Back into Watercooling - Component Check

R

Riddlinkidstoner

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 12, 2006
Messages
4,589
Decided to jump back into watercooling after 14 years and the landscape has changed quite a bit since my last watercooling build. I was originally going to go with a full EK or Corsair build but I stumbled across Heatkiller which seems to have generally higher reviews though a smaller audience compared to EK which has gone a lot more 'mainstream' than last I remember.

My last WC build for reference...

1621350036814.png


Just want to make sure I'm not missing anything critical here.

Specs:

5600X
x470 Taichi
EVGA 3090 XC3 Ultra
Lian Li Lancool 2 Mesh
EVGA G2 750W

Components on order from watercool.de

HEATKILLER® V for RTX 3080/3090 EVGA XC3 - ACRYL Ni aRGB
HEATKILLER V eBC - Backplate for RTX 3080/3090 EVGA XC3 - Black
HTSF2 3x120 LTX
HEATKILLER® Tube 200 D5 + D5 PWM
Barrow Compression Fitting 13/10 silver nickel x8
Barrow G1/4" 90 Degree Rotary Adaptor silver x8
HEATKILLER® Tube - 120mm fan adapter (pair)
HEATKILLER® IV PRO (AMD processor) BLACK COPPER
Mayhems X1 Clear 1 Ltr Premixed V2

To be ordered:

Second 240 top radiator (looking at EK or Corsair slim radiator for the top)
Tubing (likely soft tubing, looking at Primoflex)
Arctic P12 fans

Goals are mostly reduced noise with some mild overclocking.
 
Heatkiller blocks are a solid choice. They are really good performers.
Rads- avoid corsair due to their using hardwarelabs oem line and charging a huge markup for them. The xr5 rads your looking at are rebadges of the hwl GTS line. Their xr7 line are hwl L series rads that can be had for around $40 less than corsair for the same thing.
EK slim rads are average performers but not nearly as good as hwl gts rads. So try to find some reviews before you pull the trigger on the ek.
You may already know this but for d5s make sure its a built by laing, lowara or xylem. They are all divisions of laing. Just built in different regions. Anything else is a knockoff.
Also with rotaries be wary of any that turn easily. Thats almost always an early sign of failure. If they turn hard your golden.
Everything else looks good and GL with the build!
 
hititnquitit said:
Heatkiller blocks are a solid choice. They are really good performers.
Rads- avoid corsair due to their using hardwarelabs oem line and charging a huge markup for them. The xr5 rads your looking at are rebadges of the hwl GTS line. Their xr7 line are hwl L series rads that can be had for around $40 less than corsair for the same thing.
EK slim rads are average performers but not nearly as good as hwl gts rads. So try to find some reviews before you pull the trigger on the ek.
You may already know this but for d5s make sure its a built by laing, lowara or xylem. They are all divisions of laing. Just built in different regions. Anything else is a knockoff.
Also with rotaries be wary of any that turn easily. Thats almost always an early sign of failure. If they turn hard your golden.
Everything else looks good and GL with the build!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I'm getting the D5 straight from watercool so hopefully it's genuine. The site says its built by laing.

Good feedback on the radiators. I'll look at HWL rads.
 
Tough to go wrong with any of the top-tier brands of course, but I also highly endorse Heatkiller products, simply outstanding quality. (Have the IV on my CPU, and the 4x version of that radiator hanging from the rear of my now ancient Cooler Master ATC-111C aluminium case... LOL.) Performance with a mere Aquastream pump is no problem at all.
 

hititnquitit touched on this, but go with HWLabs GTS slim rads over corsair. Now even though I prefer HWLabs, EK slim rads have perfectly square edges and can, sometimes, fit in tight spaces better than other rads.​

 
Smoked Brisket said:

hititnquitit touched on this, but go with HWLabs GTS slim rads over corsair. Now even though I prefer HWLabs, EK slim rads have perfectly square edges and can, sometimes, fit in tight spaces better than other rads.​

Click to expand...

I went ahead and ordered a 240 GTS from Performance PCs since it was cheaper than Amazon + free shipping/no tax. Also my order just shipped from watercool so I expect I should get everything by end of next week.

Thanks all! Will circle back once I assemble everything.
 
Alright assembled everything and naturally everything didn't go according to plan but it worked out.

I received all my components Thursday evening and went right to work. Disassembling the 3090 was probably the most stressful part of the experience.

1622297313986.png


1622297334284.png


1622297353692.png


CPU block was a breeze.

1622297396020.png


Unfortunately I forgot to order the bracket that mounts the heatkiller tube. Also it was quite a bit larger than I anticipated even though I had measured it. Even with a mounting bracket, the front radiator was too thick and would not easily mount to where I wanted it to.

1622297467229.png


After some research I ordered a Corsair D5 gen2 pump from Amazon since it was available same day as I didn't want any further downtime on my gaming rig. The pump fit pretty much how I wanted it to except I had to drill a few holes to mount the bracket. It's still not perfect as you can see it crooked because it's only being held on one side. I'm going to likely cut/modify the plate to support the pump and radiator in the future.

1622297598577.png


1622297618527.png


Last thing I need is an ARGB splitter for the GPU block.

Temps are unbelievable and it's so quiet! Running Nicehash with Autotune for speed and OCCT for CPU load.

1622297721713.png


1622297935969.png
 
I really like those Heatkiller reservoirs but refuse to buy something that comes without mounting hardware. Makes no sense and makes it just bad value. Welcome back to water cooling, nice build.
 
Nasgul said:
Ok, nothing. But why not just stick with air? I got a Loop for my CPU but it runs 5.2GHz on all 8 cores when full load, which is not that often, maybe once a week. Nevertheless, I make her squeal like a pig.
.
Could've saved up a couple of hundred bucks or more, get Grizzly thermal paste, which for me it gave me better results than any other thermal paste I've ever used on-air and Loop.
My loop and 10700KF. Video card runs cool enough with that massive heat-sink and 3 fans, it's a 1660 Ti that has seen about 20mins of gaming during the last 15 months at the most.
Click to expand...
Noise mostly but now I'm facing coil whine.

I may repaste the 5600x and push it higher.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top