Got all my ordered components in hand -- water cooling parts plus all the rest of the system. Putting the computer together is basically "quick" as it is only "screw turning". However, I spent a couple hours yesterday contemplating how to physically incorporate water cooling in a practical way. I have a plan

I agree with the "silver" idea. Good suggestion

I do not have "silver" yet. Silver is cheap enough, but with shipping is more. I may need more cooling parts once tests show me where I am (performance wise) -- for example another radiator to run in parallel to cut flow resistance. So, I'm holding off on the silver until I can put together a larger order (to make shipping costs reasonable as a fraction of the price).

System will be AMD 990FX motherboard and Phenom II X6 1100T (until Bulldozer comes out). I'll eventually move my GPUs and some hard drives from the current system.

One of the best plans for the stuff you have is with the Swiftech radiator mounted top side in the case and the pump and reservoir mounted on the case floor. Here is a decent older sample image (in this case the reservoir is mounted in the empty drive bays and the GPUs are also cooled):



The best place for watercooling info is the water-cooling sub-section at xtreme systems.

S!

Chiming in late (as usual) but I have pretty much the same system that WD suggested (using two danger den 160 micro rads though). One thing that I might suggest, get a larger res with more separation between the inlet and outlet. The force of the incoming water causes bubbles which do not have enough time to clear out before they are sucked back into the system on small reservoirs. I had that res but replaced it for that reason.

UPDATE: I got the thing running this morning. Its set up in my work room. Right now, I'm testing, learning. All is preliminary. I may change some things (or may not ).

I use a digital thermometer and IR Optical Thermometer (yellow tool shown below) to measure room temperatures and component external temperatures to about 1C accuracy. I use ASUS motherboard application to measure internal temperatures. Prime95 maximum heat & power stress test.

This new system is virtually identical to my system in the signature below in the sense of power usage, case, case fans -- but has an HD5830 GPU. Initially, I tested my system in the signature below in an identical fashion, in the same room, with an HD5830, at the same air temperature -- but with two different air-coolers -- not water cooling. I think both systems are thermally equivalent within a degree or so.

I installed the pump and reservoir on the outside of the case. That makes sense the way the unit will finally be installed in my computer closet. It also keeps potential leaks on the outside of the case.

Right now, the three fan radiator has one fan installed.

As a preliminary finding: The system meets my criteria for water cooling success. It runs exactly 10C cooler than the air cooled system (41 to 43C vs 51 to 53C air cooled). The picture was taken earlier. As I hit "Submit", Prime95 has been running over 1 hour and the CPU is 42C. It seems like it will be quiet in the final installation. At some point, when all is final, I'll report back. BTW, AMD Overdrive application gives a "way too low" CPU temperature in the "core screen" -- always has on my machines.








Reservoir is misspelled. Oh well, this is preliminary. Hope that's my biggest error in putting this together

Thanks for all the inputs to date