Watercooling and Me? The great debate.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Wed May 24, 2006 2:04 pm

Bio, I've just read your thread over on SCForums........I learned more about H20 cooling by reading that, than anywhere else!

Now I can see why your such a H20 guru.........and why you keep praising stev......his suggestion for testing the best size for a shroud is pure genius!
I'll be getting some soft aluminium sheeting this weekend..........I'll post a thread with pics of my "mod" then

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Wed May 24, 2006 3:03 pm

Bio,

I think you're a little overkill for me mate! But I'd love to have you help me "pimp my puter". I'm off on Thursdays and Fridays typically. Do those days work with your schedule?

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Wed May 24, 2006 3:16 pm

Yup, either day is fine, I'm normally home all the time unless I'm at the VA hostipal for a appointment or something.
You're going to have to get the parts ordered that you're looking at before hand, or if you feel like a drive, you're welcome to stop out and we can go over everything here and get the stuff ordered.
It's a lot easier to talk about it face to face than in the forums or whatever. Just let me know what you'd like to do...........

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed May 24, 2006 3:57 pm

and dont worry about bio, he may look like an old crazy homeless guy but he is harmless

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:46 pm

Actaully, if he's still got a bunch of that old gear laying around, he may look more like a merchent. :D

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Wed May 24, 2006 10:00 pm

LOL......merchent, not me, more of a collector really............

But if you're interested in something I have fine, if you're not, also fine. I'll help you with your system either way............

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Thu May 25, 2006 8:33 am

Ok, take a look at the parts list I posted earlier. What would you get rid of? What would you keep? What do you have that can fill in the gaps? Reminder, this is for NO to LITTLE OC'ing, not crazy stuff like most people here do.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Thu May 25, 2006 9:49 am

The biggest problem is that everything I have currently has 1/2" barbs and the only thing I have with replacement 3/8 barbs is my Storm CPU block. The BIX II can be switched out easy enough as can the older PolarFlo CPU and GPU water blocks. The newer PolarFlo TT blocks use barbs from PolarFlo, so they would have to be ordered.
If I were doing it myself, I think I would use 1/2 inch barbs with 7/16 inch tubing like the newer Swiftech kits. You'll get next to no performance loss and the ease of routing the smaller tubing.

This system here is using 1/2" barbs along with 7/16" tubing and it worked out fairly well.

On the other hand, 3/8" will be that much easier to build and run with only a slight performance loss, nothing that you would really notice and stock or close to stock speeds.............

pcrobot · Post by **pcrobot** » Thu May 25, 2006 10:26 am

Sweet!

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Thu May 25, 2006 10:29 am

Still not telling me if the parts I have picked out are going to work or not. lol

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Thu May 25, 2006 12:21 pm

What you picked out is fine, except the GPU block (to small of connector) and using adapters or adapters suck IMHO. Get parts that use all the same sized fittings. I would go with the APOGEE CPU block and MCW60 GPU block, they are designed to work well together. And I think that they do.........

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Thu May 25, 2006 1:19 pm

Ok, will do. I really liked how the Koolance looked and it appeared to be a more "overall" solution, but I'll take your experience.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Thu May 25, 2006 3:00 pm

The all in one type make for a heavy and restrictive solution, even the ones that use 1/2 tubung. There's no real big reason to water cool the ram on a video card as GDDR3 doesn't really get all that hot. A good set of ram sinks and a little air flow is all that's required to keep them cool.
I've never used one of the full blocks myself, but I've got a few friends that have and they ended up pulling them and replacing them with a standard block and sinks and much happier with the overall performance.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Thu May 25, 2006 3:24 pm

I've used an all-in-one block on an X800 & 7800GTX - neither made full contact with every memory chip....infact I'd say using the all-in-one blocks increased the memory and pcb temps

= no air circulation

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Sat May 27, 2006 10:34 am

Ok, time to do that dreaded thing, math.

I'm trying to wrap my head around all the mathematics involved on this project. The radiator I'm looking at claims to be able to disapate 275W. My processor, an AMD Althalon64 3700+ San Diego, is rated at 87W.

275w - 87w = 188w

Does that mean I can add other water blocks to the system until I exhaust this additional 188w? If I give a watt to watt ratio of 1:1 what happens? Say the proc's rated at 100w and the radiator is rated at 100w then what happens. Obviously the processor doesn't magically reach 0C. Does it simply drop the proc temperature to whatever the current ambient temperature of the enviroment is?

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Sat May 27, 2006 10:46 am

It all depends on your fans CFM.......how much air it can push.......

The more heat your rad(s) can dissipate the better temps you get. Not only that but then you have the option to lower the fans RPM and get a quieter running system. Add a fan controller and you have the best of both worlds ;)

I suspect that rad could remove 275W of heat, but prolly with an ambient temp of 10C and high speed Delta fans. So you could say in real world situations it could remove ~200W (since it will be inside the case and the fans will be running avg. rpm). Now a OC'ed cpu will dissiapte over 100W and an X1900 is close if not more than a 100W, then you'd have to run the fans @ full speed. What happens on a warm day?
IMO you should get another rad, a single 80mm rad mounted @ the top (inside) blowing air out.....

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Sat May 27, 2006 11:57 am

On my original parts manifest a second radiator was listed. I'm still not above doing two independent loops. One for the GPU, one for the CPU. You didn't answer my overall question though. What happens when the equation eventually balances? I assume the proc drops to whatever is considered ambient temperature? It surely can't go lower than that without some form of condensor or TEC. It would defy the principles of convection.

89w = AMD Athlon64 3700+ CPU
130w = ATI Radeon X1900XTX GPU

The total thermal energy is 219w. Given there will be heat lost to the system I'm going to factor in an additional 20% thermal load on the system. That raises the total thermal energy to 263w. The radiator I'm planning to use, the HWLAbs Black Ice Micro II, states it's capable of disapating 275w. If that's the case it should work for my purpose if I don't water cool anything else, which I don't plan to. Does this math work out?

stev · Post by **stev** » Wed May 31, 2006 8:22 am

Skippman wrote:Ok, time to do that dreaded thing, math.

I'm trying to wrap my head around all the mathematics involved on this project. The radiator I'm looking at claims to be able to disapate 275W. My processor, an AMD Althalon64 3700+ San Diego, is rated at 87W.

275w - 87w = 188w

Add in the case enclosure temps @ 8% as well if the cooling loop is inside the computer.

188w * 0.08 = 15w bonus + 188w = 203w

Skippman · Post by **Skippman** » Wed May 31, 2006 9:53 am

Skippman wrote: 89w = AMD Athlon64 3700+ CPU
130w = ATI Radeon X1900XTX GPU

The total thermal energy is 219w. Given there will be heat lost to the system I'm going to factor in an additional 20% thermal load on the system. That raises the total thermal energy to 263w. The radiator I'm planning to use, the HWLAbs Black Ice Micro II, states it's capable of disapating 275w. If that's the case it should work for my purpose if I don't water cool anything else, which I don't plan to. Does this math work out?

This math in the bottom part of that post took into account a 20% loss to the systems case temps. Is that not generous enough?

stev · Post by **stev** » Wed May 31, 2006 12:57 pm

Skippman wrote:This math in the bottom part of that post took into account a 20% loss to the systems case temps. Is that not generous enough?

It should be. I was replying to your earlier posting.