?Ncase M1 or Louqe Ghost water cooled build help?

[KronDestroyer13]

Hey everyone! I'm so stoked I found this network of fellow SFF enthusiasts. I'm currently in the process of parting out my system as we speak. As the title of the thread suggests I'm considering either the ghost or the M1. I seem to be leaning more towards the M1 lately due to the fact I want a dual radiator system and I don't have to buy any top hats which are impossible to find at the moment. I do however think the ghost is more attractive so it's a hard choice. Let me give you the run down on parts though.

9900k-Apogee drive II cpu block/pump
2080ti-ekwb EK-vector waterblock
2x 240-ekwb PE radiator
Asrock z390 phantom gaming-ITX mobo
32gb(2x16gb 3200mhz)-Corsair vengeance
2x Samsung 970 evo-1TB
Corsair SF- 750w PSU

I'm not quite sure how much tubing I'll need or how many/what types of fittings yet so maybe someone can shoot me some ideas.I'm thinking I'll just go with the ekwb Matt black soft tubing since it's all going to be hidden anyways and it's my first custom loop build. I'd love any help/suggestions if anyone has any. I'll be slowly buying everything over the next two months but it really all depends on when I can get my hands on either case. The ghost is available without any top hats but the M1 isnt till around December they said. What do you guys think, especially after doing your own builds of the same sort? I'm all ears ???. I've kinda been going off of @optimumtech Channel. I just want a badass gaming rig and I want to try and get the best temps possible under water so I can try and OC the hell out of it and get every ounce of performance I can. I'll be gaming on a 3440x1440 ultrawide wide too just so you can kinda understand what I'm going for in the end.

 

[stepnyVLK]

Hi KeonDestroyer
Welcom to the "small" comunity
It all sounds ok what you plnned there. The ghost is build in badges and quickly sells out you can get stuff from sweden shopps but good luck with the swedes ill tried they dont shipp outside
If you want it this year i guess you only have one choice then.
When this is your firs build go with the tubing the ek one is ok. I reccomend to take ek fittings they have good inner diameter (helps a bit flow) and order some 1/4 to 1/4 angels like 90 deg 30 deg they are alwYs good to have just in case.
Also dont listen too mutch to optimum tech that guy is kind of awkward to me for instance he advices in his latest video to turn the fans pulling from top thru the radiator and blowing hot air into the case. Thats all good for the cpu/gpu temp but blows hot air into the case heats up components but whats worse it fights the psu thats never good for noise
The best loop for that would be imho something like this:

[Build Log] NCTEKM1 - NCASE M1 Dual Radiator Watercooling

Components Case: NCASE M1 Rev 2 Motherboard: ASUS Maximus Impact VII CPU: Intel Core i7 4790k (Delidded) CPU Waterblock/Pump Combo: Swiftech Apogee Drive II GPU: PNY GeForce GTX 970 GPU Waterblock: EK-FC970 GTX Full Cover Water Block - Acetal + Nickel & EK-FC970 GTX Backplate - Black PSU...

www.overclock.net

Just get a alphacool lt solo or the apogee like in the example and some quick fittings if you get a alphacool radiator you can fill it up without a expansion tank/reservoir.

You can get the second radiator also from xspc they make slim ones

 

[KronDestroyer13]

Thanks for everything man that is exactly what I envisioned, I'm going to take it slow and do my best to not mess anything up lol. That link to the M1 is exactly what I needed. I would have loved to grab a ghost instead but I'm thinking I'm sh!t out of luck this year. I'll keep you/ the network posted and make sure I show the build process. I might need some extra help/support when the time comes to start building and buying the last few parts but until then I'll just keep planning(I will post any substantial changes to the plan). Again thank you for your time and efforts, means alot.
Ps you think a alphacool can handle two rads? That's the only reason I was leaning towards the apogee, i thought It was the only one out of the two with a strong enough pump built in.

 

[rfarmer]

Thanks for everything man that is exactly what I envisioned, I'm going to take it slow and do my best to not mess anything up lol. That link to the M1 is exactly what I needed. I would have loved to grab a ghost instead but I'm thinking I'm sh!t out of luck this year. I'll keep you/ the network posted and make sure I show the build process. I might need some extra help/support when the time comes to start building and buying the last few parts but until then I'll just keep planning(I will post any substantial changes to the plan). Again thank you for your time and efforts, means alot.
Ps you think a alphacool can handle two rads? That's the only reason I was leaning towards the apogee, i thought It was the only one out of the two with a strong enough pump built in.

Get the Apogee, it can easily handle 2 rads + CPU and GPU.

 

[KronDestroyer13]

Get the Apogee, it can easily handle 2 rads + CPU and GPU.

Yeah I honestly like the way it looks better anyways(not that it matters)and a higher flow rate can't hurt. Thanks man. Do you know whether or not I can fit regular 120s on the rads or if they have to be the skinny guys?

 

[rfarmer]

Yeah I honestly like the way it looks better anyways(not that it matters)and a higher flow rate can't hurt. Thanks man. Do you know whether or not I can fit regular 120s on the rads or if they have to be the skinny guys?

You can use 25mm on the radiator on the side, the bottom mounted radiator you need to use slim fans.

I am using an Apogee in my Ghost and with single 240mm, CPU and GPU I only run the pump between 25 - 50% and it cools really well.

 

[stepnyVLK]

As i reolyed on youtube:
There is a point from whereon you dont benefit a higher flowrate anymore. The swiftech is a great pump but the block is mediocre and you get stuck with it. There is a test of the dc-lt 2400 ( witch is an earlier version of the 2600) https://www.hardwaremax.net/wasserkuehlung/pumpen/1139-test-pumpen-im-roundup?showall=&start=9

And if you can read german it moves the system with this in it:
Phobya Balancer 250 reservoir
Cpu Alphacool NexXxoS XP³ Light - Black vga Nickel V.2 Vga EVGA Classified Hydrocopper Rads 2x Alphacool NexXxos XT45 360mm Aquacomputer Highflow meter Phobya Temperatursensor G1/4 Alphacool 16/10mm fittings 16/10mm Masterkleer tubing
And it runs the system at max rpm 28 liters/min
My dc-lt 2600 runs my system even at 1200rpm so there is pleanty of headroom if not they make a dc-lt 3600 witch is louder but you can regulate it, if that fails you can put a dual dc-lt top in there aswell (it fits in CAD) . If you woul aim for low restriction components ( thats why i used the xspc raystorm pro cpu block lowest restriction and highest flow the rads are restrictive but if you use the alohacool st30 v2 they have low restriction and 4 port holes) you get by well.

 

[stepnyVLK]

You can use 25mm on the radiator on the side, the bottom mounted radiator you need to use slim fans.

I am using an Apogee in my Ghost and with single 240mm, CPU and GPU I only run the pump between 25 - 50% and it cools really well.

Nice system is there any more pictures?
Do you have the fans as an intake?

 

[KronDestroyer13]

Gotcha, that's good to know. It might be easier for me to get my hands on a eisbaer anyways and quite a bit cheaper. I'll think about it. How is the alphacool block better though? I was just thinking it might be better in the long run to run the apogee at a lower speed but again I'm new to this so I very well could be wrong. Are there certain rads I should go with you think?
Ps what kinda fans you suggest @rfarmer ?

 

[stepnyVLK]

Gotcha, that's good to know. It might be easier for me to get my hands on a eisbaer anyways and quite a bit cheaper. I'll think about it. How is the alphacool block better though? I was just thinking it might be better in the long run to run the apogee at a lower speed but again I'm new to this so I very well could be wrong. Are there certain rads I should go with you think?
Ps what kinda fans you suggest @rfarmer ?

It all comes to convinience. Whats more available to you. Im in the EU so alphacool it is. internet doesnt dven show the swiftech you have to go their webpage and go thru customs. The DDC is a great pump and you have to turn it down otherwise it will rattle the sh... out of your socket and be super loud. Bouth DDCs i had so far had to be turn down for noise and they had their ovn anti vibration pads funny enough the plus seemed quieter to me. Dont get the eisbaer Lt (the big one you cant fit in the ghost im not shure about the ncase) and the radiator is crap on the LT.
If you believe optimum techs tests he got 1deg less on solo LT compared to the swiftech apogee so thats for fliw rates. One thing is probably good to consider reliability and in that the Laing pumps are amaizing my brother runns a 10 year old D5 no problem 3rd system /loop change.
If you have enough space for the side radiator you could get this

Alphacool Eisstation 40 DC-LT - Behälter

Die Eisstation 40 DC-LT stammt aus der Alphacool Enterprise Solutions Reihe. Die Kombination aus Pumpen-Top und Ausgleichsbehälter wurde so konzipiert, dass sie in kompakte Server und Workstations direkt an einen Radiator montiert werden...

www.alphacool.com

Im planning to put it in the ghost
In the near future

The dc lt has 0 vibration it sitts on the botom of my system no damping its about eficciency i guess and thats what the sff is to me get the most out of the package

 

[rfarmer]

Gotcha, that's good to know. It might be easier for me to get my hands on a eisbaer anyways and quite a bit cheaper. I'll think about it. How is the alphacool block better though? I was just thinking it might be better in the long run to run the apogee at a lower speed but again I'm new to this so I very well could be wrong. Are there certain rads I should go with you think?
Ps what kinda fans you suggest @rfarmer ?

I'm not a big fan of Noctua brown but they are probably the best fans available, especially the Noctua NF-A12x15 PWM which is probably the best 15mm fan available. For the 25mm fan the Noctua NF-F12.

One of the most commonly used radiators and probably the best is the Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis GTS 240.

 

[stepnyVLK]

I'm not a big fan of Noctua brown but they are probably the best fans available, especially the Noctua NF-A12x15 PWM which is probably the best 15mm fan available. For the 25mm fan the Noctua NF-F12.

One of the most commonly used radiators and probably the best is the Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis GTS 240.

I had a chance to compare the new scythe slim fans from the big shuriken 3 and i can only confirm what the reviews here say. They are bether in cooling androughly as loud as noctua. The thing that mine was doing was that it was shakimg a lot compared to noctua. But other than that they make only 1 good fan imho the a12x25 but its brown. When the chromax come out i will change all 4 of them so noctua gets anothet 120 bucks from me fuc...s

 

[KronDestroyer13]

@rfarmer So should i be looking to get two of the thin style rads? i was going to do a slim on the bottom and a regular on side but it might be better to get two of the Nemesis GTS's(which are the slim form factor ones) then if i'm able to just buy two 25mm fans for the side and two 15mm for the bottom. i honestly just don't know because I've never attempted this before but i was going to just go with normal 240 rads. It makes sense i would need as much extra space as i can get but i just want to check.
Also @stepnyVLK can that pump go on any rad? i think you have to get a server style to use it unless i was reading wrong. I know you said not to trust everything Optimum says but what got me thinking about the apogee was the fact he said the Eisbaer was more for a single rad setup. if i could get away with it with two rads and not have to worry about it dying on me sooner then later i might go with that. Like you said though it all really depends on availability though.

 

[stepnyVLK]

@rfarmer So should i be looking to get two of the thin style rads? i was going to do a slim on the bottom and a regular on side but it might be better to get two of the Nemesis GTS's(which are the slim form factor ones) then if i'm able to just buy two 25mm fans for the side and two 15mm for the bottom. i honestly just don't know because I've never attempted this before but i was going to just go with normal 240 rads. It makes sense i would need as much extra space as i can get but i just want to check.
Also @stepnyVLK can that pump go on any rad? i think you have to get a server style to use it unless i was reading wrong. I know you said not to trust everything Optimum says but what got me thinking about the apogee was the fact he said the Eisbaer was more for a single rad setup. if i could get away with it with two rads and not have to worry about it dying on me sooner then later i might go with that. Like you said though it all really depends on availability though.

Everything has his positives and negatives. As i sayed you cant generally say that more flow=better coling. I will tell you in probably 2 weeks time if the pump can handle 2 rads and a cpu/gpu.
If you believe this test:

Test: Pumpen im Roundup - Testsystem und Ablauf

Heute testen wir für euch aktuelle Pumpen für den Betrieb in Wasserkühlunssystemen. Das Roundup deckt dabei eine breite Palette von Pumpenversionen ab. Neben verschiedenen Version der wohl bekanntesten Pumpen, der Laing DDC und D5, befinden sich auch einige Interessante andere Interpretationen...

www.hardwaremax.net

It should.
If you are not shure you can still get the dc-lt 3600 witch handles a loop with 2 rad and 2 blocks and you can bring down the rpm a bit and it should stay at reasonable noiselevels.
If you want to be shure get the ddc but regulate it down since it vibrates a lot in my experience.
The expansion tank for the dc-lt: Industrial means just that it is presure tested for a higher pressure and ugly, no windows.
And it is fitted with standard 1/4 connectors so it fitts on all "normal" radiators

 

[paulesko]

About the dc-lt 3600 take in mind that I´ve swaped the 2600 unit for the 3600 in my eisbaer LT and I´m having lots of problems with noise. I have a new oring coming from alphacool on monday, and I will post my result here. The impellers on these units are a bit different

Cooling - Eisbaer LT orientation on ryzen

Hello everyone. I have been testing this week my new eisbaer and the ncase, and I was wondering if there is a review somewhere, where I can see the fin direction on the cold plate of the block. I'm searching this so I can mount it in the right direction according to the dies on the ryzen CPU...

smallformfactor.net

Also about the radiator, the HL gts 240 is VERY restrictive more or less like one cpu block, if you add two of them it would be too much for the dc-lt. You can go with the crossflow version of the same rad or use any alphacool rad which are very low restriction rads.

I am making tests with my eisbaer and a nemesis gtx but didn´t see any temp improvement, and I think it´s because the rad is so restrictive that it negates the cooling improvement of the rad. Tak a look at my post because next week I will post more results and conclusions.. more pics and all that.

 

[stepnyVLK]

About the dc-lt 3600 take in mind that I´ve swaped the 2600 unit for the 3600 in my eisbaer LT and I´m having lots of problems with noise. I have a new oring coming from alphacool on monday, and I will post my result here. The impellers on these units are a bit different

Cooling - Eisbaer LT orientation on ryzen

Hello everyone. I have been testing this week my new eisbaer and the ncase, and I was wondering if there is a review somewhere, where I can see the fin direction on the cold plate of the block. I'm searching this so I can mount it in the right direction according to the dies on the ryzen CPU...

smallformfactor.net

Also about the radiator, the HL gts 240 is VERY restrictive more or less like one cpu block, if you add two of them it would be too much for the dc-lt. You can go with the crossflow version of the same rad or use any alphacool rad which are very low restriction rads.

I am making tests with my eisbaer and a nemesis gtx but didn´t see any temp improvement, and I think it´s because the rad is so restrictive that it negates the cooling improvement of the rad. Tak a look at my post because next week I will post more results and conclusions.. more pics and all that.

I have it in my system and i think on the contrary. They had a previouse version of the rad and it cooled bether but was even more restrictive. The cpu block for instance i have is one of the lowest restrictions xspc raystorm pro and it doesnt cool the best the best one probably is alphacool with the highest restriction. My understanding is that you want to keep the water in the rad for longer to be able to give away the teperature. But i ordered a alphacool st30 240 v2aswell i will test it as i sayed next week. But my system has the the black ice gts 240 xspc raystorm pro and the the pump runs it with 1300rpm easyly.
So i guess there is headroom.

 

[stepnyVLK]

About the dc-lt 3600 take in mind that I´ve swaped the 2600 unit for the 3600 in my eisbaer LT and I´m having lots of problems with noise. I have a new oring coming from alphacool on monday, and I will post my result here.

I think its the loudest pump on the market you neef to regulate it. I would imagine under 2900rpm would be a sweetspot.

 

[paulesko]

It's something related to the impeller, because it's unbereable even at 1.500 rpm. I have changed back and forth between the 2600 and 3600 several times and the former is far far quieter.

The thing is that I found a guy that solved this problem using a different o-ring. I've ordered it and we will see if it works. The ring was designed by alpha cool to be used with the dc-lt 3600 and the 5.25 double unit bay... I'm hoping to solve the problem the same way, but who knows.

 

[paulesko]

I have it in my system and i think on the contrary. They had a previouse version of the rad and it cooled bether but was even more restrictive. The cpu block for instance i have is one of the lowest restrictions xspc raystorm pro and it doesnt cool the best the best one probably is alphacool with the highest restriction. My understanding is that you want to keep the water in the rad for longer to be able to give away the teperature. But i ordered a alphacool st30 240 v2aswell i will test it as i sayed next week. But my system has the the black ice gts 240 xspc raystorm pro and the the pump runs it with 1300rpm easyly.
So i guess there is headroom.

It's interesting this, it's a matter of flow, if its very high it will stay less time in the sad but it will pass through more times in a given time. The good thing about alpha cool is the flexibility and all the things you can experiment with.

Do you think the alpha cool is the best block? I was thinking about buying a good block and try it against the eisbaer using the same pump so all the other variants stay constant. I was thinking about heat killer but haven't looked much into it yet to he honest.

 

[stepnyVLK]

It's interesting this, it's a matter of flow, if its very high it will stay less time in the sad but it will pass through more times in a given time. The good thing about alpha cool is the flexibility and all the things you can experiment with.

Do you think the alpha cool is the best block? I was thinking about buying a good block and try it against the eisbaer using the same pump so all the other variants stay constant. I was thinking about heat killer but haven't looked much into it yet to he honest.

According to this old article:

Alphacool Eisblock XPX CPU Cooler Review - Page 2 of 3 - ExtremeRigs.net

Thermal performance of Alphacool's Eisblock XPX CPU water block compared to EK Supremacy AquaComputer NEXT Kryos Heatkiller Apogee Summit Bitspower

www.xtremerigs.net

It is one of the best:

I thought aswell that higher flow = bether cooling but if you look at some tests there is limited bennefit from high flow you would have go above 150l/min and if you believe igorslab testing closer to 5-600 to bennefit. And noone can bear that pump noise plus i guess the higher pressure also pushes the seals in the loop...
I had one seal failing on me after a 2 years of no maintenence luckyly i noticed it so my wooden floor didnt took a beating

I went for the xspc because it has one of the biggest cooling finn areas and the 3900x has 2 chiplets has a big area of heat on the IHS. But its alchemy realy. I also think the hard tubing with the ek single piece fittings gives you the lowest restrictions. So that might help...