first water cooled setup
 

hello, i'm planning on setting up water cooling for my system, and wanted to post what I have for a system and what I was looking at getting for the water cooling so I could find out from more experienced people if it will be adiquate for my system, my main reason for going to water cooling is to cut some of the noise down as between 8 fans and 2 HD's it's fairly noisy, however I may over clock it some as well, not positive yet though.

anyways this is my current system for what I wanted to cool with the water cooler, I was planing on cooling both CPU's, the bios chip (the fan on this is noisy as hell), and the video card, posibly the HD's too, but likely not.

motherboard:
Microstar (MSI) K7D Master (MS-6501)

processor:
dual althlon MP 2000+

video card:
geforce 4 ti4400 128mb

this is what I was looking at getting for water cooling components, planing on doing a 1/2' system.

pump:
Eheim 1250
110/120V - 317 GPH

radiator:
Black Ice Xtreme

waterblocks:
MAZE3 Series Blocks

the radiator will be baffled from the rest of the system pulling cooler air from outside, my main question is, is this enough cooling for a dual processor setup, would a 2nd radiator be required, and if the single radiator is enough when I run it to the CPU's do I do them inline, or do I split the line with a T to go to each at the same time and then merge back together with another T, and if I split with a T do I split from 1/2" down to 2 3/8" so all the flow doesn't end up going to just one side and not the other?

Should be good enough.

I wouldn't split the flow to the proc's. One will just run a couple deg higher than the other.

Just remember to keep the airflow thru the rad as high as you can and you'll be fine.

It just won't set any records, but it will function for what you have said you want it to do.

Here is what I would do if I was in your situation:

First, how much are you willing to spend? I ask this because you can do may different combos:

Straight silence, low cooling performance
One radiator with fan @ 7V

Mostly silent with better cooling performance:
Two radiators in parrallel with fans @ 7V.

Not so quiet but better cooling performance:
One radiator with fan @12V

Little bit less quiet than previous but even better cooling performance:
Two radiators with fans @ 12V. (better pump would be in order here).

In any case I would setup the blocks in parrallel with eachother useing "T" lines setup the way the picture shows down below.
The line size would probably be all 1/2" but you could go down to 3/8" to each block from a 1/2" feed line. All up to you.

This may not be the most efficent design but maybe one of the simpler ones.

The ole' parallel vs series...

If you put the blocks in parallel, you'll have less restriction, but more overall flow, which is split (more or less) equally between the blocks.

If you put the blocks in series, you'll have less overall flow, but it is not split.

I believe that overall, the series configuration is more beneficial. The fact that the "watter is hotter in the second block" is almost irrelevant, since the flow should be too great to even be able to measure a difference.

The trick is to keep the restriction to a minimum. Avoid 90 deg elbows, and opt for a long tube flexing from one CPU to the other.