Thinking of going to one loop.

[biff]

I'm planning on getting into a new build before long. My 1st gen cosmos is getting a little long in the tooth and I'm still rockin' a Q6600 (@3.8GHz) and GTX280. I'm not feeling the pinch yet that I need to upgrade right now so I'm starting to plan a future build. I've got a couple years of games to get caught up on and I'd like to go back to ATI, I use AutoCAD a lot and it just likes ATI. And I'll probably end up on a i5 as well.

Anyway, currently I have a loop for the CPU and another for the GPU/mobo. I still plan to O/C but I'm to a point that the last 1 or 2°C is less important than the last 1 or 2dB. In my current system the GPU easily puts out a lot more heat than the CPU but I don't know if more modern cards are better but I'm wondering if I'm shooting my self in the foot if I put it all in a single loop... since the GPU will do a good job of keeping the CPU warm.

I guess I have a lot more to talk about but I'd like to get some opinions on this first. Just looking for some input to get me started.

[SugarJ]

I had a 3930k and a 580 in the same loop on a 3x120 rad with no issues.

[biff]

Did the heat that the vid card dumped into the system hold you back O/Cing the CPU? Again I don't know the new stuff, maybe the modern GPU's are much less offensive heat wise. FWIW I'm still way preliminary here but looking at running two 2x200mm rads,. I at least see they exist but want to look further into haw they compare to 120mm equipment performance wise.

[lowfat]

2 x 200mm radiators is a lot of rad. Pair them w/ decent fans and you'll have no problem cooling a CPU and a GPU. You should even be able to keep fan speeds relatively low.

[Evochuck]

thats a huge amount of raddage, im running a 570 and a i5 500k both OCd painlessly on a 2x180mm.....

[SugarJ]

Originally Posted by biff

Did the heat that the vid card dumped into the system hold you back O/Cing the CPU?

The difference without the GPU in the loop was about 4-5 degrees at load. I'm fairly conservative with my CPU, don't like going over 65.

[biff]

Thanks for the input. I'm not 100% sure yet on the 2x200mm might be a 3X140mm... I haven't settled on a chassis yet and I'll have to get it in hand and tear it down to make measurements to see what I will actually get. I'm still stuck in temporary housing and won't see any of my tools for a few months atleast so I got a lot of time to plan this out. My plan though is for huge surface area so the fans can run slow enough to read the labels on them.

[Dazmode]

You get extra heat from GPUs, but impact will be minimal. Let say you get your liquid goes from 30c to 34c or so, but your cpu wont go up proportionally to that if you cooling capacity is not strained. Also, you can get additional kick and redundancy by putting both of your pumps in series.

[Simpleton]

I have just upgraded from what you have to the Ivy-Bridge 3570k and the Asrock Z77 Extreme 6 which accepts older 775 waterblocks which was my reason for choosing it over an Asus board,not too mention it's damn pretty and a good overclocker.If you have the cash to use all new watercooling then you have more choice with the M/B,I would have got the Asrock Z77 O/C Formula but it doesn't have the extra 775 holes unfortunately because I love the watercooled chipsets!Because of the Ivy-Bridge thermal paste problem I wouldn't suggest including a Gpu in the loop.Myself I change video cards too often to have a wet gpu,not very economical!New cards are only noisy when they are loaded like in games where I couldn't hear them over the blasting headphones anyways:)Ok I upgraded my platform for 440$ after selling my old parts to my dad for 160$ which made it very easy on the wallet.He's loving my used Q6600 at 3ghz with 240ssd and I'm sure you could also find a home for you'r old parts.I guess what I am trying to say is planning ahead is very important and you'r on the right track,good luck!