The Neophyte's Custom Liquid Cooling Guide: How To, Why To, What To Expect
by Dustin Sklavos on September 30, 2013 12:01 AM ESTWith solid air cooling performance tested, it's time to make the jump to liquid cooling. It's very easy to be intimidated by the hardware involved, but let's break down what Swiftech graciously provided (and they provided quite a bit) and understand what these individual parts represent.
The top left of the photo above is Swiftech's combination MCP35X pump and reservoir, pre-assembled. The MCP35X pump is powered by a 4-pin molex connector, but can run at a variable speed controlled through an additional PWM header. Below it is six feet of very thick black TruFlex PVC tubing. The two large chrome parts to the right of it are no-spill, quick-release couplings designed to be in the middle of the tubing to allow you to disconnect parts of the loop as needed; these use what are called compression fittings. Speaking of which, the bulk of the parts in the surrounding plastic cubes are compression fittings, with 45-degree and 90-degree adapters floating around, along with multi-GPU connectors. Finally, the two bottles are Swiftech's HydrX PM (pre-mixed) coolant.
We're talking about watercooling, so what's in the coolant? Water is actually absolutely excellent at absorbing and carrying heat and has a tremendous heat capacity (think about how long it takes a pot of water to boil); the HydrX PM is actually 90% distilled water (which contains no impurities) and a mixture of chemicals to prevent algae and corrosion. This is very similar to how coolant/anti-freeze works in your car; water carries heat very well, but is also corrosive, so chemicals are introduced into the mixture to counteract that effect.
Next are the radiators. The radiators are made out of copper with brass tubing, and Swiftech carries two different types: one with a normal fin density designed for low speed fans (these), and one with a higher fin density designed for high speed fans. Higher fin density means improved surface area which in turn means superior heat dissipation, but more powerful fans are required to really push air through a denser radiator. For this build, there's one 360mm radiator and one 240mm radiator. Next to them is one of the five Helix-120 PWM-controlled fans intended to be used with the radiators, and the odd-looking dongle is actually a SATA-powered PWM-splitter.
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hot120 - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Awesome article!blanarahul - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Hmm.. Can you try cooling those 780s alone? Overclocking the CPU seems pointless on Haswell.valkyrie743 - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
overclocking haswell is not pointless. just is a pain (same with ivy bridge) cause intel decided to be cheap and not solder the IHS to the cpu. if you do a mild overclock its fine give or take how bad the tim on the cpu/ihs is. but if you plan on doing high overclocks and water cooling like this. you might as well de-lid the cpu and apply your own tim. temps on air (if done right) drop a good 15 to 20C under load. I've seen people hitting 90 C and go down to 70 or less underload. and thats on air.the reason why i have no upgraded from my sandy bridge 2600K. @4.5ghz right now at 1.28 volts and my max temp running intel burn test was 70C (air)
The Von Matrices - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Please read my post in response to NeatOman. The result is correct but the reasoning is incorrect.gandergray - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
For information about removing the cpu lid or integrated heat spreader, see the work performed by Idontcare: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=22618... .iTzSnypah - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
You are cooling way too much with only 600mm worth of radiators and your deltaT is obscene. Take out 1x GTX780 and retest if possible.NeatOman - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
I think the thermal paste between the cpu and the lid are the limiting factor here, i believe that not only will 4770K do better with better thermal paste in between the lid and cpu on just air cooling alone but also might have a larger difference between the air and water cooling.And of course there is also a full delid which i think wont be much of a threat because with water cooling you don't need the motherboard to support a large heavy cooler.
NeatOman - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Sorry, i meant that you wont need to put a lot of pressure like if you where supporting a large air cooler with the motherboard.The Von Matrices - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
The issue is not the composition of the thermal paste between the die and the lid; it is the thickness of the thermal paste between the die and the lid. It's widely reported that in Ivy Bridge and Haswell there is way too much of a gap between the die and the lid due to the thickness of the glue used to secure the lid to the package. You can solve this by removing the lid, using a razor blade to remove all the glue, then put on new TIM and place the lid back on the package. No matter what new TIM you use you will get drastically reduced temperatures.Either way, Haswell runs hot due to its FIVR, and there's nothing that can be done through beefier heatsinks, delidding, or changing thermal paste that will make it cooler than an equivalently modified Ivy Bridge.
dragosmp - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Still, it is incomplete. The thermal transfer formula is simply Rth=rho*L/S, more thermal resistance (Rth) more the temperature delta is high between the source and ambient: deltaT=Power*RthAsuming the power is constant, to decrease deltaT you need to decrease the thermal resistance, so:
*S is the die surface, can't change that
*L is the thickness of paste - you're right, it needs to be as thin as possible; put 2x too much and you have twice the deltaT
*rho - thermal resistivity (1/lambda) - it depends on the material; Intel does use cheap paste with a conductivity around 3; were they to use fluxless solder or at least some AS5 they'd decrease the thermal resitance by a factor of 2 easily, thus offsetting a thicker than needed layer of paste.
My 2 cents: for performance the paste must be removed and replaced with something better plus as you say remove the glue to reduce the thickness. Of course one should be careful not to chip the die, but these two things really help.