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Would it be worth it???

D

Duvie

Elite Member
I am thinking about maybe getting a water cooling kit...please give suggestions....

What I am wondering about is that I dont really want to do the gpu block on the BFG but if you think I should I guess I can. I would still need 1-2 case fans to cool the memory and run over my raptor drives...And ofcourse the OCZ power supply has a fan...

What I want for sure is a water block for the northbridge chipset....sckt 939 chip...and perhaps the 6800 chip...

If you go with a water block for the gpu how does the memory get cooled??? I dont really want to OC it any further. I just want to have some water cooling power to OC further when I have the opportunity....

How much for the cheapest vapor cooling or basically the next step above water cooling???
 
You do not need to cool your memory and if youdo feel the need for some odd reason..point a fan at the items.. Phase will cost you aroud $600.
 
wa261, your prommie... At what temp does it keep your cpu, and does the cooling system need maintaining, ie is it a running cost like liquid nitrogen?

Thanks.
 
From what I've seen basic watercooling is marginally better than air, not sure if its worth the upgrade. Chilled water is much better, but are usually home made rigs, I haven't seen any commercially available solutions. One of the most ingenious home made solutions I've seen used a standard watercooling setup with an external cooling can (fuel cooling can used in stock car racing) piped in the loop. You put dry ice in the cooling can and it gives you 6-8 hours of sub zero(or near) cooling.

You can find a good used single stage phase setup on Ebay or FS/T forums from $400-600, a new Vapochill LS or Chilly1 or Vapochill XE II will set you back $750-900. I've been wanting to get a single stage unit, but haven't been able to swallow the price tag yet🙁
 
Don't do iT!

I have seen multiple friends dish out 200-400 for watercooling and get marginal results like Guitar Said..

You have an XP-90 which we all know gets the job done right... 300 bucs to maybe pick up 100mhz or so? The only benefit to water is the noise part of it.. And if you are going to continue to use case fans, why even do it?


On the flip side of that, if you use CHILLED water, it might be worth it..

😛

I say save your money.

 
Originally posted by: Azzy64
wa261, your prommie... At what temp does it keep your cpu, and does the cooling system need maintaining, ie is it a running cost like liquid nitrogen?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Like -68C

Or about -90F
 
Originally posted by: RichUK
any links to some decent makes that you would recommend?? phase change that is
Click to expand...

This is about the "coldest" single stage unit, but like most prometias including Chilly1 it require case mod's (cut a hole in the bottom of your case and mount the case on top), they sell dressup kits to match the LianLi cases

Asetek Vapochill LS (light speed)

Here's a prometia unit
Mach II GT



Asetek is the only mfg I know of that makes a complete (cased) solution. They don't get as cold as the LS, but is a more attractive soluction to me because it doesn't require any mods and the end result doesn't look like something from monster garage

Vapochill XE II




 
In my Dual Opteron box, there is so much heat with those two cpu's and the x800pro, and a VERY BAD case design, that I have to leave the side cover off to keep system temps below 40c. Watercooling would solve my problem, but doing it the right way would cost me over $400 for the 3 water blocks, and the big radiator required to cool the three. I will get there in the next year, right now, I just let it run hot with the side cover on, and I don't run it 24/7 anymore.

I would probably try it on one of my 939's if I wanted to get a little more OC out of them. So far temps were not the problem, so I haven't tried it yet.
 
I agree with the rest, Duvie. I beleive that if you are going to spend big bucks on cooling, you might as well jump to phase cooling.

I have also seen marginal gains in temperature when using water.
 
Well I dont really care to get any more out of this cpu...What I would like is an even more quiter system...

The ram has no heatspreaders and at 2.85v which it really needs to run high DDR on this sytem it gets too hot....I know it is overheating cause if I remove the side fan aiming at the ram it will error out...Keep fan on it and they will run endlessly at 2.85v....I think they need 2.9v to do what I would like but active cooling would in fact be a most...i can tell you this for a certain and trust me I have better case cooling then most. My case temps are a few degrees over ambient room temp and I have an AC'd room.

Gskill not putting heatspreaders on ram supposed to run 550ddr are the biggest bunch of fvcking morons I have seen in sometime. I actually hope I fvck them up so I can RMA them again and again.....They list 2.9v and styingh within specs so I should be fine cause they never really ever run at rated specs anyways....
 
i would just upgrade and get more fans, that will do about the same thing as water. its just not worth it. i wouldnt spend too much on cooling because you can just upgrade the cpu to an fx-55 for the cost of some of these systems.
 
You can get pretty quiet with air... again depends on case..

Your PSU is loud as &#^.. your Video card fan is loud as *^#..those are the two biggest issues.

Fixed with planning...

-14cm Superflower 36A PSU $80
-Zalman CNPS 7700 for CPU $50
-Artic cooling for Vcard $30
- Case fans??? up to $40

Now you're almost at water prices with less cooling and more noise.

Maybe just buy a $20 a 25FT KVM cable and put Comp in spare bedroon😛
 
If quiet is important you probabaly don't want phase change. I hear they can be pretty loud, think refrigerator or window unit🙁
 
Gskill not putting heatspreaders on ram supposed to run 550ddr are the biggest bunch of fvcking morons I have seen in sometime. I actually hope I fvck them up so I can RMA them again and again.....They list 2.9v and styingh within specs so I should be fine cause they never really ever run at rated specs anyways....
Click to expand...

LOL... Why not buy a set of heatspreaders and throw them on there.. See if they don't error out when the fan is NOT pointed at them..

Remove the fan, and a few dB..!!

 
Originally posted by: bjc112

LOL... Why not buy a set of heatspreaders and throw them on there.. See if they don't error out when the fan is NOT pointed at them..

Remove the fan, and a few dB..!!
Click to expand...

Heat spreaders are not heat sinks. And ram does need a bit of air going across it. My ram is at 455 mhz at 2.8 v with spreaders and gets 10-15 degrees F above ambient with a side fan blowing right at it. Shut the fan off and temps go up 30-40 degrees above ambient during memtest86. I have a front panel temp readout with a probe jammed in the spreader.
 
Originally posted by: CrispyFried
Originally posted by: bjc112

LOL... Why not buy a set of heatspreaders and throw them on there.. See if they don't error out when the fan is NOT pointed at them..

Remove the fan, and a few dB..!!
Click to expand...

Heat spreaders are not heat sinks. And ram does need a bit of air going across it. My ram is at 455 mhz at 2.8 v with spreaders and gets 10-15 degrees F above ambient with a side fan blowing right at it. Shut the fan off and temps go up 30-40 degrees above ambient during memtest86. I have a front panel temp readout with a probe jammed in the spreader.


So you are saying heatspeaders don't lower temps at all?

Then what's the point?
Click to expand...

 
They make sure all chips run at about the same temp. The slight increase in area may help a very slight bit, but consider this.. ever seen a flat heatsink?

You need fins for it so be effective.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
What case? that's important... This is by far the best "kit" for the $

http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/Vi...Desc.asp?description=35-108-067&depa=0
Click to expand...

Hee hee. It looks like a shotgun wedding between an old Ford radiator and a fishtank filter. What a freakin' contraption! That kit has gotten very good reviews. But for me it just wouldn't be worth the effort. I've seen elsewhere that unless you have water refrigeration of some sort, the water will eventually be the ambient temperature inside the case anyway, at best. It seems to average a few degrees better than air on most kits.

I used to run 100-120 gallon fishtanks with lots of canister filtering. (No computers in 'em, dammit.) :roll: You have NO idea what a freakin' hassle it is to deal with water-based maintenance after awhile.... especially when algae hits. I know that you can get chemicals in the WC setup to deal with that, but still.... a lash-up like that looks too much like an aquarium crossed with my PC for my liking.

I spent a lot of time juggling fans (I have three different overly noisy ones sitting around gathering dust since I started building this thing) and as I now have four (five with the PS), including one blowing directly on the RAM, it's not dead quiet but I am finding it strikingly livable, plus it's pure eye candy.

Then again, since Apple uses stock watercooling in their high-end machines, unless things change we all may be eventually.....
 
Well the simplest water cooling, the thermaltake bigwater 12cm dropped my load temps by 18c on my previously overheating at stock speeds prescott. I had to put a fan in the center of my case blowing over the PWM circuits, as they were getting very hot(81-83c) after taking away the thermalright XP-120 to put on the water block. I am probably going to put a water block on my 6800GT soon and then maybe the chipset, so I am also curious about keeping the video ram cool.
 
I can tell you in all honesty the BFG card I have is very quiet...Loudest components are the venus 12 cpu cooler (80mm fan) and the power supply.....I miss my adjustable enermax....

I think if I can get a high end cooler with a 92mm to 120mm fan it may help that noise...I wont be changing the power supply so I guees I will have to live with it....

My next syetm will be a water cooled case (complete unit) with vid card, chipset, and cpu cooler and 120mm case fans only....
 
If you go water... I'd do the whole sha-bang. CPU, GPU, and chipset. I wouldn't really bother water cooling just the CPU unless you're just doing it for fun to try to get a higher overclock... and even then it might be a good idea to do the chipset too.

If you feel like getting experimental... I wonder how well a regular heatsink, with the fins sealed off, and water flowing over them rather than air would cool a processor... 😉
 
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