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Seeking some advice on a hybrid loop.

590 views 19 replies 2 participants last post by  OCAddict 
#1 ·
Hello all,

I already have a swiftech powered loop that I am planning to expand to include my graphics cards. This loop is powered by the 320 x2 (I know, I was lazy and bought a pre-assembled loop because of time constraints) which has a fairly decent pump on it. I am thinking when I do this I would like to expand the loop to include a secondary radiator which will be in a holding tank. The liquid in the holding tank will be cooled using a TEC. I am looking for some advice on what I need for the TEC. Now, I am fine with even replacing the idea of the secondary radiator with a reservoir which can be cooled, but I plan to keep my primary radiator in this loop with air blowing into the case. I know this will warm the liquid inside slightly, but it will also blow cooler air across my VRM, allowing for a little cooling on that.

I understand that I will have to be aware of are, of course, keeping the liquid at a temp where the radiator does not get condensation.

So, now that you probably have guessed that I am fairly new to this whole thing, can you give me some constructive advice as to how to put this together (maybe some recommended items for temp monitor/controller, specific TEC module, et al? It would be appreciated. As far as keeping condensation from happening, I think if I keep the liquid above 13C it should be alright.

As for the external tank (which can be a reservoir now that I think on it) I am unsure if having it made from metal would be good (conductivity of temp) or bad (if it is holding fluid which passes through the loop I would worry about contaminants, which is my reasoning for thinking of bathing a radiator in the tank rather than having it be a reservoir.

Again, any advice will be appreciated greatly. Thank you.

Another reason for this is that I would rather not use the peltier plate directly on the motherboard. I do not like the potential risk involved.
 
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#4 ·
Advising you kinda depends on your deciding which route you are going to take as you've mentioned a rad in a cool water solution or a reservoir, so recommending a peltier to you really depends on what you have or going to get to power the peltier?

If you click on the link in my sig you can see a setup using an insulated reservoir to hold the cold coolant, there are many ways to accomplish the same thing.
 
#5 ·
Ok, so you are running the loop through a water cooling plate installed to a TEC and a goodly heatsink attached to the hotside. That could work well and probably could be worked into a custom loop for the case I am wanting to use. I actually have a spare corsair h100i laying around I could use instead of a heatsink and that should mount just fine on the case I am going to change to when I get all of this figured out, and am ready to upgrade my GPUs (which will happen this year). The case I am going to move over to will be the Phanteks Enthoo Primo. I can install the h100i on the right side in the radiator slot and set it to expel air from there. Do you think the h100i will be enough to compensate for the TEC heat generation? I plan to do a hard tube build for that, and have some ideas of how I will go through it.

One concern is condensation. I really do not wish to insulate my tubing. I know how to calculate dew point so I could just do that each day/night and adjust the controller as necessary. It would be nice to find a controller that allowed to set the minimum temp as a delta-Ta (ambient temp). I looked and have not seen anything like that.

So, after all that ranting my question here is, do you think having a radiator on the bottom intake following the TEC will be sufficient to help prevent condensation for the most part? I could go with 3 or 4x120 radiators on both top and bottom of that case. I will probably go with 4x on the bottom and 3x on top (I could possibly keep the pump/radiator/reservoir combo that swiftech sold me, but am wondering about running more than one pump in a loop).

I also plan to run a single loop, through the case. I am thinking the pathway will probably be as follows.

Radiator/pump/reservoir (or just replace with standard radiator if 2 pumps are bad) > TEC > pump > Radiator > reservoir > GPUs > CPU > Starting radiator. I also have some ideas imagined for running the tubes.

Does this seem like a good plan? Any tips are welcomed, even if you think I should change my ideas above. The reason I am asking is I am fairly new to this, and do not know watercooling parts that well.

Also, tips on fittings, QDCs (and if I should use them), GPU coolant bridges, and a TEC that will be compatible with the module I listed above will be helpful since I do not know anything about them. Thank you.
 
#6 ·
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are planning, are you asking if an H100i can cool the hot side of a peltier?

That would depend on how powerful the peltier actually is, a 50w peltier or lower it possibly could?, but a 100w ~ 200w peltier or even higher, forget it!

You'd burn out the pump so fast it would blow your mind.

It is not clear what you intend to use the radiator for?
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

I'm not sure I fully understand what you are planning, are you asking if an H100i can cool the hot side of a peltier?

That would depend on how powerful the peltier actually is, a 50w peltier or lower it possibly could?, but a 100w ~ 200w peltier or even higher, forget it!

You'd burn out the pump so fast it would blow your mind.

It is not clear what you intend to use the radiator for?
Alright, this is why I need advice. I would not have known how bad that idea was until I tried it (the h100i to cool the higher rated peltier units). What should I use to cool the TEC plate? Will it be better if I were to drill a hole in the side of the case and install a fitting in it to allow me to have the TEC and its cooler outside the case?

If you mean the bottom radiator unit, I am thinking of using it to allow fans to blow colder air into the case (the water in the radiator would cool the air to be lower than room ambient). This in turn, I am hoping, will lower the chance of condensation on tubing by warming the water slightly and cooling the ambient temp of the PC.
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farinhir View Post

Alright, this is why I need advice. I would not have known how bad that idea was until I tried it (the h100i to cool the higher rated peltier units). What should I use to cool the TEC plate? Will it be better if I were to drill a hole in the side of the case and install a fitting in it to allow me to have the TEC and its cooler outside the case?

If you mean the bottom radiator unit, I am thinking of using it to allow fans to blow colder air into the case (the water in the radiator would cool the air to be lower than room ambient). This in turn, I am hoping, will lower the chance of condensation on tubing by warming the water slightly and cooling the ambient temp of the PC.
Going back to your thread title of advice on a hybrid loop and what you've said so far, you are considering adding a TEC or peltier to chill the water in your loop lower than ambient room temperature, is that correct?

It also seems you want to use the chilled water to circulate through a radiator and use the air flowing through the chilled radiator to cool inside the case, is that correct?

So are you planning to use the chilled case air to cool an air cooled heat sink on the CPU, or what are you going to cool the CPU itself with?

If the above assumptions are correct, IMO this is a lot of work and expense for very minimal gains?

You have literally 2 options to cool a peltier or TEC, you can either water cool the hot side (As long as you have adequate radiator cooling field), or air cool the hot side ( as long as the heat sink can handle the peltiers load range.).

IMO it is best to be cooling the TEC assembly outside the case because the heat given off is definitely not wanted to be added to the internal case temperature and affecting other motherboard components.

So with that information what are you thinking?
 
#9 ·
As it is presently displayed in my chilled water cooling thread it would take at least $1,000.00 US to duplicate as close as possible my chilled water cooling.

I am not suggesting you do that, I am just trying to convey to you what expenses you could incur if you went all out with your cooling setup.

The initial experimental stage of any idea is not going to cost you that much to get started, however if you start out with a partially getting to your goal concept, usually that initial investment is lost in the learning process to actually reach your goal.

Do you know what your goal actually is?

You mention all this cooling ideas but why do you want to do it in the first place, because you also mention it all in one loop with the CPU and GPU in the same loop, and when it comes to chilled water cooling with overclocking intentions having the CPU and GPU in the same chilled water cooling loop is a really bad idea.

The GPU does not need to be cooled with chilled water a radiator water cooling setup is fine for that, which means running 2 independent cooling loops one for the CPU and one for the GPU.
 
#10 ·
I am not trying to discourage you, I am trying to get you to understand if you're doing all of this for reaching higher CPU and GPU overclocks, that's great!

But reaching those higher overclocks come at a cost many are just not willing to spend in time or money.

I've seen many concept ideas here, some have worked, and some haven't, some have spent an exorbitant amount of money and still do not have a working cooling solution.

Tenacity, determination, money, and the tried and true, (if at first you don't succeed, try, try, again), is required to take a concept idea and bring it to a working cooling solution.

My cooling solution has been in operation now over 4 years, it started out as an initial idea that worked on a small scale and has been expanded to what it is today.

I run my 7700K at 5.1ghz rock solid stable every day, when you run those high of CPU overclocks on a daily basis, with zero performance loss, it will spoil the heck out of you!
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

Going back to your thread title of advice on a hybrid loop and what you've said so far, you are considering adding a TEC or peltier to chill the water in your loop lower than ambient room temperature, is that correct?
Correct. I was originally thinking of a way to incorporate cooling the water by passing it through a line or radiator that was submerged in cooled fluid (chilled by a TEC) but then I realized I could just find a way to incorporate the TEC into the loop directly. Seeing your TEC setup gives me ideas. I need to figure out more about how many watts of cooling I need for the TEC itself. I know this depends on what TEC I use (its overall rating) and I would still need some advice on what units work with the controller I listed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

It also seems you want to use the chilled water to circulate through a radiator and use the air flowing through the chilled radiator to cool inside the case, is that correct?

So are you planning to use the chilled case air to cool an air cooled heat sink on the CPU, or what are you going to cool the CPU itself with?
This is half correct. The reasoning I am thinking of using the radiator in the ways I am talking about is to lower ambient temp of the case allowing for better VRM, RAM, NB, SB, et al. cooling. It also would allow for a bit of error tolerance (I think) for preventing condensation from killing my system. I idea is if the room ambient temp warms the water running through the tubes slightly, and the case ambient is cooled slightly, it improves my chances that my loop is not below the current dew point for a given day. I have been looking around for something like moisture sensors or the like that I could use to try to send an interrupt to the TEC (basically I could use a gated logic setup of some sort if I can figure that out) allowing the loop to warm up a little. I really do not wish to run insulation around my tubing as I do like my system builds to look nice along with being cooled well. The CPU is, and will remain, water cooled. The GPUs will be water cooled when I upgrade to the 1080 Ti SLI setup after they are launched (coming soon).

This will be my first custom loop. I have a lot to learn about parts and what companies are decent. I am researching every night after work. I have been looking at a few different setups and have gotten a few ideas of how I can manage tubing better through that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

You have literally 2 options to cool a peltier or TEC, you can either water cool the hot side (As long as you have adequate radiator cooling field), or air cool the hot side ( as long as the heat sink can handle the peltiers load range.).

IMO it is best to be cooling the TEC assembly outside the case because the heat given off is definitely not wanted to be added to the internal case temperature and affecting other motherboard components.

So with that information what are you thinking?
I think I will find a way to cool the TEC externally. I might setup a custom external loop with the radiator setup outside (literally outside the house) unless I need to warm my room up. lol. I am guessing I would need something near a 6x radiator to keep up with a higher wattage (100 to 200) TEC?

I am currently torn between keeping the combined swiftech radiator/reservoir/pump in the loop or replacing it with a similar sized one. The case I am switching to has a ton of clearance in the top and I could do an extreme radiator if I wanted.

The plan for intake/exhaust is to use the bottom and side as intake and exhaust through the top of the case; through the upper (post component) radiator. I figure a little bit of help cooling the liquid before it reaches the TEC can't hurt. It could just be replaced with a bunch of fans also, if the extra radiator would be superfluous for this setup.
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

As it is presently displayed in my chilled water cooling thread it would take at least $1,000.00 US to duplicate as close as possible my chilled water cooling.

I am not suggesting you do that, I am just trying to convey to you what expenses you could incur if you went all out with your cooling setup.

The initial experimental stage of any idea is not going to cost you that much to get started, however if you start out with a partially getting to your goal concept, usually that initial investment is lost in the learning process to actually reach your goal.

Do you know what your goal actually is?

You mention all this cooling ideas but why do you want to do it in the first place, because you also mention it all in one loop with the CPU and GPU in the same loop, and when it comes to chilled water cooling with overclocking intentions having the CPU and GPU in the same chilled water cooling loop is a really bad idea.

The GPU does not need to be cooled with chilled water a radiator water cooling setup is fine for that, which means running 2 independent cooling loops one for the CPU and one for the GPU.
You are not discouraging me. You are being realistic and helpful.

So I should run two loops. That is good to know. I actually could setup the main CPU loop through a peltier drivien loop like yours. So if I do that with just a CPU will I even need to use a radiator on it (just asking for edification.

I can separate the loops and use extreme radiators on the top and bottom of the case to allow for a double radiator loop for the GPUs. I am guessing that would work fine. And I know this is all expensive. Lets just say I had never run close to 4.7Ghz and I can now (stable). I run 4.3Ghz to just be safe for now, while I learn more. I am sure I could push it to 4.5Ghz without increasing voltage, but I am not at a point where I want to run a 24 hour stability test after the increase. Too much going on, not enough time to relax as it is.

Money is a problem, and after I figure this all out it will probably be a year in the making (building up to having everything and then assembling it all. think I will build the GPU loop first, and then work on the chilled water loop. I still hope you are willing to continue to advise me, as you have been very helpful.

Thank you.

Also, gave rep.
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farinhir View Post

I need to figure out more about how many watts of cooling I need for the TEC itself. I know this depends on what TEC I use (its overall rating) and I would still need some advice on what units work with the controller I listed.
The controller you listed is capable of 30a at 12v DC, but do not put anymore load on it than 20a to stay well in the safe zone of operation, that is one guide for you to take into consideration when deciding on the peltier you use.

Other peltier factors are wattage, voltage, and the actual size of the peltier itself, (40mm x 40mm, 50mm x 50mm, etc.), my peltiers are 50mm x 50mm, (Spec'd at 243w, 26a, at 15.6v DC), however they are only getting 12v dc and that changes the actual specs to 200w at 20a power draw.

Using 12v DC allows me to use the heat pipe air cooler to cool the hot side, I could not use the heat pipe air cooler on the hot side at the peltier specs of 15.6v, (Its important that you understand that.).

When it comes to buying your peltier buy quality, not cheap knock offs that are flooding Amazon and Ebay.

http://customthermoelectric.com/tecs_imax.html
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farinhir View Post

I think I will find a way to cool the TEC externally. I might setup a custom external loop with the radiator setup outside (literally outside the house) unless I need to warm my room up. lol. I am guessing I would need something near a 6x radiator to keep up with a higher wattage (100 to 200) TEC?
That lol is not a joke, you can and will heat your room up with the peltier or peltiers running inside the home, I personally counter that inconvenience by running a small window AC unit to cool my office, which I have to run whether the machine is running or not.

Where exactly do you live, and what is your general ambient temperature inside your home?
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farinhir View Post

So I should run two loops. That is good to know. I actually could setup the main CPU loop through a peltier driven loop like yours. So if I do that with just a CPU will I even need to use a radiator on it (just asking for edification.

I can separate the loops and use extreme radiators on the top and bottom of the case to allow for a double radiator loop for the GPUs. I am guessing that would work fine. And I know this is all expensive. Lets just say I had never run close to 4.7Ghz and I can now (stable). I run 4.3Ghz to just be safe for now, while I learn more. I am sure I could push it to 4.5Ghz without increasing voltage, but I am not at a point where I want to run a 24 hour stability test after the increase. Too much going on, not enough time to relax as it is.
I would run 2 loops with what your long term goals are, if you actually already own the H100i you mentioned use that on the CPU and build a custom loop for the GPU, and I suggest a single 1080Ti not 2 in SLI, because of the driver bugginess still happening today and that some games won't even run in SLI, if you are a gamer.

I stopped running SLI about 4 years ago to get away from the driver bugginess, and the fact some games won't run in SLI, it is a true gut punch to spend the money on a 2nd graphics card to discover it is useless in the game you want to play.

When Deus EX: Mankind Divided was first released it would not run in SLI, nor would it run in DX12, it since has been patched to run, but when you patch any game to run what it was not designed for, do not expect perfection of game play.

Also don't assume anything when it comes to radiators fitting inside of any case, find out the radiator thickness limits of the case as they all have thickness limits, because you have to allow for cooling fans to be mounted on those radiators, which adds to the dimension of the radiator thickness, so make sure the radiator you choose will actually fit inside the case.
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

The controller you listed is capable of 30a at 12v DC, but do not put anymore load on it than 20a to stay well in the safe zone of operation, that is one guide for you to take into consideration when deciding on the peltier you use.

Other peltier factors are wattage, voltage, and the actual size of the peltier itself, (40mm x 40mm, 50mm x 50mm, etc.), my peltiers are 50mm x 50mm, (Spec'd at 243w, 26a, at 15.6v DC), however they are only getting 12v dc and that changes the actual specs to 200w at 20a power draw.

Using 12v DC allows me to use the heat pipe air cooler to cool the hot side, I could not use the heat pipe air cooler on the hot side at the peltier specs of 15.6v, (Its important that you understand that.).

When it comes to buying your peltier buy quality, not cheap knock offs that are flooding Amazon and Ebay.

http://customthermoelectric.com/tecs_imax.html
Looking at the list, the item 12711-5P31-26CW seems to be the closest to yours in spec. If I use that controller I think this will be a fine one to use. I understand the idea of staying around or under 80% of the max output of something meant to supply power. Wires have resistance and so it is quite easy to try to push close to that max rating and go over because of said resistance.

Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

That lol is not a joke, you can and will heat your room up with the peltier or peltiers running inside the home, I personally counter that inconvenience by running a small window AC unit to cool my office, which I have to run whether the machine is running or not.

Where exactly do you live, and what is your general ambient temperature inside your home?
Heh. I understand that is no joke. I did a 24 hour stress test to test my 5960x@4.7Ghz. The computer room was easily in the 80s by the time it finished. I live on the Oregon Coast. My worry about condensation comes from the fact that the ocean is a 5 minute walk from my door. We get humid here during the summer. During the winter I keep the room temp between 65F (18.33C) and 71F (21.67C). During the summer, the room can easily get over 90F (32.22C) because the roof gets very hot and the insulation is not that great. These summertime temps are why I would love to figure out some sort of fail-safe to limit condensation during the summer. I might just invest in an AC unit myself. It probably should happen anyway.

Thank you again for the feedback and advice. This really helps a lot.
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCAddict View Post

I would run 2 loops with what your long term goals are, if you actually already own the H100i you mentioned use that on the CPU and build a custom loop for the GPU, and I suggest a single 1080Ti not 2 in SLI, because of the driver bugginess still happening today and that some games won't even run in SLI, if you are a gamer.

I stopped running SLI about 4 years ago to get away from the driver bugginess, and the fact some games won't run in SLI, it is a true gut punch to spend the money on a 2nd graphics card to discover it is useless in the game you want to play.

When Deus EX: Mankind Divided was first released it would not run in SLI, nor would it run in DX12, it since has been patched to run, but when you patch any game to run what it was not designed for, do not expect perfection of game play.
I won't be running the h100i anymore. I think I might gift it for a birthday. I replaced it with the Swiftech h320x2 (a much better pre-assembled expandable loop with a decent pump on it). I will probably just expand the Swiftech loop to include the peltier unit in the future.

Well, SLI is running fine for the games that it runs on, and does not activate for those that do not. I can always disable SLI in the profiles anyway. My Vive does not use SLI, but I do other things besides gaming which benefit from dual cards. CUDA cores have other uses such as encoding. When I game on VR and record my main GPU is running the VR headset (without having to disable the SLI) and the secondary is doing hardware encoding for the recording I am doing. I will probably stick with SLI because I have never had an issue with it. It either works or I run a single GPU and have the secondary do something else.
Quote:
Also don't assume anything when it comes to radiators fitting inside of any case, find out the radiator thickness limits of the case as they all have thickness limits, because you have to allow for cooling fans to be mounted on those radiators, which adds to the dimension of the radiator thickness, so make sure the radiator you choose will actually fit inside the case.
At the bottom of this post is a pic of the Enthoo Primo with an Alphacool NexXxoS 480 Monsta in push pull configuration and plenty of room to spare. The thing is a monster case and weighs in around 40lbs. I was going to ask around about watercooling cases (and was turned off by the 500+ pricepoint of several of them). This Phanteks case will do all I want (maybe with some drilling) and only costs around $250.
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farinhir View Post

At the bottom of this post is a pic of the Enthoo Primo with an Alphacool NexXxoS 480 Monsta in push pull configuration and plenty of room to spare. The thing is a monster case and weighs in around 40lbs. I was going to ask around about watercooling cases (and was turned off by the 500+ pricepoint of several of them). This Phanteks case will do all I want (maybe with some drilling) and only costs around $250.
Regarding the link you posted with mounting the 480 Monsta in the Enthoo Primo.

Where is he going to mount the power supply?
 
#19 ·
The Enthoo primo mounts the power supply on its side on the back (right) side of the case, with the option the mount another on the left side also. I think this is the first case that has truly gotten me excited about trying to move components into it. It also has a few places for mounting reservoirs, water pump, and has wiring harnesses built in on the back side. JaysTwoCents did a nice REVIEW on it which is where I fell in love with this case. I can think of a few mods that will fix some of the minor flaws. It is at 7:11 in that you can see the back panel where the ability to do two power supplies becomes apparent. The real beauty is the ability to do a power supply on the back and 2x480x80mm radiators in push pull in the top and bottom.

This case has inspired me. I am unsure if I will attempt to figure out everything for the hard lines in my build. I might just have to settle on soft lines, but I think I can make them look great in it no matter what.
 
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