Cooling limit of the Reserator....

The alternative to direct air cooling

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mibi
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Cooling limit of the Reserator....

Post by mibi » Mon Apr 18, 2005 3:47 pm

Hi, long time reader, first time poster.

I am considering purchazing the reserator for my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) .... but since it will be a fairly powerful PC i would like to know the limits of the Reserators passive cooling and flow ...

for example.. i know It ships with a CPU and GPU blocks and some people use the second GPU block on their northbridge....

but could the reserator effecticly cool an A64 chip decent GPU, northbridge, and two raptors drives... or is this asking too much?

also would there not be enough flow to cool those parts or is it too much heat...

also would adding another Reserator tower in the chain add a significgant cooling benefit?

thanks guys.

eander315
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Post by eander315 » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:53 pm

The kit does not come with the GPU blocks. Those must be purchased separately.

It should be able to cool the CPU, GPU, and chipset. You should be able to sufficiently cool the drives with a slow, quiet 120mm fans a lot easier than trying to add it to the loop.

Make usre you read up on silencing hard drives and the power supply. A Reserator alone will not make your system silent or even quiet. You'll find that the drives and your power supply fans are very annoying once the other fans have been eliminated.

Slaugh
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Post by Slaugh » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:17 pm

I have a Reserator that cools both my AMD Athlon64 3400+ (S754) and my ATI Radeon X800XT PE without problem. My motherboard is an Asus K8N-E Deluxe (nForce3) which doesn't need a chipset fan. Right now, Cool'n'Quiet is enabled. I use both Zalman waterblocks. The only thing I'm not using is the flow indicator. It was installed first but I decided to remove it to stop the clicking noise it made. I must also say that my power supply is installed "outside" my case because it's fanless. I only use an undervolted Nexus 120mm fan @ 700RPM, everything else is passively cooled.

Here are my temperatures:

CPU w/ C'n'Q (idle): Around 30C (29C right now)
CPU w/o C'n'Q (idle): Around 35-40C
CPU (full load): Under 50C (45C last time I checked)
GPU (full load): Always under 50C

The GPU waterblocks are not included in the kit. You need to buy them separately. There's also no additive included with the kit. Only use distilled water and add some waterwetter and you'll be fine.

Zalman is supposed to release a chipset waterblock but I have no idea when it will be available... I know Rusty used the second GPU waterblock to cool its northbridge without trouble. See this thread for a photo.

For more details about my system, see this thread.

Green Shoes
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Post by Green Shoes » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:48 pm

Unless you're planning on doing some serious overclocking (like pushing the HTT to over 300MHz) the reserator should be more than enough to do everything you need. Be wary of nForce 4 mobos, as the combination of a hot chipset and a longer graphics card (any of the higher-end models) can really wreak havoc.

I would also steer clear of trying to watercool the hard drives; it adds too many variables and is much more trouble than it's worth. I agree with the others, an undervolted Nexus/Yate Loon will get you much farther with the HDDs than watercooling them will. Good luck!

mibi
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Post by mibi » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:00 pm

thanks for the info...

the reason i ask about cooling HD's is trying to silence a Raptor can be a pain... however i could put the raptors in a enclosed watercooled box like the SilentStar Dual or the Aqua Drive and it shold be almost silent... rather than a raptor buzzing away trying to be cooled by a fan buzzing away as well....

so i just wanted to make sure that the raptors wouldnt be added too much heat to the chain to be unable to cool the rest of the parts...

thanks

btw.... any idea about two Reserators in the chain... i know, it sounds rediculous ...

nici
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Post by nici » Tue Apr 19, 2005 3:27 am

I would rather enclose the HDDs in enclosures, good cooling and dampens the noise as much or better as the water-thingies for HDD cooling. I have a samsung spinpoint in a "Level HDD Shell" just lying on the bottom of the case on some foam so the bottom half doesnt get any airflow, i have yet to see it reach above 35c. Basicaly it desnt get any airflow, i have no front fan either. Two of these, or Silentmaxx, or whatever is available where you live, should do the job nicely without adding heat or restriction to the water-loop :)

I dont ven need to enable AAM on the HD when its in the encosure as i dont hear the seeks with it disabled, it is very quiet. Ok so i can hear the seeks if i put my ear 5cm from the drive, but thats not how i use my computer :lol:

edit: Forgot to add the picture... :roll:

Image

luggage
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Post by luggage » Tue Apr 19, 2005 3:42 am

mibi wrote:btw.... any idea about two Reserators in the chain... i know, it sounds rediculous ...
Run them in parallel in that case.

R1 - CPU - Raptor
R2 - GPU - NB - Raptor

But I doubt you will need it. For a top end SLI config perhaps?

Sure if you have no money limits you can have every single thing on a separate loop :P

Rusty075
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Post by Rusty075 » Tue Apr 19, 2005 4:38 am

A single Reserator should be plenty for most A64 systems, barring some crazy Sli rig.

In our review testing the Reserator produced a °C/W number of about 0.38. If you know your CPU and GPU wattage, (you can get estimates of those online, check out Xbitlabs.com's excellent articles on both) you can work backwards to get a pretty good guess at what you max load temps could be. For example, say you had an A64 3500+ (winchester) and an X800 Pro VGA card. The CPU and GPU each max out at about 48 watts a piece, so you're talking about a rough total of about 100 watts max. Multiply that by the reserator's °C/W of 0.38, and you get a temperature rise of about 38°. So if your house has an ambient of about 22°, you'll likely never see CPU temps above 60°. (that °C/W was measured at the CPU...you'll likely see GPU temps higher than that, but that's ok) That max temp would only be seen after 12+ hours of continuous 100% loading of both CPU and GPU, which is essentially impossible to do anyway.


If you would happen to decide to run a pair of Reserators to impress your friends and neighbors, parallel will be the only way to run them, but not just for the performance aspects. Running reserators in series will result in a seriously messy office. The reserator isn't sealed on top, so putting one in front of the other, such as: CPU-->GPU-->Res-->Res-->, will result in the second tank overflowing out the breather hole on top, due to the differences in pump restriction. That would completely ruin you day. :lol:

mibi
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Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 3:34 pm

2nd radiator?

Post by mibi » Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:03 pm

could a seperate passive radiator like this one be used with the Reserator in series to bring temps down? ... and if so where in the loop would it go? ..and would the Res's pump be able to handle a second radiator of this size...

its Size (hxlxd): 35x23x5cm and it attaches to the outside of a side panel.

Image

thanks

eander315
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Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2005 9:53 am

Post by eander315 » Fri Apr 22, 2005 10:11 am

You could add that to the loop, doesn't really matter where, really. The Eheim pump that comes in the Reserator is pretty weak, so you might have to replace it with an external pump to retain a reasonable flow rate. I've always kind of wondered if one of those Eheim 600 pumps would fit inside the Reserator. Should be nearly silent like the 300 but with a higher flow rate.

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