The Neophyte's Custom Liquid Cooling Guide: How To, Why To, What To Expect
by Dustin Sklavos on September 30, 2013 12:01 AM ESTIf our whole hypothesis is that watercooling is (in most cases) superior to air cooling, then we need some measure of data to prove it. That means building our system and cooling it under air first, and seeing just how much overclocking performance we can get out of it before heat becomes too serious an issue. This is difficult to fully quantify; luck of the draw means we could wind up with stellar, efficient overclockers on both the CPU and GPU sides, or absolutely lousy ones. Haswell, in particular, seems to be afflicted with unusually high variation between individual chips.
To get some idea of how assembly goes in the Corsair Carbide Air 540, you can refer to my review. Suffice to say the system came together pretty easily. The modular nature of the SSD cages allowed me to remove all but one, and the 3.5" drive sleds went unpopulated but connected for the future. My biggest concern was the lack of clearance between the Noctua NH-U14S and the top GeForce GTX 780.
It looks like they're touching, but fear not, they're just playing the scariest game of "I'm not touching you" I've ever seen. This board is designed for quad-GPU graphics systems, which puts the primary PCIe x16 slot at the top. The upshot of that is the excellent spacing between the two cards: they're two slots apart, allowing for plenty of airflow between them.
Ignoring for a moment the fact that I've always been lousy at cabling, we're presented with something of an issue. The Carbide Air 540 doesn't really necessitate neat cabling since that cubby in the bottom left of the photo is typically where the mass of cables always goes. However, the AX1200i is a very deep power supply, and that cubby is where I intend to put the pump and reservoir. This is, in my opinion, a failing of the Carbide Air 540's design: there's a tremendous amount of open space at the top right, and no real way to occupy it.
Overclocking on air wasn't actually tremendously difficult, but it's where I ran into some real issues with the i7-4770K. This is...not a spectacular sample. VRIN starts at 1.812V, and the VCore's default voltage is already at 1.2V. With load line calibration set to Turbo, I was able to get the chip stable at 4.3GHz, but VCore was reading ~1.3V in Windows. Thermals were reaching the low 90s under OCCT. 4.4GHz and 4.5GHz were both bootable, but thermally too dangerous. For stability testing, I did a five minute run of OCCT followed by a run of POVray 3.7 RC, per Ian's suggestion.
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The two GeForce GTX 780s fared a bit better. I maxed out the power and temperature targets, and while the fans got pretty loud, I was able to get a +125 offset on the core and stunning +550 offset on the GDDR5, leading to a peak boost clock of ~1150MHz and a GDDR5 clock of 7.1GHz. Any higher than that on the GDDR5 would work, but produce artifacts. Peak boost was pretty tough to maintain, though, with the cards regularly dipping back at least a couple of boost bins under EVGA OC Scanner X. Stability testing was initially done with OC Scanner X, but I found it to be remarkably unreliable. Per Ryan Smith's suggestion, I switched to using a Crysis Warhead benchmark and then running Fire Strike Extreme in 3DMark. Crysis Warhead was pretty good at ferreting out unstable overclocks, but 3DMark was fantastic at it.
All in all, the overclocks were decent, although the i7-4770K apparently lived to underwhelm. I'm also a little disappointed the 780s couldn't hit 1.2GHz under boost on the core, but the excellent GDDR5 overclock takes some of the sting off of that.
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bojaka - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
And right about THERE I lost my interest in water cooling - Thanks :) I actually believed water cooling would be a viable solution to make my computer silent, but apparently not. Thanks for a great article!!utnorris - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
You can make a near dead silent water cooled system that allows you to overclock. Unfortunately, the fans you are using in the article, while good, are not the best, regardless what marketing says. I have built probably 40 to 50 systems over the last 5 years using water cooling and noise was never an issue. If you are not overclocking then a full blown water cooling setup is not worth it, but for the added performance, it's well worth it. Also, there is no need for additives like the Hydrx, distilled water with a silver coil or some anti algae drops from your local pet store is all you need and would be less toxic. Last, as already mentioned, delidding would have seen about 10c drop on the processor and if you are going to water cool, you might as well delid your chip.Aikouka - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
You REALLY shouldn't take a SINGLE article on water cooling as the end all, be all on whether water cooling can provide a silent build. Dustin was NOT pushing for a silent build, but rather just a build with whatever parts he was provided. I have a custom loop with an i7-4770k and two GTX 680s, and it isn't noisy at all. It is going to be a bit noisier at idle because of having significantly more fans (I have 7 120mm fans just on the radiators), but it doesn't get any noisier at load! I also use a fan controller that lets me set the fans to the speed -- and consequently, the noise level -- that I find acceptable.piroroadkill - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Yeah, some people think this, but since you're shifting water at the same time as pushing air, there are simply more moving parts involved. Just get a giant tower heatsink and run those fans sloooowly, and choose a GPU with a really good factory heatsink.tim851 - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Depends. There are much better, i.e. quieter, pumps available. The best one imo is the Aquastream by AquaComputer. Even then, a single Cpu-single Gpu system is quieter on air. A Thermalright HR-02 and an Accelero Xtreme will take care of it. Once you go SLI, however, you're running into space and heat evacuation problems. Watercooling is your only chance of acceptable noise at load now.piroroadkill - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Yeah, multi-GPU rigs are a different beast. At that point a custom water loop is probably your best bet.But for single CPU/single GPU rigs, water is basically a vanity project, not one that will actually give you lower noise.
piklar - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
Great article Dustin! It just so happens I have been considering a watercooling project this summer (new Zealand time) using the Corsair Air540 with 4770K and SLI GTX 780s. Ironicly it appears The Raven RV03 is doing just as good if not better job of the cooling with Corsair H80 and reference card cooling. You have shown how luck of the draw Haswell can be since the 4770Ks Ive come across all do 4.6ghz on 2.8- 3.0v no probs. Still your article was very useful and much appreciated.Death666Angel - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
2.8V to 3.0V? That's not right. :PRazorbak86 - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
LOL. My thought exactly. I'm sure he meant 1.28-1.30V. ;-Ppiklar - Monday, September 30, 2013 - link
soz was half asleep, thanks for clarifying that I meant meant 1.280 - 1.30V for 4.6ghz with 4770K with H80.