I just bought a Yuel Beast Atlas II chassis. It has a ton of radiator, pump, and accessory compatibility, so I’m going slightly crazy while brainstorming how to set this build up.
Is there any hardware performance advantage to running my 5900X and 6900XT on separate loops? Or is it better to just let all of the hardware share all of the radiators?
If the loop will contain 3 x 240mm radiators and 1 360mm radiator should I be installing more than one d5 pump for the system? If so, can you put 2 pumps in line or should they be spaced apart throughout the loop?
Yeah it’s a big project. I’m now thinking of just going with 4 x 360mm rads. Could I use a manifold to connect some of the rads? Or should you only put hardware components on a manifold? So order would be first pump into manifold to gpu, manifold to 2 of the rads, then manifold to cpu, then exit the manifold to another pump, then through the other 2 rads, then to the original pump. Or something like that? Just worried I’ll want 2 pumps. But also quick disconnects on the manifold would be awesome for disconnecting gpu and cpu. And the manifold would help keep tubes from going everywhere, just 2 and from one location for most.
You can run identical pumps in parallel or series. In general, pumps in parallel produce a higher flow rate (gpm or whatever units you prefer) and two pumps in series will produce more head (measured in ft of water, no clue what units PC water-cooling uses).
This does not at all mean that one configuration always creates more flow and the other always creates less flow. What’s actually happening is the effective performance curve of the combined pumps determines the flow rate based on the restrictions in your specific system.
In your application, chances are you’ll want them in series. So one after the other. But connecting your loop outside your system and observing the floor rate in each configuration is the only way to know for sure.
In practice, it doesn’t make a single difference at all what order your components are in. At the temperatures and flow rates we work with in PCs, any minor different in measured temperature at different points in the line is completely overshadowed by other factors. I’d advise just connecting them however is cleanest looking/most serviceable.
Also, maintenance is easier if you want to work on just one part.
As for the questions:
I concur that unless you get some flow restricted rads, one pump should be enough; though I’d argue that the order doesn’t matter.
Ultimately all watercooling loops will reach saturation which means that everything will be the same liquid temp anyway
Edit:
Also, pumps in series is a thing, if you think you want higher pump pressure. Some are firm in the belief that you should be constantly moving the liquid at some golden rate
Edit2:
Also, just throwing this out there, as someone with a 5950x and 3090 in a custom loop…
The performance difference is not going to be much, you know. I did it because its cool (pun intended) and the 3090 has a flaw in the VRAM design (ignoring the dying cards due to broken fan controllers)
I’ll tell ya that when I was moving recently, I really wished I’d just left it on air lmao
This is how it turned out by the way. I went with a single loop and the pump is dual d5 (serial) unit from ekwb mounted in the back. The lines turned out pretty clean I think! Loop order is pump, rad, rad, gpu, rad, cpu, rad, res, pump. 4 x 360mm radiators.
Really like the black hose with the new gray of Quantum series from EKWB. I did hard tubing cause I wanted to do something new, but always appreciate a nice soft tube loop.
I like how out of the way your tubes/rads are for maintance. Tasteful lightning, too. I did anti-RGB for my last build, but may incorporate it again in future ones; I miss being able to see my parts without removing the side panel lol
Not sure I’m a fan of open case designs but certainly cool if you have the room for one to breath and have space to “shine” as an art piece.
I think my only criticisms would be that I think you should have used all black connectors for the super short runs/ just used black fittings. The dual color tone looks awkward with short runs.
Also, i might have done quick connects instead. I normally don’t like them cause of how much larger they are, but they’d look natural in such a large build. Would also make maintance and stuff easier/
