Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
vegetable oil bath. whoda thunk?
water cooling best choice for todays rig?
- Thread starter Cartoon Corpse
- Start date
Well one could, but it would be a bigger pain yet again. Basically use water cooling, but use alcohol or something that will not freeze, and make sure it won't disolve the seals in the pump. Then run that through the phase change setup, you could get a mighty impressive system with actually fairly little work, but all the insulation and silicone sealant would be a big pain in the bottom.fallguy said:
Here's my watercooling story...
I have an overvolted and overclocked X800XTPE along with an overvolted and overclocked Northwood 3.0C. I had strapped a huge P4 heatsink and 80mm fan to my X800 to keep it happy, and strapped a ginormous copper-and-aluminum sink to my P4 with a 92mm fan. I also had a 120mmx45mm exhaust fan and a 120mmx30mm intake fan to keep it all moving around, along with the two fans in my PSU and a fan on my northbridge.
It kept reasonably cool; 49-ish for the CPU and 54-ish for the GPU. But my computer desk is small, and due to room constraints the CPU had to sit up on the desk surface. With your CPU a mere 14-18 inches from your head, the fan noise was absolutely insane. I played with undervolting the fans, fancy duct work with cardboard, et al... But my choices were clear: silent air cooling at basically stock speed, or loud obnoxious air cooling at prime speed. OR do something entirely different.
I bought a Via Aqua 1300 from a local aquarium shop, bought a ton of PVC-reinforced hose, hose clamps and brass fittings from Home Depot, a pair of used waterblocks online and a radiator from NAPA. And a few extra 120mmx30mm fans from SVC. Total cost was around $250 including shipping and taxes and cost for buying a big hole-saw to cut through the top of my current PC case.
It took me a week to fabricate it all up and get it to fit within my case, and I'm not going to say it's an "optimum" setup because of the way air is drawn from inside the case through the radiator. Still... I silicon-sealed the entire housing assembly for the pump, I used silicon as an additional "sealant" on all the fittings, and I hose-clamped every hose around the brass fittings as well. I let it run in my bathtub for a week before I finally decided all was ok.
It's been in my rig now for almost two years. The four 120mm fans that push/pull air through the radiator are all running at 5v, and are essentially dead silent. In fact, my PSU fan at it's lowest speed makes more noise (Antec TP550, almost no noise anyway) and so do my pair of WD 250GB harddrives. I've flushed it twice since putting it in, and never once had any issues at all.
I didn't spend an inordinate amount of money, I didn't make it overly complex, I spent the time and paid attention to ensure that anything that might cause me leakage was solved before it became an issue. And (knock on wood) it has never caused me a single moment of grief.
With the fans at 5v and the room around 68F, my full-load GPU tems hover around 41c and my full-load CPU temps hover around 43c. If I want to create some noise, i can give the fans 7v and drop the temps by ~2c all around -- at 12v the temps drop into the mid/high 30's.
Based on my experience thus far, all my future rigs will be watercooled in the same way.
I have an overvolted and overclocked X800XTPE along with an overvolted and overclocked Northwood 3.0C. I had strapped a huge P4 heatsink and 80mm fan to my X800 to keep it happy, and strapped a ginormous copper-and-aluminum sink to my P4 with a 92mm fan. I also had a 120mmx45mm exhaust fan and a 120mmx30mm intake fan to keep it all moving around, along with the two fans in my PSU and a fan on my northbridge.
It kept reasonably cool; 49-ish for the CPU and 54-ish for the GPU. But my computer desk is small, and due to room constraints the CPU had to sit up on the desk surface. With your CPU a mere 14-18 inches from your head, the fan noise was absolutely insane. I played with undervolting the fans, fancy duct work with cardboard, et al... But my choices were clear: silent air cooling at basically stock speed, or loud obnoxious air cooling at prime speed. OR do something entirely different.
I bought a Via Aqua 1300 from a local aquarium shop, bought a ton of PVC-reinforced hose, hose clamps and brass fittings from Home Depot, a pair of used waterblocks online and a radiator from NAPA. And a few extra 120mmx30mm fans from SVC. Total cost was around $250 including shipping and taxes and cost for buying a big hole-saw to cut through the top of my current PC case.
It took me a week to fabricate it all up and get it to fit within my case, and I'm not going to say it's an "optimum" setup because of the way air is drawn from inside the case through the radiator. Still... I silicon-sealed the entire housing assembly for the pump, I used silicon as an additional "sealant" on all the fittings, and I hose-clamped every hose around the brass fittings as well. I let it run in my bathtub for a week before I finally decided all was ok.
It's been in my rig now for almost two years. The four 120mm fans that push/pull air through the radiator are all running at 5v, and are essentially dead silent. In fact, my PSU fan at it's lowest speed makes more noise (Antec TP550, almost no noise anyway) and so do my pair of WD 250GB harddrives. I've flushed it twice since putting it in, and never once had any issues at all.
I didn't spend an inordinate amount of money, I didn't make it overly complex, I spent the time and paid attention to ensure that anything that might cause me leakage was solved before it became an issue. And (knock on wood) it has never caused me a single moment of grief.
With the fans at 5v and the room around 68F, my full-load GPU tems hover around 41c and my full-load CPU temps hover around 43c. If I want to create some noise, i can give the fans 7v and drop the temps by ~2c all around -- at 12v the temps drop into the mid/high 30's.
Based on my experience thus far, all my future rigs will be watercooled in the same way.
Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
if i go aircooled then i should use 4 120mm fans? is that the latest/greatest ATX air solution?
i looking for a solution that's going to be safe and effective either way.
going from a 250W rig (1.4Gz, 1Grdram, 9700pro) to a 620W (fx60,dual 1900, 4G ram) seems like i need upgraded air cooling at the very least. if not liquid.
liquid colling is better (more efficient) right? (leak risks aside)
i looking for a solution that's going to be safe and effective either way.
going from a 250W rig (1.4Gz, 1Grdram, 9700pro) to a 620W (fx60,dual 1900, 4G ram) seems like i need upgraded air cooling at the very least. if not liquid.
liquid colling is better (more efficient) right? (leak risks aside)
DudeMiester
Regular
I think the heatsink you use is a bit more important then the fan. In that regard ThermalRight is the right choice imho. An XP-120 or their new tower model will do you good. Also, make sure you have a clear path and plan the flow of air in your case. Don't just stick on a million fans, lol! Also, liquid cooling is only more efficent because you arn't limited by radiator size nearly as much as your are with a heatsink, and you can conduct the heat faster. Thus, there's no technical reason why a well designed and very large heatsink that uses something like heatpipes (a form of liquid cooling, lol) has to be worse then watercooling. In fact, some of these latest behemoths, like I mentioned, are on par with water for a much lower price.
fyi, the 4GB of RAM will do nothing but limit your RAM speed, as you know in 32-bit windows no app can access more then 2GB without being specially coded. Unless you have 64-bit windows and have apps that really do need 4GB, don't use more then 2GB!
fyi, the 4GB of RAM will do nothing but limit your RAM speed, as you know in 32-bit windows no app can access more then 2GB without being specially coded. Unless you have 64-bit windows and have apps that really do need 4GB, don't use more then 2GB!
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You know the reference cooler for opteron dual core processors is actually a heatpipe solution and looks REALLY nice. I won't be able to overclock on it though since I am building the computer for someone else, but it looks like a thermaright (I thought it was thermatake) heatsink.
DudeMiester
Regular
ThermalRight and ThermalTake are two different companies. ThermalTake is a much larger company, and ThermalRight makes much larger heatsinks, lol. 
DudeMiester said:ThermalRight and ThermalTake are two different companies. ThermalTake is a much larger company, and ThermalRight makes much larger heatsinks, lol.
Not true really, Thermaltake makes very big heatsinks. The only real difference besides the size of the actual companies is that Thermaltake hasnt designed a truely orginal product in ages, instead they've been taking a smaller companies design, changing it slightly and then under cutting the smaller company. In fact, I pretty much hate Thermaltake....
DudeMiester
Regular
Well ThermalTake is a Chinese company. Copying is their greatest craft! lol. Even Mao's Red Flag limosine is a rip-off of a Russian limo. Sorry if I insult anyone, but that's the hard truth. Still I hope for the best, but I know some people who visit China often and every time I hear about what goes on down there, it makes me, as a proponent of equality, mutual respect and the environment, sick.
Even Mao's Red Flag limosine is a rip-off of a Russian limo. Sorry if I insult anyone, but that's the hard truth. Still I hope for the best, but I know some people who visit China often and every time I hear about what goes on down there, it makes me, as a proponent of equality, mutual respect and the environment, sick.
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Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
yeah i have an eye forward to 64bit....64 bit system waiting for vista. that's why 4G plan. didn't know installing it now would slow access to the 2G that 32bits can find.
over at the radion technical support im seeing people having heat issues. so im going to have to do some more homework to decide. don't want to get in a pickle.
is it common to choose the same case for an air or a water cooling solution?
over at the radion technical support im seeing people having heat issues. so im going to have to do some more homework to decide. don't want to get in a pickle.
is it common to choose the same case for an air or a water cooling solution?
DudeMiester
Regular
I don't know about case choice, but I can tell you about RAM. The problem is that the memory controller has to manage many more banks of RAM, and you've of course have 2 modules on each channel, eating more power and causing more electrical interferance on them. This all makes it harder for the controller, so as a result it has to either run the RAM at a lower clockspeed, looser timings or both. Of course, as time goes by and RAM density increases, this will change, namely because you can keep it at one module per channel. For example, the fastest 1GB DIMMs (Crucial Ballistix Z503) aren't terribly slower then the fastest 512MB DIMMs (BH-5) anymore.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=67762
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=67762
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i was considering the water cooling option for my next system. Particularly the silent ones such as the Zalman Resorator.
But i think ill just be opting for a clever case like the Antec P-180 ( http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/Antec p180 review/index.htm).
Its expensive but supposidly very quiet and cool. It doesn't really follow the ATX form factor ... they have the PSU at the bottom of the case in a seperate compartment helping to keep the main compartment cool. And a decent/ quiet heatsink/fan such as the freezer pro. http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/freezerpro/
My current case cooling is terrible, i've been using my CPU for 3 years now and its always in the 65-70 degree C range. Its still going strong though, so not quite sure what the obsession is with getting as low temps as possible
But i think ill just be opting for a clever case like the Antec P-180 ( http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/Antec p180 review/index.htm).
Its expensive but supposidly very quiet and cool. It doesn't really follow the ATX form factor ... they have the PSU at the bottom of the case in a seperate compartment helping to keep the main compartment cool. And a decent/ quiet heatsink/fan such as the freezer pro. http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/freezerpro/
My current case cooling is terrible, i've been using my CPU for 3 years now and its always in the 65-70 degree C range. Its still going strong though, so not quite sure what the obsession is with getting as low temps as possible
Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
how long till BTX form factor gets up to speed? i think gateway? or dell? or someone of that stature offers 1 BTX based (or similar) rig. but i haven't heard much about it since i learned of it a year or 2 ago (to get us past 4Gz aircooled).
if it's such a boon to cooling efficiency why isn't it taking so long to come out?
if it's such a boon to cooling efficiency why isn't it taking so long to come out?
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Last I heard is that the case manufacturers are fed up with Intel changing the spec every five minutes and not telling anyone, so they're not really supporting it. Given that BTX seems to be aimed at cooling the CPU at a time when CPUs are getting cooler per clock, coming with better temperature management software, cases with better air cooling, watercooling going mainstream, better air heatsinks, etc, the manufacturers are preferring to stick with ATX. BTX just doesn't seem to have the support because it doesn't offer anything compelling that people want over ATX that they can't already get one way or the other.Cartoon Corpse said:
I guess Intel will have to give Dell a load of money to start shipping their machines with BTX form cases, motherboards and PSUs - but maybe Intel doesn't think it's worth that kind of money either?
Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
so if i go with the 4 120mm fan solution, do you just get a case with all that preinstalled? or is it better to get a 'blank'? case and do fans myself...and except for making sure you're flowing the air THROUGH the case (ie not having 4 fans blowing air to the center of the case or exhausting from the center lol), is there much else to consider cooling (fan) wise?
then i suppose there is also the GPU fan(s) and all, suppose that makes 6 fans?
then i suppose there is also the GPU fan(s) and all, suppose that makes 6 fans?
DudeMiester
Regular
As long as the layout makes sense and the fans move enough air, it doesn't matter how the case comes. Even if it has fans in a bad position, you can always move them yourself. Noise will also be a concern. If the case comes with cheap fans, it will be louder then necessary.
As for fan count, well you can have a case with 4, most higher end PSUs have 2, the CPU has 1 (but some tower heatsinks support 2), and the videocards will have 1 each. So that's 9 to 10 fans, lol.
As for fan count, well you can have a case with 4, most higher end PSUs have 2, the CPU has 1 (but some tower heatsinks support 2), and the videocards will have 1 each. So that's 9 to 10 fans, lol.
Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
i didn't know whether the CPU counted as one of the 4 120's or not.
9 or 10 fans! i figure i would get a case with fans installed or mounts pre placed in the 'standard' places as long as their isn't some uber secret to custom fan placement.
9 or 10 fans! i figure i would get a case with fans installed or mounts pre placed in the 'standard' places as long as their isn't some uber secret to custom fan placement.