PC Water Cooling Beginner’s Guide – Prep Work

In order to begin working on my water cooled PC I needed to identify what components I would be using as well as where to purchase them. This took a fair amount of time. I wanted to use some of the new PC components available on the market, have a powerful system, and gain some knowledge in the process. This post outlines the main PC components I chose with short explanations. Full reviews of each product along with pictures will come at a later time.

Main PC Components

Motherboard

For the motherboard I selected the ASUS X99-Deluxe (X99-DELUXE). The main reasons for selecting this were that I desired to use the latest Intel i7 processors, I wanted a board with a lot of features, I wanted to go with a brand I was familiar with, and looks. I do not personally care for the Red/Black color scheme of many high end motherboards and I was not going to be going with those colors for the end result.

Processor

The processor I chose was the Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E (BX80648I75930K). To me this processor was the best choice. It is a good mix of power and cost. The reason I did not go with the i7-5820 version was that I wanted the option of additional PCI-E lanes if I chose to add more video cards in the future. The reason I did not go with the i7-5960 was due to cost.

Video Cards

For video cards I decided to start with two EVGA GTX980 (04G-P4-2980-KR). I selected the reference model as most water blocks are based on that. I went with EVGA because I have bought video cards from them in the past and have had good luck.

RAM

RAM selection I based on price at the time mostly. This ended up being the Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB kit (CMK32GX4M4A2666C16).

Hard Drives

For hard drives I selected the Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD (MZ-7KE256BW). I originally decided to go with 2 of these setup in Raid-0. Later I added another set of two for a total of 4. Hard drive storage is probably different for me then many people as I have a large NAS that most of my files go on. If I did not I would add some sort of non-SSD drive for those files (probably WD.)

Power Supply

The power supply I chose was the Corsair AX1200i (CP-9020008-NA). I chose this PSU for its large amount of power, modular system, and long warranty.

Interim Cooling

The final major PC component to select was interim cooling. For stage 1 and stage 2 of my custom water cooled PC I will not have custom water cooling. I decided to go with an all-in-one water cooling system for the processor. The model I selected was the Corsair H105 (CW-9060016-WW) based on its large surface area and reviews.

PC Water Cooling Next Steps

In my upcoming posts I will continue outlining parts I selected and for what reason. I will go over the different cases for different stages, the custom water cooling components themselves, and some miscellaneous items I purchased and why.