Ive currently got a loop kit without a res and I have a chance to buy one. Whats the advantages of having one? Will my temps decrease etc.
Just convenience for filling. If it was very big (several litres) it will slow and rise in temperatures, but have little effect once its at equilibrium.
The more water there is, the lower the coolant temp will be - same amount of heat but spread over a bigger area.... Res's are just for ease of filling. Put it at the highest point so that it will also tap air (instead of the toher thing thats hgher than it. If its not at the highest point then it will have to be compleatly sealed, else it will overflow. Also put a T fitting at your lowest point. this is inline, and have a tap on the end of the T so you can easly drain it - Ive yet to do this on mine!
Umm, not quite. The increased volume will maybe reduce temperatures at equilibrium though the (passive) loss from the res which would tend to be small unless designed for the purpose. IUnless the res you are looking at is specifically designed to act as a radiator, you won't get your temps to drop.
while having a res is great, for filling/draining/geting all the damn air out. it does not really add anything to the effectiveness of the cooling setup. unless your pump is pushhing to hard, then a res right at the inlet will allow for more flow, due to the low pressure water and larger intake area, but most times this is not the case. if your res is plastic of any type (with very few exceptions) it will not cool any better, but it will take a system alot longer to get up to max load temp, and most of the time it is the same as a no-resed setup. also on the down side, it will take longer for the water to cool down when at idle. I noticed a great drop in max temp, from 28/29c to 24/25c while folding and a dual amd mp 2200+, on one of my setups, but i used a aluminum fuel tank (5 gallon jerry can) that is laying on the floor in my basement, and i know alot of heat is flowing from it to the floor (mainly because the floor is never warm, probably ~15c if not less) and while it is nice, i dont know if i would do it again, but i would always use a res of some sort, i like the buffer effect that it gives. for example the dual mp with out a res would go from idel (boot temp) to full load temp in under 2 minutes, and the water temp would also max out in about the same time, but with the res it still gets to up there, but it takes almost 3 hours to get up to the max temps. the down side of my setup is if i kick my protable heater wrong, it points at the jerry can and my temps will start to clime quickly, and thats a bad thing. just my 2 cents.
Just a thought, but what about one of the wacc P-A reservoirs here Ok so they can be used as passive coolers for non o/c systems, but add one of them to an active system and that should help lower temps a bit Review of the reservoir @ TheModfathers
99.9% of the resses you see today are for either looks or fill and bleed convenience only. i build resses but i build them for specific purposes . for instance this one was for looks in my beast system and its a 2 -liter system but it is not made for performance . while i have done a few other resses specificaly designed to reduce cavitation at the pump inlet and to prime the pumps . youll find these kind to be not as good looking but can greatly improve performance on certian pumps such as ehiem and Hydor and some other mag pumps check out this link for what a good res design is or there is an article by phaestus somewhere (kinda old article) on a L30 mod he did ( my inspiration for my design came from his article ) http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=304818
some of the passive reseravoirs can certainly boost performance. I have a Zalman Reserator, but if I had an active system I would use a passive res as part of my active setup. I've read a few reviews, and people generally find they get a couple of degrees drop in temperature (after equilibrium). Just to stress the point though, this is in conjunction with an active radiator. something like this
Wow! There's an idea... But yeah, looks and convenience really. Unless you have a really long thin res (i.e. lots of SA for the water volume, think that xIce kit where it's just 10m of tubing for a rad) the passive convection cooling you would get would be negligable.
