[serverguy]

Originally Posted by thingie2

Shame it violates the warranty, but it will be working for about 6months probably on stock cooling before I get watercooling, so hopefully, if anything is going to go wrong, it will go wrong soon

You can always put the stock cooler back on it to return it, they will know no different unless it has a tamper tag on one of the screws.

And you are OK with replacing the cooler on a CPU, just on a GPU it is violating it as it is more complex to take off.

[alex]

Originally Posted by thingie2

Well there doesn't seem to be a section for cooling, so i'll post it here.

Does anyone know much about water cooling for PC's?

Hia thingie.

Yeah, I do. What do you want to know? May as well ask here than going to, as Serverguy suggests, another site.

[thingie2]

Originally Posted by alex

Hia thingie.

Yeah, I do. What do you want to know? May as well ask here than going to, as Serverguy suggests, another site.

Mainly just, what system would you recomend? And would you say a self built, or kit is better? and what blocks would you recomend to use? just CPU, or nothbridge, southbridge, voltage regulators etc aswell? I am wanting to have a cool and quiet PC, but I don't do overclocking (atleast not yet)

[alex]

Originally Posted by thingie2

Mainly just, what system would you recomend? And would you say a self built, or kit is better? and what blocks would you recomend to use? just CPU, or nothbridge, southbridge, voltage regulators etc aswell? I am wanting to have a cool and quiet PC, but I don't do overclocking (atleast not yet)

To be quite frank with you unless you're oc'ing it's a pointless exercise water cooling your rig.

Current hsf's were designed around cooling Pentium 4's which as we all know were basically another form of heating your house. So they can easily deal with Intel's current crop of 45nm duo/quad cpu's at stock speeds. Providing you get a decent one (Tuniq/AC) volume shouldn't be an issue either.

With the reduction in switch-distance built in cpu's cpu's temperatures, at stock speeds, have dropped as they require less voltage to run and therefore generate less waste heat to be removed by whatever type of cooling you choose.

Gpu architecture has also seen a reduction in switch-distance.

Also, unless you're going to cool your whole rig you'll still needs fans to cool the other components with airflow or they'll run the risk of overheating because don't forget a typical hsf also cools the vrm's on a mobo.

Plus you've also got the cost, time, effort and maintainance that comes with a water cooling setup.

If you still want to go ahead with it here's some things to think about:

1-For a full rig to be watercooled you may want a single loop or you may want multiple cooling loops. Multiple loops will each comprise a resevoir, pump, radiator and waterblock.

If you want to cool, for instance, a system with one cpu, one gpu, 2 ram dimms, the northbridge and the vrm's (you won't need to cool the southbridge) and you want to do this via multiple loops i'd recommend:

twin 120mm rad for the cpu
twin 120mm rad for the gpu
single 120mm rad for the northbridge/vrm's.

This means you'll need 3 pump's as each loop is not connected to another and each loop will need it's liquid moving around.

If you want to go for a single loop then i'd recommend:

triple 120mm rad for the cpu/northbridge/vrm's
double 120mmm rad for the gpu
separate 120mm rad between the cpu and northbridge/vrm's.

2- Do you want an all in one solution? In short; no! These are pretty much always compromised in one area or another and you tend to pay through the nose plus they also pretty much offer no more cooling prowess over a good hsf for a lot more money.

Plus, they aren't tailored to your build requirements so may be too powerful or too weak, it's always best to spec a custom setup yourself.

3- There's two types of waterblocks- low impingement (LI) and high impingement (HI). Low impingement means the water is allowed, by the design of the waterbock, to flow with very small restriction through it. High impingement means the opposite basically.

HI, because it's holding the liquid over the cpu for longer allows the maximum transfer of heat into the liquid. But should you have more than one waterblock in the same loop you may restrict the flow too much, or you may have a pump that's too weak resulting in the cooling setup not performing at it's best each cycle.Or you may choose a pump that's too powerful for your setup in which case you'll be putting more pressure on the tubing joints on the waterblocks.

Cpu waterblocks are manufactured in various materials, the most common one used (unfortunately) is of the acrylic variety. The problem with acrylic is it's weaker than say metal or plastic blocks, it just looks cooler.

4- Gpu waterblocks come in various flavours; there's the full one's that cool not only the gpu but also the ram and vrm's on the pcb but these are only made for each type of card so should you upgrade your gpu (as most of us do) you'll be left with buying a whole new waterblock.

Gpu waterblocks that only cool the gpu can most of the time also be used with other cards of the same family but it will then be necessary to provide cooling, in the form of heatsinks, for the ram on the graphics card's pcb.

5- Radiator's come in two forms; single pass and multi-pass. This is pretty much as it sounds. In a single pass rad the liquid flows in one direction and out the other side, the problem with this is you may not be able to remove all the heat the liquid has gained from the component(s) it's just passed through and it might mean installing a triple or double rad where a double or single might have sufficed.

Multi-pass rad's move the water through the rad various time's in various directions which improves the removal of heat in the liquid.

As you can probably guess a triple 120mm rad is going to be rather large so you'll need a large case to accomodate one or you can purchase a rad box for mounting on the external of the case (this also removes the rad from the cases internal airflow which may or may not be warmer than the external ambient air.

6- On top of all that you're still going to need case fans, an intake and exhaust should suffice, to create airflow over the components not liquid cooled such as the hdd, optical drives and any add-on cards (soundcard etc).

Have a look at this site and spec up a cooling build based upon what I've put above. You might be surprised how much it will cost because you've also got to take into account the tubes, sprial anti-kink wrap, clamps and liquid on top of the reservoir(s), rad(s), waterblock(s), fan(s) and pump(s).

I think that's enough for now and I hope it's helpful. Should you decide to do this give me a shout and I can pass on some (hard-earned) knowledge about do's and dont's when building your cooling rig.

[thingie2]

ok, thanks for the help alex, if there any reason why I shouldn't have more than 1 radiator? because I am getting either the Lian-Li pc-p60 case or the Lian-Li pc-p80 case, and I was thinking, i could get a duel radiator for the front of the case (3 120mm or 3 140mm fans on front of the case (one is used up by hdd cage)) and a single radiator for each of the case fans (one at top of case, and one at back) or would this not work properly? and if I did this, would I be better to have more than 1 loop? (i was thinking 1 loop to CPU, then it splits into 2, 1 goes to GFX card, the other to chipsets and voltage regulators, then rejoin)

[serverguy]

It makes no real difference how you make up the surface area of the radiator, ie 1 360 or 3 120s. However you can best fit them into the case if you are trying to get them internal.

You can split the loop with a T but this then means you halve the flow. I would just keep everything in series, one after another.

The Thermochill radiators are awesome, a 120mm will remove as much heat as some of the kit supplied 360s.

Maybe a setup like this:

CPU Block (assuming LGA775) D-TEK FuZion CPU Block

GPU Full Cover Block (assuming 8800GTX) EK-FC8800 8800GTX/Ultra

240mm Thermochill Radiator (assuming it will fit in front of case) ThermoChill PA120.2

120mm Thermochill Radiator (at back of case, again if it can fit) ThermoChill PA120.1

Pump 12V Laing DDC-1T Ultra w/XSPC Acrylic Pump Top

Resevoir XSPC Bay Reservoir - Clear Acrylic

Tube 1/2" Clear High Flex Hose (XSPC) (3m)

In all that comes to about £280.00

I used 1/2" barbs on everything as it shouldn't be too crowded in the case and the bigger the tube size the less resistance.

I would lay it out something like this:

Resevoir -> Pump -> CPU -> 120mm Rad -> GPU -> 240mm Rad -> Resevoir

[thingie2]

hmm, I like the sound of that, and less than I was going to be paying for the kit (i was paying that for the pump, res, rad all in one unit on it's own) And would you not recomend cooling the chipsets? because (like i said eirlier in the topic) the 780i chipset is well know for getting very hot (70C+) And what do you think to the company Koolance, because I like the look of their blocks more than the ones you said, however I don't know what they are like performance wise.

[alex]

I wouldn't recommend using the case fan mounts (if you're referring to intake/exhaust) for rads because you'll still require airflow for the hdd etc.

Don't worry about the vrm's unless oc'ing, as long as you have airlfow. Besides, you can purchase vrm heatsinks for a few quid should you be worried.

Considering Intel's mounting system for hsf's is lousy you want a waterblock that is mounted via a backplate on the motherboard. I'd recommend the Delta X20 V2.

And a X20 Delta Northbridge block for the Northbridge.

I definately agree with Serverguy's pump recommendation but the majority of pumps on the market are just re-badged Laing's. The res SG quoted would also be my recommendation.

For the triple rad I'd recommend the xspc RS360, this also has the advantage of allowing 6 120mm fans (case width/depth dependent-depending on how you mount) to it so you get an intake/exhaust effect. For fans for the rad i'd suggest Zalman ZMF-3's or Xinruilian 120's. Also get a xspc twin 120mm rad in the same model range.

For the gpu I'd be looking at the Siberian Rev 2, this also is mounted via backplate. (more secure).

Don't forget the anti kink spiral. For mounting the hoses securely use metal-lined worm drives ONLY. Self-tighteners and snap-close variety don't give me much in the way of confidence (pre-built connections tend to be push on....)

I'd used 1/2" id (inside diameter) hoses simply because they're more suited to multi-waterblock builds.

Your case quotes aren't going to fit all this without some serious modding. My advice: Go larger.

If you don't want to mix the fluids yourself make sure you purchase pre-mixed.

Lian Li v2100, Coolermaster Cosmos S, Temjin TJ-07 would be my first 3 choices.

www.watercoolingshop.com

[thingie2]

well as for the cases, the PC-P80 case is actually larger than the v2100, and I was thinking about putting the double radiator in the 5 1/2 inch bays so that the front 3 140mm fans cool it. And as for the other blocks, I will take a look at those tomorrow afternoon when I get back from my exam.

[alex]

Originally Posted by thingie2

well as for the cases, the PC-P80 case is actually larger than the v2100, and I was thinking about putting the double radiator in the 5 1/2 inch bays so that the front 3 140mm fans cool it. And as for the other blocks, I will take a look at those tomorrow afternoon when I get back from my exam.

Yup, my mistake. Although it isn't very much at all. Personally I'd prefer the layout of the 2100 for liquid cooling even if it would require removal of the drive rails at the bottom of the case. But it's your money.

Anyway, and I know I keep belabouring this point, air intake/exhaust, air intake/exhaust, oh and air intake/exhaust.