First Water Cooled Build.

[EarthwormJim]

Well after enough lurking around on the cases and cooling forum, I thought I'd post up my recent first venture into water cooling.

Goal with the computer was to make it as near to silent as possible, while still getting as good if not better performance than the best air coolers. Pretty much met that goal.

Parts list for the computer:

CPU- Intel X3210
Mobo- DFI LP LT P35
Ram - GSkill DDR2 1000 4gb
Video Card - BFG 8800gt
HDD1- 500gb Samsung
HDD2 - 300gb Seagate
Case - Cooler Master ATC 201 (blast from the past eh?)
PSU ? Silverstone 850W

Radiator- Swiftech MCR220
Pump - Swiftech MCP655
Reservoir - Microres
CPU Block - Swiftech Apogee GTX
NB Block - Swiftech MPW30

All in all I'm pretty happy with the computer, temps could be better but I'm running all the radiator fans at 5v (Yate loons).

I had a few setbacks, namely not ordering enough tubing at first, and two dead MSI P35 Neo2 boards. Ended up taking about a month to put it together.

I really liked the old Cooler Master cases so I picked a used one up for pretty cheap and hacked a hole in the top for the radiator. The PSU sticks out the back a little, since there wasn?t enough room for it with the radiator top mounted. But it?s only about half an inch.

Load temps with 4 instances of prime doing small FFTs are 63,63,60,60 c. Could probably lower temps a bit by doing a better remount, but I'm too lazy. I?m probably near the limit, thermal wise, for a 2x120 radiator anyways with my processor and a NB block in the same loop.

I currently have the processor running at 3.76ghz (8x470fsb) using a 1:1 ratio for the memory. Couldn't get the memory to post above 1100mhz, so that's why I'm using the crappy strapping and ratio.
Nothing past 470fsb (cant tell if it's the mobo or cpu holding me back) will pass prime testing even though I?m at a pretty low voltage for the speed, 1.37v on the cpu. Was hoping to hit 3.8ghz but I?m close enough.

Anyways here are some pictures of the computer.

Temps

Front of the case.

Inside

Close-up inside.

Radgrill cover.

And finally some gratuitous pictures of my messy workspace and guitars.

Workspace.

Guitars.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Oh forgot to thank aigomorla for his awesome water cooling guide and his responses to my pm's.

 

[aigomorla]

welcome to the world of watercooling

only 1 thing i should have you watch out for.

That GTX top isnt indestructiable. I would be careful about it. Or get the copper top replacement.

Oh the GTX will have a black dye on the inside top. So dont freak out if you see silver like this:

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_0580.jpg

since your running pure distiled, if you notice a tint of blue or green, becareful.

Other then that, its a very nice setup. Better fan to upgrade in the future will be zalman F3's. You can probably get better performance out of them because they have higher raited static pressure.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
welcome to the world of watercooling

only 1 thing i should have you watch out for.

That GTX top isnt indestructiable. I would be careful about it. Or get the copper top replacement.

Oh the GTX will have a black dye on the inside top. So dont freak out if you see silver like this:

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_0580.jpg

since your running pure distiled, if you notice a tint of blue or green, becareful.

Other then that, its a very nice setup. Better fan to upgrade in the future will be zalman F3's. You can probably get better performance out of them because they have higher raited static pressure.

It's not pure distilled, I have about 5% anti-freeze and a few drops of pt nuke. Hopefully if the coating on the top does come off, the anti freeze will help a bit for anti corrosion.

I had thought about getting the copper top, but I'll just wait and see if there's any debris in my loop from the aluminum top corroding.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim

Originally posted by: aigomorla
welcome to the world of watercooling

only 1 thing i should have you watch out for.

That GTX top isnt indestructiable. I would be careful about it. Or get the copper top replacement.

Oh the GTX will have a black dye on the inside top. So dont freak out if you see silver like this:

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_0580.jpg

since your running pure distiled, if you notice a tint of blue or green, becareful.

Other then that, its a very nice setup. Better fan to upgrade in the future will be zalman F3's. You can probably get better performance out of them because they have higher raited static pressure.

It's not pure distilled, I have about 5% anti-freeze and a few drops of pt nuke. Hopefully if the coating on the top does come off, the anti freeze will help a bit for anti corrosion.

I had thought about getting the copper top, but I'll just wait and see if there's any debris in my loop from the aluminum top corroding.

ahhh.. then dont worry about it too much. My alu top is still in perfect condition. It seems most of the problems came from people that used tap water or straight distilled.

and how many drops is a few? i hope its less then 3.

 

[MarcVenice]

Whatsup with the fan mounted on top of the ram, and the sideways mounted fan ? Just asking, if it's for pure ram cooling for example, I'd just get rid of it, it's just more noise, and you don't need it ?

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Whatsup with the fan mounted on top of the ram, and the sideways mounted fan ? Just asking, if it's for pure ram cooling for example, I'd just get rid of it, it's just more noise, and you don't need it ?

The fan mounted on the ram is there because of his severe overclock on the cpu. Without that it wouldn't probably be stable. Then he has a fan blowing air over the voltage regulators near the cpu and the third one is there to get all the hot air from inside the case out, most of it coming from that accelero on top of the video card, which really heats up the air inside.
I guess those fan are ok if they have a low rpm.

 

[EarthwormJim]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Whatsup with the fan mounted on top of the ram, and the sideways mounted fan ? Just asking, if it's for pure ram cooling for example, I'd just get rid of it, it's just more noise, and you don't need it ?

They're running at 7v, so they aren't really audible. I could probably take the one off the ram since the ram is only running at 940mhz.

The angled fan is to cool the PWM, without it I was seeing temperatures near 80c within a few minutes of starting up prime. There's vents in the output shield for air to escape. Running a quad at 470mhz fsb is pretty demanding upon a motherboard.