Pumps

2x Swiftech 655v pumps

I used these pumps since they are debatably the highest flow PC pumps available. The only slight draw back with these pumps is they don’t create the best “Head” or pressure. So in highly restrictive systems there performance is significantly reduced. This is why I have used 2 of these pump and plumbed them in series. Series theoretically doubles the Head while the unload flow stays the same.

Radiators

3x Hardwarelabs 240GTS’s

I didn’t buy these radiators with this project in mind. Some years ago a got an excellent deal on the red one so I though I’d work with what I had and later purchased the other two black ones. I would have like them to have all been the same colour but the supplier I used no longer stocked the red ones. Theses radiators have they’re advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

• Very high fin density for excellent cooling

Disadvantages

• They are highly restrictive to flow. Interestingly enough all three radiator had different back pressure reading when tested.

• They have enormous gaps between the radiator housing and the first row of fins.

• When mounted flush against a flat surface there is a small gap at both ends of the radiator which air can escape.

I have eliminated these gaps in the radiator by filling them with silicone

These radiators are connected in Parallel to each other not Series like normally because of their significant back pressure. Connecting them in parallel reduces the back pressure seen by the pump allowing more water to flow around the loop and across the all important water blocks. If the radiators were connected in series the flow would be significantly reduced. Here is an example
Lets say one of the radiators has a backpressure of 100 then the total backpressure of three of them connected in series would be 300. However if we connect these same radiators in parallel the combined back pressure would now be 33. That’s 9 times less back pressure when connected in back pressure

Fans

I chose these fans for the flowing reasons

• They are 38mm thick. Thicker fans are generally better because they normally produce better pressure at any given flow rate. This pressure is important when sucking through a restrictive radiator.

• These fans are surprisingly cheap which is always a good thing.

• They are very quiet when being controlled by a PWM speed controller

These fans are attached to the shroud in a sucking fashion. Sucking is preferred for two reasons

• Sucking produces slightly lower water temps

• Sucking make Maintenance significantly easier

When the fans are sucking dust gets collected on the opposite side of the radiator. His dust can be removed easily with a vacuum cleaner. If the Fans were flowing this dust would collect on the same side of the radiator as the fan. To clean the dust off would require the remove of the fans and probably the shroud too.

Shroud

The purpose of a shroud is to even the air flow out across the entire radiator. The problem with fans is that the air coming from them is in a donut shape where as a radiator is a square. A shroud helps to adapt this donut shape to a square. Thicker the shroud the better, however I think my shroud of 7cm is more than enough.

Reservoir /T line

As you can see I have a large 80x400 res it’s this large to make filling and maintaining very simple. Also a larger one decreases any restriction a Res may have on my system. In the picture you will see a T line the idea behind this is when I want to empty my system I can remove the plug and screw in any length of tubing then use this line to drain My system.

Case

I have mounted my watercooling system in a PC case which is the same as the one that houses my PC. The reason for do this was to give my system some kind of limits as in that’s all I could fit into the case. Having the cooling system separate means I can move it some where else to reduce noise and increase cooling efficiency. I intend on putting it in another room to help heat it later.

CPU block

Currently the best commercially available CPU water block is the Fuzion. Epically with the Must have nozzle kit

GPU block

I chose the Swiftech block over the Fuzion because it’s significantly less restrictive than the fusion block. The Swftech block doesn’t cool as well as the D-tek one though.

Controller

M-cubed T-balancer

My system is controlled by a M-Cubed T-balancer.
The T-balancer adjusts the fan speed to keep the water temp at X temp and It also adjusts the Pump speeds to keep the CPU block at Y temp.