liquid cooling? How to upgrade...

Also wanted to ask about hard line tubing vs flex - would either be better for transportation? hard line more impervious to impact but more susceptible to vibration wear for example?

Is the hard line tubing just aesthetic? Is it better in any way?

I can only provide input on Q3.

I'm not a fan of the AIO liquid cooling options; I was disappointed by the H60 and it's still sitting in a box waiting for me to repurpose or sell it. I'll let others who have tried more and newer AIO products speak to their advantages and disadvantages.

I took my own H20 rig (my first build, hardline acrylic tubing) on a 400 mile car ride. I emptied its coolant before putting it in the trunk with a blanket around it. It traveled very well, no issues with refilling once I got to my destination. Make sure you have a sensibly placed drain line. I'm sure DS builders do that for their builds. I was a tiny bit worried about transporting it the first time, but I've done it two or three times with zero issues.

Benefits of acrylic tubing if bent properly and installed well with appropriate fittings
1. better looks
2. slightly better airflow inside case
3. distilled water in loop possibly doesn't need to be changed quite as often (true for me, highly dependent, too, on what you're putting into your coolant)

Disadvantages of acrylic tubing
1. much harder to bend and install than flexible tubing; DS does all the hard work for you here and IMO doesn't charge enough for that labor
2. swapping out parts might prove more difficult if inlets/outlets aren't in the same exact spot
3. not flexible, obviously. DS will probably run the hardline acrylic so that it's still easy to get to your parts and tweak stuff, but overall it takes much more thoughtful planning since you'll have no wiggle-room with the tubing once it is installed.

If you intend to change your parts (graphics card, mobo, CPU) frequently, go for flex tubing with the quick disconnects. If you intend to use dyes in your coolant, go for flex tubing with the quick disconnects since you'll need to do more maintenance. For major maintenance, if you break down your entire system to clean out rads, res, tubing, blocks, I don't think there's much difference between flexible tubing and hardline.

Good luck!

P.S. Just saw another post written by you that indicates overall weight might be a concern. Heads up: water-cooling adds more weight than you'd think. Even when the rig is emptied of coolant, you've got the rads, blocks, graphics card backplate, fittings, and res that all add to overall weight. It might be worth considering a SFF or mATX case with a handle and an air-cooled or AIO build if portability (and lower overall weight) is a top priority.

Edited by renkip - 03 Jan 2017 at 7:47pm