Water Cooling on the Cheap and Quiet?

Looks great, I am messaging MIkeC to see if he can review it.

I've run across systems like this before. Don't let your expectations get too high; they tend to have very low-quality pumps and make an incredible amount of noise for their size. I'm not sure how effective they are, but for the target audience on SPCR, a good air cooler gets a better result for less money.

I don't think that's an issue here, nor with Asetek's competitor; the LCLC system.
These are designed for OEMs, with 50,000h MTBF and principally no maintenance.

Noise level and cooling performance is roughly the same as for any "average" cooler with 12cm fan.

The main advantage of these coolers are that they put a lot less stress on the motherboard than the generic 12cm cooler. A second advantage is that the hot exhaust air isn't drawn into the PSU.

Cheers
Olle

Saw that...
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... highlight=

probably too loud, but it looks like a nice idea.

probably could use your own fan....................

Too bad the price isn't. Average cooling performance for $150? I'll pass.

Edit: The price is actually $80. That's my mistake. My point is still the same.

5 xigmateks=1 coolIT!

At a slightly higher price you'll get the Siberian Tiger II with superior performance.

Cheers
Olle

Why would anyone sane consider a sealed/all-in-one liquid cooling outfit.

A) They're usually jank. B) Only set-up for processors, which means this doesn't eliminate any fans, and just adds pump noise.

These set-ups sometimes require more fans to compensate for the fact the fan on this rad is not going to exhaust much case air.

people dont really test water cooling kits properly or post about them properly.

also, this cooler is 79 dollars.

Temperatures are normally the same for air to water. It is only when you want to go pure silence that air always fails, or when you want to over clock. water will have 10 degree less temps if you crank the cpu 20% higher and raise voltages.

water is always better, always.

i cant stand this watercooling forum at times

No one who really owns watercooling systems replies.

I lean towards water cooling more for temperatures rather than silence, but in both respects you might as well liquid cool every single component you can find blocks for, or nothing at all.

Just my opinion.

when water is stabilized it maintains a certain temperature.

it can never be as cold as air as air is always new and blows freshly on the chip at room temperatue.

watercooling will always be 3-4 degrees warmer (Farenheit) than high volume air. However, air is pathetic at COOLING compared to water. it has no heat capacity. you could never ever get as cool with air as with water.

The simplest, quietest, fanless water cooling setup beats any air cooler blasting away. People just dont want to invest the money and the effort and have never seen it done personally.

i do not cool the chipset and hardrives by water. A very slow fan, the slowest possible 120 mm that will spin takes care of the entire case. the case is a box and heats up, it stops dust buildup, but if werent for the sides, i would never have needed a fan. I always look for a lower wattage northbridge. I feel that more loops and block impedes flowrate to the real bombers, the cpu and gaming graphics card.

1. Requires no more maintenance than a heat pipe cooler.
2. More rugged and portable(*) than a heat pipe cooler of same cooling capacity.
3. Better cooling capacity than a heat pipe cooler of similar ruggedness.
4. Fairly cheap, when bought in larger quantities.

(*) As in "Put the fully assembled computer in a cardboard box and drop it repeatedly on the floor from 1-2 feet height, to simulate regular mail handling." If the computer survives it's "rugged and portable".

- If I was heavily into computer games, visiting LAN parties everywhere, but not wanted to spend lots of time physically working with the hardware this would be my cooling of choice.
- If I were an OEM, designing a gaming rig to be built in large quantities at one location and then shipped nation- or worldwide, a tailored version of this would also be my first pick.

Cheers
Olle

Now I'm confused

True. Watercooling can achieve lower temperatures than air cooling. I have two faults with watercooling. First, its expensive. Yes, you do get better temperatures, but at what cost? I'd rather spend $40 for a Xigmatek and get 70C load temps than spend $200+ to get 15+C cooler load temps or even a higher OC. Value. $40 will get you a 30% OC, $200 might get you 20% more. (These numbers are made up, but I think they are conservative and fairly accurate.) Is it worth it? To me, no way. Second, today, watercooling doesn't seem quieter than air cooling. I can build an essentially silent computer with air cooling. Or I can spend $200 extra, remove the two slow spinning fans on the CPU and GPU and get it literally silent. The noise difference is minimal. (Or at least to me)

can you hear your computer on vs off?

I can only hear my hd spin if I put my ear 1 foot from the case.

that has to be quieter than any slow moving fan setup I have made or seen.

If you want a good source for H2o info, SPCR is NOT the place to be. I'm a regular over at XtremeSystems for precisely this reason.

I'll have to post updated pics of my folding rig here someday. I'd like to see the dissenters get a GTX280, 8800GTS 512, Q9550 and 8Gb of DDR2 900 OC'd in their p180 quietly with air. ain't gonna happen.

re: cost

I am using a GPU block I purchased in 2006 on my GTX280. Don't tell me you'd be able to do the same with an air cooler. That's $45 in the bank, and when i comes time to upgrade again, it'll be another $45 in the bank.

As for temps, I see 44c tops on the quad core with 2 GPUs in the loop. I'd love to see an air cooler do that with any semblance of quiet.

Q9550 is nice and cool anyway - comparatively speaking - as in: it's actually quite difficult to get that chip to overheat with anything but a major overclock.

Don't know about the GTX280, but my 4850+S1 knocks an 8800GTS into a cocked hat, and 8GB RAM makes no appreciable difference.

And I have it in a P182. And it is a lot quieter (and a lot less hassle) than it would be if it was water cooled. QED.

Q9550 @ 3.4 GHz is a heat beast, and it's sitting at 54c (hottest core) all-out load right now with 3x [email protected] clients and linpack running simultaneously.

8800GTS 512 absolutely wipes the floor with 4850 when it comes to folding (what it's used for). GTX280 is in a whole 'nother world than a 4850, especially when taking folding into consideration.

Right now I'm running my fans at 500 RPM (inaudible); the HDDs are actually the most audible thing in my system. Neither of the GPUs tops 45c at full load (2x [email protected] GPU2 + 2x Furmark).

8Gb DDR2 900 adds to system temps. Since I cool with H2o all the heat from the GPUs and CPUs is dumped outside and the DDR2, chipsets, mosfets, etc. operate passively in a much cooler environment.

Is H2o more hassle? Yes, but only if you don't enjoy working with/ around it

Have you compared your current system to the same system under water? If not, how do you know it is "a lot quieter (and a lot less hassle) than it would be if it was water cooled"? See, from where I read it looks like you're just regurgitating the usual objections I see at SPCR-- objections which positively reek of inexperience with H2o cooling.

No judgments, just observations

I just put on the zalman vga block for the 3870, I have a e8400, 4 gb ram, and... the system at the most extreme ends of game at 1920x1200 2008/09 gaming programs runs at:

37 C.

Video card? 40C

This is during max frames gaming. idle, the system is at 34 for cpu and 34 for vga. Thats down from 37 idle on air at non silence level, and 70 C at the reference level of the ati card.

the only sound is the battery backup hum and the scythe sflex at 7 volts in the back. That's really freakin quiet.

I can overclock up to 3.5+ and apparently the temps only go up 2 C on load.

It is an old zalman reserator blue boy tower with a new water block "5" edition and a 3870/50 video card block. This was NOT hard to assemble and there is no possibility of it leaking. the simple hose clamps are foolproof! just cut the pipe straight, cover the nozel fully, then slide over the clamps. really fast assembly. The slow part was the vga block as it uses a dual block configuration for the gpu/ram area and the vrm is another area.

However, scythe fans are 20 bux a piece. I would have needed 3 fans more, cpu, gpu, and front fan, to make it a silent system, also a vga block for 40 dollars, and a vgafor about the same. THat really isnt cheaper. In the long run, the only expense in a wc setup is the vga block. I changed the old cpu block as the new ones are simpler to fit without much thought and half the weight. I could have used the same block from 754 up through 1366..... how many air cooling cpu coolers can do that???

Technically, I could have forgone the new vga block as well and use a universal with just huge ram heatsinks. I know it would have been safe, but this is an ice cold remedy. You can use custome huge ram sinks and vrms on water cooled as theres no clearance issues. waterblocks are very tiny. You could use 2 inch ram heatsinks if they existed.

Don't be silly, the Q9550 is not a heat beast, and a hottest-core load temp of 54ºC on water certainly does not make it one. I have a Rev.C @ 3.4GHz on air with a single 120mm fan @ 360rpm and I have found it impossible to get the hottest core over 61º no matter what I throw at it. 61º is a perfectly safe temperature, and that's with an S1-cooled 4850 in the same box. Prescott was a heat beast, Kentsfield was bloody hot without decent cooling, Yorkies - even the 9550 with its monster cache - aren't even in the same league.



Granted, my apologies there.



Same could be said for my obsession with disappearing every cable in my systems, so I know and respect what you're talking about; the love of that process is the main reason most of us are here. I should have said: "less hassle from my point of view"



No, I have not done a direct comparison. I do have experience with water cooling though, and while I would never claim to have anything like a comprehensive knowledge, certainly not of the quietest/most efficient kit, I do know enough to be able to conclude that replacing three 300-600rpm 120mm fans with a water pump and one or two such fans, regardless of quality of components, would not bring me any silencing benefit and would, for me, add a lot of "hassle".

You say yourself that the loudest components in your system are its hard drives; I cannot hear my hard drives, period. I think most of the objections you refer to here are based around the same logic - that there are greater silencing benefits to be had for much less effort than installing water cooling, which brings with it its own set of silencing challenges.

I would however still humbly retract what I said in response to your original claim anyway. In my haste to respond to your challenge I didn't register the fact that you have both gfx cards in one system. Not that I'm saying you're right of course, just that I'm definitely not

Zalman reserator system is basically silent.

It also is silent when I play Left 4 Dead. Thats an accomplishment as that game cranks out your system and is multi-core enabled. It is fun to never have to think about video card and cpu temps ever. Never have to turn up a fan or think about it.

The only hassle I find in watercooling is installing the custom blocks. really, one does that with all systems, air or water. The tubes take about a total of 10 mins, filling 1 minute, praying, 24 hours.

So far no leaks in 4 years.

Also, dust is greatly minimized. You can put your single fan down super low and still have a cool case. no heat from cpu or gfx card is entering the case, just my tower. You really have to experience a silent water cooling option to see how awesome it is.

The zalman reservator is a special case though, the only retail water cooler optimized for passive operation that I know of.

Watercooling is a good way to deal with hotspots in tight places (between two sli`ed gpus for example).

That said, I think it`s certainly possible to cool a power hungry computer using only air cooling, as long as you can work around the limitations of the typical atx layout. This might mean building your own case (or heavily modifying one) and at this point it`s not really less hassle or expense than water cooling.