Well im staring a new mod project and i am going to be using 2 water cooling setups one is going to be for my processor and northbridge chipsets the other is going to be used to cool 2 radeon hd 3870x2's once i get enough money for both of them lol... but anyways this will be my first time doing water cooling on any of my systems i know that i want to use a pltier on my processor but other than that i have no idea what else im going to need i know i will need 2 pumps and 2 res's but everything elses baffle's me as far as what i will need to complete a system. I was considering just doing a water cooling kit but i would really rather not because i am going to be doing alot of custom work to the res's and other things to begin with. so far i have been looking on frozen cpu and kind of piecing parts together. Here is a list of what i want to use so far.

This is the pump i was considering so 2 of these.
Thermaltake P500 12V Pump (CL-W0132) - FrozenCPU.com
2 of these res's
XSPC Passive 150mm Reservoir - SILVER - FrozenCPU.com
another thing i wanted to know is do i need 2 radiators for 2 seperate systems? this is the one i was looking at.
ThermoChill PA120.2 Dual 120mm Radiator - FrozenCPU.com

Other than that i am in the dark a bit about what all i will need. If there is a water cooling guide somewhere that would be nice.

My $.02:

If you are completely against high-end air cooling solutions, you must have WCing, and you plan to use two separate loops, one for the CPU and NB, and the other for the GPUs, I would strongly suggest planning on an external enclosure.

Depending on the materials you can come up with, you could design/build a single box to house both radiators (and their fans), reservoirs, and pumps. (<<-Hint, two loops, you'll need at least two of each). Otherwise, I hope you have a monster of a case and not much else in it... Tubing, clamps, non-conductive fluid, dye (if you want to be colorful about it), fillports...the list can go on and on if you let it...

The thing with WCing is this: for you to see a significant temperature improvement over high-end air, you're going to have to be able to cool the blocks that transfer the components' heat quite nicely below ambient air temps.

A single loop trying to cool all of the components won't usually fare too much better than the stock coolers. A dual loop usually does a little better, but at the cost of space (and money).

Can a dual-loop WC setup be contained within a single case? Sure it can, but if you are just starting out in WCing, it might be good to give yourself some room to maneuver (in terms of maintenance)

High-end air coolers are made for virtually any and every component, or you can get fancy and design and build your own.

EDIT: With those reservoirs, it would seem to me that you can drop the radiators, but then again, you may get a little better cooling with them. Your money, your call.....

Is there a way i can use one radiator with 2 seperate loops? and i was plainging on making and designing a mount to mount it all to the back of my case. i just got a lan-li pc1200 plus black. it should be here today or tomarrow but i plan on spending alot of time working on this case.

I think that your getting way ahead of yourself,No offense intended.

You shouldn't even be considering peltiers until you've mastered building a custom waterloop.

I would also advise against dual loops right now.
Start with just a cpu loop,that consists of a pump,Cpu block, radiator and optional resevoir.

generally speaking,theres no real need to liquid cool the north/southbridge with all the available air/heatpipe options out there, unless your "Massively" overclocking.

Later after youve mastered W'cooling you can then step up to a peltier if thats really the direction you want to go .

Just keep in mind a typical peltier system will run almost as much as a small custom phase change unit.

here are all the parts you'll need for a really nice water loop

Pump
Newegg.com - Swiftech MCP655 12 VDC Pump Liquid Cooling System - Water Cooling

Radiator
Newegg.com - Swiftech MCR320-QP Quiet Power radiator - Water Cooling

Cpu block
Swiftech APOGEE GTX Extreme Performance Universal Water-block Products Model: APOGEE-GTX [APOGEE-GTX] : Performance-PCs.com, ... sleeve it and they will come

resevoir
IceBox 5.25" Dual Bay Reservoir - Clear Products Model: ICEBOX525-CL [ICEBOX525-CL] : Performance-PCs.com, ... sleeve it and they will come

The parts listed above are what im running on my Q6600.

Post whatever questions you have and we'll be able to help you some more.

Anyone, please feel free to correct me if im wrong, but i think i can finally help. This is all theory as i've been very interested in the idea of water-cooling so ive done quite a bit of research. Anyways, here goes nothing.

Two loops on one rad, impossible unless you split the loop right at the base of the rad, and merge it right at the other base. That would require still just one res(two would make it easier to fill though and bleed though) and two pumps(or one if you put it right after/before the rad and split/merge at the pump). This is very impractical though as your head pressure would essentially bottleneck at the two forks, and the water wouldn't move quite as fast as if you had two true separate loops or one bigun. Two loops would perform better then one, even if you had two rads and two pumps on a single loop, as the dual loop setup would be shorter offering much less friction, giving you more head pressure, yielding better temps.

You could also give more attention to the components sound levels when cooling. Say your ocing or whatever, but you arent playin any games, well, then you can turn the fans on the gpus way down, and that cuts back on the noise. If it were on one loop, you would have to keep more fans up to better regulate your temps, cause you are cross contaminating with your heaty gpus.

Thats not to say two loops is all good though, thats two loops you have to tend to now. You may think, oh well if it was all going into one loop, same difficulty as splitting the loop up in two. Wrong, now you have two loops to fill, two loops to bleed, and two loops to leak check. Now if there was a leak, all your wc gear is wet, and you have to figure out which one is leaking, and why. Patch it up and run it again, just to make sure that the leak on one loop wasn't masking a leak on the other. I guess the cleaning part is equally difficult no matter what though.

My point is you need to treat a wc setup like a pet, don't just dive right in and grab one on impulse. I almost did, and im glad i didn't. Theres a lot of caring for it, and making sure it isn't sick blah blah blah. The only thing you have to worry about on a air cooled set up is, did the hs make good contact. Yup, allright, just got to remember to dust it every once in a while. WC setups, you have to dust, make sure it isn't leaking, clean it, buy new hose every other time, GALVONIC CORROSION from a copper waterblock and a aluminum rad. Just so much planning. Anyways you get my point, and i hope this helps.

Edit: Damnit, Rbieze you beat me to the post. Anyways, like the man said, if you do want to wc, a single loop for the chip is the best way to start.

Ya it does but i would need 2' res's for the theme of my case and i was going to spend alot of time setting up the watercooling system but i just wasnt sure where to begin. and i figured that if i could use only one radiator for 2 loops it would fit my theme better but what about 2 res's on one loop i could live with that.

A great site with lots of wonderful information is here(although, their hardware is a bit dated, as they were a pioneer site). Is this for your narcosis worklog. Anyways, normally id say that two res's are redundant and totally unnecessary, but those res's in specific offer cooling plusses, ah hell, i still don't like it. It just seems horribly unnecessary. But i guess if it helps your theme its cool. Its definitely better then splitting the loop like you originally wanted though.

Yea i really liked the idea of making my res's look like scuba tanks.

Best waterblock on the market right now is the D-Tek Fuzion.

If anyone can help me out here I finally orderd a cooler master aquagate. I also got TIM Consultants T-C Grease 0098 thermal compound. So far it dosnt seem like my temps are anywhere near right there actually about the same as my old air cooling temps??? they droped maybe 1dc if that right now idle temps are around 40c on a x2 4000+ @ 2.8ghz?? load temps are in the 48c range? do any of these temps sound about right to any of you? i figured i would give the thermal comound more time to settle in but the kit also came with its own compound i was thinking about trying to see if it would work any better?

Quote: Originally Posted by xgeko2 If anyone can help me out here I finally orderd a cooler master aquagate. I also got TIM Consultants T-C Grease 0098 thermal compound. So far it dosnt seem like my temps are anywhere near right there actually about the same as my old air cooling temps??? they droped maybe 1dc if that right now idle temps are around 40c on a x2 4000+ @ 2.8ghz?? load temps are in the 48c range? do any of these temps sound about right to any of you? i figured i would give the thermal comound more time to settle in but the kit also came with its own compound i was thinking about trying to see if it would work any better?

Hmmm...might be because the AquaGate sucks....? Sorry to say it dude, but you want decent performance out of a watercooling kit, you gotta buy seperates and build it yourself. The only decent ready-built kit is the Swiftech H20-220. Cheapo kits from CoolerMaster, ThermalTake etc. are a waste of time.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux Hmmm...might be because the AquaGate sucks....? Sorry to say it dude, but you want decent performance out of a watercooling kit, you gotta buy seperates and build it yourself. The only decent ready-built kit is the Swiftech H20-220. Cheapo kits from CoolerMaster, ThermalTake etc. are a waste of time.

ok i was considering that fact when i read some reviews on it lol. Is there anything you would sudjest i get to modify this kit to get better performance like a better radiator or maybe adding in a good res? i was also thinking about trying to chill the water with peltiers. what do you think?

You should just ditch the AquaGate and buy seperates; construct the loop yourself. It's your first attempt at watercooling so this might seem daunting but it's the best way and it ensures you get a good quality system at the end. Dealing with Peltiers just overcomplicates things...steer clear of those until you get some experience with standard watercooling.

Ill probably end up doing that but i think im going to end up buying all parts that are really expensive so im probably going to be buying one at a time i was thinking about starting out with this res XSPC Passive 150mm Reservoir - BLACK - FrozenCPU.com

I was thinking about using it with the system i have now and possibly lapping the waterblock and see if i can drop some of the temps a little bit for now untill i can buy some more parts. is there anything else do you think i can get that i could use now and later on to help?