New and Improved Watercooling Sticky - Post Your Systems Here

Thanks for the info.
I was having hell getting accurate measurements.
I found out they sell compound slotted rulers for measuring fitting distance. I’ll pick one of those up and setup a jig on a board.

I went through 3 500 mm tubes before I had one that worked. Ended up just eyeballing it and tweaking with the heat gun to make it fit, so that I could test the temps and use it for work until I order more pipe and the measurement tool.

It was a blast though. Started at 4pm and finished bleeding the loop at 6am. Totally lost track of time.

Can’t wait to get a block for the 4090… that chungus was limiting my rad and pump placement.

Welcome to a new fun and addictive hobby :) While it is expensive in aggregate, the parts you buy will last damn near forever and if you build your loop right, upgrades can be fully as easy as with an air-cooled rig.

Personally, I never had any luck with the PETG tubing and bends, so I got into glass tubing. It's not dramatically more expensive than the PETG, and you can buy glass tubing with a 90-bend in it easily. As long as you remember to "measure twice and cut once" and to buy fittings 1mm larger than your advertised tubing Outer Diameter (glass tubing OD can vary a little along the same tube) you won't have any problems with it. Glass has the added benefit of being "unstainable" and easy to clean. PETG stains and gets cloudy over time. I was able to reuse all of the glass from my wife's last build in her new build except for two runs, so the glass is pretty easy to reuse as well.
 
My first open loop water cooled rig. After two RMAs for defective LEDs, multiple loop configurations and reconfigurations, I landed on this loop.
 

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Custom loop, not open (look up bong coolers to see open). Really nice looking, and you going to stay rainbow or is there going to be a specific scheme eventually? I had to stay rainbow my most recent build because the MB and graphics card will not produce similar solid colors. (minor annoyance)
 
Custom loop, not open (look up bong coolers to see open). Really nice looking, and you going to stay rainbow or is there going to be a specific scheme eventually? I had to stay rainbow my most recent build because the MB and graphics card will not produce similar solid colors. (minor annoyance)
Open loop in this definition is that the loop has to be put together, and not an AIO which would be closed loop. I guess we have different definitions. No worries. No, I have many different color options. I tried Intel Blue which looks equally nice. White and titanium colors are pretty as well.
 
My first open loop water cooled rig. After two RMAs for defective LEDs, multiple loop configurations and reconfigurations, I landed on this loop.

Nice and clean, Good job man. What size tubing is that? How are your temps?
 
Finished 13900K/4090 build recently, moving up from 6900K/2080Ti SLI.

Using EK Velocity 2 CPU block, Alphacool ES GPU block, Alphacool RAM watercooling kit and ZMT tubes with various EK fittings in modified InWin 805c case

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It then goes to external MO-RA3 radiator placed on the attic, with QDCs on both ends and a flow meter. It also has the ability to throw hot air to the outside through a vent in the wall, so it doesn't heat up that attic room as it is already very warm in the summer.

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I've even had some fun with condensation when I was waiting for GPU block, because this room is insulated but not actively heated, except with the heat from the radiator, but that needs the heat from the GPU primarily and negative temperatures caught me off guard at the same time, so not only the room wasn't heated but also the inside of base was heated by air cooled GPU even if it was left open and even in idle, so I ended up with 25C case ambient and like 6C water temp :p And this happened overnight because I fell asleep and left PC running. It is fine now though with all components connected and putting out heat there for multiple hours a day, it never drops below 15C ambient.

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Nothing is ever going to match the aesthetics and symmetry of HEDT + SLI setups though, but those times are over unfortunately.

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First time building a custom loop. Modded the NZXT H510 for better airflow. I've contemplated on watercooling my 6900xt for over half a year. Finally took the plunge and couldn't believe I waited this long to build a custom loop. Things have come a long way from using a heater core.
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Nice and clean, Good job man. What size tubing is that? How are your temps?
Tubing is Corsair Hydrp X XT Softline10/13mm ID/OD tubing. Temps when both the CPU and GPU are at full tilt, water temp get pretty high. Corsair's site says this case cannot handle the wattage and they are right. The glass front panel restricts the air too much. If I leave the front door open a bit, water temps only get to 41C, but if door is fully closed, they continue to rise well into the high 50s, which I decided to stop the torture test. I removed the front glass, but I don't like the look. I just purchased a Thermaltake Core P8 to replace the Corsair Obsidian 500D RGB SE. will be rebuilding it soon.
 
Tubing is Corsair Hydrp X XT Softline10/13mm ID/OD tubing. Temps when both the CPU and GPU are at full tilt, water temp get pretty high. Corsair's site says this case cannot handle the wattage and they are right. The glass front panel restricts the air too much. If I leave the front door open a bit, water temps only get to 41C, but if door is fully closed, they continue to rise well into the high 50s, which I decided to stop the torture test. I removed the front glass, but I don't like the look. I just purchased a Thermaltake Core P8 to replace the Corsair Obsidian 500D RGB SE. will be rebuilding it soon.
What, water temps in the 50s is really something. I try to keep it in the 30s. You're on the right track with the new case.
 
What, water temps in the 50s is really something. I try to keep it in the 30s. You're on the right track with the new case.
I've never seen my water temp over 32C and I have a 1080ti, 3090, 3950x, and 5800x3D on the same loop. Typical system idle water temp is 23C and the room holds at 22C. Good luck managing those temps NES!
 
I enjoy toasty water. It let's me keep all fans at bay and just use the higher delta to pull heat from the upward facing rad. Plus as long as my chip is under 80c I'm happy.

3900x at 4ghz. May repost system pics in abit
 
Two systems to share. The first is my "backup rig": Lapped 13600K on an Asrock Z690 Extreme with my 2080Ti, with a GTX240 radiator in push/pull, and Heatkiller blocks. GPU hums along at under 50C on a 300W gaming load. Great little system.

The second is my "peak Windows 7" retro rig consisting of an eVGA Z97 Classified, 4790K, and a pair of eVGA GTX 960 4GB FTWs in SLI. Super basic loop of an Optimus V1, Corsair 280mm rad and an EK pump-bayres. First time using ZMT tubing. Keeps the 4790K under 70C at 4.6GHz. Hoping to squeeze some more out of it.
 

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Hard to believe no one has posted since my last ones in March.

Here's my new main rig.

Asus Z790 Hero
Lapped 13900KS with a Thermal Grizzly contact frame and Watercool heavy backplate, Heatkiller IV block
32GB Kingston DDR5-7200C38
Intel Optane 905P 380GB M.2
eVGA 3080Ti with Heatkiller V block on a PCIE4.0 riser
HWLabs GTX480 radiator with Phanteks T30s, triple Noctua 140mm intakes
Optimus D5 reservoir
ZMT tubing (first use with it)
Fractal Meshify 2 XL case (wanted this for the 480mm support)

Cooling results:
27C ambient
40C water temp at 700W load (simultaneous R23 and Heaven)
50C on GPU (~45C if Heaven by itself at 400W)
 

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Hard to believe no one has posted since my last ones in March.

Here's my new main rig.

Asus Z790 Hero
Lapped 13900KS with a Thermal Grizzly contact frame and Watercool heavy backplate, Heatkiller IV block
32GB Kingston DDR5-7200C38
Intel Optane 905P 380GB M.2
eVGA 3080Ti with Heatkiller V block on a PCIE4.0 riser
HWLabs GTX480 radiator with Phanteks T30s, triple Noctua 140mm intakes
Optimus D5 reservoir
ZMT tubing (first use with it)
Fractal Meshify 2 XL case (wanted this for the 480mm support)

Cooling results:
27C ambient
40C water temp at 700W load (simultaneous R23 and Heaven)
50C on GPU (~45C if Heaven by itself at 400W)

Good GPU temps. I think my pump isn't moving enough water
 
Thanks. I forgot to mention that the CPU will average 95C at 325W on R23. Zero clock throttling. Once winter comes around again with ambients of 20C I'll be able to get some better bench runs in. Still broke some personal records this morning and a couple older benchmarks put me in the top 100.

Flow rates are really good. I used three 90 degree fittings out of necessity. I could have used one or none if I went with a standard GPU install, but since it has the disco lights and window I figured why not enjoy them.
 
Good GPU temps. I think my pump isn't moving enough water
I haven't seen your setup but flow rates are not super important unless its really bad. I found the best loop setup is to put everything in serial. I used to have 2 1080ti's in parallel and noticed a significant improvement in temps after switching to serial flow without touching the pump speeds.
 
I haven't seen your setup but flow rates are not super important unless its really bad. I found the best loop setup is to put everything in serial. I used to have 2 1080ti's in parallel and noticed a significant improvement in temps after switching to serial flow without touching the pump speeds.
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Corsair 680X Crystal
360 rad up front intake
280 rad up top exhaust
Rear 240 exhaust
Bottom 240 x2 intake
Corsair d5 pwm pump always set to 100%
EVGA 3080Ti FTW! HYDROCOPPER, pretty good OC over factory, can't remember what exactly right now. Fairly significant on vram.
5700X, decently tuned with Project Hydra.
 
I have 2 D5's in serial, mainly because I have three massive radiators restricting flow and I wanted some redundancy. I have them both set to around 45%. What I found when tinkering around was that flow rates only really matter when your loop is in 'maximum cooling' mode, so all fans at 100% and are dumping the maximum possible heat out of the loop. If you are running at sub-optimal fan speeds (i.e. lowest possible noise) the pump speed makes almost no difference unless you have a flow problem.

I also have a second machine with a single D5. Same video card with a slightly lower power CPU. The loop has almost no height (vertically its the distance between barbs on a radiator) with two thin radiators and I get better temps on that machine with lower pump and fan speeds.

The D5 has very high head pressure so it can push water through fairly restrictive loops at low speed without too much problem.
 
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Thanks for reminding me- I have to shutdown and clean the rads this afternoon. I want to make a rad attachment that slots the filters & fans into a hinged arrangement on the front of the rad so cleaning is just open and vacuum it out...
 
Latest entry. So I had to do a massive cleanup of my system. Video games and anything CPU intensive would crash. GPU temps were in the 70s and the CPU also was in the upper 70s.

I was using distilled water with Mayhems biocide, but the water turned brown, and I figured it needed to be cleaned after 3 years. Actually, it wasn't the water, it was something covering the components. They all developed this brown grime cover, even on the reservoir glass, that was EXTREMELY difficult to remove. It took scrubbing each component with toothpaste over 20 minutes to clean up. I disassembled the entire system and discovered the source was the EK block on my RTX 2080Ti that went to hell. I didn't get any pics of it, it was gory. I threw it away and got a new block for $60 from EK.

I also tried to install a new full cover motherobard block that I got from Liquid Extasy, but the performance of the CPU part of it was so bad I had to go back to my Raystorm Neo. Then a screw broke off on the VRM waterblock, which isn't even made for my Asus WS X299 Sage/10G board. I took the opportunity to take the block to a local machine shop, and while I was there had them drill out and retap the mounting hole on the waterblock to actually fit my board. For the first time in 4 years since I built this system, the VRM block now perfectly fits.

I then redesigned the entire loop and rad, mounted the reservoirs horizontally (jury-rigged for dual reservoirs since it's not supported on the MORA officially), got a bunch of new EK and XSPC 90 degree fittings, and outfitted the entire thing with EK ZMT tubing. I also switched to using clear EK Cryofuel instead of straight distilled water, since I believe that contributed to the huge mess that happened with my system. I think it came out perfect. Temps are back to where they are supposed to be, and funnily enough, the CPU is about 10C cooler at full load. Temps on the GPU never exceed 49C during extremely heavy gaming. The only thing that remains hot is the PCH, which hovers anywhere from 60C to 80C, which I was attempting to tackle by getting the full board cover block.

Either way this turned out great. Here are some pics.

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Outgrew my old setup and needed more heat dissipation. I managed to squeeze a HwLabs GTX 420mm radiator into an o11d evo, side mounted the GTX 280mm, and 3x140mm top. Didn't have a bracket to mount the reservoir to the fans but it fits in the back. Also replaced the thermal paste on my 6900xt and 5800x3d with liquid metal. The hot spot temps went from a max of 89°C to 65°C and cpu temps 75°C to 55°C. I'm loving this setup. Super quiet with fans spinning @ 700rpm. Water temps will max out at 32°C with fans at 1200rpm. When I get around to it, I'll see how much further I can push my 6900xt. It's currently at 2625/2725 @ 1.2vcore, 440watt ppt limit.

Oh, and somehow due to this rebuild, my coil whine is almost non existent.

TLDR: extra radiator and liquid metal does wonders.

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Latest entry. So I had to do a massive cleanup of my system. Video games and anything CPU intensive would crash. GPU temps were in the 70s and the CPU also was in the upper 70s.

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So, a few things changed within a month, so here's another update.

Rad setup exactly the same, but I upgraded to a 4090 to properly feed my new 48" OLED display. I installed the new EKWB Vector 2 RGB block on the Gigabyte 4090. Why did I get that specific GPU model? Because there's literally zero coil whine. I also used the official Corsair 12VHPWR cable to try to offset against any potential melting. Not using that squid dongle that came with the GPU.

While I was at it, I plumbed in a top port to aid in draining. I have one more update to make to this rig, and that is the new PCH waterblock which is on its way from Germany soon. After I install that, I am done investing in this rig, and will use it for another few years before I completely upgrade it to a new platform.

Here are pics of the updated setup.

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So, a few things changed within a month, so here's another update.

Rad setup exactly the same, but I upgraded to a 4090 to properly feed my new 48" OLED display. I installed the new EKWB Vector 2 RGB block on the Gigabyte 4090. Why did I get that specific GPU model? Because there's literally zero coil whine. I also used the official Corsair 12VHPWR cable to try to offset against any potential melting. Not using that squid dongle that came with the GPU.

While I was at it, I plumbed in a top port to aid in draining. I have one more update to make to this rig, and that is the new PCH waterblock which is on its way from Germany soon. After I install that, I am done investing in this rig, and will use it for another few years before I completely upgrade it to a new platform.

Here are pics of the updated setup.

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Is that a Rosewill case per chance?

It looks very similar to the one I built my wife's last PC in...
 
Outgrew my old setup and needed more heat dissipation. I managed to squeeze a HwLabs GTX 420mm radiator into an o11d evo, side mounted the GTX 280mm, and 3x140mm top. Didn't have a bracket to mount the reservoir to the fans but it fits in the back. Also replaced the thermal paste on my 6900xt and 5800x3d with liquid metal. The hot spot temps went from a max of 89°C to 65°C and cpu temps 75°C to 55°C. I'm loving this setup. Super quiet with fans spinning @ 700rpm. Water temps will max out at 32°C with fans at 1200rpm. When I get around to it, I'll see how much further I can push my 6900xt. It's currently at 2625/2725 @ 1.2vcore, 440watt ppt limit.

Oh, and somehow due to this rebuild, my coil whine is almost non existent.

TLDR: extra radiator and liquid metal does wonders.

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Nice, the last iteration of my rig, I had all my stuff in an o11D, (non-evo), with a 360 on the top, a 240 in the back, and a thin 240 mounted in a custom front panel from Performance PCs. It was a real pain to set up. Yours looks much nicer.

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Is that a Rosewill case per chance?

It looks very similar to the one I built my wife's last PC in...

If you look closely at the pictures, you can see the word Fractal on the black plate on the right.

Ding ding, we have a winner. Yep, it's a Fractal Define R6 USB-C. It's a great case....but honestly, it's too small. Next build I go, definitely going with the Define 7 full tower.
 
Ding ding, we have a winner. Yep, it's a Fractal Define R6 USB-C. It's a great case....but honestly, it's too small. Next build I go, definitely going with the Define 7 full tower.

Smaller cases can be fun to build in - I have enjoyed the challenge of getting my wife's system built in the older Rosewill case she had prior to rebuilding her rig in a Hyte Y60. For my personal rig, I built it in a Coolermaster Cosmo C700P. Room is not an issue, it's super-easy to build in and there are custom mount holes EVERYWHERE making modding a snap. Also, I dig the lighted aluminum "ski rails" on it, making it easier to carry... and it needs help there because the case BY ITSELF is freaking heavy.
 
Did a case swap from a Lian Li Lancool II to a the new Lian Li O11 Dynamic Evo RGB. Changed over to EDPM tubing and added a sensor panel using a generic 5" touchscreen, a 3D printed mount, and Aquasuite.

Unfortunately the GPU > CPU loop I had intended to use a fitting that I forgot to order so it has a strange loop for now until I order the right angled fitting.

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I managed to snag a full kit of 4x ram monarch ram heatsinks and the matching water block for $50 CDN off FB marketplace. I am running 4 sticks of 16GB bdie (64GB) at 1.525V and prior to this I had a janky fan zap strapped above my ram to keep it from getting too hot. This looks better and the temps are lower yet. This is not the finished loop as its dirty AF and I just ghetto plumbed this in. Getting some black zero maintenance tubing coming in the mail and plan to do a full clean and flush and install the new tubing.
I will post again when the loop is rebuilt but I was pretty pleased with this find.
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