Pentium D review on AnandTech (Update: Gaming Test Included)

[London Geezer]

If you're concerned with your PC making racket, it's time to stop air cooling. My generic POS water cooling rig is keeping my voltmodded unlocked overclocked X800Pro Vivo and my overclocked 3.0C at better temperatures than ANY air cooling I've ever strapped to this thing, while being notably quieter.

In my aircooling days, I went through several very high-end heatsinks, multiple types of large-cfm low-db fans strapped to fan controllers, hand-built ducts to properly manage air flow, you name it. The best setup I came out with was relatively quiet, but the CPU would load up to around 44c and the GPU would hit ~65c in my room.

Enter the $100 watercooling world. A cheap Via Aqua 1300 pump from a local retailer, a used Maze-4 for the GPU, a used DTek WW block for the CPU, a 9.5"x5"x2"heatercore I bought from a guy who was reworking them on OCForums, a bunch of hose and clamps from Home Depot and a weekend to throw it all together. I reused my four Denki 120mm's to pass air through the heatercore... (two pushing from one side, two pulling from the other)

39c load temps on my CPU, 41c load temps on my GPU, all with the fans running at 7v. At this level, my pair of 250gb WD drives are making more noise through the little silencing box I built for them. If I run the fans at 5v, the temps raise to 42 and 45 respectively, at which point the refridgerator in the kitchen two rooms away makes more noise.

And when I buy a Pentium-D, I may need to keep the fans at 7v and swap for a better/different CPU cooler, but $5 says it'll be damned-near silent and much cooler than anything that anyone will pull on air.

I'd love watercooling in my system, but just the thought of building it myself makes my ends split. And i have short hair.
Would be great to just buy a new system where water cooling is set up for u.

 

[Mariner]

Albuquerque - I can't say I really trust myself enough to run a water-cooled system! Not too worried though as I don't need super high performance and it's possible to almost passively cool Athlon 64s (undervolting) or possibly Pentium Ms which provide more than enough oomph for me. As for dual-core, I'll probably wait until A64 is available on 65nm or for Pentium M dual-core or its desktop equivalent.

Good luck with the Pentium D - if the reported 130W heat dissipation is correct, you'll probably need water cooling!

 

[suryad]

All I can do is wait for AMD to launch their multicore setups and see how fast they are under both 32 bit and 64 bit environments. If I get a new machine it will be at least a few years from right now because I dont have the money mostly, but I intend on getting a Voodoo machine with liquid cooling setup right out of the box.

 

[Albuquerque]

Trust me, this is my VERY first watercooling rig and I had absolutely no more experience than either one of you do. It's not "scary", it's simply a matter of testing before putting it in your rig.

Loosely assemble the parts "dry" in your computer, cut the hoses to fit appropriately, and then take it all out. Put it together on the floor of your bathroom, fill it with deionized water with a drop or two of clear algecide, and then let it run in your bathtub or in a big plastic basin for a day or two.

If you discover bubbles, drips or leaks, simply make the proper adjustment and re-test. I was VERY nervous about putting almost a gallon of pressurized quickly-moving water in a case with ~$2000 worth of equipment, so I let it run for a whole week just to make sure.

My very first attempt at assembly resulted in zero leaks. It ran for an entire year before I started having water clouding issues, which provoked me to take it all out and rework it anyway using some better hose (Home Depot hose is fine, but it kinks easily and using wireties to keep them round was ugly). The new hose looks better and doesn't kink, but performs basically the same.