More questions from Evelon! This time: Watercooling!

Evelon277

So I'm planning on watercooling my graphics card sometime soon (the rest will come with time) because its current cooler is crazy loud. My card is a HIS ICEQ HD6950 2GB. The waterblock I've gotten (getting it piece by piece every few weeks) is a Heatkiller GPU-X³ 6870 ATI Radeon 6870. I hope I did that link correctly. Anyway, I need advice on the radiator I should get. I can't decide (or rather, don't know enough about to choose) between a single fan radiator, or a dual. Does it make much of a difference? I will be eventually joining my processor in the loop, but that's not much of a priority at the moment.

Tushon

Dual is twice the cooling capacity and will be quieter because the fans can go at a lower speed while maintaining the cooling capacity. If you have room, go for a triple to allow for future water cooling expansion to CPU (as mentioned). One of the 360s listed here, or here, for example

Evelon277

The Stealth GTS 360 seems a little more in my budget. I'll check to see if I have room tomorrow.. I think I do. While you're here, do you think this would be a suitable res/pump? Again, I'm completely new to this, so I don't know if two-in-ones are bad or not.

Evelon277

I think I could might be able to make it fit with a little bit of modding to my case, not sure though... but it'll look real nice if I can, so that's good! Thanks, Tushon.

Tushon

If I was building a cooling setup, I would be looking at the danger den pumps by laing or a swiftech mcp655. There are combos available, but just those pumps are more expensive than your current setup. I don't know how that particular one rates and am not an expert :/

Paging @csimon

csimon

I agree w/ the good strong pumps that you mention ...I have been using at D5 (http://www.dangerden.com/store/dd12v-d5_pump-variable-speed-by-laing.html?&cat=23) going on about 6-7 years straight now w/ no issues. I've also heard very good things about this (http://www.dangerden.com/store/dd-laing-ddc-3.25-12v-18-watt-version.html) style of pump as well.

On the radiator side I would recommend this one http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8523/ex-rad-146/XSPC_RX360_Triple_120mm_Radiator_Rev_2.html from the reviews I've been reading. You may find it slightly cheaper by scouting around.

This site is full of resources for comparing various watercooling components
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/03/27/xspc-rx360-radiator/
Excellent shootout here ...this is where I came to the XSPC 360 conclusion but most are rated very well:
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/04/14/360-radiator-shootout-summary/

Also good comparisons here:
http://skinneelabs.com/2011-2012-radiator-comparison/
http://skinneelabs.com/water-cooling-pumps/laing-d5-pump/
http://skinneelabs.com/water-cooling-pumps/laing-ddc-pump/