hm........ anyone yet another noob to bit tech forums, though Ive been reading for months now........ Anyway now that I've finally made it into the semi responsible working college adulthood........ thing........ and have some money, I'm going to build the high end system I've always wanted, the nice dual 8800ultras instead of 8600's etc etc....... Now while I intend to do some overclocking, I'm also not looking to break any records So my main questions since I'm having trouble finding some good links to any, are chilled water cooling systems. Reason I dont want phase change Is for the most part I dont really feel like going uber godlike high end and getting that 5.2mhz high end, I just want a reliable high end system to pwn all the games coming out for the next few years. Anyway back on topic........ anyone know of any logs or anything that have put together a system like this? Has anyone done this themselves? Also another reason I spotted on this method of cooling is much less condensation buildup being a major factor since I also want decent shelf life on the system, and of course no ice and heavy copper blocks like phase change which of course would eventually start cracking the mobo....... hm..... I get the feeling I'm starting to repeat myself......... but anyway, this of course will all be goind into a custom case which I've got most of the parts for but havent started building yet, that of course I will log and hopefully it wont be too dang awful lol. anyway, any words of wisdom to help out someone whos always learning something new would be nice also, I think the chilled water temp would ideally be roughly 35f
my current project (linked in sig) is a full H2O rig with H2O on it's own you won't be able to achieve temps below the ambient room temp; but since it's more efficient that stock air you'll have better temps and the load temps won't jump nearly as much when overclocking. go with cherry picked components by Swiftech/DangerDen/Thermochill/LIANG/D-tek/Hardware-Labs stay away from kits from the likes of Thermal-take, Koolance, etc. since they're absolute junk.
i have to agree 100% with radodrill on this if its water cooling your after,but i did notice you said chilled water cooling? if you really wanna go chilled water then your gonna need to find a way to chill the water,the most common way ive seen is with a beer chiller but to state the obvious if your water is a lower temp than ambient your gonna get condensation problems. you say you don't wanna go phase because of the weight of the copper etc. but what youve got to remember is a water block is made from copper as well an the diference in weight is minimal by the time youve added the pipework an water and as for the mobo cracking your gonna have to be very unlucky for that to happen if you follow all the instructions correctly. hope this helps,looking forward to seeing project.
35F = 1.67C for those of us in the rest of the world Good temperature as water is, as far as I can recall, at it's thermal best at about 2-3C. Someone more pr0 might be able to correct me here. I don't want to rain on your parade (or leak on your cpu... groan), but I'd imagine that unless you can find a compact and efficient (also quiet and low-ish power) chilling unit, chilled-water might be more of a chore to implement than phase change? (bear in mind the chiller will have a radiator of it's own, and that you probably want that heat source outside the case). As you just want a high-end gaming system to use for the next few years, why not just stick with normal water? No condensation problems, simpler, and so on. Reliability is one of your requirements, and condensation is going to require a lot of attention (it'll form on metal areas first, and will quite happily trickle down pipes, dripping off whenever you get a U shaped bit) to handle reliably. Finally, as devil's advocate, an alternate water based system that can get lower-than-room temps is one where you have a 'cooling tower' of some kind - somewhere that the coolant is exposed to the atmosphere and can, through evaporation, be cooled lower than a radiator will allow. Downsides: you have to keep topping up the coolant, it would be bulky, and it could be noisy. Upside: You instantly win the Heath Robinson award for best bodge?
thanks for the input guys........ the info youve given me has shown why I cant really find any chilled water projects online lol......, Ill check out your project log later rad and learn as much as I can. One last question, is there a limit to how large you can make a radiator before a point of minimal returns? I saw this ginormous thing, but I doubt they would make it if it wasnt efficient? http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=200&products_id=21622
All depends on what all you're cooling. I've got 2 3x120mm radiators in my system; 1 for the 2 8800GTX and the other for CPU, NB, and SB. I could see the 9x120mm radiator being useful when also having peltiers and H2O HDD coolers as well. For a CPU only loop a 120mm or 2x120mm is sufficient; add the chipsets or a mid-range GPU then you need the 2x120 or a 3x120 etc. etc. etc. The more heat load you add to the loop the more radiator area you need.
righto, I was definitely going to do both cards and the cpu, and mostly likely the bridges as well, though Ive never touched bridges before Im good with tools so I shouldnt screw it up too badly lol. But whats is a peltiers? and as for liquid hdd cooling I might consider it. Never thought about water cooling the hdd's. Lets see, If I did that I wouldnt need nearly as much case air flow, and I was planning on a min of six fans...... hm....... I gotta think about that one...
Watercooling the HDDs doesn't really do much other than dump additional heat into the H2O loop; so it isn't really worth it. Peltier is another name for a TEC (ThermoElectric Cooler); basically the one side gets cold and the other hot. They can be installed between the waterblock and the chip; allowing lower temps than with regular H2O cooling, but the H2O loop has to be able to dissipate the heat from both the CPU and the TEC.
I see, so thats definitely where the added cooling capacity of something that size would come in handy, If I were to use something that size with fans on it, I probably wouldnt need a second passive radiator, hm...... alright thx for the info, also radorill one last question, what did you use to design your case with? I was checking out your project log and I liked the look of that
The radiators need airflow from fans attached to them to work properly; they won't do much passively. I modeled my case with Pro/E (Professional Engineer)
ah thanks. Ill check out pro/e and I was checking out peltiers on danger dens site, looks like I would need a second psu for that....... but definitely a nice addition for cpu cooling
They make it because people will buy it. That is the only reason. No testing has ever been done on this radiator (or any of the other radiators from the same manufacturer) to find out whether it's efficient or not, or to gauge it's performance... their target audience appears not to care (sees big, thinks better, buys).
Not forgetting the flipside of the same equation... see cheap = buy it... worry about performance later... Best advice to anyone considering that rad - buy 3x Swiftech MCR320 radiators. Stick em all side by side, pipe em in series. Costs about the same (usually less), but outperforms in terms of airflow and liquid flow restriction.
good to know, I never saw that radiator on a good modding site anyway, and yes it is kinda ridiculous in stature.
