I was looking at building a PC for gaming with my income tax money. I have settled on a mini itx build and have chosen the bitfenix prodigy as my case. I have never done a custom loop and would like to give it a try. My question is if I install a single 240mm rad will it be enough to cool my cpu and gpu? I don't want to have to install 2 rads because i like the look of the 230mm fan in the front and i don't want to have to cram a 2nd rad in such a small case. I know the new hadron hydra case uses a single 240mm rad to cool its components but I don't know if this method would sufficiently cool a pc to be honest. Please only experienced water coolers reply.
I was watching a video the other which I cannot find now but I remember them saying a 120mm radiator per heat source is the minimum but they recommend doubling that. If I can find the video I will link here.
usually if you do cpu and gpu, they suggest to have a rad in between. It's better to dissipate the heat after collecting from one source.
Best scenario is to use 2 separate rads...that's more effective than having a single 240mm. For example prime scenario would be to get a to send water to cpu block, then to rad, then to gpu block, then to rad. This will allow for more heat to be dissipated from the pc must more quickly. I prefer having 1 240mm rad and 1 120mm rad with my loops. With a set up like this you'll get most optimal heat distribution.
@mafisometal: Ok that makes sense. I wonder if I used a slim 120m rad on the back of the prodigy if I could run the loop like that. a 240 on top and a 120 in the rear.
@ Dropkickhope: Thank you that video would be really helpful.
I'm really impressed to have already gotten feedback lol. Thank you guys..
This is incorrect. Heat doesn't transfer from one component to the next in this way. So long as your case has good airflow, you have good ambient temperatures, and you aren't heavily overclocking your components you can get by with a single dual fan radiator. It's actually better to have a single dual fan radiator than to use two single fan radiators because of the increased restriction to the flow when you add the second radiator. This restriction will impede your cooling performance. I hope this helps to answer your question and clarify how water cooling works.
I suggest that you would be better off by just using a single dual fan radiator at the top rather than also adding a slim 120 at the rear of the case. The temperature improvement really won't be worth the cost of the additional radiator. If you could add another dual fan radiator that would be the optimal situation for your components.
You kind of defeated your own arguement. airflow becomes horrible when you start adding radiators because it takes more to push air into the case. Unless you're using a case like an 800D or to that extent airflow is always a low. If you're doing liquid cooling, majority of the time you're going to overclock, else what is the point of spending all that money just for better temps when the benefit is when the gpu/cpu cores run hotter.
Though i do get your point, but every time i liquid cooled, i significantly got better temps on my gpu because i put a rad in between like that, also my reservoirs were much cooler because of having another rad after the gpu. The restriction to the flow is only a problem if you pick up a shitty pump. If you get anything along the lines of a D5 with variable speeds you should be fine, the restriction to flow is quite minimal and the pressure alone will push it quite easily. My last liquid cooled PC was a 480, and 240 running together on 2 gpu's and 2 cpu's. I had a flow problem with my first pump, which was a big mistake picking up an ek-dcp pump which was fine for smaller rads but the 480 was killing the flow, then i changed it to the d5 and fixed everything.
Personally I don't think water-cooling with just a 240mm radiator is going to get the result you want, I mean it'll look good and at stock speeds your cooling will be just a little bit better than stock... however for a serous overclock the sorts of thermal output will simply be too much, particularly with a higher end GPU, even fairly loud fans in push pull will not provide enough cooling to get a good result on this size radiator.
Thus I think your much better to cram in more cooling and use a quieter fan, or just aircool as the Prodigy will support a decent tower heat-sink like the Noctua D14, giving plenty of CPU cooling even for a overclock without much noise, best bit is its normally available for less than the price of a decent brand rad. Best bit is because of your horizontal motherboard tray your not placing a lot of sheer through your mobo, so even when moving the case around your still fine to leave a large heat sink in place. Having said all that this option doesn't help your GPU temps at all, so your overclock there will be limited by how good a cooler you have from factory, but these tend to be fine in small form factor builds, as unless your running the windowed version the graphics card will be in-taking fresh cool air via the vent it sits against. If you have a window... well then lets just say I'd look at removing the side panel if your wanting to overclock... ventilation is very very poor otherwise.
If you decide you are wanting to water cool still, then you will need to buy a secound rad. You will do better with a single thick 180mm x 180mm radiator installed in your Bitfenix Prodigy than with even a 240mm and slim 120mm from a surface area perspective, and a 180mm x 180mm x 60mm radiator with decent fan or two will cool very well, although its still possible to run two of these (one front one top) in the Prodigy, and keep the same fan your already running pushing on the frount one. This will of course limit you to a 1-2 of 3.5" drives on the floor plus the 2 2.5" ssd mounts on the side panel, but unless your looking for a raid setup this is probably still enough storage, especially with modern 4tb drives now under $200usd equivalent in most countries.
Im really leaning towards either the thick 180mm rad or just air cooling the whole rig. I love the mini itx form factor and I love the look of a custom loop. I saw a video where a guy put a 280mm rad on the top with a shroud but modding is not really my thing. I figure as soon as I get the case I will have to fool around with some ideas. I really appreciate all the help from everyone. :)