Hydro X Custom Loop Advice in Crystal 680X RGB

Hello there,

I am wanting to do my first ever custom water cooling loop with Hydro X in my Crystal 680X RGB case. I have been using the configurator but have had problems with it providing the GPU block for my 5700 XT Anniversary Edition, so I am not confident my plans will work.

My plan is to have one 360mm (XR5 or XR7, not sure which) radiator on the front of the case with the XD5 pump/res combo attached on the front of the case. I would then ideally like to have the pump feed to the GPU on the XG7, then on to the CPU XC7 block, then finally to the radiator.

I see that on the reference build guide (attached) this is very different from what is recommended, my main questions boil down to:

First, do I need the 3 different radiators? I was under the impression the general rule was 120mm of rad per component (so 240mm ?) Is this recommendation due to the thickness of radiators used?

Second, will vertically mounting the GPU allow for any additional room or configurations to have the pump mounted in the "hot" chamber with a 360mm radiator on the front? I would love to show off the XG7 block, so I am really considering going with a vertical mount.

I am worried that the 5700 XT not showing any cooling options in the configurator means there's no room for that block in my system with the 5700 XT.

Thanks for any advice offered!

1) Loop order doesn't matter. Set it up int he most efficient way and the way it looks the best. Water absorbs a lot of heat, so the difference in temp isn't big enough to notice a difference.

2) The rule of thumb is the following:

-120mm/component

-240mm/component OC'ed

Additional rad space won't guarantee better performance, it will just give you the option to have similar performance with less noise as you can run your fans at lower fan speeds. The less rad space you have the faster your fans have to run.

3) Length is king when it comes radiators. While having a thicker radiator does help a little, it doesn't benefit nearly as much as a longer yet skinnier radiator. Longer radiators have more surface area facing cooler ambient air. The air warms up as it goes through the radiator, it won't absorb as much heat as it travels through the rad. So two 360mmx30mm rads (side by side, not stacked) will be better than one 360mmx60mm. The transfers of heat is proportional to the difference in temperature.

Can't speak for the 5700 XT block, though the configurator might just need to be updated, I hope a Corsair employee pipes in.

The guide you posted is interesting as it is a negative pressure system. All fans are exhaust, if you follow that make sure you don't use any filters on the fans.

No, it is very doubtful the vertical GPU mount would change the situation. Length is the issue and the pump and bracket would need to center 120mm fan mounted, coming off a 30mm radiator and 25mm fan. That would need to be one short GPU. Even if you were able to somehow offset them to pass by each other and make it all fit, the end result is you can longer access any of your SATA data cables, motherboard headers, RGB headers or anything else. It is a lot of work to get yourself into a bad situation. On the other hand, as strange as it may seem to mount the pump out of sight on the other side, it is actually quite easy and I have been running this way in the sister 740 Air case for a few years. There is nothing under the pump but a metal well. If disaster were to strike, this is the least impactful area in the entire case. I did my tube runs with 5/8" OD and had no issues passing through the grommets. In fact, my other more traditional build with every thing crammed into the main chamber looks a bit crowded in comparison - not as clean.

The little 120mm add on radiator seems a bit much. I would rather use that area for something else. Based on my experience, I think the 680/740 cases set up better for 280mm radiators and you could do 2x280. However, like most people you probably want to show off the fans on the glass and that does look better with 3x120mm. 360+240mm should be about the same cooling as 2x280mm. The trick with the 360mm in that case is if you mount the fans on the glass side of the front rail, you then offset the longer (taller) radiator behind it. Other users have reported some intrusion into the top fan area and that could be problematic with a 240mm radiator.

If you were determined to use the front as intake to show the fans, I would probably try for a bottom 240mm radiator placement also as intake. Top/rear exhaust. The recommended diagram is reverse flow and I did this for about a year and liked it (rear/bottom intake, top/front 280mm radiator exhaust). However that set up well for my position relative to the case and not everyone may be as pleased.

c-attack, thanks for the response and input, it's appreciated.

I think what I will end up doing is putting the XD5 pump/res in the "dark" compartment as suggested, and then run it to GPU -> CPU -> 240mm rad on top (exhaust) -> front 360mm (exhaust to avoid having radiator interfere with top rad fans) -> XD5 pump/res.

And I will likely just put the one intake fan on the back and throw the extra non-rgb case fan that came with it as exhaust on the bottom to keep the "reverse flow" intact as per the recommended build guide.

I think this will give me adequate cooling and still look fairly clean. I am not worried about showing off the three LL120's on the front of the case, I would rather the cooling be optimal than have better aesthetics.

And I'm definitely not too worried about the vertical mounting now, unless it helps in other ways (card sag?) I will probably avoid it for now.

Thanks so much for the reply and insight!

Hi. I thought this might help your situation somewhat.

I recently did my first ever custom loop in my 680X, I came across a few fitting issues during my first attempt, but you can see my final result below.

Don't hide that beautiful Res/Pump, get him on show.

A few things worth mentioning here that were problematic for me:

Acrylic tubing (Corsairs Hardline options) are not ideal to start. Find and use the same dimension PETG tubing and use that. Acrylic is entirely plausible as you can see from my build, but its a lot more messing around for nearly that exact same result.

A 360mm Radiator and 240mm radiator will fit top and front, but you have to mount your fans on the inner side, and room for pipe runs is very limited, especially if you plan on mounting the XD5 on the front. If you do happen to go for front and top mounted radiators, you will find that you will have limited mounting choices for your XD5.

As you can see a vertically mounted GPU is essential if using the XG7, and front mounted XD5. The GPU and Pump/Res will overlap.

For my below configuration I have a top and bottom mounted 240mm rad. I intend to change the air flow soon to find the optimum.

https://imgur.com/a/ets6nXu

If you have any questions, I will do my best to assist.

Hey Scruffer87,

Thanks for the response and the input. I appreciate your insight and you showing your loop off, it looks great! :biggrin:

A few things to note, I wasn't sold on the vertical mounting of the GPU, but I love the way it looks in your setup, what kind of PCIe Riser Cable are you using? I want one that will be compatible with PCIe 4.0 since I have it and wouldn't want to abandon it for aesthetics only.

Also, I am planning on using soft tubing, only because it is my first build and I want to make it easier on myself, and I believe it allows for a little wiggle room here and there.

So I am still not 100% sure on the pump being up front, because I don't want it to look too crowded, but it's good to know that I have that option!

Thanks again for your input and sharing! :)

Hey Scruffer87,

 

Thanks for the response and the input. I appreciate your insight and you showing your loop off, it looks great! :biggrin:

 

A few things to note, I wasn't sold on the vertical mounting of the GPU, but I love the way it looks in your setup, what kind of PCIe Riser Cable are you using? I want one that will be compatible with PCIe 4.0 since I have it and wouldn't want to abandon it for aesthetics only.

 

Also, I am planning on using soft tubing, only because it is my first build and I want to make it easier on myself, and I believe it allows for a little wiggle room here and there.

 

So I am still not 100% sure on the pump being up front, because I don't want it to look too crowded, but it's good to know that I have that option!

 

Thanks again for your input and sharing! :)

Sorry I cant really help you with identifying a reliable PCIE 4.0 Riser cable.

One thing I would suggest is not going for the 30cm, the cable sags and blocks air flow on the bottom fans. I will soon be ordering a 20cm variant instead. Here is mine.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EZDIY-FAB-Express-Flexible-Extension-Upgrade/dp/B07BC82THR/ref=asc_df_B07BC82THR/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=231989761408&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18206266347069704074&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045374&hvtargid=pla-753683181516&psc=1

Sorry I cant really help you with identifying a reliable PCIE 4.0 Riser cable.

 

One thing I would suggest is not going for the 30cm, the cable sags and blocks air flow on the bottom fans. I will soon be ordering a 20cm variant instead. Here is mine.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EZDIY-FAB-Express-Flexible-Extension-Upgrade/dp/B07BC82THR/ref=asc_df_B07BC82THR/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=231989761408&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18206266347069704074&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045374&hvtargid=pla-753683181516&psc=1

I ended up ordering a 20cm riser cable with a 90 degree right angle in it, hopefully it ends up being PCI-E 4.0 compatible and is the right combination of length and format.

I am eagerly awaiting the availability of the XG7 for the 5700 XT to buy the rest of the components and start planning/building my loop. I think I am going to try and get the XD5 in the main chamber with the vertical card mount, it may be tight, but should work. If not I will revert back to something close to the reference design, albeit without the 120mm radiator on the bottom and the vertical GPU.

Also, I am refreshing the store page every day, waiting for it to show up, but it's funny, even though the product page is built out for the 5700 XT XG7 there is no listing for it when you look at all of the available products in the Hydro X product catalog. Is this intentional because it's not available yet?

I wonder if there are other parts out there that aren't listed? For example some plugs and a male-to-male adapter for adding the drain valve to the XD5 directly would be nice. Are these parts in the future of Hydro X at all?

Just wanted to update the thread with my completed build.

I more or less went the route of the "reference build guide" for the 680X. You can see the photos below, I didn't have room for the XD5 pump in the main chamber mainly because of the front XR5 360mm radiator. I ended up putting the XD5 in the "ugly" side of the case (realized I should have maybe used a 45° fitting on the outlet after I filled the loop, also cable management wasn't done at the time of the photo).

And now for the sad part, I don't think I flushed my radiators well enough and didn't bother flushing with a pump or filtration system before installing them, and now I believe my XG7 and XC7 are acting as filters for whatever was left in the radiators.

I flushed several times with distilled water (2-3 times) and a vinegar/distilled water solution (once) and a few more distilled water flushes, but didn't use any real force/pump, just filled and shook them around a bit, but now my blocks have this green looking residue caught on the micro-fins.

Is this a cause for immediate concern? I know they are partially obstructed and aren't getting as good of flow as they could, but should I be rushing to disassemble the loop to clean the blocks out? And for that matter should the XG7 and XC7 be disassembled to be cleaned internally?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.