How difficult is it to install liquid cooling into an existing setup?

Unannounced Fart

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I went to a Newegg showroom recently and they had tons of computer setups on display. It inspired me to setup a liquid cooling system, but is that even feasible if I want to use my current rig? Will it be as easy as just removing the fan from my CPU and install the liquid cooling, or will I have to disassemble my entire motherboard from the case? If it's the latter, that may be too much hassle for me.
 

Monsieur Tirets

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I went to a Newegg showroom recently and they had tons of computer setups on display. It inspired me to setup a liquid cooling system, but is that even feasible if I want to use my current rig? Will it be as easy as just removing the fan from my CPU and install the liquid cooling, or will I have to disassemble my entire motherboard from the case? If it's the latter, that may be too much hassle for me.

an aio shouldnt be too difficult at all. im about to switch to one since my current cooler isnt doing as good a job as id like and while i though of going with a big noctua air cooler i decided against it because i struggle installing the smallish heatsink i currently have... theyre just a pain in the ass for me. so, i decided to go aio liquid since itll be much easier getting a small waterblock in place rather than a huge heat sink.
 

Crystallas

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The kits make it easy mode. Yes, you may need to unscrew a few things, but it's not difficult at all.
 

Ares

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It shouldn't be much more difficult than replacing your CPU/GPU heatsink/fan with an aftermarket heatsink/fan.

The liquid cooling is just a heatsink block that water lines run into and then back to the main unit that radiates the heat out of the water.
 

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So after countless hours of reading and watching YouTube videos on liquid cooling, I think I'm going to take the plunge and install it into my existing system. It'll be a custom loop, so I'll be jumping into the deep end right away. I really don't need it, but I just love the look, so I'll be doing it mainly for the aesthetics. And also it'll give me something to do for a weekend. I know I've gotten a little too much into it when this pic makes me wanna jizz my pants:

301be207912daf9f7b0aa90365355f49.jpeg



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botfly10

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I really REALLY wish they sold kits for just a GPU loop with no cpu block. EK sells kits at SUPER reasonable prices but they only come with a cpu block. Its an extra ~$100 for a gpu block. I sooooo wish I could swap a gpu block into that kit in place of the cpu block and just pay the difference.

I personally have a noctua NH-D14 on my cpu. I've had it for 6 years and I will never use anything else. It works awesome - sooo quiet, and performs as well as top tier AIO. No reason to ever use anything else.

However, gpu's are a different story. Biggest source of heat and noise on my rig. I would love to put a loop on just my gpu. PLEASE EK START OFFERING GPU KITS!
 

botfly10

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an aio shouldnt be too difficult at all. im about to switch to one since my current cooler isnt doing as good a job as id like and while i though of going with a big noctua air cooler i decided against it because i struggle installing the smallish heatsink i currently have... theyre just a pain in the ass for me. so, i decided to go aio liquid since itll be much easier getting a small waterblock in place rather than a huge heat sink.

The noctua mounting brackets/mechanism are the best ever made. two screws and idiot proof. No fiddling, just stick the thing on there and screw it down.
 

fatbeard

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I really REALLY wish they sold kits for just a GPU loop with no cpu block. EK sells kits at SUPER reasonable prices but they only come with a cpu block. Its an extra ~$100 for a gpu block. I sooooo wish I could swap a gpu block into that kit in place of the cpu block and just pay the difference.

I personally have a noctua NH-D14 on my cpu. I've had it for 6 years and I will never use anything else. It works awesome - sooo quiet, and performs as well as top tier AIO. No reason to ever use anything else.

However, gpu's are a different story. Biggest source of heat and noise on my rig. I would love to put a loop on just my gpu. PLEASE EK START OFFERING GPU KITS!

Yep, I have an NH-D14 in my current comp and a D15 going in the next one. Great coolers and an awesome, awesome company. They've shipped me various parts & mounting kits over the years for free.
 

botfly10

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The D14 is probably my favorite component in my whole system. Just so elegant in its simplicity and performance, even if it IS ugly as shit. Fucker is gon last forever too. Like actually forever.
 

Monsieur Tirets

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its not the mounting kit, just that i hate fiddling with a huge heat sink. anyway i went with an h115i, though with kabylake it doesnt really matter since even after going through 3 chips, upgrading my cooler, and actually buying a new z270 mobo, my temps still suck.

they are better than they were with the z170 board and h7 on the first two chips, but still not great. my chip could probably do 5ghz with 1.35v or less but temps would be insane. its kabys shit application of the heat spreader and/or tim which regardless of voltage will often result in random temp spikes that last a fraction of a second because the heat isnt being transferred from the die to the spreader sufficiently. sometimes the spikes are higher with less voltage than with higher voltage.

right now im at 4.8ghz with 1.28v. it could take a lot less buts that occt avx stable. most OCs considered stable would likely fail occt in minutes if not seconds. temps arent great though so im thinking of using an avx offset to keep avx at 4.6 since ill be stable at 4.8 with much less voltage in non avx loads.

i really dont want to try a 4th chip and hope it from a better batch, since with my luck itll be worse. and while delidding would help tremendously im too clumsy and like i said, my luck is shit.
 

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Bot just part out your own open loop. Its not like you have to wait for a manufacturer to make a kit. My loops are always a mix up of Koolance, EK, Bitspower, Alphacool etc. etc. I have no brand loyalty at all in PC parts. Whatever I research out to be the most efficient or the best looking for what I am going for aesthetically. Next rig I am building will have a hard piped loop like pictured above. I have always in the past gone the hose route. I want to challenge myself to something new. BTW to the guy who said he would do this in a weekend, LOL, good luck with that. You're underestimating the sheer amount of measurement and planning it takes.
 

Crystallas

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None of it is hard. It's just warm liquid being pumped through a cooling mechanism. You can literally build infinite concepts, and nearly all of them, as long as the basic idea is followed, and it works. You don't need kits, you don't need special made water blocks. A trip to ace hardware/home depot, and you can liquid cool 4 GPUs and a CPU for under a hundy.
 

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None of it is hard. It's just warm liquid being pumped through a cooling mechanism. You can literally build infinite concepts, and nearly all of them, as long as the basic idea is followed, and it works. You don't need kits, you don't need special made water blocks. A trip to ace hardware/home depot, and you can liquid cool 4 GPUs and a CPU for under a hundy.

I mean if you're just out to cool for function and don't care about aesthetics sure. However there is a discernible difference between one water block to the next. There are GPU brackets sold so you can use CPU closed loop coolers on video cards for instance but all you're doing is cooling the GPU and nothing else. I slap waterblocks that cool the GPU, VRMs, RAM, mosfets etc etc. Because I like to overclock. As anything else, you buy and build according to what use you're going to make of it.
 

botfly10

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Have you guys seen this? I guess its a refresh of a kinda old part. Only $30. Compatible with pretty much any AIO cooler.

large_c306760d5e4ce7ec.jpg


nzxt_g12_2.jpg



This isn't a new concept, a few other companies make similar mods. However the Kraken G line is unique in its compatibility. It works with any of the board partner cards and you can pick your own AIO instead of having one pre-installed. As far as I know, other similar mods only work with cards that came with the nvidia blower style cooling shroud.

I am gon wait to see some performance reviews, but I think Ima get one.
 

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