Ive been water cooling for almost 2 years and have worked with three different types of tubings and thought to offer my experience with you folks.
Thin Wall PVC tubing (1/2ID, 5/8OD)
Thick Wall PVC Tubing (1/2ID, 3/4OD)
Tygon Thin wall tubing (1/2ID).
The first i worked with was the thin wall PVC tubing. This tubing was cheap ($.69/foot at Ace Harware). It shaped pretty easily and didnt have much torque (try to return to its original shape). Kinking wasnt too bad but too tight of turns would cause it to flatten. Made good contacts with nozzles on water blocks and elbows/bars/Tlines. A great "generic tubing" for the average water cooler.
Thick wall PVC tubing: This stuff was a bit more expensive but just as readily available at Ace Hardware ($.99/foot). This stuff will not kink no matter how much you try to force it. Main problem is torquing. I connected it from my processor to NB chipset (using the intel retention mech) and it was moving it around so badly that it wasnt making proper contact. Also make sure you have a good form of cutting, regular skizors wont do the job!
Thin Wall Tygon tubing: First and foremost: ITS EXPENSIVE STUFF! I got it from frozencpu.com for 3.25 a foot (a slight discount for 5 feet, which i did). The best part of this stuff: No torquing effects whatsoever! I can make the tighest turns and it applies no force. It kinks somewhat easily but its not too much of a problem. Requires a few elbows. It makes the BEST connections with nozzles and stuff, so much so its almost impossible to get off (but slides right on). So like i said, very expensive stuff but my favorite.
I used a mixture of the thin wall PVC and thin wall tygon for my rig. Tygon for my innter workings among water blocks, and thinwall PVC for straight runs to the radiators.
Hope this is useful to some!
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