Hello,

I have been thinking about getting a Thermaltake Kandalf LCS. I want to cool off a Quad Core QX6700/6800 and a Top end Video Card such as a 8800GTX. Would its Liquid Cooling System be enough to handle both components?

In terms of noise, What would be better?

1. Thermaltake Kandalf LCS
- 3 "Silent" 1300 RPM Fans cooling off the Radiator

2 - Air Cooling
- Thermalright Ultra 120 Xtreme, 1 1200 RPM Fan.
- Aftermarket 8800GTX Cooler, Possibly Thermalright HR-03 with 80mm fan (what speed should this fan run at?)

Thanks,
Kidcash.

Hello,

I am a water cooling noob -- doesn't the pump make a little noise, too?

And if it take three fans to work the radiator, then I think that would make more noise.

Plus, you have the PSU to add into the equation -- I guess it would be the same either way, but four fans and a pump vs three fans...

I have found that water is quieter on such heavy load setups. I could say more but I am sleepy. I wonder what a zalman 2 radiator could do with a system like that. hm.

El Jefe: The Zalman reserator is not good when ambient temps are high because it does not use any fans.

What are your HD plans? Both air and water can be quieter than a naked 3.5" HD, so their relative noise levels might not matter.

I've no experience with this particular hardware, but that's never prevented opinions. The Kandalf doesn't appear to be an optimized system. While the radiator's large, its design is restrictive on the liquid side, and airflow looks to be far from open. I'm confident it can cool your system, but a DIY system could probably offer better cooling vs. noise vs. cost.

just guessing-but if in addition you also overclock as far as possible-then water cooling may be the closest you get to quiet. As I've said before-you won't get 30mpg from a dragster. If the OC is pretty mild-then you could get by with the fan plan

If the usage is mostly high cpu loading games....just a couple of fans at 1200 rpm would probably not cut it. I'd guess game are a lot of the use-but not all-so you might focus on how quiet you could run throttled back.

While I have yet to use Crystal CPU,it seems it's ability to give a mid-level could be real handy. A good fan control plan,including some extra temp monitoring,can help.

not as good as with lower ambient temps BUT

it is water cooling which always works!

Triple radiator can handle both components, but may struggle if you're running a highly overclocked GPU & CPU 24/7. That's assuming that is a decent triple rad, and I don't know that.

As for comparing air vs water in this case: you need to consider the need to have greater overall case airflow if you go with the HR-03. Overall case airflow needed for a 8800GTX passively cooled solution is going to make more noise than a watercooled solution. And not just talking about a localized 80mm fan, but 'overall' case airflow on top of that. That's why few people passively cool their 8800GTX's because it's actually quite noisy.

On the other hand, watercooling allows you to remove or disable some case fans because airflow becomes less important (you still need some airflow though). So I'd say the watercooling solution "may" be quieter IF that pump is a quality low noise pump. You can keep fan noise down by using yateloons/nexus instead of those 'silent' 1300rpm fans, but you're stuck with that pump.

This whole "watercooling" stuff.. it is still aircooling, its just with a water phase in between. With todays available (air) coolers and the fact that one or two HD's will make some noise, I'd see no point whatsoever to go watercooling.

Watercooling is a superior cooling system meaning you can have far more powerful kit running much more quietly than low end systems.

If you have low end budget systems, then ok you don't need it, or much of any cooling system in fact. But if you're into silent but powerful PC's then it's the only way to go (but only if done right).

You will never get a powerful system as quiet using high end air. High end watercooling beats it hands down for noise.

my reserator1 blue tower was meant to be able to cool down a 2.4ghz 754 chip and a 9800 pro.

well, it is cooling a x1900 aiwonder and a 4200+ dual core. The only difference is I am using the newer (not the latest though apparently) vga cooler that is U shaped and blue (not the new one with ramsink ability).

it is cool running when I play Stalker for 3-4 hours with HDR on and AF cranked. The new zalman2, by far the most wimpy of all new watercooling systems is said to have an even quieter pump than my um, silent one. shrugs? The test will be done by me very soon. I am going to get the HD 2900 from ATI/AMD , thats the xtx version, and will be using it with the new reserator radiator setup in a non airconditioned room in the summertime.

(note: when I say cool running, I mean a touchable surface that is very warm but eternally stable. water cooling is always warmer running if silent than air, it just has infinite capacity to remove heat on load)

The 3 Fans on the front of the Kandalf have a direct line of noise outside the case.

If your planning on heavy OCing then water would be best, If no OCing aftermarket air coolers are great.

The Pump does add to the total noise.

A 120.3 can easily cool, QX6800, 2x8800GTX, 4 Sticks of ram, NB, SB, etc, all OCed.

I would recommend using a 120mm fan on the air cooled GTX ( if it don't fit mod it so it does, zip ties are great for fixing fans where they dont fit ).



If you are looking for silence with great cooling I would highly recomend the antec P182. As long as you don't do heavy OCing air can be quieter than water in the right setup.

some smaller eheim pumps have no noise. inaudible at 3 feet. like dead. never seen a fan, even a 5 volt nexus that can't be heard.

what ambient temp would be too high?

This is just plain false. Everything you need to quietly cool with air, you also need with water PLUS a pump. Pumps are not silent, and you have to do a bit of custom work to silence a pump. Not to mention your also going to need a case on the larger side of things to accomidate the radiators, and then the hassle of completely draining, cleaning, and refilling the entire setup every 6 months to a year.

If done properly, you can cool a system just as quietly with air alone as you can with water, for a lot less hassle, space and cost.

The only setups ive seen where watercooling was superior in terms of cooling and acoustics is when no fans are used, the pump and most of the WC setup is outside the case making the system basically immobile, and using either a chiller or naturally cool conditions (ie: a tank of water buried under the house). Anything that is going to be completely self enclosed with the system is going to end up being more complex, cost more, require more maintenance to sustain, and be harder to keep as quiet as air cooling.

Obviously you've never heard an 80mm Nexus @ 5v. Doesn't seem to move any air though, lol. Soft mounted, I have trouble hearing it from 4-5 inches.

ive had a WC setup before, all high end highly recommended gear with an eheim pump that everyone said was "silent"... yeah... not so much. maybe if your used to the sound of a jet when you turn on your computer it could be considered "silent". it is definately quiet, but its a different kind of quiet than a fan. a fan is more of a droning, single frequency sort of noise. Pumps are an oscilating noise. like a really soft "thump thump thump", which IMO is a worse sound characteristic than the white noise of a fan.

I ended up having to jerry rig up a suspension setup for the pump, and enclose the entire thing in foam before it became acceptibly quiet, but still audible.

What model? I have an Eheim 1048 and when the loop is bled and the pump is properly decoupled, it's silent. The thing vibrates like mad, but when I had it suspended or held in my hand, I couldn't hear anything.

well, dont know how in states, but here, if you count in Thermalright's HS for NB,CPU,GPU it can end as high as $190, so my first WC setup i bought for $120 and i got exactly the same temps as with highend air...

Aris (on your last email): using a D5 and it's silent. Silent meaning that it's more quiet than nexus fans and cannot be heard from outside the case. Don't know about the eheim, but the Laing pumps are noisy if you don't isolate them. If you do, then they are very quiet, especially the D5 at setting 3.

Aris (on your email to me): Well if you're going to accuse me of lying, you better be ready to back it up.

I challenge you to have a modern high end system (i.e. Quad Core QX6700/6800 and a 8800GTX like the OP said) as quiet using air as water. It will not happen.

Have you actually built any decent (i.e. using quality equipment) watercooled PC's to back up your claims? I suspect you don't know what you're doing and your poor results lead you to blame factors other than your lack of knowledge and skill.

Quality watercooling will beat quality air in terms of noise for decent systems. To back up my assertions, here's my watercooled system. A similar air cooled system will be more noisy, even if running at stock clocks, much less overclocked. In this system, the nexus fans generate the most noise. http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=41300

Show me your noisy watercooling system and your quiet air system and I will tell you what you're doing wrong.

not sure, it was a while ago. it was either thte 1048, or the model just above that. the vibration is what makes it loud. its very quiet when decoupled/suspended, but still audible. but when its not decoupled/suspended its not quiet at all, and suspending a pump in such a way that is practicle that still allows the easy trasportation of the system without too much extra care is very difficult.

Ive done it, watercooling can be very quiet, but i wouldnt say just as quiet and definately not more quiet than air cooling. the pump is the biggest factor. its just too dificult to eliviate the vibrations that cause noise, and even when you do its still not silent.

I have made a "SILENT" pc on air. inaudible at any seated position with the quietest ambient conditions possible in a quiet neighborhood. You can not tell if the system is on or not when you press the power button until bios comes up on the monitor, or the dvdrom spins up after POST when the mobo is detecting all the drives connected to the system. you have to put your ear right up against the side of the case to even hear anything at all, and at that point i'll bet what your hearing is more vibration induced noise from actually being in contact with the case than from airborn noises. This isnt some all passive low power system either. Its my main gaming rig, and has a total of 3 fans in it. stock psu 80mm fan, 120mm nexus, and a 92mm nexus. it plays every game i want on my LCD at native resolution of 1280x1024 at acceptable game detail. not the lowest, but not the highest either. It still looks good though.

A few years ago i was heavily into the WC community. I was on the [H]ard forum every day, talking to the creators of the spiral waterblock during devolopment stages, and talking about all the dangerden products and the best rads to use, and the quietest pumps etc etc etc. I put together what i believed at that time (and still to this day) from the information from all those very informative people over at that forum, the best set of WC components i could to get the quietest system possible.

It was quiet. But it was still audible, and definately not as quiet as ive been able to accomplish on air alone.

It was definately cool though, and impressed people everywhere i went. If you want something to brag about to friends, and get a lot of attention, WC is definately a good way to do it. You dont see many WC setups at LAN games thats for sure. It was also a very good learning experience. I had fun setting up the whole thing and figuring it all out. While i'll probably never WC a PC again, i'm glad that i tried it and was able to gain the experience of doing it myself from scratch.

That's an interesting challenge.

It's very easy to have a very quiet aircooled PC if you're using slow, cool running components. (One of the new 35w AMD CPUs and a low end graphics card for example can be passively cooled.)

Aircooling starts to get a bit more difficult when you have to deal with large quantities of heat though.

An Intel Quad QX6700/6800 is supposed to have a heat output of 130w (exactly double a Core 2 Duo's 65w).

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2007q ... dex.x?pg=1

A Nvidia GF8800GTX card at stock speeds has a heat output of 131.5w.

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/disp ... dup_8.html


(Chart taken from Xbitlabs.com graphics card review)

At reasonable cost levels you're probably looking at something like this PC for the aircooled alternative:


Falcon26's PC (C2D E6600 @3.2ghz, Nvidia 8800Ultra)

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=41722

That aircooled PC has four running fans (3x Scythe SFF21D 800rpm plus the Corsair PSU fan).

If you ignore the different cases and hard drive layouts that's actually quite similar to echn111's PC which also uses four running fans (3xNexus 120mm fans plus the Seasonic PSU fan). The watercooled PC has the pump running also.


echn111's PC (C2D E6600@3ghz, Nvidia 8800GTX)

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=41300

It would be interesting to compare actual noise levels of the two (using the same case, PSU and hard drive solution) side by side for comparison.

Just looking at these two PCs doesn't really answer the question though.

Both the PCs above are using the cooler Intel Core2 Duo processors rather than Core 2 Quad processors (or AMD 4x4).

They also only use single Nvidia 8800GTX/Ultra cards (ATI HD2900XT cards are hotter). If you wanted dual cards in SLI (or HD2900XT crossfire) plus quad core you could potentially end up with a far hotter PC than either of these two.

So what do you do if you want a quiet PC whilst still using the hottest desktop PC components around?

Aircooling using standard components is possible but you start having to turn the fan speeds right up.

The other option is to make the heatsinks bigger and more intricate. Most people are limited by only looking at retail parts and layouts. You could always get a local engineering firm to make you some custom heatsinks (or even a case!) as a special order. <the "Mega Ninja"> Not a cheap option but one that would work.

Another option would be to get a case such as the Zalman TNN500AF or the new Thermalright cases they were showing recently. If they work well as passive cases they should be really good with the airflow from a fan or two added in. (The TNN500AF would need an additional PSU to run the graphics cards).


Thermalright Cases Shown at Computex 2007

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article744-page2.html

It wouldn't be silent but could potentially work well with hot components.

Those are the options I'd consider for an aircooled only PC anyway.

The best option overall for a hot PC (ignoring cost) looks like it could be a hybrid passive cooling/watercooling solution.

That's the way my PC is gradually moving and lets you use the best bits of both watercooling and aircooling.

When you're looking at the hottest components watercooling suddenly becomes a viable option. There's always a point where it's no longer sensible to just add bigger heatsinks.

Using watercooling you can transport the heat out of the case to a large external radiator and you can even use individual loops minimising the amount of cooling performance required from each individual radiator.

Using a case such as the Zalman TNN500AF for example allows you to no longer require an exhaust fan to cool the motherboard components (a major weakness of typical watercooling setups). The Zalman case uses heatsinks on the rear of the motherboard to cool the components.


Internal TNN500AF layout with modified northbridge cooler

All the heat produced by the CPU and graphics card could then be pulled out of the case and cooled using a series of pumpless passive radiators as seen here:


The Linux Journal Quiet Server

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8292

If cost and effort was really no option you'd connect the PC water cooling to your house cold water tank instead with the pump a long way away.

You're still left with the usual PSU (using the Zalman case you'd need an additional PSU for the graphics cards) and hard drive quieting issues of course but apart from that it should make a very fast but also very quiet PC.

The pump is not the biggest factor. If you isolate it, it makes less sound than the nexus fans. Preventing the pump from touching the case is straight forward. I cannot hear my waterpump but I can hear my Nexus fans. The biggest factor continue to be the fans. However, I will say that some pumps do make some noise to which I can only say: don't buy noisy pumps.

And if you dismiss the pump from the equation, that is why watercooling, which normally requires less fans (or lower speed fans) to achieve the same cooling, is less noisy for a high powered system, because the latter requires more airflow.




If the end result is something that looks 'cool' but is noisy, that's a failure and nothing to brag about.

My first attempt at watercooling was a failure and resulted in a noisy system with the pump being at fault. That doesn't mean air is more quiet than water. You learn and improve. In the end, you really can't go against the laws of physics. Water is simply a better medium for dissipating heat than air.

WR304: I agree that at low power levels, air and water are about the same, and the extra effort involved with water is a waste. There's no point in even considering water here.

At higher power levels, water beats air for cooling. Even in systems with the same number of fans, the watercooled system can run the fans at lower RPM and hence make less noise. Water is just a better substance than air for cooling and that's just a fact.

As for the pump, well, my first WC system use a so called "silent" Laing DDC 350 which came as part of a standard swiftech kit. It was the noisest thing in the PC. Anyway, I've learned a bit since then and pump noise is no longer an issue.

In either of these cases, you're not going to achieve total silence because you still have moving parts (i.e. the fans), but water requires less fans (or less fan speed) to achieve the same result, and will be more quiet. The two biggest problems with my current PC are the fans and the PSU and I haven't figured out how to handle them in a cost effective manner just yet.

As for the TNN500, it's just a giant heatsink! I wouldn't categorize it as either water or air and it's not really using airflow. (I actually considered buying one but didn't like the look of the case...)

I'll be moving to a quad in a few months and redoing my entire system as my current system cannot handle the load (at overclocked levels) without noise increasing. (although that passive water setup you've shown is probably overkill for me )

A suspended Eheim 1048 insolated in foam was still louder than a nexus 120mm at 6v. So that would be around 500rpm, which is where i run my fans at on my air cooled rigs.

As far as i'm aware of, there are no quieter or better quality pumps than eheim, and the 1048 is one of their quietest models.

Also every WC system ive seen, even yours that was linked in this very discussion, has obvious bubbles, no matter how much you try to bleed them all out you never can get them all, and the bubbles make an audible noise.

Enheim pumps are not that powerful and consequently are not recommended for overclocked or restrictive systems. I believe they are 120v ac pumps - most people choose 12v dc pumps these days. I have a D5 and it could probably keep up with the best enheim at its lowest speed setting.

Air bubbles are not a problem if you bleed your system properly.

Good pumps make zero noise if they have no air going through.

We can reduce the number of fans of a watercooled system to 1 or 2:
* Watercooling other hot motherboard components is possible, if needed (passive cooling works in most cases). Various solutions exist (chipset and mosfets waterblocks, or even the new upcoming RoG asus motherboard with an ingenious heatpipe + waterblock solution).
* Zero fan PSU's exist such as those made by Yesico, which can power a high end system.
* HDD's can ALSO be put in a watercooled enclosure, but i don't think it's worth the trouble. A passive solution such as Silentmaxx one works well enough with Raptor drives...

My previous system was only using 1 and only 1 fan, a PAPST 4412 N2GL, placed on the water radiator, inside the case. I had a 115W running CPU (overclocled) and various GFX cards (all watercooled) on an Asus A7N8X, the motherboard passively cooled in the half chamber of a YY cube. Never had any problem with it (it still runs fine). Adding just one fan to that system produced noticeably more noise.

Watercooling aside from the performance it allows, is meant to "transport" the heat to a more manageable place where it can be dissipated without turbulence and in a quiet fashion.
Some people also go external, and make a "cooling box" which itself is put in another room, thus making the PC itself virtually silent. It's the same approach as using a NAS for silence purposes: just move the noisy components away. Only watercooling allows to transport heat to another room in a silent manner.

Have you got any links that measure how much noise is created by bubbles please?

Looking through Google and the Xtremesystems.com forum I didn't find much beyond passing references. There are lots of discussions of waterblock hot spots caused by air bubbles but nothing specific about how much noise bubbles could create.

The specs for the external Eheim 1048 pump are:

Pump Output Approx (l/h) 600
Del.head approx Hmax (m) 1,5
Power Consumption (W) 10

http://www.eheim.com/universal.htm

The specs for the submerged Eheim 1000 pump (as used in the Zalman Reserator 2) are:

Pump Output Approx (l/h) 150-300
Del.head approx Hmax (m) 0,5
Power Consumption (W) 5

http://www.eheim.com/compact.htm

When submerged within a Zalman Reserator 2 the Eheim 1000 pump seems quiet. It's a lot quieter than the single Scythe SFF21D 800rpm fan in my case anyway.

@echn111: I agree watercooling definitely has a place in cooling a hot PC quietly. My PC is partially watercooled nowadays.

I'm not so sure that active watercooling is the way forwards though.

Even Nexus fans at low speed aren't literally silent. Per your previous post:

"In this system, the nexus fans generate the most noise." echn111

If you could get rid of those fans it would still give you a noticeable noise decrease.

When you get down to 1 or 2 fans getting rid of even a quiet fan makes a big difference.

I've never actually seen anyone showing a watercooled Zalman TNN500AF case. You could passively cool the Core 2 Quad CPU via the case and then you'd watercool the 8800GTX graphics card via an external Zalman Reserator 2.

Now a completely fanless Core 2 Quad/ 8800 GTX system would be cool.

My current PC is moving in that direction but using a standard Antec Solo case it still needs one exhaust fan.

It's fairly quiet but is still clearly audible when there's little background noise.


My PC (Core 2 Duo E6700 @3ghz, Nvidia 8800GTS 640mb)

It's based on an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (10*300, 3ghz) and an 8800GTS 640mb card (core 648, shader 1600, memory 1000).

The CPU is passively cooled by a Scythe Ninja rev A heatsink. The graphics card is cooled by a Zalman ZM-GWB8800 GTS VGA Water Block connected to a Zalman Reserator 2.

It runs quite happily with a single Scythe SFF21D 800rpm exhaust fan. The Nesteq PSU is in semi-fanless SSM mode so the fan doesn't spin normally).

Temperatures aren't too bad: (Different room temperatures as I've copied and pasted the results from earlier posts).

CPU Temperatures

At a room temperature of 25.5c

CPU idle: 36c approx (using Intel Speedstep 6*300, 1.8ghz)
CPU 100% load: 74c approx as shown by coretemp (The load temperature showed as 72c in Intel TAT tool).

(Loading was one hour of Intel TAT tool on both cores):

In actual use the CPU temperatures are nowhere near these synthetic numbers. In practice when gaming etc the CPU hardly ever goes above the 60c mark.

Graphics Card Temperatures

At a room temperature of 24c:

GPU idle: 37c (Underclocked to core 100mhz/shader 300mhz/memory 400mhz)
GPU 100% Load: 56c

(Looping the first 3D Mark 2006 Shader Model 3 benchmark (the airship and giant sea dragon one) for an hour. This is at default 1280x1024 no AA.)

This should be loading the card fairly well:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article650-page5.html

In actual use the GPU load temperature when gaming tends to vary between 50c and 56c depending on how stressful the game is.

wasnt looking for the most powerful, was looking for the quietest, which is what i said.

and even when you bleed all the air bubbles you can, you still have some left, and they do make noise.

No i dont have a link to how much noise bubbles make. But they are audible, and my air cooled rigs are not. So its louder than air alone.

I dont see how anything can be more quiet than a 500rpm nexus, see'ing how i have to have my ear within 2 inches of the fan to hear anything from it at all. So its quieter than basically inaudible? If you can hear your fans from a seated position with it sitting on your desk like in my configuration, then their running too fast.