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I've already built a rig that has two 6990's but its very loud and hot..I've been looking into water cooling the rig...i have all the parts besides the fittings....i was wondering if compression fittings are better than clamps and vice versa?

Because the last thing i want is a leak onto the cards.

Compression fittings are the best. I used steel clamps and barbs before and had problems with the tubing being pinched.

Also I believe you watercool with Distilled Water. Leaks are bad yes but Distilled water inst a conductor until it becomes dirty?

Compression fittings are easier to deal with more or less, though I've had no trouble with tube clamp fittings either.



You want to use distilled water with just a touch of anti-freeze of some kind to prevent stuff from growing in your tubes. You should stick to a similar metal across all blocks in the system or you run a risk of severe corrosion as aluminum and copper react badly, which the anti-freeze will help out there too a bit.

Absolutely 100% PURE water with ZERO contaminants and NO gasses is actually an insulator.(good luck on getting it outside of a specially constructed laboratory)

But no... that does not include distilled water... (actually you would be frightened at the amount of shite in "distilled water" non-laboratory grade)

You use distilled water to reduce galvanic corrosion & oxides forming in the tubes, but good luck on it staying 'distilled'.

A minute layer of oxide reduces heat transfer efficiency. (see furry kettle)



It is called galvanic corrosion and occurs frequently in shitty kits that mix metals (or cheap china made 'copper'), a single dissimilar metal is enough to kick it off...

Why not just use mineral oil? I would feel alot safer with mineral oil circulating in my computer than water.

Most "watercooling" pumps are not up to the job of shifting the oil around due to the viscosity.
I have seen someone do it, but they used a pump from something else that was intended to pump oil.

i use 1/2" id 3/4" od with copper barbs andplastic hose clips all works fine i have been usingit for4 years (ihave 1% antyfreez stopes galvonic crosion

Also, remember the physics, specific heat capacity of mineral oil is what? About half of that of water, if I am not mistaken…

I'd REALLY like to do one with liquid Gallium.... with a graphite assembly cooling plate..

Mercury would be too much of a problem if you had a leak.......

For mineral oil you generally don't use a pump at all. Just submerged fans to move the oil around.

I use 7/16" ID Masterkleer tubing on 1/2" barbs and don't need any type of clamps or fittings at all. You need to soak the end of the tube in boiling water, then fit it on. It will not come off after that. If you need to take it off, you have to cut it.

After messing around with fancy fittings, clamps etc, I found this to be best. Just get a ton of the cheap stuff and use all new anytime you have to change something out.

Mineral oil is not often used because it is not a very good liquid for use of heat transfer. I believe it's 6 or so linear times worse than water at absorbing heat from the CPU and taking it out and away into the radiator!

Mercury is the polar opposite of this, but it would also royally screw you up if a drop of it falls out (perfect short-circuit), as well as possibly become toxic if mercury vapor forms for any reason. (Liquid mercury can not be readily absorbed by the body.)

One potentially useful substitute to water in this application may be decompressed water vapor, this is what is inside of the heat-pipes used in laptops and high-end CPU coolers as well as most of the heatsinks in our GPU's. Decompressed water vapor is inside the tube, and by some magic of physics I haven't studied, it effectively equalizes heat from one side of the tube to the other side.

Mineral oil is ill suited to be pushed around inside tubes or "pumped" anywhere. The correct way to cool with mineral oil doesn't involve any sort of radiator at all. You simply submerge your equipment inside a container (like a barrel) and then use fans to circulate the oil between your tank (which is where the equipment is) and your radiator (which is comparatively shallow but hold 3x the volume of the tank). Larger surface area of the shallow end means quicker cooling and fan speed controls flow. It's stupidly simple, and if you do it right your need any sort of filters.

use Fluorinert

No, use gasoline for best results  ;D

I hear unicorn blood works best.

i just use 99% distald water 1% antyfreez to stop crotion/ watercoing bad have been using the same water sor 3 years  now

Does combination of aluminium and copper parts make trouble? E.g. copper water blocks and some automotive aluminium radiator?

Thanks.

Mixing different metals in the same loop will accelerate galvanic corrosion.  Copper and aluminum are particularly bad together unless you use some sort of anti-corrosive agent such as anti-freeze (ethylene gycol) mixed into the water.

Look at the chart at the end of this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion).  The higher the difference in the Anodic index of metals, the faster that corrosion will occur when those metals are in contact with each other.  This also occurs when the metals are connected by a water path as well.  This is unless you use an anti-corrosive in the water like I mentioned above.

@Marduk thanks, I see now.

I bought a kit that came with whatever blue coolant, works just fine.  Watercooling a 5870 and 5830 with it with a dual 120mm radiator, keeps them about 40 or so, depending on my ambient heat.  I used 1/2" OD 3/8" ID primoflex tubing with the regular fittings, no compression.

I used a kill coil.  Way less fuss than having to worry about oil or drops of whatever.  Just stick it in the reservoir and call it a day.

Those coils are only for preventing biological growth, like algae, in the loop.  It doesn't prevent corrosion.  If you don't have differing metals in your loop, you shouldn't have to worry too much about corrosion.

I only have a tiny bit of ethylene gycol in my loop to lower viscosity of the water.  (Helps purge out air bubbles.)

Very true.  The solution that comes with the kit has the anti-corrosion in it.  If you use distilled water then yes you will need something for that.