So I was wondering if there have been any advances in rad design over the years as I'm still running a pair of trustly old PA120.0 rads from back in the day. No complaints as such but if I can get a dose of pretty and a performance boost then that would be welcomed. I'm using Corsair ML120 PRO fans with an Aquaero, currently basing my fan curve on the water temp so I'm not sure if this approach means anything when choosing a rad. I'm a bit out of the loop (pun half intended) these days on watercooling. I've got two seperate loops, one doing duties on a 9900KS and one on a 1080Ti. Any pointers of brands / model I can check out or is the PA120.3 still fairly well performing out of the bunch?
The only rads I'll consider in the future are Hardware Labs purely for the quality, performance is a given. However if your budget was constrained I'd suggest Alphacool, pretty impressive performance, pretty average quality. If you're still getting the cooling and noise levels you expect I'd stick with the Thermochill. They were up among the best in the day and I guess still deliver more than average performance. Edit: Just remembered. Are your Thermochills the type with the non-standard fan spacing making them difficult to fit in standard watercooling/fan mounts?
I guess half my problem is I'm not sure if I'm getting what I should be. I mean I'd be happy to go for something which keeps things a little quieter but I don't think my temps are anything too crazy. Under gaming load I get around 70c max on CPU and 50c Max on GPU. Temps did creep up a bit on those really hots days we had a few week back but I think that is as much to do with my PC being under my desk and the warm air having no where to go. I'm giving thought to some form of fan setup to pull the warm air up out the top of my desk to help cool air flow under my desk space. I'm not really sure if mine are the effected ones or not. I'm aware of the issue and I have had mine a fair while (I believe it was from Overlock in Wakefield). I've got them in a Mountain Mods Duality and they fit fhe front rad mount placements fine so unless a deal between the two was had at the time, I would guess the mounting hole alighment must be standard? EDIT - Just measured the space between fans and its around 25mm so having a quick google that is likely to be 24.5mm? Is that standard or the older troublesome layout?
Those rads should still be up to it by today's standard's as they where build really well I had a few back in the day in my Mountain mod case's. You could try different fans and if the rads getting scruffy really paint them it's very easy to do.
Well as it happens I've got 3 ML120 fans I got cheap so I've took things apart, give it all a dust good vac and hooked those up. Unless its my imagination the cooling performance seems much improved. I didn't do any benchmarking so haven't got any before figures to compare to but I did run a 15min prime test and it managed to keep my 9900KS under 70c. I've also done a bit of reading over the last couple days and it seems my understanding of fan config may be been a little lacking and push/pull at lower RPM might be the way to keep performance up there (keeping air pressure higher) but noise quiet. I also plan to retube everything once my amazon delivery gets here with some new tubing as it due a good flush and clean anyway. I'm plan to setup an inline temp monitor and a air temp as i've seen a few suggestion that running the fan speed against the air temp / water temp delta is the way to go to keep fan ramps smooth. Cheers for the pointers guys, I think I'm gonna stick with the rads I have and see how things go. ** Maybe ** I might give painting a go in the future too, Just don't like the idea of a few days downtime when its drying lol - I use my PC during the week for work too
Nice glad it's better I've got the barrow temp sense that can be set up to shut down the pc if the water gets to a certain temp,just need to flush out my new rads and start getting it built.
A little food for thought. HWLabs sells their OEM radiators at a very attractive price. https://www.performance-pcs.com/wat...-series-360-stealth-radiator-nls360-f2pb.html This is what you would be paying double for if you bought a bitspower or corsair rad.
I've just bought 2 280mm rads from black ice xflow to make it better to run the loop,rads are well built.
