I've been saying this for years: you don't need 200 usd Ekwb blocks to have a good custom loop. Been running an all Bykski loop for over 5 years without a hitch!
Yes and no. It's nice to have nice presentatiom, fit and finish considerations, and a good support structure for issues. People who have never driven a car where the little details make all the experiential difference will go on and on about why their tercel is basically as good as a c-class. Sure, both get you from a-b alright. But there are many differences below the skin that you pay for. @@ChairmanMeow1
Still had grease and akril dust inside block. But if you willing to clean it beforehand. It`s pretty great since you can get a good pump for that money saved
I've been running Bykski waterblocks on both my CPU and GPU for my last PC 2 iterations (i9 9th gen & 2070 Super, i7 13th gen & 4070 Super) and I honestly couldn't be happier with them. I borrowed an EKWB waterblock from my brother and I didn't see any difference in temp on my CPU after switching to my Bykski block. My current build's entire loop is completely Bykski/Barrow hardware, apart from Corsair's PMMA tubing. Highly recommend Barrow's Wolverine fittings!
I would listen to this guy. I remember what we here in Denmark called a Hair try square, this was a normal try square but the edge of it was bevelled so you have a very fine edge and not the 1 mm or so full thickness of the blade to deal with. Also think there was like a regular ruler, but also bevelled edge so light would more easy pass under it when checking trueness on angle and flatness.
Alphacool Eisblock XPX costs 30 euro. It's a reputable brand, they sell mounting kits for older blocks on new sockets for like 7.50 euro or something cheap like that. And they perform really well for the price. The most jank thing I currently have in my loop is the external radiator. My ThermalTake Tower 100 mini can't fit anything beyond a 120mm radiator internally. So I mounted a giant Phobya 200 radiator on the back panel of the case. The radiator is mounted to the back of the case on 25mm stand-offs and a single 200mm fan is mounted on the back of the radiator. I do run a single 120mm case fan just to have some kind of active airflow in the case for things like the VRMs and RAM that aren't water cooled. This setup can run my 11400 and 4070 pretty much passively, only under benchmark loads does the radiator fan actually get up to it's maximum 800rpm. The only really fancy part about my build is the Aquacomputer OCTO to run the fans and pump, based off temperature sensors. The radiator fan tries to maintain 35C and the pump tries to maintain 1 degree temperature drop over the radiator. I also don't run a reservoir because the radiator alone already takes over a litre to fill up. The fill port on the top of the radiator is the highest point in the loop, and the connections from the radiator to the pump and GPU block are the lowest points in the loop.
And they charge extreme amount of shipping fee, I once wanted to buy a 3090 block from them, the block cost 120 or 130 something usd and shipping cost 150 usd
@@Simon-tr9hv never had that experience with Alphacool. Worst shipping fee I've paid with them was when I didn't notice it defaulted to UPS for international shipping. I think it was 14 euro and it showed up 6 days late. I paid 160 euro for my 4070 block and that included shipping to a DHL Pick-Up Point 5km across the border into Germany. The parcel was there the next day. I have no idea about their transoceanic shipping costs.
I don't know if "cheaper" is the right word for quality components. Even with inexpensive fittings, add up all the ones you need+cooler+rad and you're going to be sitting at like $300. Then you need a pump and a reservoir.
The only thing I can say is I've used a $20 ebay special water block with a copper cold plate. It actually performed well until I had a pump failure and the heat from the CPU built up and caused the acrylic to crack around the fittings. It leaked on the board and killed it. Not sure if the acrylic on the EK blocks can also handle that "in case of pump failure" temps but I gotta hand it to those cheap blocks
we had a Toyota wish when the stock plastic tubes and junction went brittle and disintegrated, had no choice we installed a garden hose attachment. still driving 5 years later
Jay stated the wrong hole when first opening it but got it right when installing it in his loop. The inlet is on the right, demonstrated by the arrow pointing into the hole.
Jankiest setup? Whoo boy. Radiator was the heatercore from a Ford something from the 80s. (Brand new from the auto parts store, give me some credit) Pump was a submersible bilge pump from Walmart inside a 3" or 4" LB. I had one end of the LB cut off and had somehow waterproofed it. (Its been a few years) Water just ran into the "reservoir" and the pump shoved it out using some garden hose adapter (bilge pump remember?), thru an adapter clamped down to the wall of the LB and out to the radiator. It ran great and never leaked a drop... Until the zinc and copper between some screws and the motor switched places and I got a burn mark on the inside of the LB. Little stinky. Its a swiftech maelstrom and a proper radiator these days, but I still use the same automotive hoses. Coolant is distilled water, bit of green antifreese and some water wetter. A jug of spare coolant has sat on a shelf for over 10 years with no clumping or algae. The rubber band holding the sandwich bag over the top has rotted off, and the coolant looks like when I first mixed it.
Same, only I used a 77 Bonneville heater core, and my first pump was a submersible sitting in a PVC electrical box. I later modded the pump with some marine epoxy and a plastic hose barb to run inline. WB was an old school copper spiral block from Gemini Machining.
Watching Jay getting his mucking fords in a wuddle is always priceless.... Almost as priceless as the honesty about user error when mounting the block and the importance of post installation testing before jumping right into gaming blindly..
Hey that's the block I use! Definitely sand the plate down to copper as the nickel plating will bubble and its not flat but after that it keeps a 5700x under control no problem and those things run hot, haven't had any leaks or failures after like 5 years!
5700x runs hot? My 5700x runs much cooler than my 3600x with the same cooler and thermal paste. I can raise the PPT of my 5700x to 115w using PBO to have ri match the tempa of my 3600x at stock Granted, my 3600x is bottom tier silicon, my 5700x is decent.
Not sure if you ran it correct for the test, but in the beginning you said the wrong port on the $19 block was intake. FYI for those watching that don't know: Intake is the side with the jet plate (that slotted metal plate).
Jay, you can see if it is concave or convex without expensive equipment. All you need is a florescent light tube. The reflection on the plate will bend if it is not flat. Have the the tube about 8 feet or further from the plate and a little off center so the reflection is a thin line. If the center of the reflection bends away from the florescent tube it is concave, towards the tube it is convex.
My janky setup includes a Byski Distro backplate, 360 EK Radiator with custom paint mixed with gold flake (no fins were harmed in the painting of said radiator), rose gold thermal take fittings, and a Byski water blocks for both RAM and M.2 SSD. Fan cooled GPU and CPU. Actually there was no room for the CPU fan so I just point a desk fan at it. Gotta make sure I take care of that memory!
I built my own water cooling in the early 2000s. It was an aquarium pump, (not the Eheim one, it was too expensive), I bought a section of copper power rail from those power substations, I cut a 40x40mm piece out of it, my friend had access to a milling machine, so he milled like some 5mm wide (thick) grooves into it. I hard soldered a 4mm thick bronze plate on top, which had two, approx 5cm long, 10mm diameter simple brass tubes without any bars on it. I found an old heater core in a junk yard, and surprisingly it we exactly the 360mm rad size, so I put on like 3 PAPST fans on it, which were still 2 wire stuff, because even 3 wire was rare that time. The piping was the normal soft, 10mm plastic tube. The only gem in the system was the reservoir. I spent a lot of time and efforts to make it made for me. I even made a small wooden box to contain the rad and the fans and used it as an external box, since then there were not even any cases to accommodate the rad inside. It worked well on my Pentium 4, heat plate and later on my Core2duo, 6370 CPU. I remember, that CPU was amazing. I could easily set the FSB from 333MHz to 400MHz and worked rock solid. Also, Jay, Sir! Can you star an experience, buy building 3 setups, (MoBo, CPU, RAM the same, only the BIOS max power settings different from 225W, 256, 4000W) and run then 24/7 at 100% CPU load to see, whether any of them will die?
Even an expensive Optimus block came without a backplate or any stops on tightening hardware so it was extremely easy to get uneven tightening and bow the motherboard. I did end up with some hardware store hardware and another brand's backplate to improve the situation.
Been using $20 freezemod cpu block for my 3950x for 4 years now. Haven't even replaced thermal paste yet. Match with a $30 pump and reservoir. Still running strong. That's held together with byski fittings.
For the cheap water block, you could use non conductive washers on each screw, count the same for each screw, and then you would create your screw down stoppers so they are closer to the same height than just tightening a screw by hand, and maybe better contact.
Those screws/posts/hold downs/whatever are aluminium. Best bet is that they are die cast and then polished, so yes, you'll be able to strip the threads for a past time.
What I came up with for situations like the 15 dollar block was to run the mounting screws up through the back of the board, then on the top side put washers on the mounting screws, before putting the block down on the mounting screws. With the washers in the way the block can only go down so far. It may take a bit of eyeballing the height and a couple of test runs to get the height correct, but the block definitely ends up even across the CPU. I did this with a LSI SAS controller card in my JBOD NAS build when I wanted to mount a better heatsink to it and it worked great. I just used the washers from a CPU block I wasn't using anymore, so it didn't cost me anything extra.
Jankiest water cooling setup? Wasn't me - was a sim racing buddy who bought a cheap water block, then ran some tubing out his window into a 44 gallon drum filled with rain water and used a garden fountain pump to move it along. Worked perfectly fine, long gaming sessions were fine, the 44 gal barrel had enough capacity to handle all the heat.
In my home theater computer I am using a waterblock/pump combo from a company named Barrow. I have been quite impressed with the build quality. It has been solid for over a year.
Not realistically not even theoretically because different companies use different manufacturing methods and provide different quality AND features. They SHOULD but this capitalism not "consumer first-ism"
I'm using two AIOs for one of my systems, one for CPU and another for GPU. When the pumps on those AIOs die, I'll add a D5 pump and res combo for each.
Theres few high end CWC companies that justify their price - Heatkiller comes to mind, some of alphacools stuff - but the cheaper ones do great. Just using an all copper setup makes most the difference i swear.
Now please compare it to a middle of the road air cooler! : 3 My guess is that the results would be similar and without any complications and several reseatings.
I would still really love to see what the temps would be if that $19 Block would be mounted correctly :) Totally do a follow up with the correct mounting :) Very impressed though considering it was not even mounted all the way down. OOO and I would like to see 3 systems . 1. Air Cooled / 2. AIO / 3. Water Block :) .. You Rock Jay :)
I have torch brazed copper pipe and elbows from home depot to make my hard tubing loop, and reservoirs made from 2 inch copper with brazed, drilled and tapped caps. To be fair it's for the diesel/steam punk theme but outside of the theme it's pretty jank.
ya $250 for an ek completely acrylic pump/res combo is just insane, they even look cheap, Im a huge fan of some ek stuff but those cylinder pump/res combo prices are just insane. byski and barrow are probably the best bet right now for a good deal on a pump/res combo from a known brand, I went with watercool but didnt mind the price because the materials felt premium, glass and aluminum and was in line or maybe cheaper than ek, i just love that every piece of the watercool is modular, in case you want to change size, color, something broke or even want to go from a d5 bottom to a ddc. Really like watercool stuff lately, wish I found them earlier.
Recently picked up a pair of pump/res combos from Raijintek. All aluminum/glass. I think they were like $180 each? NOT "cheap", but seem to be high quality and a similar item from other brands would be $200++. So I guess "cheap-er" would be the thing there. D5 with aluminum case, RGB because RGB, tempered glass tube. Definitely higher-end quality without the high-end price. I guess time will tell if they were worth it.
I love this and am a huuuuge fan of value custom loops. I'd be stoked to see more content like this looking at the different brands out there that offer water cooling parts that don't cost a fortune. I run a full Bykski loop and I'm so glad I didn't go for more expensive stuff. The CPU block was fine, but is excellent after I lapped it, but the GPU block is amazing.
Jankiest? I had a EK 480 PE radiator mounted in a utility closet behind my PC. I used a $5 amazon relay connected to a USB cable for power, and then turned it so that my USB only came on when the PC came on, instead of being on all the time. I used a 12v DC power brick to run the external fans and pump through the relay. So when the PC turned on, the external pump and fans would turn on. Since it was behind a wall, running them at 100% was no problem, and the cooling was phenomenal.
My most janky water cooling? 50 feet of clear vinyl 1/4 inch hose, going to 4 individual 120mm radiators taken from broken AIO coolers, powered by a cheap computer power supply. This was cooling two AMD Radeon 7950's that were using antec pump blocks, along with my AMD FX 8120 CPU. The radiators were outside my room cause I didn't have AC and I wanted to minimize noise
Current setup 13700k, radiator barrow Dabel-40a 360 + combo waterblock Barrow LTPRP-04 Size of coldplate: Thickness 5mm Size: 557mmX557mm Fins area: 31mm(vertical)X28.5mm(horizontal) 58x58mm base plate Micro channel structure 0.4x0.2mm. 49 channels (0.4mm slot width + 0.2mm interval) Soon I will try to switch to: Alphacool Core 1 + 45mm ekwb classic PE RAD. But I'm not sure which pump to choose, ddc or d5 especially knowing fact that my case may not fit this pumps(meshify C - 1st gen😮)
Worth looking at the icemancooler cpu blocks and all, those are really good price/perf, I've been really really impressed with my iceman cpu block, can change the mounting hardware without dismantling the block too, need to get another one for a test loop haha
You should do a 3rd visit using a Blyski or Barrow block that is actually certified for the newest sockets. They're still cheaper than mainstream ones such as Corsair or EKWB.
I used a water block just like that for an old LGA 1366 rig that had a Xeon X5690 on it. I think I paid just under $15 USD for it. But the backplate it came with was for LGA 115X only. So, I had to get a little janky with using a backplate from an old Corsair H100 AIO and an extra long set of M4 all thread screws. It took a few tries to get the mount straight. But once I did, that thing worked amazing.
I have a Bewinner $22 block that I have been using for over 2 years now on my ryzen 9 5900x and have been very happy with it. With the expensive blocks like EK your just paying for the name brand tax. :)
I have a Ryzen 9 3950X , using a freezemod cpu block, 9mm soft tubing, barb fittings, 360 rad, custom 12mm thick flat res that is 240mm high. Stable running 4.2Ghz with temps in the 75-80 range at full load adia64 and 76 on cinebench R23..
The main issue with cheaper components tends to be consistency (since they normally save cost on QA). But hey, if you're okay with flipping a coin and doing some returns, you can find some good deals
I can recall two janky instances. One was the popular ziptie the case fans to the GPU while waiting for replacement fans, and the other was when I see double-sided tape to stick a case fan to the back of my X-1050 PSU to prevent the random reboots that happened when it overheated during the summer months
performance-pcs has that heatkiller basic blocks for under $70 usd and its a insane deal for the performance. they also have the Swiftech Apogee XL2 thats am4 compatible for $45usd not as good as the heatkiller but still better than that $19 block
well Jay, now that you've showed me that decent water blocks can be had for cheap, I'm fixin to throw down on my second-ever water cooled system. Let me do some fabbing to mount a drive motor, but I'm thinking a Willys CJ2A (first ever model of civilian Jeep) water pump and fan, early Jeep CJ5 radiator. The hard part will be figuring out how to go from the water block fittings to an automotive water pump, but I have some ideas...
i know jay wont see this but, the thermal grizzly graphite sheets will soon come with some oil to 'stick' them in place when mounting the cooler on them, maybe jay will test the new version with the 'sticky' bit that hopefully stops the sheet moving while tightening everything
I used to run a 12v car water pump ( very small auxilary pump) and very similar block and rad was fro AIO that I bought dead..... res was like 5 £ off Ebay second hand... run this for like 2 years on i7 4790k.... no issues
I am currently building a setup for 3 wall mounted PC's with a copper distro tube that I soldered and polished. For tubes I'm using flexible tubes that are designed for connecting water tabs and toilet revoirs. They are really cheap and with some cheap reducer fittings from Amazon they fit perfectly. Each PC has its own pump waterblock combo from alphacool. The cooling is done by a single 40" rad with a 40" car fan. I checked every part for mixed metals. The only part I'm not confident about is the pumps. I don't know if they are strong enough to pump the water through the rad. I am currently waiting on 3d filament so I can print the brackets I designed so I can safely test the setup without copper tubes banging into mij motherboards. Only 2 of 3 motherboards are currently mounted. Because I was going to save money to buy a 14900k but with the recent drama. I'm debating staying on the AMD train a bit longer. Also this whole setup is in a different room from where my desk is so all cable's go through a wall to get to my 7 monitors. 8 including my son's monitor on his desk. I'm on an extremely tight budget so this all got accumulated over months coming up a year. I spent a week soldering the distro tube and polishing the tube. To me it's an art work and in the end I will have probably worked on it longer than I will be able to enjoy it once done.
You can gauge surface flatness without the fancypants machine, Steve did it for years with the chemically reactive paper. I'm sure he'll cue you into what he was using if you ask.
So, because I previously ran only air cooling and now an AiO, I can't talk about cheap or janky setups (although, when on one system my cpu cooler fan broke, I kept the whole thing cool with 220mm case fan I rigged to the side of the case with cable binders. It was pretty silent and moved enough air that the non-working cpu fan didn't matter at all) :D As for the cheap water block: I've looked quickly on Amazon and found a bunch of blocks that claim to be AM4 (which I currently run) compatible at just a few bucks more than this. Also, in Europe an alphacool water block is 45€ (about 49 $ US) and that is compatible with all current AMD and Intel sockets.
Buy some M3 screws and nuts with the right length and the right thread and you are fine even without backplate. You still can use the spring and cap screw.
This really makes me want to build a custom loop for my 13600k (although it doesn't need it, my AK620 has been great) but I need to upgrade my storage first (still rocking a 4TB HDD)
My most ghetto setup was on my first rig. I had a 2.8 ghz Athlon back in 2007 with an x1650 Pro with I think 1-2gb of RAM. I pulled the cooler off the x1650 pro then repurposed an old Pentium 2 Cooler (back from when processers were slottable like GPUs are these Days- pre-socket). The heatsink was huge. I drilled some holes and used Home Depot machine screws to mount it and a case fan zip-tied to that which allowed me the maximum overclock possible- I've never owned a 4 slot card since that mod! It was a pretty janky system, I ran Crysis at about 15-25 fps on custom Very low settings but it was just enough for me to not get discouraged and now I'm a real computer nerd with a decent mid-range system :P
my first watercooling loop used the radiator from an old Ford F-250 for free, a generic aquarium pump i got at home depot for $30, and some old CPU waterblock I paid $5 for from my local mom & pop computer store that the owner was getting rid of from his personal system. Some random ass clear tubing from home depot also. Used pink engine coolant from Toyota I had left over and filled the rest with distilled water. It lasted 6 months before it showed signs of algae forming because I never knew about Biocides. Also A LOT of plastic JB weld was used on the radiator end tank because it had a GIGANTIC split. Now I know. I'm basically on my "end game" custom loop because I no longer want to deal with liquid cooling and I aim for buying the most efficient hardware I can use for gaming, which air cooling can easily take care of whenever this D5 pump dies.
im using a bykski cpu block since years and it still looks great. it has not the ultimate best temps because of the fin/gap thickness inside which is a bit bigger then other more expensive ones but im running solid white fluids and it looks that it can handle it better than the expensive ones with the very small fin's. i always had a problem with the gunk that build up there, so bykski will be my no.1 for my i9.
We have basically moved from EK to all Barrow / Bykski stuff for full loops and haven't had much in the way of problems other than crappy documentation.
My thoughts on use cases would be a workshop computer that's midline AM4, but air cooling is impractical, so you have to run the water cooling lines to an outside radiator
i'm still running the "budget" ekwb aluminum setup, and grabbed a block for the 3090 before they were discontinued. paired with a honda twin row radiator temps are very low for the fans being set on the quiet side. matching aluminum to the aluminum radiator has worked for about 4 years now just fine
Back in my days anyone who would want to build custom loop had to have basic skill set. So making custom backplate, drop in some nuts and bolts from the jar wouldn’t be a problem. If someone tells me today buy same performance for quarter of the price but with some “minor modifications” I’m all in
Ghetto setup: Hand made waterblock, car oil radiator from junkyard, handmade reservoir (tall coke can), acquarium waterpump (from scrapyard too), bunch of garden tubings with plastic adaptors. 🤘🤘
That mounting hardware (minus backplate) looks identical to what came with my Bykski water block. I'm using it on an AM4 socket, and the problem is getting it off when I need to do maintenance: if I over tighten the thumb nuts, the posts will sometimes unscrew from the back plate and actually make it possible to twist the block to break the tension of the thermal paste. Most of the time, it doesn't and I've gotta get pliers out to unscrew the posts or else I have to pull straight up on the block, which pulls the CPU out of the socket with it. Which I don't want to do again. I think it was closer to $30 on AliExpress a few years ago.
My first loop was from early 2000th. Soldered from server cooler block, aquarium pump from aquael and a cabin heater from GAZel. Tubing from water level. And t-line for filling. Later I bought used enzotech sapphire block and ek gpu universal block. Pump and radiator from cooler master aquagate. After half a dozen iterations I’m stuck on ek block which come with MSI board, ek respump combo with d5, bykski fullcover for gtx1080ti and ek cool stream rad. And hard tubing
We have a small company in the UK based in Shefield called GMC COMPS they have a budget block for £34.99 that out proformas all the top end blocks I have used its out preforming £200+ and £400+ priced blocks the only problem is its trade only so not open to the general public I buy them and sell them to my costumers at a small markup including fitting. its A ze90s fits all boards and brands comes with 3 brackets it fits 3 tube sizes. It looks nice it comes in Black Gray White Clear or if you like you can mix and match the surrounds. It's a bargain. total WEIGHT 44.75g it looks and feels like a much more expensive block.
My current test system is a soft tubed water-cooling loop mounted on a motherboard box. Th radiators are mounted from the Inside and the fans are set on exhaust, because intake is not a thing on the moment.
Used little underwater fish tank pumps for a while got tired of replacing those every time they die and went to the cheap pumps what was last about a year now I use the good pumps
i had use screws and washers and bolts to hold a ek pump res combo for first custom loop from a bunnings which is a hardware store in Australia. when i did a check on the pump res combo for maintenance one the bolts had come loose and i had found it when i upgraded the loop. now i have a corsair pump res combo lol
You're paying for aesthetics and the ease in mounting. Same goes for most pumps. Generally, a DDC pump is a DDC pump but you're getting more ports and better mount options with more expensive pump/res combos. I honestly wouldn't recommend a $19 block though, just because I know nothing of those blocks and you can't really find a track record for them. There are decent $40-$50 blocks that will come with better mounting options and instructions.
What about the next step up? I feel like spending $30-40 might be getting the best for the money. It would be cool to see if all of the issues with the cheaper one disappear at this price point.
Cut a hole in my Case to fit my 360 CPU AIO mounted to my GPU with some fans zip tied to the GPU xD. it works though. Got the CM storm Scout II case. cut out drive bays to fit 3 120mm fans in front. massive hole in the side panel for hot GPU air to escape
I picked up an old Thermaltake Kandalf LCS case at a second hand store for really cheap. I knew it would be sweet for a cool retro build or a beefed up sleeper. It had everything but the block. Still has the pump/res combo, Flow meter, 360mm radiator, and tubing. These cases are very rare but extremely HUGE!. Any use case would have to be storage oriented. I may just pick up some fittings, tubing, and block just to see it in its full former glory…or just sell it to another collector. I don’t want to build a system I won’t use and room is an issue in my room for such a large footprint. But damn I want to see it run on a modern build. Soooo many drive cages to populate! What should I do???
I've been saying this for years: you don't need 200 usd Ekwb blocks to have a good custom loop. Been running an all Bykski loop for over 5 years without a hitch!
Same here
Yes and no. It's nice to have nice presentatiom, fit and finish considerations, and a good support structure for issues. People who have never driven a car where the little details make all the experiential difference will go on and on about why their tercel is basically as good as a c-class. Sure, both get you from a-b alright. But there are many differences below the skin that you pay for. @@ChairmanMeow1
Is that a cheap brand? Where do you get them from?
This applies to storage and ram as well. I see a lot disregard team group and mushkim because it's not gskill, Samsung, Western digital, or crucial
@@klin117ill add in Corsair. Sadly, i buy corsair just for RGB completion. Then again, nvm, i wouldnt call Corsair high quality ram. Hehe
In fairness about the backplate issue, it didn't say on the box that it was compatible with lga1700
this. You can not blame a product for not working with something it didn't say it worked with.
Yep, followed his link and it only supports "Intel 1150/1151 / 1155/1156".
That is a good point.
You're expecting way too much from this channel
Still had grease and akril dust inside block. But if you willing to clean it beforehand. It`s pretty great since you can get a good pump for that money saved
I've been running Bykski waterblocks on both my CPU and GPU for my last PC 2 iterations (i9 9th gen & 2070 Super, i7 13th gen & 4070 Super) and I honestly couldn't be happier with them. I borrowed an EKWB waterblock from my brother and I didn't see any difference in temp on my CPU after switching to my Bykski block. My current build's entire loop is completely Bykski/Barrow hardware, apart from Corsair's PMMA tubing. Highly recommend Barrow's Wolverine fittings!
@JayzTwoCents @5:35 You don't need a fancy expensive tool. A simple straight edge and flashlight can tell you if its concave, convex, or neutral.
Smart
I would listen to this guy.
I remember what we here in Denmark called a Hair try square, this was a normal try square but the edge of it was bevelled so you have a very fine edge and not the 1 mm or so full thickness of the blade to deal with.
Also think there was like a regular ruler, but also bevelled edge so light would more easy pass under it when checking trueness on angle and flatness.
A razor blade will most likely do the job well enough.
Alphacool Eisblock XPX costs 30 euro. It's a reputable brand, they sell mounting kits for older blocks on new sockets for like 7.50 euro or something cheap like that. And they perform really well for the price.
The most jank thing I currently have in my loop is the external radiator. My ThermalTake Tower 100 mini can't fit anything beyond a 120mm radiator internally. So I mounted a giant Phobya 200 radiator on the back panel of the case. The radiator is mounted to the back of the case on 25mm stand-offs and a single 200mm fan is mounted on the back of the radiator. I do run a single 120mm case fan just to have some kind of active airflow in the case for things like the VRMs and RAM that aren't water cooled. This setup can run my 11400 and 4070 pretty much passively, only under benchmark loads does the radiator fan actually get up to it's maximum 800rpm.
The only really fancy part about my build is the Aquacomputer OCTO to run the fans and pump, based off temperature sensors. The radiator fan tries to maintain 35C and the pump tries to maintain 1 degree temperature drop over the radiator.
I also don't run a reservoir because the radiator alone already takes over a litre to fill up. The fill port on the top of the radiator is the highest point in the loop, and the connections from the radiator to the pump and GPU block are the lowest points in the loop.
And they charge extreme amount of shipping fee, I once wanted to buy a 3090 block from them, the block cost 120 or 130 something usd and shipping cost 150 usd
@@Simon-tr9hv never had that experience with Alphacool. Worst shipping fee I've paid with them was when I didn't notice it defaulted to UPS for international shipping. I think it was 14 euro and it showed up 6 days late.
I paid 160 euro for my 4070 block and that included shipping to a DHL Pick-Up Point 5km across the border into Germany. The parcel was there the next day.
I have no idea about their transoceanic shipping costs.
I did an aio with alphacool parts. Most of the items were on newegg. The dual 92mm radiator I ordered from amazon. Works quite well and super quiet.
I never looked into watercooling and just knew about EK pricing, I was surprised at how cheap they are outside of EK
Check out Performance PC. I personally prefer Alphacool over EK.
Alphacool for $35 is a much better choice.
Alphacool, Watercool Barrow and Bykski all good cheaper options over EK
EK is more for a bespoke piece that you want to keep for a decade that you are willing to throw money at than water cooling on a budget.
I don't know if "cheaper" is the right word for quality components. Even with inexpensive fittings, add up all the ones you need+cooler+rad and you're going to be sitting at like $300. Then you need a pump and a reservoir.
The only thing I can say is I've used a $20 ebay special water block with a copper cold plate. It actually performed well until I had a pump failure and the heat from the CPU built up and caused the acrylic to crack around the fittings. It leaked on the board and killed it. Not sure if the acrylic on the EK blocks can also handle that "in case of pump failure" temps but I gotta hand it to those cheap blocks
So there are a lot of things that can go wrong. Who would've thought that cpu heat can cause acrylic to crack and spill coolant.
we had a Toyota wish when the stock plastic tubes and junction went brittle and disintegrated, had no choice we installed a garden hose attachment. still driving 5 years later
Jay stated the wrong hole when first opening it but got it right when installing it in his loop. The inlet is on the right, demonstrated by the arrow pointing into the hole.
“fill port” is old news
the PHIL port is IN
"Chinesium" got me lmao
Jay’s automotive background really showing
I like how you can tell He's really trying not to offend anyone. It's just the best way to describe it
Same 😂
Made from the finest materials, that the least amount of money can buy... 😮
@@watercannonscollaboration2281or crap product purchase background lol
Jankiest setup? Whoo boy. Radiator was the heatercore from a Ford something from the 80s. (Brand new from the auto parts store, give me some credit) Pump was a submersible bilge pump from Walmart inside a 3" or 4" LB. I had one end of the LB cut off and had somehow waterproofed it. (Its been a few years) Water just ran into the "reservoir" and the pump shoved it out using some garden hose adapter (bilge pump remember?), thru an adapter clamped down to the wall of the LB and out to the radiator.
It ran great and never leaked a drop... Until the zinc and copper between some screws and the motor switched places and I got a burn mark on the inside of the LB. Little stinky.
Its a swiftech maelstrom and a proper radiator these days, but I still use the same automotive hoses. Coolant is distilled water, bit of green antifreese and some water wetter. A jug of spare coolant has sat on a shelf for over 10 years with no clumping or algae. The rubber band holding the sandwich bag over the top has rotted off, and the coolant looks like when I first mixed it.
Same, only I used a 77 Bonneville heater core, and my first pump was a submersible sitting in a PVC electrical box. I later modded the pump with some marine epoxy and a plastic hose barb to run inline. WB was an old school copper spiral block from Gemini Machining.
@@rustyshaklford9557 my heater core was from a Camaro, don't remember the year. But it was pretty popular to mod at the time.
Watching Jay getting his mucking fords in a wuddle is always priceless.... Almost as priceless as the honesty about user error when mounting the block and the importance of post installation testing before jumping right into gaming blindly..
Hey that's the block I use! Definitely sand the plate down to copper as the nickel plating will bubble and its not flat but after that it keeps a 5700x under control no problem and those things run hot, haven't had any leaks or failures after like 5 years!
5700x runs hot? My 5700x runs much cooler than my 3600x with the same cooler and thermal paste. I can raise the PPT of my 5700x to 115w using PBO to have ri match the tempa of my 3600x at stock
Granted, my 3600x is bottom tier silicon, my 5700x is decent.
LOL. I have $20 air cooler on one and it is NEVER hot.
Not sure if you ran it correct for the test, but in the beginning you said the wrong port on the $19 block was intake.
FYI for those watching that don't know: Intake is the side with the jet plate (that slotted metal plate).
It was run correctly, you can clearly see it at 9:03.
Been subscribed since 28 Apr 2018, love content like this and all the other stuff you do. It's the reason I've stuck around for as long as I have!
Jay, you can see if it is concave or convex without expensive equipment. All you need is a florescent light tube. The reflection on the plate will bend if it is not flat. Have the the tube about 8 feet or further from the plate and a little off center so the reflection is a thin line. If the center of the reflection bends away from the florescent tube it is concave, towards the tube it is convex.
I’ve always wanted to see a PC with a big air cooler on the CPU but a custom loop for the gpu.
I think it would look great
My janky setup includes a Byski Distro backplate, 360 EK Radiator with custom paint mixed with gold flake (no fins were harmed in the painting of said radiator), rose gold thermal take fittings, and a Byski water blocks for both RAM and M.2 SSD. Fan cooled GPU and CPU. Actually there was no room for the CPU fan so I just point a desk fan at it. Gotta make sure I take care of that memory!
I built my own water cooling in the early 2000s. It was an aquarium pump, (not the Eheim one, it was too expensive), I bought a section of copper power rail from those power substations, I cut a 40x40mm piece out of it, my friend had access to a milling machine, so he milled like some 5mm wide (thick) grooves into it. I hard soldered a 4mm thick bronze plate on top, which had two, approx 5cm long, 10mm diameter simple brass tubes without any bars on it. I found an old heater core in a junk yard, and surprisingly it we exactly the 360mm rad size, so I put on like 3 PAPST fans on it, which were still 2 wire stuff, because even 3 wire was rare that time.
The piping was the normal soft, 10mm plastic tube.
The only gem in the system was the reservoir. I spent a lot of time and efforts to make it made for me.
I even made a small wooden box to contain the rad and the fans and used it as an external box, since then there were not even any cases to accommodate the rad inside.
It worked well on my Pentium 4, heat plate and later on my Core2duo, 6370 CPU. I remember, that CPU was amazing. I could easily set the FSB from 333MHz to 400MHz and worked rock solid.
Also, Jay, Sir!
Can you star an experience, buy building 3 setups, (MoBo, CPU, RAM the same, only the BIOS max power settings different from 225W, 256, 4000W) and run then 24/7 at 100% CPU load to see, whether any of them will die?
Just wanna say I appreciate the unscripted adhd way you do your videos. Makes them almost always entertaining even if I'm not interested in the topic.
Even an expensive Optimus block came without a backplate or any stops on tightening hardware so it was extremely easy to get uneven tightening and bow the motherboard. I did end up with some hardware store hardware and another brand's backplate to improve the situation.
years ago I used a 10 gallon aquarium, a submersible pump and no radiator, it worked really well. Temps barely climbed by the end of the day...
"Finger Tip Grip Strength" is my new catch phrase for anything DIY. Thanks Jay! I'll add that one to my "Jay - Book of Jay Quotes"
I've had a lot of issues with this corsair block, honestly think it should just be avoided.
Been using $20 freezemod cpu block for my 3950x for 4 years now. Haven't even replaced thermal paste yet. Match with a $30 pump and reservoir. Still running strong. That's held together with byski fittings.
For the cheap water block, you could use non conductive washers on each screw, count the same for each screw, and then you would create your screw down stoppers so they are closer to the same height than just tightening a screw by hand, and maybe better contact.
Actually did this on my Nvidia p40 gpus . 2 running this way
That block looks suspiciously like an EK Supremacy.
yeah, extremely similar to their base model ones for sure.
Those screws/posts/hold downs/whatever are aluminium. Best bet is that they are die cast and then polished, so yes, you'll be able to strip the threads for a past time.
What I came up with for situations like the 15 dollar block was to run the mounting screws up through the back of the board, then on the top side put washers on the mounting screws, before putting the block down on the mounting screws. With the washers in the way the block can only go down so far. It may take a bit of eyeballing the height and a couple of test runs to get the height correct, but the block definitely ends up even across the CPU. I did this with a LSI SAS controller card in my JBOD NAS build when I wanted to mount a better heatsink to it and it worked great. I just used the washers from a CPU block I wasn't using anymore, so it didn't cost me anything extra.
Jankiest water cooling setup?
Wasn't me - was a sim racing buddy who bought a cheap water block, then ran some tubing out his window into a 44 gallon drum filled with rain water and used a garden fountain pump to move it along. Worked perfectly fine, long gaming sessions were fine, the 44 gal barrel had enough capacity to handle all the heat.
In my home theater computer I am using a waterblock/pump combo from a company named Barrow. I have been quite impressed with the build quality. It has been solid for over a year.
Realistically no blocks should cost more than 50 bucks
Not realistically not even theoretically because different companies use different manufacturing methods and provide different quality AND features. They SHOULD but this capitalism not "consumer first-ism"
I'm using two AIOs for one of my systems, one for CPU and another for GPU. When the pumps on those AIOs die, I'll add a D5 pump and res combo for each.
Theres few high end CWC companies that justify their price - Heatkiller comes to mind, some of alphacools stuff - but the cheaper ones do great. Just using an all copper setup makes most the difference i swear.
Now please compare it to a middle of the road air cooler! : 3 My guess is that the results would be similar and without any complications and several reseatings.
I was a little disappointed you didn't remount it even tighter with much better contact considering it already matched the expensive block.
I would still really love to see what the temps would be if that $19 Block would be mounted correctly :) Totally do a follow up with the correct mounting :) Very impressed though considering it was not even mounted all the way down. OOO and I would like to see 3 systems . 1. Air Cooled / 2. AIO / 3. Water Block :) .. You Rock Jay :)
I have torch brazed copper pipe and elbows from home depot to make my hard tubing loop, and reservoirs made from 2 inch copper with brazed, drilled and tapped caps. To be fair it's for the diesel/steam punk theme but outside of the theme it's pretty jank.
i feel like finding a deal on a good D5 pump/res combo is the hardest part of putting a budget loop together.
ya $250 for an ek completely acrylic pump/res combo is just insane, they even look cheap, Im a huge fan of some ek stuff but those cylinder pump/res combo prices are just insane. byski and barrow are probably the best bet right now for a good deal on a pump/res combo from a known brand, I went with watercool but didnt mind the price because the materials felt premium, glass and aluminum and was in line or maybe cheaper than ek, i just love that every piece of the watercool is modular, in case you want to change size, color, something broke or even want to go from a d5 bottom to a ddc. Really like watercool stuff lately, wish I found them earlier.
If you don't care about how it looks you can go cheap as hell.
Barrow cooling or alphacool works great for me
Recently picked up a pair of pump/res combos from Raijintek. All aluminum/glass. I think they were like $180 each? NOT "cheap", but seem to be high quality and a similar item from other brands would be $200++. So I guess "cheap-er" would be the thing there. D5 with aluminum case, RGB because RGB, tempered glass tube. Definitely higher-end quality without the high-end price.
I guess time will tell if they were worth it.
I love this and am a huuuuge fan of value custom loops. I'd be stoked to see more content like this looking at the different brands out there that offer water cooling parts that don't cost a fortune. I run a full Bykski loop and I'm so glad I didn't go for more expensive stuff. The CPU block was fine, but is excellent after I lapped it, but the GPU block is amazing.
Jankiest? I had a EK 480 PE radiator mounted in a utility closet behind my PC. I used a $5 amazon relay connected to a USB cable for power, and then turned it so that my USB only came on when the PC came on, instead of being on all the time. I used a 12v DC power brick to run the external fans and pump through the relay. So when the PC turned on, the external pump and fans would turn on. Since it was behind a wall, running them at 100% was no problem, and the cooling was phenomenal.
My most janky water cooling? 50 feet of clear vinyl 1/4 inch hose, going to 4 individual 120mm radiators taken from broken AIO coolers, powered by a cheap computer power supply. This was cooling two AMD Radeon 7950's that were using antec pump blocks, along with my AMD FX 8120 CPU.
The radiators were outside my room cause I didn't have AC and I wanted to minimize noise
I'm always impressed with your knowledge on custom water cooling! I learned a lot watching this!
Current setup 13700k, radiator barrow Dabel-40a 360 + combo waterblock Barrow LTPRP-04
Size of coldplate:
Thickness 5mm
Size: 557mmX557mm
Fins area: 31mm(vertical)X28.5mm(horizontal)
58x58mm base plate
Micro channel structure 0.4x0.2mm. 49 channels
(0.4mm slot width + 0.2mm interval)
Soon I will try to switch to:
Alphacool Core 1 + 45mm ekwb classic PE RAD. But I'm not sure which pump to choose, ddc or d5 especially knowing fact that my case may not fit this pumps(meshify C - 1st gen😮)
Worth looking at the icemancooler cpu blocks and all, those are really good price/perf, I've been really really impressed with my iceman cpu block, can change the mounting hardware without dismantling the block too, need to get another one for a test loop haha
You should do a 3rd visit using a Blyski or Barrow block that is actually certified for the newest sockets. They're still cheaper than mainstream ones such as Corsair or EKWB.
I used a water block just like that for an old LGA 1366 rig that had a Xeon X5690 on it. I think I paid just under $15 USD for it. But the backplate it came with was for LGA 115X only. So, I had to get a little janky with using a backplate from an old Corsair H100 AIO and an extra long set of M4 all thread screws. It took a few tries to get the mount straight. But once I did, that thing worked amazing.
I have a Bewinner $22 block that I have been using for over 2 years now on my ryzen 9 5900x and have been very happy with it. With the expensive blocks like EK your just paying for the name brand tax. :)
I have a Ryzen 9 3950X , using a freezemod cpu block, 9mm soft tubing, barb fittings, 360 rad, custom 12mm thick flat res that is 240mm high. Stable running 4.2Ghz with temps in the 75-80 range at full load adia64 and 76 on cinebench R23..
You forgot to mention what pump you are using as that makes a difference too.
You and Phil are a perfect match to work together. Meant to be level.
You might be able to get in touch with Steve, see if he'd let you borrow his lazer scanner for that cold plate, or maybe a bunch of cold plates.
The main issue with cheaper components tends to be consistency (since they normally save cost on QA). But hey, if you're okay with flipping a coin and doing some returns, you can find some good deals
I can recall two janky instances. One was the popular ziptie the case fans to the GPU while waiting for replacement fans, and the other was when I see double-sided tape to stick a case fan to the back of my X-1050 PSU to prevent the random reboots that happened when it overheated during the summer months
Perfect timing as I'm looking for a decent block for a first time liquid cooling build in an AMD system.
performance-pcs has that heatkiller basic blocks for under $70 usd and its a insane deal for the performance. they also have the Swiftech Apogee XL2 thats am4 compatible for $45usd not as good as the heatkiller but still better than that $19 block
@@shrekdaklown thank you, I was trying to remember the name Performance PCs, as it had slipped my mind.
well Jay, now that you've showed me that decent water blocks can be had for cheap, I'm fixin to throw down on my second-ever water cooled system.
Let me do some fabbing to mount a drive motor, but I'm thinking a Willys CJ2A (first ever model of civilian Jeep) water pump and fan, early Jeep CJ5 radiator. The hard part will be figuring out how to go from the water block fittings to an automotive water pump, but I have some ideas...
i know jay wont see this but, the thermal grizzly graphite sheets will soon come with some oil to 'stick' them in place when mounting the cooler on them, maybe jay will test the new version with the 'sticky' bit that hopefully stops the sheet moving while tightening everything
I used to run a 12v car water pump ( very small auxilary pump) and very similar block and rad was fro AIO that I bought dead..... res was like 5 £ off Ebay second hand... run this for like 2 years on i7 4790k.... no issues
I am currently building a setup for 3 wall mounted PC's with a copper distro tube that I soldered and polished. For tubes I'm using flexible tubes that are designed for connecting water tabs and toilet revoirs. They are really cheap and with some cheap reducer fittings from Amazon they fit perfectly. Each PC has its own pump waterblock combo from alphacool. The cooling is done by a single 40" rad with a 40" car fan. I checked every part for mixed metals. The only part I'm not confident about is the pumps. I don't know if they are strong enough to pump the water through the rad. I am currently waiting on 3d filament so I can print the brackets I designed so I can safely test the setup without copper tubes banging into mij motherboards. Only 2 of 3 motherboards are currently mounted. Because I was going to save money to buy a 14900k but with the recent drama. I'm debating staying on the AMD train a bit longer. Also this whole setup is in a different room from where my desk is so all cable's go through a wall to get to my 7 monitors. 8 including my son's monitor on his desk. I'm on an extremely tight budget so this all got accumulated over months coming up a year. I spent a week soldering the distro tube and polishing the tube. To me it's an art work and in the end I will have probably worked on it longer than I will be able to enjoy it once done.
You can gauge surface flatness without the fancypants machine, Steve did it for years with the chemically reactive paper. I'm sure he'll cue you into what he was using if you ask.
So, because I previously ran only air cooling and now an AiO, I can't talk about cheap or janky setups (although, when on one system my cpu cooler fan broke, I kept the whole thing cool with 220mm case fan I rigged to the side of the case with cable binders. It was pretty silent and moved enough air that the non-working cpu fan didn't matter at all) :D
As for the cheap water block: I've looked quickly on Amazon and found a bunch of blocks that claim to be AM4 (which I currently run) compatible at just a few bucks more than this. Also, in Europe an alphacool water block is 45€ (about 49 $ US) and that is compatible with all current AMD and Intel sockets.
I would of thought the thermal paste squishing out would be a bad thing and having a decent layer of it would allow for efficient thermal transfer
Thank God I'm not alone in getting stuck on words occasionally...
Makes for good humor tho.
Buy some M3 screws and nuts with the right length and the right thread and you are fine even without backplate. You still can use the spring and cap screw.
This really makes me want to build a custom loop for my 13600k (although it doesn't need it, my AK620 has been great) but I need to upgrade my storage first (still rocking a 4TB HDD)
My most ghetto setup was on my first rig. I had a 2.8 ghz Athlon back in 2007 with an x1650 Pro with I think 1-2gb of RAM. I pulled the cooler off the x1650 pro then repurposed an old Pentium 2 Cooler (back from when processers were slottable like GPUs are these Days- pre-socket). The heatsink was huge. I drilled some holes and used Home Depot machine screws to mount it and a case fan zip-tied to that which allowed me the maximum overclock possible- I've never owned a 4 slot card since that mod! It was a pretty janky system, I ran Crysis at about 15-25 fps on custom Very low settings but it was just enough for me to not get discouraged and now I'm a real computer nerd with a decent mid-range system :P
Actually, all the rest the same, the heat transfer increases as you reduce the cold plate thickness. The limit is manufacture ability.
This is why we need more competition.
Shout out for the Lian-Li 216, love that case.
my first watercooling loop used the radiator from an old Ford F-250 for free, a generic aquarium pump i got at home depot for $30, and some old CPU waterblock I paid $5 for from my local mom & pop computer store that the owner was getting rid of from his personal system.
Some random ass clear tubing from home depot also. Used pink engine coolant from Toyota I had left over and filled the rest with distilled water. It lasted 6 months before it showed signs of algae forming because I never knew about Biocides. Also A LOT of plastic JB weld was used on the radiator end tank because it had a GIGANTIC split.
Now I know.
I'm basically on my "end game" custom loop because I no longer want to deal with liquid cooling and I aim for buying the most efficient hardware I can use for gaming, which air cooling can easily take care of whenever this D5 pump dies.
im using a bykski cpu block since years and it still looks great. it has not the ultimate best temps because of the fin/gap thickness inside which is a bit bigger then other more expensive ones but im running solid white fluids and it looks that it can handle it better than the expensive ones with the very small fin's. i always had a problem with the gunk that build up there, so bykski will be my no.1 for my i9.
We have basically moved from EK to all Barrow / Bykski stuff for full loops and haven't had much in the way of problems other than crappy documentation.
EK Supremacy EVO came with the same screws and it works just fine.
A "react to" would be fin. Haven't see none in ages. :) Both entertaining and informative. :)
The arctic liquid freezer 3 360 ARGB has honestly been ridiculously good for $100.
Running a Bitspower block on my Threadripper and I've never had a problem, and it looks better than an EK block imo and was cheaper.
Dude, I have that Lian li case. Best case ever for airflow. But now I’m going m-itx
My thoughts on use cases would be a workshop computer that's midline AM4, but air cooling is impractical, so you have to run the water cooling lines to an outside radiator
I wouldn't say cheap, but I have been running all Bykski in my loop other than a single Corsair rad. It's perfect for my use case.
i'm still running the "budget" ekwb aluminum setup, and grabbed a block for the 3090 before they were discontinued. paired with a honda twin row radiator temps are very low for the fans being set on the quiet side. matching aluminum to the aluminum radiator has worked for about 4 years now just fine
to check if its concave or convex you can use a flat edge that is used for checking if a engine block or head is warped
Technology is the latest(I think) element added to the periotic table.
Thanks Jay, my Amazon cart has $300 of water cooling stuff. Awesome Vid as always!
Love watercooling stuff, thanks alot.
Back in my days anyone who would want to build custom loop had to have basic skill set. So making custom backplate, drop in some nuts and bolts from the jar wouldn’t be a problem. If someone tells me today buy same performance for quarter of the price but with some “minor modifications” I’m all in
Ghetto setup:
Hand made waterblock, car oil radiator from junkyard, handmade reservoir (tall coke can), acquarium waterpump (from scrapyard too), bunch of garden tubings with plastic adaptors. 🤘🤘
5:13 It's very much polished; it's starting to say its first 'bóbr' (beaver) word.
That mounting hardware (minus backplate) looks identical to what came with my Bykski water block. I'm using it on an AM4 socket, and the problem is getting it off when I need to do maintenance: if I over tighten the thumb nuts, the posts will sometimes unscrew from the back plate and actually make it possible to twist the block to break the tension of the thermal paste. Most of the time, it doesn't and I've gotta get pliers out to unscrew the posts or else I have to pull straight up on the block, which pulls the CPU out of the socket with it. Which I don't want to do again. I think it was closer to $30 on AliExpress a few years ago.
My first loop was from early 2000th. Soldered from server cooler block, aquarium pump from aquael and a cabin heater from GAZel. Tubing from water level. And t-line for filling. Later I bought used enzotech sapphire block and ek gpu universal block. Pump and radiator from cooler master aquagate. After half a dozen iterations I’m stuck on ek block which come with MSI board, ek respump combo with d5, bykski fullcover for gtx1080ti and ek cool stream rad. And hard tubing
We have a small company in the UK based in Shefield called GMC COMPS they have a budget block for £34.99 that out proformas all the top end blocks I have used its out preforming £200+ and £400+ priced blocks the only problem is its trade only so not open to the general public I buy them and sell them to my costumers at a small markup including fitting. its A ze90s fits all boards and brands comes with 3 brackets it fits 3 tube sizes. It looks nice it comes in Black Gray White Clear or if you like you can mix and match the surrounds. It's a bargain. total WEIGHT 44.75g it looks and feels like a much more expensive block.
My current test system is a soft tubed water-cooling loop mounted on a motherboard box. Th radiators are mounted from the Inside and the fans are set on exhaust, because intake is not a thing on the moment.
Metallurgy is a fun topic. Could be worth it to look into, even briefly Jay
Used little underwater fish tank pumps for a while got tired of replacing those every time they die and went to the cheap pumps what was last about a year now I use the good pumps
I have a 3d printed backplate. working like a champ since day one. (cooler master AIO)(printed in petg)
i had use screws and washers and bolts to hold a ek pump res combo for first custom loop from a bunnings which is a hardware store in Australia. when i did a check on the pump res combo for maintenance one the bolts had come loose and i had found it when i upgraded the loop. now i have a corsair pump res combo lol
You're paying for aesthetics and the ease in mounting. Same goes for most pumps. Generally, a DDC pump is a DDC pump but you're getting more ports and better mount options with more expensive pump/res combos.
I honestly wouldn't recommend a $19 block though, just because I know nothing of those blocks and you can't really find a track record for them. There are decent $40-$50 blocks that will come with better mounting options and instructions.
What about the next step up? I feel like spending $30-40 might be getting the best for the money. It would be cool to see if all of the issues with the cheaper one disappear at this price point.
21:09 msi AIO ( modified block ) cooling my laptop ( i7 10870h rtx3060 115w ) - its dead silent and temps never reach 60 C degrees :)
Cut a hole in my Case to fit my 360 CPU AIO mounted to my GPU with some fans zip tied to the GPU xD. it works though. Got the CM storm Scout II case. cut out drive bays to fit 3 120mm fans in front. massive hole in the side panel for hot GPU air to escape
I picked up an old Thermaltake Kandalf LCS case at a second hand store for really cheap. I knew it would be sweet for a cool retro build or a beefed up sleeper. It had everything but the block. Still has the pump/res combo, Flow meter, 360mm radiator, and tubing. These cases are very rare but extremely HUGE!. Any use case would have to be storage oriented. I may just pick up some fittings, tubing, and block just to see it in its full former glory…or just sell it to another collector. I don’t want to build a system I won’t use and room is an issue in my room for such a large footprint. But damn I want to see it run on a modern build. Soooo many drive cages to populate! What should I do???