Northbridge Cooling

[MotF Bane]

Just curious, is water cooling the northbridge even worth it?
It's about 40 dollars for a Maze4 chipset block, versus 25 dollars for a Thermalright HR-05. I've heard the Maze4 is restrictive to the entire loop, so would it maybe make more sense to just get the Thermalright? Can the Thermalright cool it just as much?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Just curious, is water cooling the northbridge even worth it?
It's about 40 dollars for a Maze4 chipset block, versus 25 dollars for a Thermalright HR-05. I've heard the Maze4 is restrictive to the entire loop, so would it maybe make more sense to just get the Thermalright? Can the Thermalright cool it just as much?

why not use a MCW30?

there only 26.99 over at jab-tech.com


and yeah, you can betcha its better then a HR-05

 

[MotF Bane]

Thank you. 😀

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Just curious, is water cooling the northbridge even worth it?

I guess this has been answered to your satisfaction, but...

Hell, yes! Especially if you're gonna O/C your rig! 😀

I'm passively cooling the NB on my air-cooled rig, and it simply sucks! I can't believe my NB hasn't burned itself up yet! I can actually smell the NB & MOSFETS cooking on my rig. Water-cooling would at least take care of the NB... 😉

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Just curious, is water cooling the northbridge even worth it?
It's about 40 dollars for a Maze4 chipset block, versus 25 dollars for a Thermalright HR-05. I've heard the Maze4 is restrictive to the entire loop, so would it maybe make more sense to just get the Thermalright? Can the Thermalright cool it just as much?

why not use a MCW30?

there only 26.99 over at jab-tech.com

I'm using that very water block on my chipset right now and it works like a charm. It's not clear from the pictures you typically see of it, but the MCW30 has mounting options for both AMD and Intel style chipset mounts.

I'd recommend Jab-tech as a vendor as well. Good prices, good service, and reasonable shipping rates.

 

[firewolfsm]

The effects it has on the rest of your loop aren't worth it. Not only does it add heat, but it ads distance and that means less flow.

A good air cooler like the one you mentioned ALWAYS gets the job done, motherboards can overclock decently with passive coolers, anything with a fan will easily cool them.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
The effects it has on the rest of your loop aren't worth it. Not only does it add heat, but it ads distance and that means less flow.

A good air cooler like the one you mentioned ALWAYS gets the job done, motherboards can overclock decently with passive coolers, anything with a fan will easily cool them.

Okey... so adds a lot of heat into the water... what 15W? 20W? If that much is too much on your loop, then you need a rad upgrade.

Restrictions? yeah it causes restrictions. However, the benifits outweight the restriction costs on todays modern processors.

The MCW30 is also just a bare flat slab of copper on both sides so its very unerstrictive.


So if weighed by price which would i chose? the MCW30 looks a hell of a lot better then HR-05 any day.

 

[Noubourne]

Tests usually show that water cooling a NB is not necessary, and won't increase the FSB that a board is capable of. In fact, FSB speed with STOCK COOLING almost always exceeds the speeds that a chip is capable of. Stock cooling often being an inadequate fan and a crappy alu sink with enough thermal tape to choke a cow.

So why on earth would you ruin your loop to gain zero performance?

Slap on the HR-05 and be done. I lost 20C putting that on my Ultra-D, and it's now fanless. Less noise, more cooling.

You'd have to show some material overclocking improvement in order to justify adding another block to the loop.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Noubourne
Tests usually show that water cooling a NB is not necessary, and won't increase the FSB that a board is capable of. In fact, FSB speed with STOCK COOLING almost always exceeds the speeds that a chip is capable of. Stock cooling often being an inadequate fan and a crappy alu sink with enough thermal tape to choke a cow.

So why on earth would you ruin your loop to gain zero performance?

Slap on the HR-05 and be done. I lost 20C putting that on my Ultra-D, and it's now fanless. Less noise, more cooling.

You'd have to show some material overclocking improvement in order to justify adding another block to the loop.

Tell that to an EVGA 680i owner whose pushing there fsb over 400.

 

[aurareturn]

I have a Gigabyte DS3 doing 450FSB on stock passive cooler. If it dies, it dies but it's running fine.