Discussion
Anyone here tried it?
Does it really work well on minimising temps?
Tempted to buy a few blocks for the full system (getting a new PC soonish), so it's totally silent. Anyone know how much the pumps can push to, as I was thinking of running longer pipes to a bigger loft based header tank and a radiator...
Would be nice to have a silent super cool system. Anyone know any downsides to this except the risk of flooding?
Dave
Does it really work well on minimising temps?
Tempted to buy a few blocks for the full system (getting a new PC soonish), so it's totally silent. Anyone know how much the pumps can push to, as I was thinking of running longer pipes to a bigger loft based header tank and a radiator...
Would be nice to have a silent super cool system. Anyone know any downsides to this except the risk of flooding?
Dave
I'm currently building my third watercooled PC. With chips getting ever hotter, it really is the way to go, especially if you want to extract maximum overclocking performance without your PC sounding like a jet engine.
You don't say what spec your PC has - this would help greatly. However, as a general guide I think you might struggle to find a pump with enough head of pressure to get the water into your loft space. A central heating pump might work, but you'd have to hook it up to the mains and might encounter problems finding compatible fittings. Depending on how much cooling will be necessary, you might be able to get away with a standard WC loop but using passive (fanless) radiators. Zalman, WACC and XSPC make suitable parts. The only other thing to bear in mind is to budget for some bigger, quieter fans for those places where you really can't get rid of them.
Downsides are pretty minimal, but here are a few tips to bear in mind - make sure you do proper leak tests; don't crush the chips when fitting the blocks; have some way of monitoring that you are getting coolant flow when you start up; make sure you get all the air bubbles out of the system when priming it; make sure you don't have dissimilar metals in the loop (or use a suitable coolant additive) to avoid galvanic corrosion.
If you like, I can post some pics of my current PC and the one I'm currently building, if that would help. Both are watercooled, but use quite different setups.
[k]
You don't say what spec your PC has - this would help greatly. However, as a general guide I think you might struggle to find a pump with enough head of pressure to get the water into your loft space. A central heating pump might work, but you'd have to hook it up to the mains and might encounter problems finding compatible fittings. Depending on how much cooling will be necessary, you might be able to get away with a standard WC loop but using passive (fanless) radiators. Zalman, WACC and XSPC make suitable parts. The only other thing to bear in mind is to budget for some bigger, quieter fans for those places where you really can't get rid of them.
Downsides are pretty minimal, but here are a few tips to bear in mind - make sure you do proper leak tests; don't crush the chips when fitting the blocks; have some way of monitoring that you are getting coolant flow when you start up; make sure you get all the air bubbles out of the system when priming it; make sure you don't have dissimilar metals in the loop (or use a suitable coolant additive) to avoid galvanic corrosion.
If you like, I can post some pics of my current PC and the one I'm currently building, if that would help. Both are watercooled, but use quite different setups.
[k]
Mr Whippy said:
Anyone here tried it?
Does it really work well on minimising temps?
Tempted to buy a few blocks for the full system (getting a new PC soonish), so it's totally silent. Anyone know how much the pumps can push to, as I was thinking of running longer pipes to a bigger loft based header tank and a radiator...
Would be nice to have a silent super cool system. Anyone know any downsides to this except the risk of flooding?
Dave
Does it really work well on minimising temps?
Tempted to buy a few blocks for the full system (getting a new PC soonish), so it's totally silent. Anyone know how much the pumps can push to, as I was thinking of running longer pipes to a bigger loft based header tank and a radiator...
Would be nice to have a silent super cool system. Anyone know any downsides to this except the risk of flooding?
Dave
I bought a system off of ebay at the end of last year that had a full water cooling setup already in place (got it at a rediculous price as not very well advertised
). The guy who I got it off had had the water cooling setup put in 'professionally' and it consisted of 1 pump, 2 radiators (with 120mm variable fans), cpu water block, 2 vga blocks (graphics in SLi), a flow meter, mini reservoir and a main reservoir. I recently had to buy a new pump (cue much frantic kitchen towel when old pump decided to get a hairline crack!
) for my system and I bought a:- www.alphacool.de/product_info.php/products_id/648/cPath/5_26_27/alphacool-pumps/alphacool-ap700-centrifugal-pump-12v:.html
The pump is rated at 720 l/hr, and when I first put it in and started to fill the system I was worried that it wasnt on, but it was. Its as near to silent as you'll find I'd guess. The whole setup keeps my cpu and graphics cards in the mid 30's, even under load in warm weather. When you start aiming for a 'silent' system its the things that you dont expect to be noisy, that are. At the moment in my system the loudest thing is my raptor hard drive, its the newer revision one as well so it isnt exactly loud. All the fans are silent when @ low to medium speed, leaving air moving as the only notable sound. My case has got sound deadening as well, which may help and you should also use rubber gromits on all your hard disks and cd drives.
I will take some pictures of mine tonight, I got some UV cathodes for it last week, sounds a bit geeky I know, but the effect really finishes it off and because the liquid is UV reactive, the logical side of me thought it would make it very easy for spotting leaks if they ever occured. Although, I did just move the computer 40 miles to my new house without draining it, maybe a bit lazy but I thought if it can travel in a car over loads of traffic calming measures, different cambers and bumps etc. then it shouldnt have any problems at all sitting on a study floor.
Also, if you have powerful hardware in your machine you will still need some airflow through the case to take care of your north and south bridge (if you dont intend to waterblock them) and hard drives etc.
Hope this helps, I'll get those pictures taken tonight!
Cheers
Tom
PS: I have seen the pumps that are included in some kits rated at 90 litre/hour compared to my 720. One thing to look out for is the pump height rating, ie. how high it can pump the water, the highest I saw when I was looking was only 2 metres or so, so a loft reservoir would be out of the question without using a 3rd party pump. As I said before my new pump is nie on silent so its all other things that will be causing the noise.
My PC spec is probably as follows.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86ghz - Skt775 Fsb1066 2mb Cache
Zalman (CNPS7700-CU) 120mm
Asus P5B Deluxe
ASUS NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
Ballistix 2GB kit (1GBx2) DDR2 PC2-5300 • 3-3-3-12 (x2 for 4gb probably)
CM Stacker 830 black
Hiper 580W Type-R Modular PSU
NEC AD-5170A-0B 18xDVD±RW DL Black
74GB Raptor SATA
300Gb something or other SATA
Really trying to keep it all to 120mm fans, and get a good case, but I know the PSU might have smaller ones, and also the GFX card will sound like an aeroplane
Just tempted to get watercooling to make it quieter.
Thinking a big header in the loft (hope pressure on connections in PC would hold? ) and then probably just get 2x pumps, one on each side of the loft tank to keep it quiet, powerful and away from the PC...
As said, not really fussed on extra cost/ pipes, IF it makes it otherwise almost silent, the loft is a kinda useable area so it's no hassle to plumb it in. My main worry is the leaking/pressure issues, but my main reason for those is getting the kit out of the living areas so it's quieter.
I think the CM Stacker with 120's is already very quiet, but it's still going to be faily noisy, these new PC's generate tons of heat and I'd like to try something different.
Main reason for sudden interest is home PC PSU fan has gone, and it was a 120mm, and I can't really tell it's stopped by sound, so it's all on the gfx/mobo/cpu fans
Just want something nice and quiet and new as I've had one budgeted for the last four months, but some bits have come down making me think water may be the way to go. Like the look of the new Zalman 2 kit for £170, but it still looks a bit naff with the pump nearby... is it that loud?
Dave
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86ghz - Skt775 Fsb1066 2mb Cache
Zalman (CNPS7700-CU) 120mm
Asus P5B Deluxe
ASUS NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
Ballistix 2GB kit (1GBx2) DDR2 PC2-5300 • 3-3-3-12 (x2 for 4gb probably)
CM Stacker 830 black
Hiper 580W Type-R Modular PSU
NEC AD-5170A-0B 18xDVD±RW DL Black
74GB Raptor SATA
300Gb something or other SATA
Really trying to keep it all to 120mm fans, and get a good case, but I know the PSU might have smaller ones, and also the GFX card will sound like an aeroplane
Just tempted to get watercooling to make it quieter.
Thinking a big header in the loft (hope pressure on connections in PC would hold? ) and then probably just get 2x pumps, one on each side of the loft tank to keep it quiet, powerful and away from the PC...
As said, not really fussed on extra cost/ pipes, IF it makes it otherwise almost silent, the loft is a kinda useable area so it's no hassle to plumb it in. My main worry is the leaking/pressure issues, but my main reason for those is getting the kit out of the living areas so it's quieter.
I think the CM Stacker with 120's is already very quiet, but it's still going to be faily noisy, these new PC's generate tons of heat and I'd like to try something different.
Main reason for sudden interest is home PC PSU fan has gone, and it was a 120mm, and I can't really tell it's stopped by sound, so it's all on the gfx/mobo/cpu fans
Just want something nice and quiet and new as I've had one budgeted for the last four months, but some bits have come down making me think water may be the way to go. Like the look of the new Zalman 2 kit for £170, but it still looks a bit naff with the pump nearby... is it that loud?
Dave
karl said:
If you like, I can post some pics of my current PC and the one I'm currently building, if that would help. Both are watercooled, but use quite different setups.
Actually, I'm always looking for ideas I can force feed to Sadako (I design, he builds
) and yeah ok, some geek porn would be nice. So *cough* Plz post pix kthnxbi
Another water cooler here
Water cooling doesnt mean silent, it means cool, consistent temps. Without the use of a chiller/phase/tec cooler you cannot go below ambient temps, but when stressing the components out, their temps will hardly change, unlike air cooling.
They can be quite quiet, but that totally depends on your fan setup. On a small rig I built I only had one fan, a big 12cm one, it was pretty quiet, but on my current rig I've got a water chiller (read: fridge), and loads of fans still, and its still very loud, much louder than an air-cooled PC
Here's my current PC:
Core2Duo x6800Extreme Edition @ 3.9ghz (so far)
EVGA 680i mobo,
2gb Corsair XMS
7950 GX2 1gb graphics (pants)
Water chiller in the bottom case. Only CPU cooled at the moment.
Sits at a constant 20degrees, water at around 12-13degrees. (just above dew point)
Water cooling doesnt mean silent, it means cool, consistent temps. Without the use of a chiller/phase/tec cooler you cannot go below ambient temps, but when stressing the components out, their temps will hardly change, unlike air cooling.
They can be quite quiet, but that totally depends on your fan setup. On a small rig I built I only had one fan, a big 12cm one, it was pretty quiet, but on my current rig I've got a water chiller (read: fridge), and loads of fans still, and its still very loud, much louder than an air-cooled PC
Here's my current PC:
Core2Duo x6800Extreme Edition @ 3.9ghz (so far)
EVGA 680i mobo,
2gb Corsair XMS
7950 GX2 1gb graphics (pants)
Water chiller in the bottom case. Only CPU cooled at the moment.
Sits at a constant 20degrees, water at around 12-13degrees. (just above dew point)
Glad to oblige! Apologies in advance for the length
First of all, my current system, which I built quite a while ago. On the hardware side, it's an Asus A8N-SLI Premium with Athlon FX-57 processor, dual GeForce 7500GTX graphics cards, 2Gb RAM, two 74Gb Raptor hard drives in RAID0 and a 300Gb backup/scratch drive.
As you can see, the important stuff is watercooled, and the rest has aircooling with cage fans. These are very quiet when compared to axial fans, and all run off fan speed controllers, hence making them inaudible. As for the watercooling loop, the CPU has a Swiftech Storm block, the GPUs have Swiftech MCW55 waterblocks (with copper VGA memory heatsinks) whilst the NB and SB retain their stock Asus heatpipes.
Looking from the outside...
...you can see the rest of the cooler setup. The pump is an Eheim 1250 which is mounted externally out of sight round the back on vibro-isolation mounts. The tall black thing at the back is an extruded aluminium passive radiator/reservoir. It holds quite a bit of coolant and allows the machine to run standard desktop tasks without any of the main fans running. If I run a game or anything else graphics/processor intensive, I simply switch on the fans fitted to the active radiator, which is mounted on top of the case.
I was quite dissatisfied with the final product as it wasn't what I set out to build. I was originally going to run a Vapochill Lightspeed cooler for the processor, with passive radiator watercooling for the graphics cards. Unfortunately, my lack of experience with phase-change cooling caused me to blow up two motherboards due to condensation, so I gave it up as a bad job and adapted the design into what you see here. I also, somewhat ill-advisedly, fitted PMR-style illuminated fans and left the wiring in a bit of a mess, so all in all, I was ready to have another go.
Here comes the geek pr0n!
This is the work in progress on my new machine..
Hiding in the case at the moment are the dual Laing pumps with custom tops and the HDD cages, which contain two 150Gb Raptors, one 75Gb Raptor and a 500GB Caviar. They are going to be married up with these...
... that's an EVGA 680i rev D motherboard with Swiftech and DangerDen waterblocks for the NB and SB chips. The CPU cooler will be a Swiftech Apogee GTX that's currently on order. The other bits are 4Gb of OCZ DDR2-8500 memory, dual watercooled GeForce 8800GTX-OC graphics cards, a Core 2 Quad QX6700 processor and a SoundBlaster X-Fi sound card. The watercooling loop is going to be connected to a separate water chiller unit that's going to hide under my desk, rather than using fans and radiators. It will maintain a programmed water temperature of anything between 30degC and 4degC, although I'm going to keep it well within the dew point of the room to avoid the dreaded condensation.
I don't have much free time at the moment due to work commitments, so I just work on bits and pieces as and when I can. Right now, I'm a bit stuck as I'm waiting for parts (the processor waterblock and the water chiller) but as soon as those arrive, I should be able to push to get everything finished fairly quickly.
Hope all that gives some ideas. Let me know if you want any more info (or my left-over Vapochill!)
[k]
First of all, my current system, which I built quite a while ago. On the hardware side, it's an Asus A8N-SLI Premium with Athlon FX-57 processor, dual GeForce 7500GTX graphics cards, 2Gb RAM, two 74Gb Raptor hard drives in RAID0 and a 300Gb backup/scratch drive.
As you can see, the important stuff is watercooled, and the rest has aircooling with cage fans. These are very quiet when compared to axial fans, and all run off fan speed controllers, hence making them inaudible. As for the watercooling loop, the CPU has a Swiftech Storm block, the GPUs have Swiftech MCW55 waterblocks (with copper VGA memory heatsinks) whilst the NB and SB retain their stock Asus heatpipes.
Looking from the outside...
...you can see the rest of the cooler setup. The pump is an Eheim 1250 which is mounted externally out of sight round the back on vibro-isolation mounts. The tall black thing at the back is an extruded aluminium passive radiator/reservoir. It holds quite a bit of coolant and allows the machine to run standard desktop tasks without any of the main fans running. If I run a game or anything else graphics/processor intensive, I simply switch on the fans fitted to the active radiator, which is mounted on top of the case.
I was quite dissatisfied with the final product as it wasn't what I set out to build. I was originally going to run a Vapochill Lightspeed cooler for the processor, with passive radiator watercooling for the graphics cards. Unfortunately, my lack of experience with phase-change cooling caused me to blow up two motherboards due to condensation, so I gave it up as a bad job and adapted the design into what you see here. I also, somewhat ill-advisedly, fitted PMR-style illuminated fans and left the wiring in a bit of a mess, so all in all, I was ready to have another go.
Here comes the geek pr0n!
This is the work in progress on my new machine..
Hiding in the case at the moment are the dual Laing pumps with custom tops and the HDD cages, which contain two 150Gb Raptors, one 75Gb Raptor and a 500GB Caviar. They are going to be married up with these...
... that's an EVGA 680i rev D motherboard with Swiftech and DangerDen waterblocks for the NB and SB chips. The CPU cooler will be a Swiftech Apogee GTX that's currently on order. The other bits are 4Gb of OCZ DDR2-8500 memory, dual watercooled GeForce 8800GTX-OC graphics cards, a Core 2 Quad QX6700 processor and a SoundBlaster X-Fi sound card. The watercooling loop is going to be connected to a separate water chiller unit that's going to hide under my desk, rather than using fans and radiators. It will maintain a programmed water temperature of anything between 30degC and 4degC, although I'm going to keep it well within the dew point of the room to avoid the dreaded condensation.
I don't have much free time at the moment due to work commitments, so I just work on bits and pieces as and when I can. Right now, I'm a bit stuck as I'm waiting for parts (the processor waterblock and the water chiller) but as soon as those arrive, I should be able to push to get everything finished fairly quickly.
Hope all that gives some ideas. Let me know if you want any more info (or my left-over Vapochill!)
[k]
Right guys, here's some James Bond technology for you
It's called a Titan Amanda and it's a real hybrid cooler. 'It uses the Pletier Heat Effect Transducer Technology' and it pumps heat from one side of the chip to the other (cpu to heatsink). It keeps X6700 Quad-core CPU's clocked at 3.2 Ghz to around 25 degrees c and I totally rate them. I have fitted about 20 of them now with no problems. I build high end and usually use Promethia or Vapo's phase-change cooling but these are the daddy's of cooling without going to the extreme of water of phase-change.
It does have some negatives but here's the good and bad - you decide..
Pro's
1) Cools to around 25 degrees on virtually anything
2) Very quiet - yes it has two 80mm fans which push and pull, but they are quiet.
3) Cost £65 compared with £100 plus for water cooling.
Con's
1) It's big! About 6"x3"x3" - needs a decent case (you should have a largish one if you want proper cooling)
2) It needs a PCI slot for the controller card.
3) Draws power from PCI slot AND four pin Molex connector - add 50watts total to your PSU requirements.
www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-TI
Water cooling is very good don't get me wrong but its messy with a lot of pipe-work and it clutters up your case. Please note that I am an extreme cooler kinda guy, and I do rate water-cooling highly, but this is a new product and I am very impressed with it.
Here's an explanaion of the technology behind it www.digit-life.com/articles/peltiercoolers/ we were using these for overclocking 15 years ago but they were really expensive then! If want to go extreme, then you can hybrid water cooling with peltier heat-blocks to get the best of both worlds.
It's called a Titan Amanda and it's a real hybrid cooler. 'It uses the Pletier Heat Effect Transducer Technology' and it pumps heat from one side of the chip to the other (cpu to heatsink). It keeps X6700 Quad-core CPU's clocked at 3.2 Ghz to around 25 degrees c and I totally rate them. I have fitted about 20 of them now with no problems. I build high end and usually use Promethia or Vapo's phase-change cooling but these are the daddy's of cooling without going to the extreme of water of phase-change.
It does have some negatives but here's the good and bad - you decide..
Pro's
1) Cools to around 25 degrees on virtually anything
2) Very quiet - yes it has two 80mm fans which push and pull, but they are quiet.
3) Cost £65 compared with £100 plus for water cooling.
Con's
1) It's big! About 6"x3"x3" - needs a decent case (you should have a largish one if you want proper cooling)
2) It needs a PCI slot for the controller card.
3) Draws power from PCI slot AND four pin Molex connector - add 50watts total to your PSU requirements.
www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-TI
Water cooling is very good don't get me wrong but its messy with a lot of pipe-work and it clutters up your case. Please note that I am an extreme cooler kinda guy, and I do rate water-cooling highly, but this is a new product and I am very impressed with it.
Here's an explanaion of the technology behind it www.digit-life.com/articles/peltiercoolers/ we were using these for overclocking 15 years ago but they were really expensive then! If want to go extreme, then you can hybrid water cooling with peltier heat-blocks to get the best of both worlds.
Ah, dew point.
Issues there methinks.
So what do you do, need to control your water temp/radiator fans so that the water temp doesn't drop low enough to allow the ambient moisture to condense onto the cooling blocks on the mobo/processor/gfx gpu's etc...
Hmmmm, thinking lots of 120mm's on controllers might be best again
Hehe, wish there were some PC cases like the Mac G5's, they seem so efficient and the whole case is a nice big heat sink! Just alot of money for a Mac
Dave
Issues there methinks.
So what do you do, need to control your water temp/radiator fans so that the water temp doesn't drop low enough to allow the ambient moisture to condense onto the cooling blocks on the mobo/processor/gfx gpu's etc...
Hmmmm, thinking lots of 120mm's on controllers might be best again
Hehe, wish there were some PC cases like the Mac G5's, they seem so efficient and the whole case is a nice big heat sink! Just alot of money for a Mac
Dave
The radiator in the front of my case warms the water up a bit towards air temp. This is adjustable by the fan speed, also I can adjust the amount that the chiller cools.
I have now put two temp gauges in the front of the case displaying the water temp before and after the radiator, so its fairly safe..
Tec cooling is great (like the amanda above) - you can also use water cooling instead of air cooling for the hot side of the block if you want to go mad!
I have now put two temp gauges in the front of the case displaying the water temp before and after the radiator, so its fairly safe..
Tec cooling is great (like the amanda above) - you can also use water cooling instead of air cooling for the hot side of the block if you want to go mad!
With standard watercooling (ie fans and radiators) it's not possible to drop below the room temperature, so condensation is not an issue. This only arises if you use some method to achieve sub-ambient temperatures such as phase-change, waterchillers, TECS or evaporative cooling.
There is a case available which acts like a heatsink - unfortunately it's pretty expensive and has limited compatibility. See here...
www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=770&redirect=yes
The TEC product above seems worthy of investigation. I've not seen it before, but I'm aware of people who have combined TECs and watercooling loops in the past with good results. The problems have always been condensation, power draw and catastrophic effects of coolant failure. However, this product would seem to sidestep alot of that.
[k]
There is a case available which acts like a heatsink - unfortunately it's pretty expensive and has limited compatibility. See here...
www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=770&redirect=yes
The TEC product above seems worthy of investigation. I've not seen it before, but I'm aware of people who have combined TECs and watercooling loops in the past with good results. The problems have always been condensation, power draw and catastrophic effects of coolant failure. However, this product would seem to sidestep alot of that.
[k]
[quote=[k]arl]With standard watercooling (ie fans and radiators) it's not possible to drop below the room temperature, so condensation is not an issue. This only arises if you use some method to achieve sub-ambient temperatures such as phase-change, waterchillers, TECS or evaporative cooling.
There is a case available which acts like a heatsink - unfortunately it's pretty expensive and has limited compatibility. See here...
www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=770&redirect=yes
The TEC product above seems worthy of investigation. I've not seen it before, but I'm aware of people who have combined TECs and watercooling loops in the past with good results. The problems have always been condensation, power draw and catastrophic effects of coolant failure. However, this product would seem to sidestep alot of that.
[k]
[/quote]
There is the issue, I wasn't after standard because it doesn't seem to have many advantages in the volume department, mainly only performance department when under load.
I was aiming for using external air sub-ambient (maybe loft mounted) and a big huge radiator/reservoir to maintain silly low temps and zero noise. However, it seems that managing the temp side by side with ambient air/humidty is a real issue here, which I wasn't aware of at all...
Thats just another layer of complexity I could do without to be honest bugger...
Dave
There is a case available which acts like a heatsink - unfortunately it's pretty expensive and has limited compatibility. See here...
www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=770&redirect=yes
The TEC product above seems worthy of investigation. I've not seen it before, but I'm aware of people who have combined TECs and watercooling loops in the past with good results. The problems have always been condensation, power draw and catastrophic effects of coolant failure. However, this product would seem to sidestep alot of that.
[k]
[/quote]
There is the issue, I wasn't after standard because it doesn't seem to have many advantages in the volume department, mainly only performance department when under load.
I was aiming for using external air sub-ambient (maybe loft mounted) and a big huge radiator/reservoir to maintain silly low temps and zero noise. However, it seems that managing the temp side by side with ambient air/humidty is a real issue here, which I wasn't aware of at all...
Thats just another layer of complexity I could do without to be honest
bugger... Dave
Mr Whippy said:
There is the issue, I wasn't after standard because it doesn't seem to have many advantages in the volume department, mainly only performance department when under load.
I was aiming for using external air sub-ambient (maybe loft mounted) and a big huge radiator/reservoir to maintain silly low temps and zero noise. However, it seems that managing the temp side by side with ambient air/humidty is a real issue here, which I wasn't aware of at all...
Thats just another layer of complexity I could do without to be honest bugger...
Dave
I was aiming for using external air sub-ambient (maybe loft mounted) and a big huge radiator/reservoir to maintain silly low temps and zero noise. However, it seems that managing the temp side by side with ambient air/humidty is a real issue here, which I wasn't aware of at all...
Thats just another layer of complexity I could do without to be honest
bugger... Dave
Ahh, yes, going for something like that can be 'interesting'. Often the TEC kits come with neoprayne (or however it's spelt) to cover the area around the CPU on both sides, this works to stop condensation forming around the components as you've got a (if you've done it right) air tight layer.
To be honest I don't overclock my systems, but I enjoy water cooling because no matter what I've got the box doing it's noise level remains a constant; the gurgling thing doesn't really happen if you layout the system so that their is a high point the air can get to. Our inital build of the new system gurgled for 30min whilst air was pushed out the radiator and now rattles quietly once in a while; that's a known gotcha of using an Ehim pump... they're mag drive so tend to rattle quietly. With the side panels all on it's not a problem.
The question is though... if you're throwing the machine in the loft... why both with TEC's or even WC kit, just fit honking great fans and let it scream... you probably won't hear it through decent loft insulation
Edited by ThePassenger on Monday 14th May 17:49
Whilst I'm most definitely not an authority on the topic (and have the blown up mobos to prove it) most people seem to insulate their blocks with neoprene and spray their mobos with conformal coating to protect them from condensation where that is an issue.
However, I'm still not sure it will be. Right now, my study is 21 degC with 46% humidity. That gives a dew point of about 10 degC, which is well below the current outside temperature. I think my concern with the loft plan is the practicality of getting the water to/from there, the water pressure at the PC end and the variations of temperature in your loft, both short and long term. I can think of ways round some of those issues, but have you checked how cold your loft really is? I know mine gets pretty warm at certain times of the year.
[k]
However, I'm still not sure it will be. Right now, my study is 21 degC with 46% humidity. That gives a dew point of about 10 degC, which is well below the current outside temperature. I think my concern with the loft plan is the practicality of getting the water to/from there, the water pressure at the PC end and the variations of temperature in your loft, both short and long term. I can think of ways round some of those issues, but have you checked how cold your loft really is? I know mine gets pretty warm at certain times of the year.
[k]
Out of curiosity what is it you are planning to do with the PC, the specs seem to suggest you are looking for a high end games machine?
If so then you may need extra cooling, if all you want to do is surf the net, download content, type letters, email and home accounts then the 65nm technology and slower clock speeds on the Exx00 processors may not need water cooling as the CPUs already run a heck of a lot cooler than the P4s and 32 bit AMDs required. Also unless you are doing anything high end all that performance cooling would be a bit like turning a Morris Minor into a track car so that you can go shopping at your local Asda.
Whatever you do, have some fun with it.
If so then you may need extra cooling, if all you want to do is surf the net, download content, type letters, email and home accounts then the 65nm technology and slower clock speeds on the Exx00 processors may not need water cooling as the CPUs already run a heck of a lot cooler than the P4s and 32 bit AMDs required. Also unless you are doing anything high end all that performance cooling would be a bit like turning a Morris Minor into a track car so that you can go shopping at your local Asda.
Whatever you do, have some fun with it.
tank slapper said:
I am tempted to build something along the lines of this:
[pic snipped]
Fill the whole system with Flourinert a la Cray 2.
[pic snipped]
Fill the whole system with Flourinert a la Cray 2.
Similar principle...
www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
[k]
TheKeyboardDemon said:
Out of curiosity what is it you are planning to do with the PC, the specs seem to suggest you are looking for a high end games machine?
If so then you may need extra cooling, if all you want to do is surf the net, download content, type letters, email and home accounts then the 65nm technology and slower clock speeds on the Exx00 processors may not need water cooling as the CPUs already run a heck of a lot cooler than the P4s and 32 bit AMDs required. Also unless you are doing anything high end all that performance cooling would be a bit like turning a Morris Minor into a track car so that you can go shopping at your local Asda.
Whatever you do, have some fun with it.
If so then you may need extra cooling, if all you want to do is surf the net, download content, type letters, email and home accounts then the 65nm technology and slower clock speeds on the Exx00 processors may not need water cooling as the CPUs already run a heck of a lot cooler than the P4s and 32 bit AMDs required. Also unless you are doing anything high end all that performance cooling would be a bit like turning a Morris Minor into a track car so that you can go shopping at your local Asda.
Whatever you do, have some fun with it.
I'm a bit of a power user. I set a few Mental Ray renders going last night, and came back half an hour later to see the PC was off
I think the PSU got too hot with the load, so gave the whole system a clean tonight and it's loads quieter (was sooo dusty inside)
So yes, a lot of load, games, 3d graphics, 2d art/graphics/photo editing/web. Pretty much everything a PC does I'll be doing sooo.
BUT, the secondary main issue is noise. I don't so much mind big, or expensive, or whatever, but quiet is important as even on a night in bed if the PC is left on I can hear it...
I'm not a big overclocker though, so if I can get away with almost a kit form of case water cooling and the associated 120mm fans over an internally mounted radiator then I'm happy... main concern for noise right now is GPU, had my case open tonight and stopping the 9800 pro fan made the biggest difference to sound.
Really tough finding decent kit, most pumps are 12v, and the rads are all for use inside a PC. Could do with a reservoir with attached rad core and an integrated pump on mains, and then have a twin core feed to the PC... hmmmm...
Blowing loads of money on it to start with, so would like it to be right and not all stupidly loud as thats not my thing.
Dave
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