WC Suggestions for Low Temps and Quiet Opperation

[Net]

I have an antec 300 case so I'm thinking about doing external water cooling.

From my reading I can see that having more fans on the radiator is a great way to lower temps. However I want a quiet water cooling setup and I want it to still be very low in temps.

My thoughts to mitigated this was to add more radiators or bigger radiators from what I read.

When I'm in idle with my Noctua NH-D14, room temp 70F, I have temps around 20c. I would like the water cooling setup equivalent to be 0c. Maybe that isn't realistic with what I want to do? If not then what can I expect? And what would I need to do to achieve that while still being quiet.

I am looking at this setup: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/12174/cas-416/Danger_Den_External_3_x_360_Radiator_Liquid_Cooling_Housing_Enclosure_CAS-EX10-2.html?tl=g30c83s138

The one thing that I don't like is that each radiator has 3 fans on it. That seems noisy. I don't want to hear my setup. Or at the least, have low rpm quiet fans on it. But what temps can I then expect?

 

[Kenmitch]

When I'm in idle with my Noctua NH-D14, room temp 70F, I have temps around 20c. I would like the water cooling setup equivalent to be 0c. Maybe that isn't realistic with what I want to do? If not then what can I expect? And what would I need to do to achieve that while still being quiet.

Your expectations for water cooling sound beyond the relm of possibility.

Maybe if you listed what your trying to cool it may help others with suggestions. Depending on your current load temps it may not be even feasable to go water for you.

The example you listed is just an enclosure. No rads, hoses, pump, etc included. Seems like a decent case that could support rads, pump, etc would be a better option.

 

[Rifter]

How exactly do you plan on obtaining below ambient temps? thats not possible on water or air cooling. Sounds like you need to look into a exotic cooling setup such as LN2 if you really want below ambient temps.

 

[Net]

I have an i7 980 overclocked to 4Ghz, vcore 1.3 volts.

Using 20 passes of intel burn my proc maxes at 68c. These are good temps but I'm wanting to do two things. One is to have better temps with less sound. And second is to overclock more.

My room temp was ~68 to 69f, my fans where on high using a noctua nh-d14.

If I switched over to water what can I expect with http://www.frozencpu.com/products/14183/ex-wat-182/XSPC_Rasa_750_RX360_Universal_CPU_Triple_Radiator_Water_Cooling_Kit_w_RX360_Radiator_and_Free_Kill_Coil.html

Or what about two radiators with fans on low?

 

[Net]

Mods, please move to case and cooling thanks

 

[Kenmitch]

I have an i7 980 overclocked to 4Ghz, vcore 1.3 volts.

Using 20 passes of intel burn my proc maxes at 68c. These are good temps but I'm wanting to do two things. One is to have better temps with less sound. And second is to overclock more.

My room temp was ~68 to 69f, my fans where on high using a noctua nh-d14.

If I switched over to water what can I expect with http://www.frozencpu.com/products/14183/ex-wat-182/XSPC_Rasa_750_RX360_Universal_CPU_Triple_Radiator_Water_Cooling_Kit_w_RX360_Radiator_and_Free_Kill_Coil.html

Or what about two radiators with fans on low?

I'd think you'd be able to get to 4.5-4.6ghz or possibly higher with similar load temps. Dependant on voltage required to stabalize.

If your just gonna cool the cpu only then I'd think that one rad would be enough. Similar to the one in the kit you linked.

Mixed reviews on the pump/res combo included with the kit.

The only leak I've had water cooling was from one of the XSPC dual bay resevoir/pump top. Whatever they used to bond it together failed after a couple of months.

 

[Don Karnage]

I have an i7 980 overclocked to 4Ghz, vcore 1.3 volts.

Using 20 passes of intel burn my proc maxes at 68c. These are good temps but I'm wanting to do two things. One is to have better temps with less sound. And second is to overclock more.

My room temp was ~68 to 69f, my fans where on high using a noctua nh-d14.

If I switched over to water what can I expect with http://www.frozencpu.com/products/14183/ex-wat-182/XSPC_Rasa_750_RX360_Universal_CPU_Triple_Radiator_Water_Cooling_Kit_w_RX360_Radiator_and_Free_Kill_Coil.html

Or what about two radiators with fans on low?

68C is low. Push it more on whatever cooling you have. Worry when you hit 90C with IBT

 

[MrTransistorm]

If your just gonna cool the cpu only then I'd think that one rad would be enough.

This. Diminishing returns for increasing rad size set in very quickly.

Also, having many fans does not mean a lot of noise. With my 3x140mm NB fans turned down to about 900 rpm, they are drowned out by the GPU fan and HDD noise. I don't even really need to turn them up under load (i.e. folding), but I do it anyway to increase airflow in the case.

 

[Binky]

When I'm in idle with my Noctua NH-D14, room temp 70F, I have temps around 20c.

The idle temp is not correct - its below room temp.

 

[greenhawk]

as mentioned, getting below ambient is not possible on just air (even water cooling uses air to dump the heat to so it is still a limitation of standard water cooling).

only a few ways to get below ambient and those use some expencive (phase change) or power hungry (TEC) equipment and generally when people use those, they are aiming for below zero temps.

now the easiest and quietest would be to water call with water from the tap and flushing the used water down the drain, but that uses a LOT of water. but as the water at the tap is generally from underground pipes, temps are below ambient and can be used to get below ambient temps for the cpu.

Most of the effort in water cooling is in doing something with the warmed water so you can re-use that water. this is why fans are used.

Another option I have seen someone mention they used was to pump the water from a large water storage system (so continuous running did not result in heated water). People have used swimming pools and water tanks (house sized) for this and have had good success, but portability is zero. Noise is just the normal PC and the water pumps.

There was a fanless water cooling system a few years ago that used a 2 foot / 1 meter (somewhere between) high cooling tower but performance was very crap for the price. A oversized fanless cooler did better.

Another option is one I remember reading about used the cooling tower effect seen at power stations to cool the water, but while quite (besides water falling), it was just a alge breading ground, needed constant topping up (evaportation was the method of cooling) and I suspect increased the humidity quite badly in enclosed areas. This last still had the ambient temp issues for how cool it could get.

using just radiators without fans might be possible, but your issue is that you would need the ones designed for high air flow (low fin count) but that effects cooling. You could possibly stack a few radiators and use one low speed fan to push through say 2 or 3 radiators (have to pump from greatest distance from fan to closest) but that might work for being quiet, but mounting it will suck. Just remember that the more radiators you add, the longer the pipe length so the pump will become more important (and possible air blocks but I am told that is not as big of an issue as a few years back). and with a hard working pump, it will wear quicker and be noisier when running.

 

[gothuevos]

The idle temp is not correct - its below room temp.

Saw that too.

 

[dma0991]

Try doing a TEC with watercooling.

 

[Net]

if i had the play money for this http://martinsliquidlab.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/pdxlanrebuild.jpg?w=614&h=645

 

[RAJOD]

Just so you know, no FAN or Water cooler can lower your cpu temp below the temperature of your room. So if your room is 50c then don't expect the cpu to get that cool.

The only way to go below room temperature would be to use a refrigerator unit, and that would put a ton of heat into the room.

24 °C (75 °F) and the case of most computers is going to be higher as the cpu/heatsink interface is going to be much higher.

Many people are relying on poorly calibrated thermal sensors. When I hear people say my temps are 20c or lower, i do an eye roll. Unless you live in an igloo that is not possible.

I have an antec 300 case so I'm thinking about doing external water cooling.

From my reading I can see that having more fans on the radiator is a great way to lower temps. However I want a quiet water cooling setup and I want it to still be very low in temps.

My thoughts to mitigated this was to add more radiators or bigger radiators from what I read.

When I'm in idle with my Noctua NH-D14, room temp 70F, I have temps around 20c. I would like the water cooling setup equivalent to be 0c. Maybe that isn't realistic with what I want to do? If not then what can I expect? And what would I need to do to achieve that while still being quiet.

I am looking at this setup: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/12174/cas-416/Danger_Den_External_3_x_360_Radiator_Liquid_Cooling_Housing_Enclosure_CAS-EX10-2.html?tl=g30c83s138

The one thing that I don't like is that each radiator has 3 fans on it. That seems noisy. I don't want to hear my setup. Or at the least, have low rpm quiet fans on it. But what temps can I then expect?

 

[BrightCandle]

In general watercooling at idle is warmer than direct air cooling, but cooler at load. Its only really worth watercooling when you are thermally limited rather than voltage limited. In your case you can go another 0.1V relatively safely and likely get to about 4.3 -4.5Ghz with that maximum voltage. Thus buying watercooling is likely worth it for you and would bring about 12% extra CPU performance. Buying an Ivy bridge might end up cheaper for greater gains but that isn't what you asked about.

To make water cooling quiet you need more fans, less rpm and more area on the radiators. There is a near linear relationship between fan rpm, area and the cooling potential such that from one we can predict the water Delta you will achieve. For watercooling to outperform air well you need to be aiming for 10 C water delta. Don't worry if you don't understand, my point is not to explain how to do the maths yourself. The key to understanding watercooling is that in the end all the heat is still exchanged with the air via the radiators. Water allows you to move the heat to a place where you can put considerably larger areas of dissipation to the problem. But conversely you have a additional material (water) which maintains a difference in temperature between that of the CPU and the air which increases the baseline of cooling to the air a little. Thus we need to ensure the difference in water temperature isn't too high or it can be worse than air cooling. 10C hotter than ambient is what a normal moderate cost custom loop is aimed at. Higher than that and its not worth having really and lower than that gets expensive for marginal gains.

Cooling a 980X at 4.5 Ghz using 1.4V or so is ~ 300W of power consumption. That is what we have to cool. Radiators roughly come in two depths, the thin ones and the thick ones. The thick ones at 800 rpm (quiet and very nearly silent) can cool about 100W per 120mm slot for 10 C delta. So you need 3x120mm of radiator with 3 fans capable of running as low as 800rpm to get that very quiet set-up.

The XSPC kit you have linked to contains an RX360 radiator which is of the thick variety and hence capable of cooling your CPU at the stated clockspeed and voltage. While the CPU block is a bit poor compared to todays best it'll easily do the job. The res/pump combination is a good way to save space but its not a particular good pump for any possible future expansion of your loop, but it also saves a reasonable amount of money. Assuming you can fit the radiator and reservoir into your case then it would serve your cooling needs fine.

Realistically the temps you'll be looking with such a loop are probably around 35C idle and high 50's to low 60's at 1.4V 4.5Ghz, if your chip can cope with that. It'll cool at that speed almost silently due to the low rpm fans. If you have a HDD for example it that will be louder than the fan noise. But you need to buy low speed fans (1200 - 1500) and then voltage mod them down to run slower. I use a fan controller so I can vary mine from about 750 rpm upwards.

I've been doing custom watercooling for years, ask anything you need to.

 

[Xpage]

As many others have said use TEC to cool the CPU below ambient temp then use water to remove the heat from the opposite side of the TEC plate

 

[BrightCandle]

There are two problems with using a TEC:
1) You need to put as much energy in to cool the CPU as you do into the TEC to make it move the energy. So that's 600W of total cooling necessary.
2) If the TEC fails, and they do fail, it becomes a big fat resistor to heat and your CPU will go pop.

Getting a TEC that can move that amount of energy in that small a space is no trivial matter and I don't know any watercoolers that do it these days. If you want to go sub zero you are better off with phase change.