OK, I am finally going water

Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy KnobPflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
edited January 2004 in Hardware
What is the best that won't break the bank? I will most likely go with CPU and NB for now and add the GPU later.
  • I know I want 1/2" ID
  • I do plan on mounting the rad inside or possibly on the back of the case.
  • Can I mount a rad flat on the bottom of the case if I cut a hole and put higher feet on the case?
  • Do I need a 2x120 size rad or will a single 120mm size be good enough?
  • Out of curosity, does anyone make a good 2x80 size rad???

After seening the case my brother ordered first hand I think it is well worth the money and will be getting one myself because it has good cooling potential and is constructed like a brick shi*house.

It is this case.

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Comments

  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Is that a 120mm hole at the back? Then use that space to fit a 120mm radiator. Pro-Core from D-tek. Awesome rads. If you have a cold floor, then using the rad at the bottom would work. Most have them in the front. Go with Swiftech's blocks. Fantastic quality with lots of spare parts if you need. Go to the zoo store and hunt for Eheim tubing. Perhaps the best tubing there is.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Mac,

    I knew you would be the first to come through! ;)

    Yes that is a 120 hole on the back with 2 80's above the PSU slot and there are 2 80's in the front. I am thinking about replacing the feet with lockable casters and thought the floor of the case would make a good spot for a rad to be out of the way. And am I correct in beleiving a rad should have the air pulled through it as opposed to pushed???
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Correct. You get the best effect if you can have around 4-5cm between the fan and the rad. Also make it seal tight. I used some sealstring around my fans on the rad and boy, MUCH better cooling and the little noise that where before is now gone.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    OK, cool! So the Swifty blocks really are it and I should look for Eheim tubing over the Tygon. I also take it the Eheim pumps are it too! Should I get one of the 3xx GPH pumps or will a smaller one be good?
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    http://www.dtekcustoms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=17
    http://www.swiftnets.com/products/mcw5002.asp
    http://www.dtekcustoms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=28

    That's rad with shroud, Cpu block and pump. GREAT combo.
  • EQuitoEQuito SoCal, USA
    edited December 2003
    Larry,

    Check this case: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=11%2D182%2D005&searchdepa=1

    Don't you think it looks better? it's also cheaper and bigger than the one you are buying.

    Good luck with your new project. I'd like to go WC'ing too but I cannot afford it.

    cheers!
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Mac
    That is the pump I had in mind and was curious about that rad as I saw it mentioned in another thread. Should I use a resivor or not?

    EQ
    Sorry dude but that just doesn't do it for me. I also got my hands on the one I want when it arrived as part of my brother's order. (It was much cheaper to have it all sent to me and I will send it in the mail to him as UPS and Fed Ex to Alaska is costly.) The construction on the AMS case is awesome and is so strong. And I like the fan configuration better than just about any other case I have seen.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Don't use a reservoir. Waste of money, space and flow. A little fill-line is all you need.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    The thing is with the Eheim tubing is that you don't need clamps except for on the pumps in and outlet. The tubing is DANG tight. I had hell getting the tubing off that block yesterday. Felt like an hour workout.

    For the coolant, get Zerex super racing along with distilled/battery water. Use 90 water and 10 zerex. In my loop woth 2 blocks and rad + the tubing for it, i used half liter of water and about a half deciliter of zerex. The zerex is totally odur free where Water wetter stinks like a 15 foot bear in the spring when he wakes up.
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    what will you be cooling with that larry? cpu? gpu? nb?
    Also ...I sure hope you put together a list of everything when you're done including links as to where you get it and price you pay make model etc. ...that would sure be helpful for those of us up-n-coming.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    csimon
    I am going for the CPU and NB to start. I will see where I am come Summer on the GPU end of things before doing that one. You can count on a full report when I'm done.

    Mac
    Very interesting info on the Zerez as opposed to water wetter.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2003
    Larry, I will also vouch for Dtek's radiators. That's what I'm using to cool my dually MP rig with now and I originally had set the rig up to cool a P3 running a 120 watt pelt, which totalled over 200 watts of heat being dumped into the cooling system. It was able to shed that much heat when just using 1-120mm Panaflo M1A mounted on the shroud, so it should be able to handle the heat off of 1 proc and a GPU/NB setup with no problems. I also like your choice for your case because you should be able to mount the rad off of the rear 120mm fan mount outside of your case, which will give you a lot more room inside plus probably give a little better cooling. I'm using the Eheim 1250, which is the next size up from the Eheim that Mack linked to. For a single proc rig, I think the 1 that Mack linked to should be fine though and it would be easier to mount inside your case than a 1250. For tubing I would still stick with Tygon or Silicone instead of the Eheim tubing as it is a vinyl tubing and will eventually harden and shrink. Also, I went with a reservoir instead of a burp tube in my Antec 1240 case and mounted it behind the top 3-5 1/4 drive slots, with the filler tube extended through the top of the case for convenience. I made my own res out of a plastic 4X4 inch waterproof electrical box that I drilled and tapped my water fittings into. I mounted my 1250 Eheim on top of my psu, which gives a straight feed to the intake on the pump and changed the pump outlet to brass piping so I didn't have to worry about pinching or kinks in the tubing. If you can mount all your cooling stuff high up, since you have that 120mm fan outlet on the back of the case, you will have almost no pressure drop due to having to pump up against gravity, which will improve your pump's efficiency.
  • lsevaldlsevald Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Another vote for the DTek ProCore Rad :thumbsup:. I got experience with almost the entire range of BlackIce rads (BI, BI2, BIX and BIX2), but this is so much better. I used to have 2 BIX rads cooling down my heavily OC'ed and overvolted R9800Pro and NF7 chipset in a VapoPE. I recently upgraded to the MachII, and now I only got a single ProCore doing the job.

    It's pretty bulky though, probably wont fit on the back of that AMS case (unless you mount it externally):
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2003
    Yeah, that's what I was thinking with the radiator, Lasse. It wouldn't be hard to cut a couple of holes to feed the water lines to an external radiator mounted there.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    I am getting the Dtek Pro radiator, Eheim 1250 pump, Swiftech MCW5002-A CPU block, Swiftech MCW20 chipset block and Eheim tubing. Thanks everyone for all the help. Now I need to know where is the best place to order the Swiftech blocks and where can I find the Eheim tubing???
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Check the zoo stores. If they have the pumps there, they have the tubing as well. The tubing DO NOT hardens or shrinks.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2003
    Yes it will over time, Mack. I use Eheim cannister filters and tubing exclusively in my fish tanks and it will harden over time. Granted, it's a whole bunch better than regular vinyl tubing, but I would still rate silicone as better for longivity.

    mtgoat, check "That Pet Place" online and see what they have it for. I've bought fish supplies from them before and they are a good company to deal with.Also, I've bought a lot of stuff from The Pet Warehouse but I haven't bought anything from them since they got bought out. That link is right to the Eheim tubing. You will need the 12/16 mm tubing, which is dirt cheap compared to Silicone.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Damn, I must be real dense. When Mac first mentioned "zoo stores" I thought he was meaning the name of an online 'puter shop. Now that I know I can look local and see if I can find it here first. Now for a good place to buy the Swifty blocks. I can see this may take a couple of weeks to get all my parts gathered.
    muddocktor
    Thanks for the sites to check. The pet place is out of stock and the pet warehouse has it for $6.99 per 10 ft. package.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2003
    Pet warehouse also has the Eheim 1250 for $65.99, which is about $2 cheaper than dangerden.com has them. You can check local but I wouldn't be surprised if you find the Eheim equipment being marked way up locally. I know it's that way around my house.
  • EyesOnlyEyesOnly Sweden New
    edited December 2003
    So what should one choose. Eheim or tygon. As a prospecting wc:er i'm confused and so are you too it seems. I don't want my tubing getting hard and the prices on silicone isn't exactly low. But longlivity is important to me. Is there any chance that local plumbing stores might be cheaper than online. And what's zerex. Where would i find it.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2003
    As far as the Eheim vs Tygon or silicone tubing is concerned, the Eheim tubing doesn't harden very fast with just water going through it(fish tank experience). But I don't know how much or even if water wetter or antifreeze will affect it's lifespan. I do know that water wetter hasn't affected my silicone tubing in my dually besides staining it pink and that has been set up for almost 2 years now. Also, I have no experience with the Tygon tubing so I can't say anything about how it holds up long term. But unless water wetter or anitfreeze affects Eheim tubing a lot, it should be good for 2-3 years. 1 thing about the Eheim tubing though is that it will kink with tight bends. Eheim makes some special 90 degree forms to rest the tubing in for 90 degree bends without kinking and I've hound them to be necessary on my fish tanks to keep the tubing from kinking. The silicone tubing in my dually isn't quite as bad for kinking as the Eheim stuff and I've heard that the Tygon stuff is better than my silicone tubing.

    EyesOnly, zerex is a name brand of antifreeze for your car.

    Hope this helps you all out in your decisions.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    muddocktor wrote:
    As far as the Eheim vs Tygon or silicone tubing is concerned, the Eheim tubing doesn't harden very fast with just water going through it(fish tank experience). But I don't know how much or even if water wetter or antifreeze will affect it's lifespan. I do know that water wetter hasn't affected my silicone tubing in my dually besides staining it pink and that has been set up for almost 2 years now. Also, I have no experience with the Tygon tubing so I can't say anything about how it holds up long term. But unless water wetter or anitfreeze affects Eheim tubing a lot, it should be good for 2-3 years. 1 thing about the Eheim tubing though is that it will kink with tight bends. Eheim makes some special 90 degree forms to rest the tubing in for 90 degree bends without kinking and I've hound them to be necessary on my fish tanks to keep the tubing from kinking. The silicone tubing in my dually isn't quite as bad for kinking as the Eheim stuff and I've heard that the Tygon stuff is better than my silicone tubing.

    EyesOnly, zerex is a name brand of antifreeze for your car.

    Hope this helps you all out in your decisions.

    For heavens sake Muddocktor, you can't compare tubing qualitys between a fishtank and a watercooling setup. That's silly. (no offence)

    A fishtank has....algs, Fishsh*it and most of all Oxygen. A watercooling loop doesn't have anything of that. Sure, tygon is VERY good tubing but to a cost that is unjustified for me. I'm sure if lsevald can see this, he can provide with some pictures of bends that that even surprises me. Besides, who have a rig for 2 years going without changing anything in it? Not many in this forum.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited December 2003
    Why not, Mack? Water going through it is water going through it, whether it is used on a fish tank or in a computer. If anything the oxygenated water will have a negative affect on tubing life and I stated that it lasts well even in that environment. With a computer, the water will be running at a much higher average temp, which will also have an adverse affect on the life of your tubing. What I posted about the kinking problem will still hold true whether in a fish tank or computer. With the higher temps in a computer, the tubing will be more pliable and will tend to kink less with sharp kinks, but it will flatten and elongate through the bends when hot. This is conducive to higher resistance to flow as it will induce turbulence in the tubing, which will raise back pressure due to turbulent flow. I work with crap like this in day to day operations, Mack, and I know what flow regimes do. The only parts of your system that you ideally want in turbulent flow are your waterblocks themselves if you can help it, to keep the backpressure as low as possible.

    I agree that most people will change stuff around in their computer before 2-3 years are up; the dually has been up in it's present form for about 16 months but before it became a watercooled dually, parts of the system were a pelted, watercooled P3 and the tubing I used then I just adapted over to the Asus board when I got it. So parts of the cooling system in that dually have been in use for right at 2 years with no degradation of the silicone tubing. Anyways, the cost of tubing might be the great decider. I haven't been able to find the 1/2" silicone tubing that I'm using and when I bought it, it was $2.00/foot. The Eheim is only $6.95 for 10 feet and the Tygon is $2.65/foot at D-Tek. Whatever way that mtgoat goes, he will be well served with any of them. I'm just trying to point out some of my experiences with Eheim tubing to him. BTW, I've been using Eheim products since I got back into fish in 1995 and they make the best equipment out there.
  • EyesOnlyEyesOnly Sweden New
    edited January 2004
    muddocktor wrote:

    EyesOnly, zerex is a name brand of antifreeze for your car.

    Hope this helps you all out in your decisions.

    Well it does thanks you but can i use any brand antifreeze since i can't find any zerex. Is it safe for the computer to use. Well it looks like i can stop asking for tubing since i think i'll go with the eheim due to the price. I can live with replacing it in a few years should it be necessary.
  • EyesOnlyEyesOnly Sweden New
    edited January 2004
    Oh and one more question that hopefully isn't to difficult to answer. What length of tubing is recuired for wc. I realize that the more blocks and the bigger case you have the more tubing is recuired but can someone give me some numbers of what's normally needed for several configurations.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2004
    When I first rigged my wc setup up, I had bought 10 feet of tubing and had at least 5 feet left over, which was enough to rerig the system when I re-setup the machine from a single proc rig to a dual proc rig. I would imagine that 10 feet should give you plenty of tubing and have enough left over in case you screw up cutting a length too. I still have about 1 1/2-2 feet of tubing left, but I'm not cooling the gpu with water either.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I just ordered the following from these places;

    dtekcustoms.com
    * Dtek Pro Radiator combo (Metalic Blue)
    * Eheim 1250 pump

    xoxide.com
    * Swiftech MCW5002-A CPU Block
    * Danger Den 1/2" Z-Chip Chipset Cooler

    Bought Locally
    * 10 Ft. Eheim 1/2" I.D. Tubing and assorted fittings
    * More AS-5

    Will I need any kind of relay system or other electrical?
    I plan on making a fill type resivoir with a 'T' fitting and a piece of 1" tubing and placing it at the highest point in the system. Will that work OK?
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    The reservoir setup you have in mind should work fine.

    Safest simple way to protect yourself is to plug the computer and the pump ONLY into a dedicated power bar - this way, the computer can't be turned on without the pump running. Plus, assuming the power bar has its own switch, you have an additional quick shutdown method for unforseen emergencies (I've never had to use mine).
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Keto,
    Good point on the dedicated power. I think I will go pick up one of the UPS they have on sale at Fry's tomorrow as I have been considering getting one anyway. Then I can put the computer, monitor and pump on it.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Good call Keto, that's a foolproof sollution.

    Setup looks great Larry :) You will find that the tightest bend will be between the cpu and chipset. What you can do is following:

    Measure how long piece of tubing you need, put that piece in a bowl of boiling water for a minute to make it soft (Eheim can easily take VERY hot water compared to Tygon), then form a 180 degree bend with a piece that is as short as possible, put it in the freeze with something that keeps the bend that way (eg. a couple of jars on each side so it doesn't strech out) and leave it there for a day. When you take it out, it'll stay that way.

    Here's some serious Eheim bends:
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