Of all the steps in building this custom gaming PC, choosing components and configuring the loop for the liquid cooling system has easily been the most time consuming. But I think I’ve got it now.
My original plan was to purchase a complete, external cooling system. There aren’t too many of them out there, and most of them don’t have the best reviews. They’re also pretty pricey and obviously don’t give you the ability to do any real customization.
I decided to configure the system from scratch using parts from various manufacturers. I spent some hours researching and looking at reviews, and I’m pretty confident in the parts I’ve got on order.
The first thing I did is configure a loop that will best work with my Thermaltake Level 10 GT case. Of course, there are many ways to configure a liquid cooling system, but this is what I’m choosing to do.
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This may be a dicey move, as I’m mounting a 240mm Black Ice radiator at the top of the case and bringing in cool air while leaving only a single 140mm fan for exhaust. There’s a lot of debate about mounting radiators at the top since warm air rises, but I’m hoping that by using liquid cooling and reducing the amount of internal fans, a single exhaust will suffice.
The Components
1. Reservoir
XSPC Dual 5.25" Bay Reservoir - houses the pump
2. The Pump
Swiftech MCP655 Pump
3. Top Radiator
Black Ice GTX Xtreme 240mm Radiator
4. Bottom Radiator
Black Ice GT Stealth 120mm Radiator
5. CPU Water Block
Swiftech Apogee XT (Rev 2)
6. GPU Water Blocks
Koolance GTX 570/580
There are an assortment of other liquid cooling accessories to add to this loop, but these are the main components. The first thing I’ll be doing is building and testing this system outside of the case.
Stay tuned for the next article in this series, where I’ll be installing the first hardware and the liquid cooling system.