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Build it - part 2

Plumb luck

You've now completed most of the hard work, so all that's left to do is to plumb in the tubes and fill the system. The order in which the coolant flows though each component isn't hugely important in a well set-up loop. However, as we have two radiators, we arranged the loop so that coolant would be fed to the 92mm radiator after it passed through the chipset and CPU blocks. This means that some of the energy absorbed from these two chips will be dissipated before the coolant passes into the graphics card block, which is the next port of call. Also, if you have a reservoir in your loop, you should place this before the pump, so that the pump always has a plentiful supply of coolant.

Tubes can be tricky to fit, especially if you're using thick 0.5in ID tubing, as we are, so a good trick is to have a cup of hot water nearby to soak the end of the tubes in before you push them over the barbs. The hot water softens the material, making it easier to fit. As we're using barbs, we also needed to add jubilee clips, and it's important that you don't screw these on too tightly since you risk cutting into the tubing, which could create a leak.

Try to be as precise as possible when cutting the tubing, although it's fine to add in some slack to allow it to flex and prevent kinking. If you have to bend the tubing tightly in order to fit it, then you should consider buying some Swiftech Smartcoils, which wrap around the tubes to prevent kinking.

It's important to take your time to ensure that the tubes are fitted correctly and are clamped on securely. You don't want a tube to come unstuck in a high-flow system, as you could then find yourself unwittingly flouting the hosepipe ban and making a sopping mess of your furniture at the same time.

When the tubes are installed, it's time to prime the system. This is much easier if you have a reservoir (one of the main benefits of owning one), otherwise you'll need to install a T-splitter (available from www.componentsuk.co.uk), ideally at a high point in the loop.

Pumps don't appreciate running dry, so fill your reservoir with coolant and let this circulate down into the pump. Now you need to prime the loop, which involves performing the pin trick to manually turn on the PSU. Remember, you shouldn't have any components plugged in at this point, except the pump, as you won't be ready to boot the PC until the loop is completely filled and bubble-free.

First, make sure that the PSU is unplugged, and then short the black and green pins on the 20/24-pin motherboard power plug using a length of electrical wire with roughly 1cm of bare metal exposed at both ends. When you plug the PSU back in, it will automatically fire up and start the pump operating. In a high-flow system, the coolant will drain out of the reservoir pretty quickly, so be ready with your funnel and bottle of coolant to fill it up again.

Eventually, the loop will fill completely, although there will probably still be air bubbles in the system. The reservoir will do a good job of filtering these out, but it helps to gently rock the PC from side to side to help dislodge any air pockets.


When you're happy that the coolant is flowing evenly, unplug the PSU from the wall, remove the wire and connect all the power plugs. Plug the PC back in and hit the power switch. Hopefully, everything should spark into life, the coolant should flow smoothly, and you'll be able to enter the BIOS and admire the chilly temperature of the CPU in the PC Health section. Congratulations, you've just built a ninja, water-cooled PC!

So, is it any good?

With our custom-made Phoenix side panel screwed on, there's no denying that our water-cooled PC looks the business. However, with heavy-duty cooling hardware installed, it would be rude not to overclock the PC, so that's exactly what we did.

After updating the BIOS, and installing Windows and all the latest drivers for our hardware, we headed to the BIOS to try to improve on the 2.4GHz stock clock speed of our Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU. After a few hours of intense BIOS twiddling and testing, we eventually settled on a 400MHz FSB (up from 266MHz), which gave us a mighty overclocked CPU speed of 3.6GHz with the DDR2 RAM running at 1GHz. However, to achieve this, we had to increase the CPU voltage to 1.575V, the Northbridge voltage to 1.45V and the RAM voltage to 2.1V. This is the advantage of high-end water cooling, as these voltages, in particular the very high CPU voltage, wouldn't be sustainable with air cooling. In contrast, our water loop had no trouble removing the excess heat generated.

We then tried overclocking the GeForce 7950 GX2 and managed to raise the GPU speeds to 570MHz, and the GDDR3 memory speed to 750MHz (1.5GHz effective), which is a reasonable boost from the stock clocks of 520MHz and 650MHz (1.3GHz effective) respectively.

As you'd expect, these overclocks resulted in tremendous performance. At its overclocked settings, the PC scored a massive 2.47 in our Media Benchmarks, which is slightly quicker than the 2.46 achieved by the Vadim Cepheus (see Issue 37, p80), which won this year's Dream PC contest.

Gaming performance was equally good, especially in titles that benefit from SLI. Hooked up to a 20in TFT monitor with a native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050, the PC destroyed every game we threw at it. For example, Prey at 1,680 x 1,050 with 4x AA and 8x AF never dipped below 54fps, with an average frame rate firmly rooted at the game's 60fps cap. Need for Speed: Most Wanted was similarly smooth at 1,680 x 1,050 with high AA and high AF, averaging 72fps with a fast minimum frame rate of 40fps. Meanwhile, Tomb Raider: Legend, which is still one of the most graphically demanding games around, was playable at 1,680 x 1,050 with Next-Gen Content enabled, thanks to an average frame rate of 63fps and a minimum of 31fps. We also ran Serious Sam 2 at 1,680 x 1,050 with HDR and 8x AF enabled, although this proved to be much less of a challenge than we expected - how does an average frame rate of 135fps grab you? Finally, the PC scored 9,743 in 3DMark06, which certainly isn't to be sniffed at, especially considering Scan's £6,990 Black Rhino (see Issue 37, p78) scored 9,736.



At the beginning of this feature, we set out to build a high-end, custom-water-cooled PC that offers Dream PC levels of performance and looks, and we think we've achieved that goal. Our water-cooled PC looks the business, thanks to its SilverStone case, customised side panel, green tubing and red internal lighting, and its performance is stunning too.

Hopefully, this feature has shown how you can put together a custom water-cooled PC of your own, and I heartily recommend that you give it a go. Over the years, I've put together more PCs than I care to remember, and I've enjoyed building every one, but I can honestly say that I enjoyed building this PC more than any other, simply because it has that elusive 'wow factor' that only a high-end, water-cooled Dream PC can provide.

Plumb luck

You've now completed most of the hard work, so all that's left to do is to plumb in the tubes and fill the system. The order in which the coolant flows though each component isn't hugely important in a well set-up loop. However, as we have two radiators, we arranged the loop so that coolant would be fed to the 92mm radiator after it passed through the chipset and CPU blocks. This means that some of the energy absorbed from these two chips will be dissipated before the coolant passes into the graphics card block, which is the next port of call. Also, if you have a reservoir in your loop, you should place this before the pump, so that the pump always has a plentiful supply of coolant.

Tubes can be tricky to fit, especially if you're using thick 0.5in ID tubing, as we are, so a good trick is to have a cup of hot water nearby to soak the end of the tubes in before you push them over the barbs. The hot water softens the material, making it easier to fit. As we're using barbs, we also needed to add jubilee clips, and it's important that you don't screw these on too tightly since you risk cutting into the tubing, which could create a leak.

Try to be as precise as possible when cutting the tubing, although it's fine to add in some slack to allow it to flex and prevent kinking. If you have to bend the tubing tightly in order to fit it, then you should consider buying some Swiftech Smartcoils, which wrap around the tubes to prevent kinking.

It's important to take your time to ensure that the tubes are fitted correctly and are clamped on securely. You don't want a tube to come unstuck in a high-flow system, as you could then find yourself unwittingly flouting the hosepipe ban and making a sopping mess of your furniture at the same time.

When the tubes are installed, it's time to prime the system. This is much easier if you have a reservoir (one of the main benefits of owning one), otherwise you'll need to install a T-splitter (available from www.componentsuk.co.uk), ideally at a high point in the loop.

Pumps don't appreciate running dry, so fill your reservoir with coolant and let this circulate down into the pump. Now you need to prime the loop, which involves performing the pin trick to manually turn on the PSU. Remember, you shouldn't have any components plugged in at this point, except the pump, as you won't be ready to boot the PC until the loop is completely filled and bubble-free.

First, make sure that the PSU is unplugged, and then short the black and green pins on the 20/24-pin motherboard power plug using a length of electrical wire with roughly 1cm of bare metal exposed at both ends. When you plug the PSU back in, it will automatically fire up and start the pump operating. In a high-flow system, the coolant will drain out of the reservoir pretty quickly, so be ready with your funnel and bottle of coolant to fill it up again.

Eventually, the loop will fill completely, although there will probably still be air bubbles in the system. The reservoir will do a good job of filtering these out, but it helps to gently rock the PC from side to side to help dislodge any air pockets.


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