Hey, new to these forums...

Anyways, I'm wanting to build myself a new pc sometime soon. I've been looking around and am a bit twisted in what I wanted, water cooling or very silent fan cooling. Both seems to be able to deliver the desired 24dba range of sound.

I think the case I've pretty much decided on, the Antec Sonata looks REALLY sweet. I have a chieftec mini-tower right now. The one wich does fit the standard ATX boards. I think the antec is about the same size.

I do really really like the psu though and also the 2x120mm fans. The turned drive bays are nice, but not that spectacular to me. I have a file storage server for that. There is only going to be 3 drives in there. 2x80 and a 10gb spare disk with just system stuff for emergency's at lanparties, etc.

Anyways. I've been looking at the sonata. And it would probably be great using an Asus p4c800 Deluxe board, with a PIV 3Ghz 800Mhz cpu.

Now, it has 2 positions for 120MM fans. It comes supplied with one, I know, but I'm thinking of replacing those with probably really silent papst fans, cause to my knowledge these are the most silent out there? I live in the Netherlands (europe), and the panaflow brand I have not seen here before? Anyone have any other advice on these fans?

Well... those fans I think I'm going to need anyways. I will probably use a large passive north bridge and also going to a zalman HP80-HP type videocard cooling solution (when sticking with fans).

For the cpu the Zalman CNPS7000 series seems to be a very good queit choice! Or maybe the one that has the fanduct on it allready, but not to sure about that. I will be restriced to use the versions with allu in it and copper, cause the pure copper one is WAY to heavy for the socket of the cpu to support and seeying I'm at lanparties more weekends then that I'm not... I really can't have that, cause it'll probably destroy my system within a few months. For this reason I now use an Alpha Pal 8045 wich is bolted through the mainboard.

Well, that is what I've though of using air cooling. It should be pretty quiet I think, but not very super performance wise or overclocking wise (shooting for about 3.5Ghz).

So I thought of including watercooling in the case! And most specifcally for the CPU and the GPU. Now I've been looking at manny different sets and sets from klax or Nextcool look REALLY nice and seem to cool very very well!

I think personally the Nextcool is the nicest one and the most affordable.

The sonata case is not big at all. So my problem is..... where to stick all this stuff required for water cooling?

I've been thinking that I will be able to stick the radiator in the outtake 120MM spot. It'll extend forward a bit, maybe even up to where the cpu is, but I'm thinking this won't be a problem, cause I'll be using water cooling on it anyways, so it shouldn't become to high anyways and thus be possible.

Also tubing to the videocard, etc. shouldn't be a problem I think.....

But where to leave the pump and the reservoir? There is no room in the front of the case cause of the way the drive bays are positioned I think?

Now they have this produkt " http://www.nextcool.com/International/wtank800.htm " which seems to solve a little bit of the space problem. It's a pump and reservoir combined into one. The measurements for this gadget are 129x146x85 mm which isn't that large, but still needs to be put somewhere.

I just today noticed it says it can be mounted in the position of 2x5.25" bays. Not to sure about this, especially cause of the way Antec has it's bay system (which I love btw). So I'm a bit in a loss in that area.


As you can read I have a lot of open questions left, cause I'm not quite sure where I'm going to leave everything. What I really want (Water or Air cooling). And how it's all going to it and stay put (weight during sometimes ROUGH) transport.

Why I wrote this? I kind of just wanted to reflect on some other people the ideas I had and what they thought of it, the fatal flaws, etc.

I've heard some complaints of the powersupply deliverd with the Sonata. Well, maybe water cooling there too, I don't see this practiced much, but I know it's possible? Or again, a very silent fan? Papst makes them of about 12Dba, well, even I can't hear that I think?

Does anyone know if it's possible to cool a readon 9800 PRO with just one of the zalman heatsinks with NO fan on it, just the air current of your case fans?

Would it be possible to maybe position the pump at the IDE bays, by leaving a sled out. Or put the radiator there? Cause for some reason it wouldn't be good at the outake?

questions questions questions. Please let me know what you all think?

Hey Quindor -

I will be watercooling a similar type of system this summer, and have been playing with a lot of ideas, so maybe I can provide some useful perspective.

I am not familiar with the Sonata case, but my Chieftec Dragon cases also have issues with placing a radiator. It has only 80mm fan openings, but after seeing how Overclocker's Hideout configured their watercooling setup based on this case (rad mounted at the bottom front, after removing the extra 3.5" drive cage), I think it can be done. You might want to consider that option.

I am staying away from H20 kits, they tend to offer lower performance. I would read up on the OCH site, DangerDen, and Overclockers.com for review and info on various watercooling parts.

I will probably use a DangerDen Maze 3 waterblock, a Chrome II micro pump/reservoir bock (check it out at OCH), and a Black Ice radiator. This way I can use all 1/2" tubing, which provides better flow than 3/8", and even increases the total amount of water in the system by a smidge.

I think that one 120mm Panaflo fan running at 7 volts should keep enough air over the rad to keep the temps down. I am hoping that a SilenX 14dba PSU, Panaflo, and pump are the ONLY noise from the system.

Moving a H20 system is a concern, though. You can prevent problems with hose clamps and the like, but in the end, you still have water inside a computer. Tread lightly!

If I can be of any more help, let me know! I know that I didn't address your specific situation, but I might be able to help if you have questions about other watercooling equipment.

Cheers,
RDaneel