How do you plan a new watercooled build?

Soldato
Joined
10 Oct 2005
Posts
4,040
Location
London
I have been seduced by the barrage of tech articles over the new HW releases or the soon to be released Zen/Navi articles. Im going to replace my ageing but still perfectly capable Sandybridge E i7 3930k. I think I may have sweated that asset for too long now.
Obviously with the whole work from home bit now, Im looking to downsize from a Corsair Tower to a Micro-ATX based build and as I like a challenge, Im watercooling it with a custom loop as I want a nice quiet build. I know mATX limits me a bit, but Im under pressure with all my work stuff that is now in my office which is why Im building new in the 1st place as Im not under pressure due to PC specs really right now.
I could just move all my kit into a smaller case, but it is getting on now and I feel the chances of rebuilding it into another case and everything booting back up are probably slim.
Im either going to go Ryzen 3000 or 5000 with a watercooled Navi card. I suspect I will go with a decent 3000 series CPU as prices will drop when Zen 3 comes out and I can then upgrade to a better Zen 3 later on.
At the moment the bit Im struggling with is the planning part. I can watch all the tube vids with lovely builds, the case Im leaning towards at the moment is a Fractal Design Mini C or maybe Crystal 280X, however as the videos aren't using the same hardware as I am, Im aware that my build may look different or may not even be possible due to different HW layout and maybe things can't mount the same or the tubing paths may be different.

I guess my first question is whether 2 x 240 Rads would be enough cooling for this? That is all I can get in a mini C, a 280X would allow a bit more I think.

My next question would be how do you guys plan your layout? Do you just buy all the HW, get some Flexi tubing and see where you can put stuff physically and then buy the fittings to match?
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
5 Oct 2009
Posts
13,823
Location
Spalding, Lincs
Go onto Reddit r/watercooling, you will find a ton of builds in the same case and will give you plenty of inspiration for rads to use, pipe layouts etc. It's what helped me build mine and plan on what will fit and what fittings I would need.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
10 Oct 2005
Posts
4,040
Location
London
Go onto Reddit r/watercooling, you will find a ton of builds in the same case and will give you plenty of inspiration for rads to use, pipe layouts etc. It's what helped me build mine and plan on what will fit and what fittings I would need.
Reddit never even occured to me, it's been years since I was last on there, will check it out
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
10 Oct 2005
Posts
4,040
Location
London
Linus did a recent test and showed a single 240 could cool a 3080 without excessive noise. I suspect that two 240s would cool what you plan.

I believe I can get a 280 in the front of the meshify C mini, so I might be alright with an additional 240 at the top. Investigating further as if I do that, it will be a very tight build.
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2013
Posts
12,300
Plan??
AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!! :D

I generally favour stupidly big cases, so I don't have to plan and will have plenty of space for future retro-fits of new stuff that wasn't available during the primary build. Even then I have occasionally come unstuck, but usually by millimetres and then only when a Dremel™ was not the answer.
Half the features I require are pretty non-standard anyway, though. Most of the builds I've done for other people have been very straightforward in terms of location, components, size, routing and so on. Beyond buying an obviously oversize reservoir or picking the wrong mobo size, there isn't really much that can go wrong with those.
 
Associate
Joined
26 Nov 2015
Posts
1,453
Location
Derby
i usually plan in my head but first i try to find as many builds similar to what I am planning to do and figure out what works and what is not.
 
Back
Top Bottom