hey,

I was wondering is Zalman the Reserator1 strong enough to keep an Athlon 64 3200+ and a Radeon 9800XT cool, in one loop? Or is there something else I should do? Also would the reserator still be a good radiator if I had it anodized black?

I'll top that one.

Anyone dare try it to cool a P4 3.4C GHz and a GeForce 6800 Ultra....

(Should consider using my new system as an oven...

Patience guys, patience.

A SPCR review of the Reserator1 is in the works.
In fact, it is literally on the workbench.

Fantabulous news

Throw the hottest stuff at it.

It seems to be the only watercooling kit I'm even contemplating at the moment . First will see how the noise does with air-cooled setup anyway... .

well, i just finished my watercooling setup last night and it's extremely quiet, you have to strain to hear it over the crt monitor buzz. and my system is a high performance system, with a 2x120 rad with fans and pump and reservoir mounted in an external box. it'll keep my cpu well under 50c even in warm weather.

the zalman will have to be 100% acoustically dead or an absolute top performer before it can even budge the prowess of DIY

Give us some pic's then of the setup?

give us some specs too chylld

details of my setup are available here. lots of pics

quick specs:

- holden vk commodore heatercore (essentially a BIX2 with more core area at half the price)
- 2 papst 4412fgl fans @6v each
- eheim 1048 pump
- all mounted in an external watercooling box made out of wood to absorb vibration.

cpu block atm is a swiftech mcw5002 which is going to be replaced by a silverprop cyclone se next week. (which should perform 5-10c better.)

any questions probably better directed to that thread i linked above to avoid clogging up this thread.

How did you arrive at that, chylld? Sounds hugely optimistic to me.

the SE is known to perform roughly on par with the white water, maybe 1 or 2 degrees worse. the cascade performs 1-2 degrees better than the whitewater, and the cascade's been known to perform around 10 degrees better than the mcw5002 under heavy overclock situations with an athlon xp.

chylld,

I'm sure you knew this, but for the benefit of all others:

block performance depends on your fluid volume (how much water/coolant you have running in your system), tubing (diameter, pressure drop), flow rate (l/min), radiator efficiency (W/h), etc.

It's just not the block that counts. All the components in the water cooling setup count.

As such, comparing results from one review to review and doing simple calculations between them can be misleading.

regards,
halcyon

Halycon, care to give a watercooling-wise noob a brief overview of these things? At an educated guess, I'd hypothesize the following:

fluid volume (how much water/coolant you have running in your system) - "the more the better"

tubing (diameter, pressure drop) - no idea really. Bigger would allow for more water to flow easier?

flow rate (l/min) - "The more the better" again

radiator efficiency (W/h), - The most obvious of "The more the better" .

So what's with the tubing exactly, preassure wise & so on? Also - does the TYPE of fluid make a difference? To put it plainly "Is Evian better than Volvic or tapwater" sort of thing?

halcyon: indeed, trying to gauge performance on raw specifications alone can be a costly mistake. often, a better performing waterblock introduces more restriction into the loop and thus there is a need to balance flow rate <-> performance.

for clarification, my 5-10c estimation is derived from the fact that people who have switched from mcw5000/2 waterblocks to ww/cascade waterblocks has yielded a 10+ degree difference for them.

shathal:

fluid volume is largely irrelevant unless you have a ridiculously large volume of coolant (e.g. stored in a tank buried under your backyard). if you're referring to the difference in volume with reservoir vs no reservoir, then there will be no difference since the system will reach equilibrium some time or another anyway. more fluid simply means it'll take longer to reach this equilibrium.

tubing: bigger is better. i've seen some flow rate tests that show 1/2" ID tubing perform around twice as good as 1/2" OD tubing.

flow rate: generally you want as high as you can go. there's a point where if the flow rate is too high then you lose performane due to water friction, but with any of the regular consumer pumps this won't be a problem.

radiator efficiency: you want something nice and big (2x 120), heatercore style (1-pass or 2-pass) that doesn't drop the pressure too much. again, balance of flow rate <-> performance.

the type of fluid makes a difference, yes. i have heard that some radiator coolants apparently reduce the cooling ability of water although i'm unable to confirm those claims. what i do know is that you want to run distilled water + corrosion inhibitant. and note: purified / demineralised water is not as good as distilled water; high school chemistry should have taught you that.

Those guys must be pumping some serious heat! Keep us posted; I'm curious about the improvement you see.

Another review popped up from a favored review site of mine:

http://www.bit-tech.net/review/315

Forgot to add, they also review the brand spanking new VGA waterblcok.

Not to mention the pretty pictures and witty comments.

The ~170 Watt setup is taken care of in pretty good fashion, maybe with some improvements to pump and tubing it will be able to cool the Prescott/6800 U volcanic setup.

Whats everyones take on this?

NICE review.

'course, it remains to be seen what "their" idea of quiet is.

Pitty, though, in a way as I'd had my hopes up that maybe (just maybe) it'd be able to cope with 3.4 GHz Prescott + 6800 Ultra that I am planning...

Ah well - Reservator 2 mayhap? .

I'm getting it anyways, that and a 6800 Ultra (or the R420 if its good).

Or a Pool table..

I need a good review with comparison between Pool table and new video card :S

Zalman+6800 U is about the same price as a good pool table. Anyone got some experience on this matter ?

i'd highly recommend the pool table i have one and i wouldn't trade it for any computer.

but for that price, maybe the pool table isn't as good as mine.. possibly. mine cost around AUD2500

Damn, do you really need to put out that much money to get a pool table that'll fulfill the basic pool playing needs every man has.

no you don't need to put out that much money, but it's just nice to have friends over and remark "damn, that is one fine pool table"

I'm looking at one in the 1000 aud range, hope that will cover my desire to become better at pool (mostly for showing off at bars and clubs)

heheh that's exactly what i did as soon as i started uni a warning though: after you get good at pool, no one at the bar will want to play you anymore