[ulairi]

Originally Posted by bobkoure

My experience with algae is that if you don't expose your coolant to light you won't get any.

You will definitely need to mass-load the side panels. There's some loading already there, but not nearly enough to deal with pump vibration.

Those silicone grommets are great for isolating drives, but that gel stuff at Petras is at least an order of magnitude more effective. Spend the four bucks.

Will do. It is certainly not about the money (hell, I'm pondering the Norprene tubing...)

Originally Posted by bobkoure

The bright side about that case is that the vents around the outside of the front hatch seem to reduce the airflow "whoosh" noise.

Great to know.

Originally Posted by bobkoure

Any of those pumps will cool your gear. If you were pushing for a max overclock, then, yeah, higher pressure will drop your temps a couple of degrees, which might translate to a bit more O/C - once you've raised voltages yet again.
It's a trade-off. Like most everything else. If you were trying to as-quiet-as-possible, I'd be pointing you at the innovatek/eheim HPPS pump, which is dead silent (but vibrates as all Eheims seem to do) but is also weak-ass and your temps will be higher.
BTW, I have read that the 350s with modded tops at petras are both quieter and have a bit more flow than stock. I've no personal experience with these (maybe next build) but it sounds like something worth checking out.

Any O/C'ing I do will be minor. My decision to go with water cooling is motivated by my irrational need to be able to hear my phone when the PC is on.

Originally Posted by bobkoure

As far as the 160 goes - don't think so much about cubic capacity as frontal area when comparing radiators, then think fin pitch. There are some other 'HA' series rads. And I'm pretty sure you can get 'em directly from thermochill.co.uk.
Have a look at this thread (note that Marci owns Thermochill - but he's an enthusiast.
Personally, I've always liked that square form factor - much easier to put it in the lower front of a tower case. Not sure it that'll work for your case, though...

As I read up more and more on the tentative things I want to use, the 160 looks more and more promising.

When reading the Cathar/Marci exchange which led to the 160's creation (along with the original 'way-too-long-ducting-shroud'), I learned that Marci is somehow connected to ThermoChill. It is nice to have someone be an enthusiast and work in the industry (and there appears to be no issue with those two as the reviews bear out). Availability of the 160 state-side notwithstanding, I'll likely go with it.

Not sure where I'll mount it yet, though I have no problem putting the 160 outside the back of the case. Once I get the parts, I'll spend some time mocking out different configurations. The hoses will define, to a large degree, where things go.

It is almost certain that the first and, in all likelyhood, the second setup won't be the final one as I muck about with where things go.

The one thing that got me pondering are the discussions re: low/vacuum-level pressures on the inlet side of the pump collapsing the hoses, with the SmartCoils being a solution. In my first attempt (waaaay back in 1999, using SwifTech's stuff) to do water cooling, I had an issue with the hoses kinking over tight bends. I solved the problem by finding metal sprints of the diameter small enough to fit inside the hoses. It was a bit tricky putting them in and they certainly made the hose a lot stiffer, but they completely eliminated the collapsing/kinking problem.