Cross Chill on a Maximus VI Formula ROG MB

[rolldog]

I put together a system about a month ago, and am still making tweaks here and there. Right now, I just finished installing new fans for my case, Antec Twelve Hundred V3, I changed out all my wiring to some custom made cables with all new sleeving and was cut to exact lengths for all my components, thanks to moddiy.com, and I hooked up a Corsair H100i CLC CPU cooler to replace the stock cooler on my i7-4770K.

Initially, I wanted to go with water cooling for everything, but I'm not comfortable enough doing this since I've never installed a water cooled system before. For now, I was thinking about installing a water cooling loop to run through the Cross Chill waterblock built onto the armor of the MB, so I can at least get my feet wet, no pun intended. Can someone who's familiar with water cooling this board maybe give me some suggestions for what I need to install this water cooled system and run it through the Cross Chill system? I'very never done this before so I would need to buy everything to run a loop through the Cross Chill system, probably a pump, reservoir, tubing, radiator, and some G1/4 fittings (at least that's what the manual said). I might want to add on more components down the road, but for now, all I want to do is run a water cooling system through the MB. Can someone please tell me what parts I would need to do this? Thanks.

[__]

If you're doing the MB then at least do the CPU as well. It's really not worth the $100s outlay for the whole kit to just cool the VRMs honestly. CrossChill is designed to integrate into an existing kit rather than be the sole focus of a loop, otherwise you might as well leave it on air.

Look at the watercooling kits on retailers - they all come with CPU blocks anyway. Just add 2x G1/4 barbs to the order to include the CrossChill. Does that fit your budget?
Look at your case - where can you fit the radiator, pump and reservoir? What sizes can you fit (CPU+VRMs only need 120x2 radiator). The res (or waterline) needs to go higher up so the bubbles rise to the top.
Look at other water cooling builds - get ideas!

[jab383]

Cooling the CPU is first - the most gain for the buck. GPUs second since they can be thermally limited and certainly last longer when cooler. RAMs and the VRMs come after those, in my opinion.

In my case, the GPU is way not thermally limited so it doesn't get water and I chose not to tackle RAM cooling yet. Here's what I did.



Note the G1/4 connections for water in and out of the CPU waterblock and the Crosschill. The radiator shows at the top of the case. An EK reservoir with pump is hiding in 5 1/4 drive space. The dangly thing tied to the HDD bay is a drain plug.

FrozenCPU is an online dealer in such things that I use a lot.

Jeff

[BRUNO_SENA]

jab383 wrote:
Cooling the CPU is first - the most gain for the buck. GPUs second since they can be thermally limited and certainly last longer when cooler. RAMs and the VRMs come after those, in my opinion.

In my case, the GPU is way not thermally limited so it doesn't get water and I chose not to tackle RAM cooling yet. Here's what I did.



Note the G1/4 connections for water in and out of the CPU waterblock and the Crosschill. The radiator shows at the top of the case. An EK reservoir with pump is hiding in 5 1/4 drive space. The dangly thing tied to the HDD bay is a drain plug.

FrozenCPU is an online dealer in such things that I use a lot.

Jeff

Hi Jeff ... greetings ! I have this mobo too and I´m just start to install a watercooler custom. At this moment, I wanna cool only my CPU. My major concern is about the direction of fluid. My ideia is use a SC600 or SC1000 (from Syscooling) pump. Please, advice me about this sequence : (OUT) pump >> (IN) cpu block >> (OUT) cpu block to (IN) radiator 480 mm >> (OUT) radiator to (IN) reservoir >> (OUT) reservoir to (IN) pump and back to cpu ckp again. This loop arrangement is correct ?

[rolldog]

Yea, I spoke to Joe over at FrozenCPU, but it seemed a little overwhelming to get everything I need to run waterblocks to every component I have. He was trying to sell me on everything. Out of all the water blocks, I like the EK the most. I don't want to change out the built-in waterblock on the Asus bosrd, but if I could get a CPU waterblock and everything else I need to create a full, working water cooling system to cook my CPU and the VRM, I don't think I'like be so overwhelmed with information. I just want to start with one thing at a time, and if I buy a CPU waterblock, I don't know every other part I would need to make a complete system, including quality name brand equipment that won't crap out after a few months. I don't really have a budget, as long as what I'm paying for is worth it.

[jab383]

I understand that about paying what it should cost and not for extravagance. There is an EK kit to replace the Crosschill block and add one on the PCH (the Z87), but I didn't go for that.

I suggest a diagram. Sketch out the components you want to cool - CPU and VRM. Sketch in the waterblocks and whether they are already present. Sketch in radiator, reservoir and pump. Attach g1/4 fittings to each. Picking the right ones for each component of the water loop is more work. Most of us want everything to fit in the case. That's a constraint you have to think through, especially for the radiator and its fans.

Tubing is a bigger consideration than you might expect. Some use rigid tubing cut exactly to size and clamped in tight, then have to tear apart the whole loop to troubleshoot when the tiniest thing goes wrong. I change CPUs often - alternating among three for benchmark scores. That wouldn't work without flexible tubing and the length that allows the CPU waterblock to swing out of the way. The only specific suggestion I'll make right now is to use PrimoChill PrimoFlex tubing. I started with cheaper tubing and had to spend a day cleaning plasticizer crud out of the CPU block to restore cooling performance.

I added more doodads like the drain plug and water temperature sensor as afterthoughts - not in my first sketch. Expect it to evolve.

Jeff