As many people know, the HAF 922 is an excellent chassis for pretty much any build in the sub $100 category. It has enough room for some serious graphics cards, it has the cooling capacity for them as well. It also has a very convenient cutout in the backpanel to make swapping CPU coolers a breeze. But what about when we take the system to the next level, cutting noise, and dropping temperatures massively? Let’s say for now… Liquid cooling.

So, without further adieu, it’s time to proceed on with the build. Now, I expect most readers to have a pretty basic idea of how water cooling works, but in case some don’t, I’ll summarize for you. Basically, the CPU or GPU has a block attached, typically that is going to be copper, and it sits on the components with a high amount of pressure and transfers the heat to the water which is pumped through the block, which then travels to the radiator to be cooled off by the fans mounted on it. Then the whole cycle is started over.

Now, I have to apologize firstly, because the photography isn’t up to my usual standards, it was a rainy day and power kept going out, so bear with me on the pictures.

So, what exactly do you need to liquid cool? Well, that depends on what you want to cool. If you want to do like I did here, you need: a pump, a CPU block, a GPU block, a reservoir, and a radiator. I used my main build’s motherboard, CPU, RAM and CPU block for this build actually, because in my opinion it just looks better. I also used a 360 radiator, I just left a fan off at the end. (The HAF 922 only has space for 2 120mm fans)

Here’s an exact list of the hardware used:

7/16″ ID 5/8″ OD tubing

1/2″ Barb fittings by Bitspower

7/16″ ID 5/8″ OD EK Compression fittings

EK HF Supreme Full Nickle

EVGA HydroCopper Waterblock – mounted on a GTX 260

Danger Den single 5.25″ bay reservoir

MCP 355 pump

Watercool 355 Pump top

HWlabs Black ICE GTS 360

Silver Kill Coil – Not pictured

Distilled water

And that’s everything you need to make an identical system to this one. Now, why don’t you head on over to the next page while I get the fans and radiator mounted?