Water cooling for Noobs the all in one guide

Water Cooling Guide
By Juggalo23451 AKA Water_Cool_Fool
Video explanation link as well as where to get wc parts below the tutorial


Well I have been water cooling since 2009. So I decided to make a guide. So let's get started

What is water cooling. More or less it is the same way how your car's radiator works to cool your engine except on a smaller scale .

How much is it going to cost me- Depends on what you want to cool. The average coast for a cpu only loop is generally around 200-$$$. It will cost more if you want to add graphics cards, mosfets and etc. there is no real reason to water cool your ram,hdd. I don't see the point of water cooling your north bridge/south bridge either all it does is add restriction to your loop.If you want better temps on your chipset remove the old thermal paste with 90% Isopropyl alcohol or higher. Use a q-tip for this or a micro fiber cloth. Then put on new thermal paste like the ones listed below. but if you are going for insane overclocks go for it:)

What parts are needed? I will tell you the parts and suggest some parts as well.

Do not mix Aluminum and copper this will cause galvanic corrosion. You can have copper, brass, silver, and stainless steel in the same loop

Tubing and lingo you may see(get 10ft for cpu only,15ft or more if adding more rads blocks and etc:)

The most common sizes for tubing for water cooling are
3/8 inch
7/16 inch-people use this size tubing on 1/2 barbs for a tighter fit/seal
1/2 inch
Lingo
ID= Inner diameter
OD= Outer diameter
Primochill,tygon, masterkleer (budget)
Use tub cutters, razor or scissors to cut the tubing.

Reservoir ( always higher then the pump)- holds water

For reses it is all about preference really, You have the Swiftech Micro revision res for like 20 bucks or you could spend up to 200 bucks on a res to.

Pump(always below the res)

check instructions to make sure you know where the inlet is and outlet- This is the whole heart of you water cooling loop. Pushes the water in you loop around. Getting the right pump is critical don't get the right pump may get poor flow in your loop/poor temps to. They are usually measured by gph(gallons per hour) The more gph the better.
mcp35x,MCP355,MCP655, OCZ hydro flow(budget),jingway,
Note: The mcp355(has 3/8 barbs) is slightly better than the mcp655(1/2 barbs)

Pump top-

Dont want to use 3/8 barbs on a mcp355 get a top:) and choose what ever barb or compression fitting you like. Getting a top will help maximize the efficiency of the pump.
(XSPC,EK)

Water Blocks(center is always the inlet)

There are great water blocks out there for the CPU and Gpus. If you are going for the absolute best one out there. Then the EK HF is the king right now. Ek is also the best for gpus as well.
XSPC Raystrom water block(budget) this block is behind the ek hf by 3 degrees. XSPC for gpus as well.

Thermal Paste-

MX3, MX4, OCZ Freeze, Shin Etsu, Indigo Extreme(the best but really expensive)

Barbs-

you will see g1/4 and g3/8. That is simply the thread size. What size barbs you get will depict on what size tubing you would want.
bitspower, enzotech,koolance

Compression fittings- Makes you loop look cleaner.

Has two parts the barb and a collar. The collar goes on the tubing first. Then mount the tubing on the barb. Screw down collar all the way.(video below) make sure to get the same id and od fittings as your tubing

Angled fittings 45 degrees

This can help make you tubing look cleaner and avoid sharp bends

Radiators(removes heat from you loop)-

inlet/outlet does not mater
Depending on what you want to cool will depend on the size of rad you want
Example a 240 radiators can cool most cpus., 360 rad for cpu and a gpu
Best rad right now is the GTX series radiators by Hw labs(loud setup)
Best rad(low noise) RX series rads by XSPC or SR-1 rad by HW labs
Budget rad Xspc rs.
P.s You can use a 77 Bonneville rad I believe if you wanted to.

Fans(removes heat from the rad) and static pressure

What is static pressure. It is the measurement of air to be push through a restrictive object. So the better the static pressure the better the fan for your radiator.
Panaflo,delata, Kazes 120x120x38 are great for rads like the GTX
Gentle typhoons (AP-15) are great for rad like the Sr-1 and RX series rads. Why you ask the noise to cfm is great and it has good static pressure as well.
Yate Loons are a great budget fan. XSPC 1650rpm fans are one above the yates.

Fan Controller
(controls the rpms of a fan)

Clamps (secure them in the center of the barb)-

use clamps, zips, or worm clamps to secure your tubing.

Coolant- Distilled water is all you need.
Pt nuke as well to prevent growth in your loop or silver coil.

I have all the parts now what?

  1. Loop order, I usually do res-pump-rad-cpu-res for example, but you do not have to do that order just make sure you have the res before the pump

  2. Bust out a scratch piece of paper and pen. Draw a rectangle representing you case then. Draw another rectangle representing your mb. Location is key for a water cooling loop.
    Draw some sketches on how you want your loop to go.

  3. Mount everything up.

  4. Start from one point in your wc loop.with the tubing attached to a barb,
    take the excess and move it to the next point to your loop then cut.(Attach tubing)Repeat the process until you are done.

  5. Take out loop of you case(up to you)

  6. Hook the pump to your power supply(make sure nothing else is
    hooked up to the psu)

  7. Take a paper clip and put it in the green wire and connect any black wire. this will create a load to turn on your psu. Make sure the psu unplugged before doing this.

  8. Fill up the res with distilled water all the way to the top with a funnel

  9. Turn on the psu let the water go to about have way then refill the res.

  10. repeat the process again until you do not need to fill the res up any more

Bubbles- To get rid of bubbles tilt your case side to side, back and forward
Leak testing- I say a good 8-12hrs should be enough. You can do more if you would like.

Hook up everything/install wc loop if outside of case and enjoy your temps

Vids
Water cooling basics


How to set up and install a water cooling loop 4 parts

Compression fitting

How to make a terminal block

Water Cooling Cases

Creat goes to Martin,Skinnylabs,and Stren












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This is a really good guide!  Thanks for your contribution on the site!  

Thanks, I just have a question is there a way so I can have links right underneath each other instead of have a space. I notice without a space the site automatically tries to put the links all together

Only Way i could think of is like this, if this is what you want.  

  • https://teksyndicate.com/
  • https://www.youtube.com/
  • http://www.overclock.net/

(Just some links I had in my bookmarks)

I'm looking at building a water cooled Xigmatek Aquila using a 280x80mm rad in the top and a 120 or 140 in the front, depending on clearances. Would this be enough radiator area to cool a 4820k (130w tdp) and two 780Tis (250w tdp)? If not I can go down to just one 780ti. I will also not be doing anything crazy like cooling the RAM and VRMs or chipset.

I haven't bought all the parts yet because I can't seem to find a decent answer to my question. I see graphs like the ones you linked here for all kinds of radiators but I can't really seem to make any sense of them. Any help or guidance you could give would be an immense help.

First of all, where does one even find a Xigmatek Aquila?  I've been looking for one since the team made a review on it.  But no where in North America even sells it.  Bummer, I love that case.

 

Thanks for the hewqds up on that I will edit this guide when I can. I am working a double tomorrow

Is this what you nare talking about

https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=CSbXRdU87U6G3CIaG-gOm3YHACsnPxLgE-dnIy5gB6euCgpYBCAkQASDDkeQeKAJQwrjO-_7_____AWDJ3uiGyKOQGaAB44zi_APIAQeqBCZP0MX9uUomIoBLY8XbAwdS7QyiktIifzDfCd8VMrih_ZfaENPqwcAFBaAGJtgGBIAHhvJMkAcB4BKY9tXojo6czCc&sig=AOD64_3AYVsa5p3muPEoai9c5iokIvlSUA&ctype=5&ved=0CDwQ2CkwAA&adurl=http://pixel.everesttech.net/3807/cq%3Fev_sid%3D3%26ev_cmpid%3D%26ev_ln%3D%26ev_crx%3D40867116433%26ev_mt%3D%26ev_n%3Dg%26ev_ltx%3Dpla:Xigmatek%2BAquila%2BCCD-14ABW-U01%2BBlack%2BComputer%2BCase%26ev_plx%3DN82E16811815040%26ev_ptid%3D40269559273%26ev_dvc%3Dt%26ev_dvm%3D%26url%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.newegg.com%252fProduct%252fProduct.aspx%253fItem%253dN82E16811815040%2526nm_mc%253dKNC-GoogleAdwords%2526cm_mmc%253dKNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Computer%252bCases-_-N82E16811815040

you want at least a 360 rad surface area for the cpu and gpu.

the graph represents what fan speed and heat dissipation can do at that speed

Newegg has them in stock right now. Here's a link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811815040

EDIT: Just saw jugg beat me to it.

So a 280mm x 80mm rad would have approximately the same surface area as a 560mm x 40mm rad. Or is my math off on that?

280 rad equal 2 140mm fans 80mm is the thicknesses

560mm rad equal 4 140mm fans

I have fixed the spacing issue the best I could :)

Yes, but the thickness increases the surface area, which increases it's cooling capacity right? By your logic a 240x20mm rad does the same job as a 240x80mm rad. That doesn't seem right to me.

I added two new vids :)

Very well done guide. I've been wanting to try a full loop for a while now. Just gotta save up the cash. Hats off to ya.