Advice on water cooled PC *spawn*

[Grall]

Those dust filters are a joke. Look at how coarse that mesh is, tons of stuff's gonna go through.

And even if the mobo is rotated it still won't have much of an effect airflow-wise around the VRMs when the fans are located so far away; besides, the I/O backplate is blocking instead of the graphics cards.

But don't take my word for it... Put your finger on the VRM heatsink and feel for yourself!

 

[Mize]

I was considering water cooling too until I saw a comparison of CPU water cooling vs air cooling, although the CPU is indeed better cooled, the lack of a CPU fan means other MoBo components aren't cooled properly anymore, such as the chipset and the RAM, also the GPU if you don't connect it to your water cooling system.

Thermographic images of Water/Air cooling:
http://www.comptoir-hardware.com/ar...test-antec-kuehler-h2o-620-a-920.html?start=7

LOL. My watercooled case has a total of 14 fans moving air over the motherboard in some form or fashion. My motherboard has a handful of sensors scattered across it and they're all running quite cool. I think it may be true that a poorly designed water cooling system has this side-effect...but...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Those dust filters are a joke. Look at how coarse that mesh is, tons of stuff's gonna go through.

The dust filters in my case works great. I know something about running things in dusty environment and these really do work great. I've had the case for about 18 months and I have vacuumed the filters only maybe 5-6 six times and I'm lazy as hell in cleaning up my apartment and only very minor amounts of dust has ever gotten trough, miniscule amounts. It does affect the temps if the filters are blocked with dust, because less air gets is, but the dust stays out too.

And even if the mobo is rotated it still won't have much of an effect airflow-wise around the VRMs when the fans are located so far away; besides, the I/O backplate is blocking instead of the graphics cards.

But don't take my word for it... Put your finger on the VRM heatsink and feel for yourself!

Granted I don't fully know yet, how much the radiator blocks the air flow, but I guarantee you that without it the airflow from those air penetrators is more than adequate to cool the components in this case.

 

[MfA]

I generally remove filters ... blowing dust out of sinks is no more work than blowing it out the filters and the filters will clog faster, more airflow (for the same RPM) too of course.

 

[Mize]

Two words: pet hair

 

[Grall]

I don't have pets (all my electronics says "thank you!" ) I would love to have a kitty or some budgies, but the maintenance that goes with those is too much for a guy like me.

 

[Mize]

I don't have pets (all my electronics says "thank you!" ) I would love to have a kitty or some budgies, but the maintenance that goes with those is too much for a guy like me.

I have two kids and an exchange student so the incremental maintenance of two huskies and a cat with enough personality to never need TV is inconsequential.

 

[Grall]

Yeah well, you have a wife too right? She probably chips in too, and your kids probably walk the doggies at times and so on. Maybe even vacuum dog hairs off a rug or two what do I know? Hard to say what kids will or will not do these days, even if you threaten corporeal punishment.

 

[Mize]

Yeah well, you have a wife too right? She probably chips in too, and your kids probably walk the doggies at times and so on. Maybe even vacuum dog hairs off a rug or two what do I know? Hard to say what kids will or will not do these days, even if you threaten corporeal punishment.

Yes, I have a wife and she does quite a bit. My kids have done their own laundry since they were 8 years old and help out around the house. No punishment threats. We're just a pretty tight family and they know our generosity is linked to theirs. I have to say, about the animal hair, that 2x Husky + 1x Maine Coon Cat is a LOT of animal hair. My house' r-factor increases every year

 

[Rodéric]

Interesting, I only consider watercooling for quiet and good cooling, having a ton of fans to compensate would be counter productive.
I assume you are overclocking.

 

[Mize]

Interesting, I only consider watercooling for quiet and good cooling, having a ton of fans to compensate would be counter productive.
I assume you are overclocking.

For me it's mainly a geekfest project thing. with all the fans on low it's actually pretty quiet (more so than my HAF case with 1/3 the fans). Hell just getting rid of GPU fan noise is a big help as the spectrum of the Gentle Typhoons is much nicer on the ears.

I do overclock (2600k@4.5GHz, 2xGTX580s@850+) but not that much these days.

 

[Davros]

having a ton of fans to compensate would be counter productive.

He, he, I've had many a discussion with Mize along the lines of "Mize you crazy fool, the whole point of water cooling is that you dont need 15 fans"

 

[lanek]

I was considering water cooling too until I saw a comparison of CPU water cooling vs air cooling, although the CPU is indeed better cooled, the lack of a CPU fan means other MoBo components aren't cooled properly anymore, such as the chipset and the RAM, also the GPU if you don't connect it to your water cooling system.

Thermographic images of Water/Air cooling:
http://www.comptoir-hardware.com/ar...test-antec-kuehler-h2o-620-a-920.html?start=7

There's some little thing i see in this article who is needed to watch a bit:

- The motherboard used is a Gigaybte x58A-UD3R, this mobo was good, but have a major problem of high temperature on Northbridge and CPU phase.

- When the CPU was overclocked, this was really not a good idea to dont have a fan for refresh the NB and remove the blue backplate on the cooler around the CPU.

- The watercooling system used is really not a beast and the fact it have only one fan in this position is really not good as the air pulled will not be enough.

Ofc have a Noctua cooler or a tower who have 1 or 2x 120mm fans close to motherboard hardware will ofc have an impact on the temperature of this zone. if you dont have a fan there, in a case with bad ventilation, the motherboard hardware temperature will be higher.

If needed, put just a low fan speed who push air on the motherboard and you will get the same result. A side case 240mm fan as in the HAF-X is just perfect for push air on the motherboard.

But anyway most watercooling setup are made in a way it is not even needed. On my system i have a 360 radiator on the top, with 3x gentle Typoon 1850rpm, The temperature of component is extremely low, there's a massive airflow in the case.

Now of you really want the max, you have just to watercool too the motherboard..



Hopefully i have measure really well the place over the ram .. ( EK 360 XTX. 64mm thick )

 

[Mize]

He, he, I've had many a discussion with Mize along the lines of "Mize you crazy fool, the whole point of water cooling is that you dont need 15 fans"

You can cool for silence or for heat dissipation, but not both since those radiators need to be cooled. Like I said, fans on low = quiet, fans on high means overclocked 580s not breaking a sweat.

 

[Grall]

Daaaaammmn, that's a monstrous radiator. Holy crap. What does that thing weigh (empty, as it ought to be able to hold a considerable amount of water)?

 

[lanek]

1.5Kg, not so much finally. The photo make look it bigger and larger it is in reality.. ( due to the point of view and the luminosity was so bad .. ) http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-coolstream-rad-xtx-360.html

Some test:
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/04/19/ek-coolstream-rad-xtx-360/

http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/03/16/i7-3930k-cpu-ek-supreme-hf-plate/


Old install on the UD7 (big lol to gigabyte, the blue power button is installed the wrong way , anyway photo quality is not top ( taken with a SG2)

But im really glad of the performance of this rad... i will let it alone in the loop as it does the job really well . ( 2x gpu + 2600K@5ghz in the loop: 2x EK 7970 waterblock + 1 Ek SupremeHF full nickel plate 6, D5 strong+Ek Top rev.2 and res bay from EK too ( on final i think my setup is really 100% EK lol, was an accident ).

 

[Grall]

You can cool for silence or for heat dissipation, but not both since those radiators need to be cooled.

Well, you actually CAN have caek and eat it too, just pile on more radiators (with slow fans). Sound volume does not scale linearly with the number of sources, and fans on low don't make much in the way of high-frequency noise, which is the most irritating kind.

Of course it will get more expensive, and it probably won't fit inside your chassis...

An interesting experiment would be to stack two radiators on top of each other, to save space. Assume airflow from left to right, with water flowing the opposite direction, first entering the "downwind" radiator, then moving over to the other, "upwind" unit. Not as efficient I'd think as having both rads breathe fresh air, but it could let you mount all the hardware more or less internally in a case.

 

[lanek]

bad idea the stacked radiators, martinlabs have conduct tests:

results: 2 radiators stacked cant even touch 1 radiator.. bad result ( the air of the first is heating the second )
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/06/08/hesmelaughs-radiator-sandwich-testing/

 

[Mize]

Yeah, you have to keep in mind it's all about heat exchange. A radiator with no air moving through it is worse than a passive heat sink with a proper convective orientation. This is why so many overclockers go with push/pull configuration on their radiators - it make a big difference.

 

[Grall]

( the air of the first is heating the second )

You need to keep track of the way air and water moves through the system so this does not happen. Fresh air enters radiator A first, then B. Hot water enters radiator B first, then A...

You see stacked radiators (well, air equivalent) in basically all dual-GPU blower coolers, so it obviously works.