Y Sliptter for water cooling systetm?

[SteveH64]

Ok! I am new to water cooling systems for a build so that is why I am ignorant of the subject area. I have used a self contained CPU-only water cooler for the bulk of the time I have had this system(6 months), but I am doing a planned upgrade to a much better water cooling system. I am cooling the CPU, Northbridge, Southbrdge, GPU board, and Mosfet MVR(integrated circuit voltage regulators). I know basically what the functional layout of the system is- I have been through 5 on paper design drafts( I would attach a functional block diagram here but don't see a way to do that on this forum).

My question is two fold. First, Is it better to use reducer Y splitters when you are making a Y branch to split the water flow up. I understand that the 2 branches off the feeder line will not have the same pressure necessarily as the feeder line of the Y.
In my design I am splitting a 1/2" output line off the pump into 2 1/2" lines and going from there. The smallest line in this system would be 3/8" to the Northbridge, Southbrige, and EK Mosfet MVR block. I plan to use Y splitters so that no one water block is getting the water out flow from another water block. The second part of my question is: if it's ok to use a Y splitter that is not also a reducer where can you buy them? So far all the Y splitters I have seen on the WEB go from 1/2" to 3/8" or 3/8" to 1/4"(Swiftech, Koolance, Xiode, FrozenCPU:WEB sites).

For the curious
System HW: AMD 955 BE, ASUS M4A79T deluxe MOBO, 2 x 2GB Kingston Hyperx 1600MHz RAM. Sappire 4870 2x 2GB GPU, 25.5" Samsung LED monitor, 3 x WD Veloci Raptor 300GB HD RAID 0, on a RocketRAID 4310 controller, 2x1 TB Seagate HD RAID 0, on 2642 RocketRAID controller, Logitec wireless trackball, MS Natural wireless ergonomic KEYBOARD 7000, Logitech 540 speaker system. Pioneer 6X Blu-Ray RW SATA, DVD/CD RW IDE (off brand), Plextor CD RW IDE

SW: XP SP3- waiting for SP1 of WIn 7, I will multiboot SUSE 11 Linux and possibly current Ubutu version o after this last HW upgrade.

[Rocketmech]

1. It doesn't matter as long as the pump operates within spec.
In a closed system , a reduced line would meter the flow at a lower rate in that line without changing the pressure.
2. http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g30/...ter-Page1.html
Looks like 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 to me .

[SteveH64]

Thanks a bunch for link!
I looked on this site for the very stuff in your link and missed these splitters. I kept looking under their splitter/reducer link. I should have done a search on their site. Thought I did, but yesterday was a long one. It is interesting that Swiftech on their site has splitters that pretty much reduce things down to 1/4 lines from either 1/2 to 3/8. They also have what they call F splitters where one of the branch lines is smaller than the other branch line and they are parallel like in an F. Swiftech has performance curves where they try to show the pressure is greater in this arrangement, but their graphs are confusing and not well explained. I can see how in smaller lines you might have higher pressure, but in a bigger line at a lower pressure you actually may have more GPM or LPM(if you like metric), simple engineering larger lines = larger cross sectional area so a higher volume even at lower pressures up to a point. Since this is a closed loop and all branches are off the same pump I was thinking that a higher GPM over the CPU and GPU isn't a bad thing as they will have the highest temperatures in the system. I am not sure what kind of temps you'll see in the MVR circuits, but hey might be high too as that area has a pretty big heat sink on the ASUS MOBO board. I was pleasantly surprised when I took the integrated heat pipe/heat sink off my spare MOBO to see how easy it came off. I'm hoping the water blocks will attach just as easy. I have spares on things like memory and the MOBO because I'm getting a degree in computer systems engineering at DeVry online and in their online courses you can't miss attending class for very long before you are behind. 16-20 week courses are compressed into 8 weeks. I learned my lesson very early this year that certain spares are very benificial. Strangely, I haven't gone the RAID 1, 3, 5, or 6 route.I opted for a higher performance RAID 0 setup, but I back up my system like mad every day and keep the previous backups including a current one on the TB RAID and a separate SATA TB HD. Plus I use 25 and 50 GB Blu-ray rewritable disks of current and previous backups. I ran a computerized test center for a company in the 80's and am a believer that backups will save you sooner or later as they have many times on my home system. I also run a 2000VA UPS because power can drop at the ugliest times such as while you are doing disk compressions which can be a big OCH to your system!

[Rocketmech]

The Swiftech chart is explaining pressure drop not an increase. Its misleading anyways. If your designing or changing an existing liquid cooling system, you have to follow the cooling block pressure and flow requirements. The tubing to each block is limited in size each block is fitted with anyways, so how would you go bigger. If your getting a kit, then it will have everything needed. If your designing a custom system, then be sure your pump and exchanger will meet or exceed your heat load.