hello everyone. just saw this and wanted to drop in and say hello since have not been around for a long time. anyway, in sig is my setup. will post pics later when i get home.

sorry to but* in uninvited but thought i would just share my 2cents which is that the compression fitting works much better. personally, if you are going to buy hose clamps, the garden variety hose clamp which costs peanuts works much better than those sold by the h2o cooling companies.

you guys are right that in a closed loop the temperature difference is minimal at best. however, if you add in the following factors, the loop config becomes somewhat automatically pre-determined;

1. ensure there is no risk of pump running dry.
2. create optimal turbulence within the cpu/gpu cooler
3. ensure during first startup, air can be bled efficiently into the res.

at least the above is my understanding and based on the above my system is configured in this way res>pump>rad>cpu>res. so far for oced i920 i am getting temps of 40°C in average but never more than 42°C. which is reasonable.

actually, if you ask me the hware house clamp fitting looks so much more macho compared to the comp fitting. but then again its a matter of asthetics and function.

oops.. my bad. sorry bro. i live in italy so temps are kinda low.

however, even in summer when we get temps of 37°C, i never had temps go above 48°C on my lapped thermalright ultra extreme 120 previously. as a matter of fact, i have not seen temps above 50°C in the last year since i went btx and did some major cabling work on my insides. prior to that i had temps as high as 60°C. still not sure if the difference is due to the btx and rearrangement or just more careful implementation of everything.

still i am waiting for next summer to retest the system under higher amb temps.

just a question, why would you want to use 2 pumps? just to separate the 2 loops?

i think the answer to your question is that if you have one single pump that has a large enough head and flowrate, it should be sufficient.

my opinion is that if you have a single pump with a large enough head and flowrate, that should be sufficient for your entire system. otherwise as ezzydamvp says, if you have a full fledged water system for your entire board and all accesories included then a dual pump makes sense. but then again the benefits that you reap depends also on the efficiency of your entire system as a whole. my personal opinion is that if you build a well engineered system, you would not even need to go the way of the dual pump. keeping tubing to a minimum and heat dissipation maximum, you should be able to squeeze the maximum performance from a single pump system. but i am overly simplifying things here.

as additional info, although i am sure that it has already been posted before, but since i have time in my hand, just thought would share the links anyway for estimating flows and such;

the first link would be useful for newbs who would like to envision their system better.

http://extreme.outervision.com/flowdesigner.jsp

the 2nd link is to Skinee who does a good number of reviews of wc components in the market and his site contains good info.

http://skinneelabs.com/

and finally just want to attach a file that you guys might find useful. this is an excel sheet that allows one to estimate the total flow of the loop. its kinda outdated but unfortunately martin (the modern guru of wc from XS) has not been working on this for at least 2 years so i cannot find any further updates. if any of you find something newer, put it up for everyone's use.

This post has been edited by cyrixMII300: Oct 13 2010, 07:56 AM


Attached File(s)
 MartinsWaterCoolingFlowRateEstimatorv3_1.zip ( 320.29k ) Number of downloads: 9

well, here goes pics of my system.

ImageShack.us
pic of my whole home theater system. pc, xbox, satellite and nasbox connected to hdtv.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/9994/img7387u.jpg
front view

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/1045/img7395g.jpg
overall view

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/3843/img7405yc.jpg
internal

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/7910/img7408f.jpg
gtx 460 + asus xonar d2x

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/9154/img7410l.jpg
fan mounting on rad

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/773/img7412v.jpg
laing mcp655 pump

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/5885/img7414j.jpg
xspc 360rx rad

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/7483/img7417o.jpg
swiftech xt block

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/3885/img7424r.jpg
overall system again

hope you guys enjoy the pics

This post has been edited by cyrixMII300: Oct 22 2010, 01:42 PM

i got the noctua fans thru an online store here in europe. as for cable management, no matter what i do, i just cant get those darn cables to sit properly. dont think i have an eye for it.