Preliminary research

At this point I just look for the parts for the computer. The goal is to have a decent gaming rig with possibility to upgrade later on. I'm not looking for 100 FPS in crysis, but I wish to be able to play FH2 with constant framerate over 40 ;)

Some places with helpful people I've found:
Tehomylly
Overclockers
OCforums

And of course my friends over at the Forgotten Honor community and Rattus Norvegicus.


New rig specs:
DVD: DVD+-RW Dual Layer,Light Scribe, SATA
HDDs: 2X WD Caviar SE, SATAII/300, 750GB
GFX: ASUS GeForce 8800GTS PCIE 512MB or BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC2 WC 512MB PCIe (liquid cooled )
MEM: HyperX 800MHz DDR2 SLI-R DIMM 4-4-4-12 (4x1024MB)
CPU: CORE 2 DUO E8500 3.16GHZ 1333MHz
MoBo: ASUS Striker II Extreme
PSU: Zalman 750W, Heatpipe cooled ATX-PSU
Cooling: RESERATOR1+ liquid cooling set

Watercooling system specs:
- loop: reservoir - pump - CPU - chipset - GFX - reservoir (maybe adding some memory cooling later if needed and maybe another loop for that)
- 3.5 bar, 1200 l/h
- 12mm fittings
- reservoir size approx. 480cc
I think I'm going for Swiftech MCP655 or something similar. That pump fits the specs of flow and pressure just perfect.

I have not set budget yet, but after looking for the prices of the parts the cost seems to come around 1500-1600e. I hope I can cut the costs down, but I'd rather not change the parts too much. The good thing is that the actual payday is months away and the prices are bound to drop a little.

Because this is my first water cooled system, I thought it would be wise to build a test rig first to see how things are done before meddling with the expensive new parts and possibly destroying them.

Parts list for the water cooling test rig (+ = have it, - = need to get it):
+ case, mobo & PSU (HP vectra salvaged from work)
+ monitor, keyboard and mouse
+ some quite old HDs
+ GFX card, also old
- radiator
- memory chip(s)
- CPU cooling block
- pump
- reservoir
- tubing and nipples
- temperature meters