Hey Josh 🙂 sorry I didn't spot this thread earlier.
Hmm to answer a couple of your questions....the watercooling basics...on one hand, you have "blocks" on the things producing heat in your PC; they act as heat sinks, transferring the heat from the CPU or GPU to the water. On the other hand you have the radiators which try to take that heat and pass it off to the air in your room. So you can quickly see that you need to balance these two,blocks and RADs to try to ensure that the cooling from the RADs is equal to the heat being put into the water by the PC components. Two things have a big effect on the cooling the RADs can achieve and the efficiency with which the water takes heat away from components. The first is the ambient temperature of your room and the second the flow rate of water in your water loop.
If you were to set your pc up outside at the north pole you could use a small RAD to get rid of heat from your loop but since I guess you'd rather do this in the comfort of your own home where the temps are higher you will need more radiator surface area. RADs are usually measured in relation to the fan size that blows air through them...most commonly 120mm fans (or 140mm fans) so when people talk about a 240 RAD they are talking about a radiator that has two 120mm fans on it or a 360 three 120mm fans..
For every block in your loop you want to have the equivalent of a 240mm RAD...so if you have a CPU and 2GPUs in a loop you want 240x3=720....so either 3 240 rads or 2 360 rads or a 480 plus a 240. the choice of RADs depends on where you can fit them etc. but the less RADs for any given surface area the better so for example 3 240 RADs would be worse than a 480 and a 240 because more objects in the loop causes more restriction...which cuts flow.
Flow is important because you need the water moving with good flow to effectively transfer heat. So you want a nice pump...I would recommend a D5 for a loop with good flow. Don't add useless blocks to the loop for cooling RAM or motherboard for example.
So what you need for a watercooling loop is a block for your CPU, a block for your GPU, and some RADs (I would say a 360 and a 240 for CPU and GPU or 2 360s if you think you might add another GPU later), a pump and a reservoir which makes the loop easier to fill and acts as a store of coolant and a place for air to be eliminated for the loop. To connect them you simply want some tubing and some compression fittings. The compression fittings join the tubing to the blocks and rads. you need two of them for every component in the loop.
For a first water cooling loop I would recommend flexible tubing. acrylic tubing gives nice straight lines etc but you have to know what you are doing with it...the risks of leakage are higher.
Personally I have had good experience with EK products.
Something like this would get you a loop.
RAD (or two) http://www.ekwb.com/shop/radiators-fans-accessories/radiators/120mm-series/ek-coolstream-xtx-series/... / ​http://www.ekwb.com/shop/radiators-fans-accessories/radiators/120mm-series/ek-coolstream-xtx-series/... a pump res combo http://www.ekwb.com/shop/reservoirs-and-acc/res-pump-combo/ek-d5/ek-d5-vario-x-res-140-incl-pump.htm... couple of blocks CPU http://www.ekwb.com/shop/blocks/cpu-blocks/supremacy/ek-supremacy-clean-csq-full-nickel.html GPU you'll have to wait for EK to release a block for the 780Ti..... some tubinghttp://www.ekwb.com/shop/accessories...tal-clear.html and a few fittingshttp://www.ekwb.com/shop/accessories...6mm-black.html
Hmm to answer a couple of your questions....the watercooling basics...on one hand, you have "blocks" on the things producing heat in your PC; they act as heat sinks, transferring the heat from the CPU or GPU to the water. On the other hand you have the radiators which try to take that heat and pass it off to the air in your room. So you can quickly see that you need to balance these two,blocks and RADs to try to ensure that the cooling from the RADs is equal to the heat being put into the water by the PC components. Two things have a big effect on the cooling the RADs can achieve and the efficiency with which the water takes heat away from components. The first is the ambient temperature of your room and the second the flow rate of water in your water loop.
If you were to set your pc up outside at the north pole you could use a small RAD to get rid of heat from your loop but since I guess you'd rather do this in the comfort of your own home where the temps are higher you will need more radiator surface area. RADs are usually measured in relation to the fan size that blows air through them...most commonly 120mm fans (or 140mm fans) so when people talk about a 240 RAD they are talking about a radiator that has two 120mm fans on it or a 360 three 120mm fans..
For every block in your loop you want to have the equivalent of a 240mm RAD...so if you have a CPU and 2GPUs in a loop you want 240x3=720....so either 3 240 rads or 2 360 rads or a 480 plus a 240. the choice of RADs depends on where you can fit them etc. but the less RADs for any given surface area the better so for example 3 240 RADs would be worse than a 480 and a 240 because more objects in the loop causes more restriction...which cuts flow.
Flow is important because you need the water moving with good flow to effectively transfer heat. So you want a nice pump...I would recommend a D5 for a loop with good flow. Don't add useless blocks to the loop for cooling RAM or motherboard for example.
So what you need for a watercooling loop is a block for your CPU, a block for your GPU, and some RADs (I would say a 360 and a 240 for CPU and GPU or 2 360s if you think you might add another GPU later), a pump and a reservoir which makes the loop easier to fill and acts as a store of coolant and a place for air to be eliminated for the loop. To connect them you simply want some tubing and some compression fittings. The compression fittings join the tubing to the blocks and rads. you need two of them for every component in the loop.
For a first water cooling loop I would recommend flexible tubing. acrylic tubing gives nice straight lines etc but you have to know what you are doing with it...the risks of leakage are higher.
Personally I have had good experience with EK products.
Something like this would get you a loop.
RAD (or two) http://www.ekwb.com/shop/radiators-fans-accessories/radiators/120mm-series/ek-coolstream-xtx-series/... / ​http://www.ekwb.com/shop/radiators-fans-accessories/radiators/120mm-series/ek-coolstream-xtx-series/... a pump res combo http://www.ekwb.com/shop/reservoirs-and-acc/res-pump-combo/ek-d5/ek-d5-vario-x-res-140-incl-pump.htm... couple of blocks CPU http://www.ekwb.com/shop/blocks/cpu-blocks/supremacy/ek-supremacy-clean-csq-full-nickel.html GPU you'll have to wait for EK to release a block for the 780Ti..... some tubinghttp://www.ekwb.com/shop/accessories...tal-clear.html and a few fittingshttp://www.ekwb.com/shop/accessories...6mm-black.html
