread standard.
Fans are a mixed bag but for your setup static pressure over cfm is king. If you want no nonsense then noctua is great.
I would still recommend a dedicated fan controller but I went full rainbow vomit so it was necessary for me anyway. Seems like youāll be fine if you spread them out.
This has given me more to think about than I originally expected, and I have had to change the way I was originally planning this. Instead of doing 140 rads, if I want to thicken them up iāll need to go for 120 so I can fit 2 360s instead of a 280 and a 420.
The Hardware Labs rads are thick in a couple different dimensions and in order to make sure they fit I consulted my case manual. The planned 420 rad was 5mm too wide to use, good thing this is all being done now and not after I order anything, lol.
The EK rads had a heat capacity of ~900 watts.
Hardware Labs 360GTS heat capacity is 1200 Watts - Top
Hardware Labs SR2 360 MP heat capaity is 1500 W - Front.
That certainly seems like a lot more capacity to allow for head room.
I can tell you from my own experience that a 2080ti and 3900x are enough that I wish I had gone for more rad than just a 360 and 240 approximately 60mm thick.
You should be able to put a 120x360x40mm rad in the top of the P600S. That should be plenty if you are also planning on putting another rad in the front. You should be able to use the SR2 in the front and one of Hardwarelabs thinner models in the top. Phantekās website on the P600S also shows that 140x420mm should fit in the front. I donāt know if I would go that big on that case in the front though. It might be a little tight. A 120x360 would leave a bit more room for the fittings.
Iāve been happy with the fans Iām using. I have 3 140mm fans in the top on an Alphacool NexXxoos 140x420x40mm rad and 6 in push/pull in the front on an Alphacool NexXxoos Monsta 120x360x80mm rad. They are all Akasaās. Apache Blacks in top and Piranhas in the front. The static pressure rating is around 3mm H2O on the Piranhas and little below that for the Apaches.
[Ahh, funny, the conversation rolled around to what I was saying while I was distracted, I stared typing this 4 hour ago lol.]
In any case, replace on of those SE rads with a thicker one. In general the 30mm thick rads arenāt very good(HWL GTS an exception), but might be unavoidable in that case.
Your case can afford to fit thicker ones, itās just about how they fit together. https://www.phanteks.com/assets/manuals/PH-EC600PSTG.pdf
(Nice case choice by the way, I have the original Phanteks Enthoo Primo)
That manual says you have 95mm clearance in the front. Considering if you buy from DazMode, they donāt carry HWL. EK has no such 60mm thick 140mm fan size radiators. Their 45mm thick CE is pretty good though, about the same performance to the Alphacool 45/60 thick 140mm class which are all close to each other, very close at low RPM, all a bit behind the HWL options at least in the 280mm models. They are all a decent bit better than the 30mm.
The top has a āsafeā clearance of 65mm, so a 40mm rad would fit, like the EK PE. XT45 or CE is just that 5mm thicker too much. However the manual also says that if you go 120mm fan size, the thickness might not matter unless your ram is high profile, ā50mmā from the motherboard tray I would assume). Which would mean you could possibly go 240 60mm thick but here butā¦
I crunched some numbers, the best radiator you can probably fit in that case is a 420 45mm thick for the front (a 60mm thick 420 like a HWL would work too but would be really tight) and a 280 30mm. Close to what you have but getting at least one that is thicker than 30mm is nice. The difference from 30 to 45 is decently larger than 45 to 60, on average.
In as much as the top and the front might be different, here is someone who managed to get a 280 GTS in the top
the GTS is quoted as being the same width as the SR-2/GTX.
Like I mentioned on that other post I linked, Iām a fan of āsickle bladedā fans. My favorites are still the Gentle Typhoon, but as far as 140mm goes, I think Vardar doesnāt have a lot of competition for low noise/high rad performance. NB-eloops probably.
Considering the layout of the case, as long as the fitting are in the ābasementā area under the PSU shroud and not contending with hard drives, there should be a lot of room for fittings. The challenge here is figuring out how to get tubing back out of the basement. A really slick way to do this with modern cases is to do a run behind the motherboard tray and have it feed into the top rad, probably with fittings on the left. Then into the CPU block -> VGA block -> reservoir probably and then directly down through that second hole in the shroud. Phanteks actually has a place for a pump bracket in that exact spot in the basement.
Comments first:
I know that list only has one rad, they are sold out of the 30mm 280s. I would go with an Alphacool NexXxoS ST30.
My other thought on rad config would be an Alphacool NexXxoS ST30 360mm on the top and a NexXxoS XT45 X-Flow Performance Multi-Port Radiator 360mm for the front. Reason being that a crossflow rad at the front would/could make the run easier. I think that would give me roughly the same capacity.
The Quick connects are for the drain line, I should have enough room to run it to the drain port at the bottom front. I know itās not the Phanteks ball valve fitting. Iāll need to actually measure the port tomorrow.
I have HDDs under the PSU shroud so I need to be aware of them in planning the loop or at least not ignore them while thinking of runs and how much space fittings/pumps etc can occupy.
Iāve added fans for push/pull, but not fully committed to it. Not sure if I would even have the space for push/pull with a 60mm rad in the front. I am aware I have Noctua fans, I could mix/match with Gentle Typhoons for push/pull(?), or just use noctuas in single fan config.
Questions:
Will something like the EK-Loop Uni Pump Reservoir Bracket be sufficient as a pump/res mount?
Do I really need a tubing cutter, or is a good pair of scissors enough? What about a de burrer (is that even the right word)?
Did I match the tubing and fitting sizes? Are they decent for a first build?
Did I mix metals and accidentally create a galvanic time bomb?
Should I ask anything else?
Alphacoolās ST30 is better than EKs SE (which is in like, last place) for 120mm fans at least, but I havenāt seen direct comparison for 140mm and the scaling isnāt as direct as one might think.
X-Flow rads tend to be worse than U-flow.
Comparing the benchmarks and the relative area, I do think you would get more performance out of going 420 front and 280 top, even with the thickness deficit. Part of that is that the 45mm thick CE for the front (60mm 420 options are only slightly better even) has very good performance, such that no 360 even 60mm can compete with it just for having such less area. So unless you think you have no hope for routing it, thats what I would do. The difference from 280 30mm to 360 40mm wont make up that deficit, and if you are still going 30mm for a 360 30mm in the top, the difference is even smaller.
Iād suggest opening up your case and visualizing how you would do your runs. Get your fingers in there, touch the tolerances.
Push pull in the front with a 60mm thick would be stupid tight if it works at all. Technically itās 5mm too thick. Considering that tolerance is enforced by the shroud cut out, thats probably one of the less forgiving tolerances for this as well.
Also you want the same fan on either side of the radiator when doing push pull, other wise itās really hard to actually get equilibrium - which without, really defeats the purpose of doing it at all.
EK-Loop Uni Pump Reservoir Bracket:
The Vertical one, yes. What that does is mount your pump or pump/res to one side of your fans or rad. That said, the 140mm version of that bracket doent say that it support the quantum kinetic.
Tube cutter:
Nah, nice shears work just fine. There is a bit of technique for getting the end of your cuts square, but youāll get used to it.
Your tubing and fitting are matched.
You donāt have galvanicly dissimilar metals. That said, I personally have always mistrusted nickle coating since some companies likeā¦ believe it was EK used to be pretty bad at it and it would flake. Itās not supped to be an issue anymore but I have seen that when things do go wrong, nickle makes it worse. Maybe thats my paranoia.
I spent time today with my computer and measuring utensils; it was very endearing
I now feel like I have been playing Tetris, or maybe that Star Trek 3D Chess game while sleep deprived. Several things have been made clear during my personal time with the PC.
I am likely going to have to ditch one of my HDDs to allow for space under the PSU shroud for tubing. I currently have 3, going down to 2 will allow for ~25mm of space if I go to a 420mm rad, or way more if I use a 360mm one. (pg 16 of the manual shows what I am referring to as position B, with a note saying that it will not limit PSU or front rad clearance)
The custom cables I had been putting off are a much higher priority than I thought they would be. Found a Canadian Distributor for Cablemods and ordered a set. The generic corsair ones that were included with my PSU are way too fat and take up too much space.
I am thoroughly confused on the mounting of res/pump combos; Especially with the 26mm spaced mounting slots in my case after I removed the beauty panels. (pg 20 of the manual, hard copy at least)
I think a 60mm rad in the front will be too thick given the length of my GPU, not leaving me much room to mount the res; unless I am, as stated, really not understanding this,
I am under the assumption that the front rad mounts ports down, and this is how I have been thinking about the runs, and spacing. Does it make a difference in performance if ports are up?
The top rad clearance even with 120 rads would be tight, as the VRM and integrated I/O shield is just shy of 5CM. That means the āsafeā tolerance is still going to be 65mm.
The quick connect idea I had is no joy. The connectors are 1mm too wide to use the ports in my case. Which makes me wonder, are the Phanteks pass through and ball valve fittings special and unique, or could i use āoff the shelfā parts from another vendor to make use of the case ports? (manual shows them as 20.5mm ports the ones I have looked at do not show ID dimensions)
And as an added bonus I was reminded just how much computers are fun and easy time saving devices. Found a loose wire in the power switch of my case. Had me questioning existence as to why it wouldnāt power on after removing and replacing the top panel.
The orientation wonāt matter for performance, just routing.
I took a second look at the EK res/pump combos. Both the Quantum Kinetic (has RGB, basically) and the older XRES have the same 65x34mm mounting pattern, so any of those brackets from EK will work. I said earlier the 140mm doesnāt state compatibility, but if you look you can see it is the same mount, almost the same res, one just has RGB.
That would be the way to mount the res as far away as possible from the video card, otherwise, yeah, those holes are just sort ofā¦ there. They might work with some kind of mount, but Iāve read some people end up having to drill if they arenāt mounting to a fan.
For instance it would be perfect for this XSPC model
Have you watched any videos on water cooling for your specific case? If not, then jump on YouTube and see if you can find any on the P600S. It might help give you some ideas on routing and spacing by seeing how some others have tackled it.
I, for one, would get rid of all that spinning rust. Throw them in a small NAS that you can hide under the desk or in a closet. Get a decent size SSD if you still need fast access storage in the system. There should be 3 2.5" mounts on the back. 2.5" SSDās are up to 8TB capacity now, or at least will be once Samsungās hits the market later this year.
Yeah the youtube education classes are how I am going to be spending my weekend.
As much as I want to upgrade to SSDs the price differential for same storage capacity compared to the HDDs is not something I want to absorb presently. I agree that a NAS would resolve some of my issues, and itās on my never ending list of things to do. I have been switching my HDDs to Iron Wolfs gradually over time so when I can make the buy in to a NAS the storage is already a sunk cost, at least in as much as my existing storage is concerned.
I sold off a lot of my older computer gear to get some extra money for this water cooling idea, so my spare parts pile is pretty minimal at present. if I need to build a NAS then itās one step back two steps forward. Ahh, such fun with computers, LOL.
I think that shows my concerns about the 60mm rad and having room for a pump/res unit. Thatās a 45mm xflow 280 on the top, and a 60mm 420 on the front, with the ports to the top.
Looks like Iām going to have to go for a 280 30mm up top and a 360 45mm in the front, maybe a 360 60mm could be done? A 420 45mm would be getting things real tight.
new questions:
Do reservoirs seal? As in can they be turned upside down, or tipped? If I had to invert the case or lay it on the front to drain.
How much does the size of the reservoir actually matter? I get really mixed results when I use my google-fu on this.
If I want to make a 90 degree turn in a run, with the tubing, and I do not want to kink it (first loop/nervous/etc) are there in line fittings that can be used with soft tubing to make these kind of angles? OTOH, I am thinking something like a T fitting, with an end cap on one end, and the line continuing at a 90 deg? or is that just crazy thinking?
I probably should have asked this earlier, I can fill a loop with distilled water and add an anti-corrosive/biocide, but what do I need, if anything, to clean the rads initially and for āproperā maintenance other than regular flushing? Regular meaning semi-annual at minimum, right?
I just did my first water cooling loop. So this isnāt years of experience with computer water cooling talking.
When I initially set up the loop, I ran mayhems extreme biocide in distilled water and mayhems crystal clear tubing. After about a week the tubing clouded. When I took the loop apart for an inspect & check (and to move cases) I found stuff floating in the water. Turns out it was the paint flaking off my fittings (bitspower matte black). I also found the nickel on the CPU waterblock (heatkiller IV) had discolored. I am not sure what caused it, but Iām pretty disappointed.
I switched to the matte black EPDM type tubing since I would rather have tubing you arenāt supposed to be able to see through than have it look like my water is milky white. I still havenāt decided what to do about fittings. I can still see some things floating around in there but it still cools good! (schrodinger: if I donāt look there isnāt a problemā¦)
For a point of reference, my loop has a EK D5, Heatkiller IV, SR-2 240 with Noctua fans and it can keep my 3970x in the high 60ās under load on stock settings. I thought it was going to run warmer than that, it was a temporary setup that has been in there for months now.
I think every reservoir should seal. Otherwise it would need to be vented at the highest point in your loop and it would make purging the air a pain.
Size wise, the idea of a reservoir is to slow the water down enough that the air can separate from the water. Cross sectional area is good for that, the standard round type probably works well. I bought an odd sized one and it struggles to separate the air out. The taller reservoir you get, the more buffer you have when filling the loop.
Another thought on purging the air. Radiators like to trap air (at least the SR-2 does). I found it nice to have the extra ports on the radiator so I could mount it with a set of the ports facing up to bleed air out of. If you still have air in your radiator, youāll hear a ārunning waterā noise from it and can get less thermal performance.
My google searching lead me to flush my radiator with vinegar and then heavily flush it out with distilled water (get lots). Iām not sure this was the right thing to do - maybe it caused my discolored waterblock. Not sure. I flushed all my other components with distilled water only before install.
I hope my rambling helps and doesnāt confuse more.
I mean, it seems to fit pretty well to me? That guy even has his fitting for the front rad on the top. Anything less than 60mm thick should give you room between the rad and the shroud cut out to run tubing through there if you so choose. The only challenge in my mind is how good do you want it to look. The try hard way is going behind the motherboard tray, easier(probably the most practical way for you) is getting a Xflow rad for the top, and 0fuck given it works anyway is just snaking a long tube all the way from one rad to the other, across the mobo.
Now what might be a problem, alternatively, isnāt being a 420 but just the thickness. Doing that math, I now see that your FTW3 is ridiculously long. (There are more than a few reasons water coolers like to buy reference.)
That earlier picture of yours shows you have 140mm of clearance to the end of your video card to the fan mount grille, maybe a bit more since thats to the end of where your card hard the plastic sticking out.
25mm (fan) + 45mm (rad) + 88mm (res) + 11.5 (mounting bracket) = 169.5
Wont matter if you go 360 or 420, thats too thick either way.
Two solution to this, use a thinner reservoir or shift the video card to vertical mount position.
If you were to do thatā¦
You said you have all 4 HDD cages mounted in the basement? But you wanted to drop to 2? Could you keep them mounted in position āCā , not āBā. How much room does that give you, would a D5 stand alone fit there?
The alternative is the vertical card mount, if you were to do that, well, here is a quick dirty mock up of what that should end up looking like if you used the kind of routing Iād assume you might.
Red is components.
Yellow is sections of components either behind another component or part of the case.
Blue is tubing.
Cyan is tubing behind something.
Doing this with compression fittings is stupid expensive, but a simple elbow fitting and some hose clamps works just fine. Donāt even need a fancy one for PC, just a generic plastic or copper fitting. I know once in a pinch I went to the hardware store and just got a PEX fitting, even. Something like this, perhaps. Otherwise, they make G1/4 to G1/4 90 degree non rotary fittings, you populate that with two standard compression fittings.
Yep. Just as well as the rest does. In fact I have this funny story, imagine a tiny person with a 60lb/27kg Enthoo Primo lifted completely over their head, holding it upside down and shaking it like a lunatic.
Some brands are a lot better about this than other, like my Alphacool rads hardly had anything in them while my Swiftech needed some work. Itās basically just manufacturing junk. Really, you donāt need anything but hot water, or shouldnāt, anyway. Iām lazy though so instead of doing the āradiator danceā I bought one of these wrapped the screen with filter paper and had my pump do the work. Iāve never had any issues with corrosion, really. All copper will eventually turn discolored, tis a fact of life (a reason I recommenced not getting clear water-blocks by the way, they only look pretty once.)
Classic trap for young players! Ni + CuSO4 -> Cu + NiSO4. Do not mix the two.
EK used to get really in trouble for people doing this.
For that matter, donāt use silver either.
Pure, distilled water and and ethylene (not propylene) glycol additive is what I like. Like I said, Iāve never had a problem with corrosion. Never had a problem with gunk either. This is a matter of not adding unnecessary or conflicting substances into my loop. No strange pastel or dyed coolants, no nickel blocks, all non-plasticizer tubing, no corrosive biocides (I sound like Dan Akyroyd talking about crystal head vodkaā¦), and always use high level of cleanliness when working. Rinse and dry before you store components. Wash your hand a lot. Only use fresh distilled water, wash things like funnels before using them, donāt let dust collect inside your extra tubing, etc. Maybe some of that is overkill.
This can help, but is also a product of ineffective reservoir design. For instance, if your inlet and outlet were right next to each other with no separating solid piece between them, your res could be 500mm tall and still not do but hardly anything to help separate air bubbles because of the velocity of the water. The old Phobya Balancer was terrible for this, why the design changed to have a much taller separator like this. And really, itās the size of that separator that is the important part, even a 100mm res can work great as long at that part is good. Iām personally a fan of the fountain style spouts inside a lot of ones have now.
This is definitely the best way to go. Iāve been running the same components for the main part of my loop for 5 years with no issues with corrosion or debris build-up. The GPU block has to be changed with each new graphics card but the rest is still pretty much the same. Building a loop for a pc is a significant investment but the basic parts will last quite a while if you buy quality components and take care of maintenance.
Sorry for a late reply, I had to get caught up on things after having my PC apart for a few days.
Mind Blown
This has been one heck of a learning experience. The biggest thing I learned is that I am not prepared to do this yet. I did not buy components with water cooling as a specific goal making it a bit more difficult. I can be more patient until the release of the Nvidia 3000 series to see their performance/price to find a reference board GPU.
Welp, I thought I could be putting this off for longer but the temps were having none of it.
I also thought I could get away without needing a riser cable, so I am sitting here waiting for it to ship.
I have since flipped the top rad so the ports are on the left and set the GPU so that the in/outake ports are both facing the motherboard.
My spacing issues as is:
The exhaust fan seems a bit close the runs for the top rad. I can lower the fan again, you see it is lower in the 1st pic, that should give me a bit of clearance
I have the fill/drain initially planned for a 2nd port above on the left side, does that make a difference? If I need to I can just fit it in on the ātopā port of the top rad; so to the right, and near the ports of the front rad, but I think that wouldnāt drain as well there as it wouldnāt be a low spot if a rotated the case come time to drain. Maybe I am not thinking about this the right way. i am tired right now.
