LET’S WATERCOOL OUR MACHINE
We’ve covered the why, but what about the how?
WE COULD spend another six pages explaining the finer details on how to build the perfect liquid-cooled PC from start to finish, but as we’re saving that for a future Dream Machine in an upcoming issue, we’re going to give you the best crash-course advice we can on how to get yourself going on your own liquid-cooled adventure.
Let’s face it: there are a fair few more considerations that need to be made before committing to the fully custom liquid-cooled build. These include what you’re cooling, how you’re cooling it, what components and case you’re using, and even styling choices need to be planned well in advance—not to mention what your budget is.
At first glance, It can be quite daunting, so let’s break this down into steps to make it a little more digestible.
1
THE PLANNING STAGE
First, you need to take a step back and really build out a plan. Decide exactly what your chassis will be. Ideally, for an easy build, you’re looking for a large case with plenty of space for radiators, good airflow, and somewhere to put a pump and reservoir of some description, or a combo unit (alternatively, you can attach these to a radiator with a specialized bracket). It also helps to have sufficient space for cable management, as that extra componentry is going to have its own SATA power and fan headers.
You can build a liquid-cooled PC in an ITX chassis. However, space constraints and thermals are more challenging under these conditions, so we recommend an ATX mid-tower or larger.
Then you need to decide what you want to cool and how. Do you want to do just your CPU, or the GPU as well? Two separate loops, with one for each component? Or combine them into one continuous loop?
All are feasible options, and shouldn’t alter the overall thermal dynamics much, but a second loop will add additional parts and cost, which is always worth bearing in mind. We’d recommend withholding those fancier builds for a larger chassis.
Then, you need to decide what tubing you’d like to run. For a first build, we’d always recommend going with soft-tubing to start. It’s easy to use (only requiring a good pair of scissors to cut), and can look great, particularly if you go with a premium solution, or prefer a hard industrial style with black rubber tubing (EKWB has a fantastic ZMT variant).
Hard tubing solutions are available both in the form of PETG and Acrylic (always go for the latter—it’s tough enough, and holds up better in sunlight), but these can require tube bending, using a heatgun and a silicone insert, to create the angles you’ll need to connect your components. Alternatively, manufacturers provide a wide variety of angled female-to-female connectors, allowing you to bypass the tube bending, but this will increase the cost of your build, as each hard 90-degree or 45-degree bend will require an additional two compression fittings, and one angled female to female connector.
Beyond that, there’s copper and glass pipe, both of which require specialist materials to shape, cut, and bend, but they do look incredible once finished.
2
DRAWING STAGE
Once those overarching design decisions have been made, your next action is to draw out your build. Take a pen and paper, use Photoshop, or spend far too long in CAD software, and draw the outline of your chassis, where your components will go, and how you want your tubing runs to connect. You can be quite flexible in how you plan your loop, but here are a few things to consider:
1 Your pump should always be gravity -fed by a reservoir.
2 If using hard-tubing, try to stick to a single 90-degree bend per length. 2.1 If not using hard-tubing, bear in mind the rigidity of your tubing and where it might kink if the bend radius is too tight.
2.2 Ensure you have enough 90-degree and 45-degree fittings to accommodate the above.
3 Ensure you have a fill port and drain port for easy maintenance, preferably with a ball valve attached to the drain.
4 Make sure your case has enough clearance for your radiators and fans together.
5 The radiator’s position in your loop doesn’t matter.
With your plan drawn up, you can count how many fittings you’ll need. We recommend going with a good-quality compression fitting, making sure to match the size and type of the fitting to the tubing you’re using. Hard tubing requires different fittings to soft tubing, despite both acting as compression fittings. The soft tubing will use a barb, plus the tube itself to act as the o-ring, followed by a compression cap that tightens over the top, while the hard-tube fitting will likely have multiple o-rings integrated into the fitting, along with a compression cap.
In a bare-minimum custom loop with both the CPU and GPU cooled, you should have one 360mm radiator, one pump and res combo (or separate products), one CPU block, and one GPU block. This will require a minimum of 10 compression fittings, not including any rotary-angled male-to-female connectors.
3
PRE-BUILD STAGE
You’ve planned your build and got all the parts. The next step is to take apart the graphics card, right? Wrong. Before going anywhere near liquid-cooled componentry, you need to get these components working in a normal system. That can be on air, with a spare AIO—anything. The last thing you want is to put your system together, build it perfectly, and fill the entire loop, only for the motherboard to fail, the memory to be incompatible, or the power supply to be a dud. So get those components tested, Windows-installed, and prep your workbench, because it might take a while.
4
BUILD ORDER
Build order is something that we stress flexibility on. In the case of liquid cooling, it’s a little more rigid. Aside from pre-build testing, you want to disassemble your GPU and get your block attached, then prep your motherboard, M.2, CPU, and RAM in the same manner, get that all installed in the chassis, including the graphics card, then move on to your cooling solutions—particularly the radiator (with fans), reservoir, and pump.
Dry-runs are useful here. You may need to move critical components, and reinstall them after, depending on clearances and how things fit. Once that’s done, install your fittings and angled connectors, and size up your tubing runs.
These can then go into the build after that. Then, and only then, do you start cabling, as it’s typically far easier to install than your tubing runs will be. Once this is complete, double-check that every G1/4 port either has a nice tight tubing run and fitting attached, or that it’s plugged. You
can also use a loop leak tester (a pump that pushes air into your loop, with a dial on it indicating pressure). If the loop has a leak, the pressure will drop over time.
After that, you can fill your loop. You’ll need to either use a 24-pin ATX bridge on your build’s power supply (remembering to unplug the CPU power), or do the same, but with a secondary spare PSU, and attach the pump power to that unit.
5
PUMP CYCLING
Inside your pump lies an impeller. The lubricant for this is typically the coolant itself. When you first fill your loop, you’ll need to prime the pump. To do this, fill the reservoir until it can’t hold any more coolant, then seal it. If gravity is feeding your pump, some of this coolant will fall into the impeller and protect it from damage. With your 24-pin bridged
and pump connected to the power supply in question, you then need to flick the power switch on the back of the PSU.
Watch the coolant drain out of the reservoir and make its way around the tubing and blocks, then open the reservoir and repeat the process until you have a continuously flowing loop.
In an ideal world, you should let the loop run like this for 24 hours before configuring the system (placing paper towels under fittings and on top of components can protect them, and to also indicate any leaks). This way, you’ll be able to spot problems, and allow the system to move air bubbles out of the blocks, as these will affect thermal performance.
Once this is done, you can then reconnect everything and get your system up and running.