One of my dreams with the A4 has been to do a custom loop for both the GPU and CPU. While air-cooling both components is most likely the better solution (and has been working well for me for the last six years), I've just been fascinated by the engineering challenge of getting a custom loop to fit completely within the confines of the case.
I tried and failed to build one in 2018 (EKWB pwm pump was just way too loud, and couldn't find an AC/DC adapter for the HDPLEX-400 that didn't make a horrible electrical whine), but looks like there are lots of new products have come into the market that might finally make this possible, such as the Modultra LOBO, which saves a lot of space by combining multiple components into one.
My main hangup before going onto the purchasing state is, how much TDP can I afford? The current plan is to fit two Alphacool 92mm ST25 radiators with Noctua NF-A9x14 fans, one behind the PSU using the 120mm AIO bracket and 120mm>92mm fan adapter, and the other underneath the PSU like lots of folks have done with the Asetek. Combined this gives me about 180mm of total radiator surface area.
Currently I have a 3700x and a RTX 2070, which together is about 240tdp. Would love to move up to a 5800x3d (so I don't have to get a new mobo and all that entails) and a 4070ti, but that pushes the envelope to ~390tdp. Been looking through some threads and the general recommendation has been to have a 65tdp CPU but I haven't really seen any kind of numbers regarding GPUs so I'm not sure what would be pushing the limit there.
Just curious what other folks experiences are with pushing components in their systems, if I should keep what I have and get waterblocks for them (although the only block for the 2070 seems to be from Bykski), or do some more modest upgrades, say to a 5700x (or not, it's like exactly the same as the 3700x) and 4060ti (which is not super well reviewed...) or 4070.
Thanks in advance!
