Which is more quiet: air or water?

Got a shopping cart of parts that you want opinions on? Get advice from members on your planned or existing system (or upgrade).

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
paapaa
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 1:24 am
Location: Finland

Which is more quiet: air or water?

Post by paapaa » Sun Mar 19, 2006 3:08 am

Hi!

I'm building a totally new system next summer. It will have these or very similar components:

AMD 4200+ X2 (A low wattage version, 55W or something)
NVidia 7900GT (around 64W)
2 x SATA hard drives
A totally passive PSU or a Seasonic S12.

I want the system to be as quiet as possible (why else would I be here ;-) ) There are at least two viable options:

1. Water cooled system. CPU, GPU and North Bridge will be water cooled and the radiator will be external. The radiator is placed just outside the rear case fan. Is that possible? The case fan can thus cool both the case (HDDs and RAM etc.) and the radiator. Noise sources: 1 case fan + pump (maybe Swiftech MCP350).

2. Air cooled system. CPU and GPU both have large heatsinks and 12cm fans running at low speed. The case fan removes the heat from the case. Noise sources: 3 x 12cm fans.

What do you think? I believe the water cooled system might be quieter if I really can get away with just one case fan and a big radiator. It might be also possible to use a totally passive radiator, but I'm not sure if it is wise to leave the case interior totally uncooled? Also which system has more overclocking potential without the need to increase noise?

Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

McBanjo
Posts: 671
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:40 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by McBanjo » Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:20 am

Water probibly wins easy but you'll need atleast 1 case fan even if you have it watercooled. MOSFETs and some other components need some cooling. But you'll probibly be good with the PSU-fan (if you go Seasonic)
If you go with a fan-based cooler I think it's a good idea putting the radiator at the back and have 1 case-fan. Will gain some extra cooling for the case.
I don't have any experience personaly with watercooling so I can't say how much noise a pump does but unless it's a crappy one it's probibly lower than most fans.

Extra fans add around 2dB to the soundlvl even if every fan is the same with the same soundlvl.

When it comes to overclocking then water beats air in most senarios (if you live in Sahara then air is probibly bether).

pyro
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:36 am

Post by pyro » Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:49 am

Why not use 5 gallons of cooking oil!! No noise at all!lol

pyro
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:36 am

Post by pyro » Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:50 am

Here's the link to using 8 gall of cooking oil to cool ur computer.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/ ... _the_fans/

jaganath
Posts: 5085
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:55 am
Location: UK

Post by jaganath » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:36 am

A well-designed aircooled system will be as quiet, if not more so, than a WC setup. For instance, why add a case fan when you already have a fan on the CPU and GPU? Efficient ducting reduces the fan count to two, if the PSU is fanless.
Extra fans add around 2dB to the soundlvl even if every fan is the same with the same soundlvl.
It should be pointed out that most humans cannot detect a change in sound power of less than 3dB magnitude.
When it comes to overclocking then water beats air in most senarios (if you live in Sahara then air is probibly bether).
Huh? Why would air cooling give better results than water cooling if the air is at 40C+? That doesn't make any sense.

TD22057
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:00 am
Location: Southern California

Post by TD22057 » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:46 am

I started out air, figured water must be superior, then switched back to air. I'll admit that I wasn't a very experienced water cooler but I did do a lot of research. Here was my thought process with regard to the switch back to air cooling:

Water cooling generally gathers all the heat fairly silently (assuming a nice, quiet, foam mounted pump) and then moves it all to the radiator. At that point you have an air cooled system with 1 fan providing all the flow to cool all the components in your system. What I found was that this fan needed to run too fast to provide that kind of cooling.

There are quite a few threads around the forum that talk about how/why multiple slow fans are quieter than a single faster fan moving the same airflow. Since the heat from all your components ends up in one place, that one fan must run faster to provide the same cooling (forgetting the thermal startup margin that the water provides - I'm talking steady state). That was too much noice for me in addition to raising up my case temp and PWM temps to a high level since there was very little/no air flow over the motherboard components.

So, in the end I switched back to an air system. I was able to make it quieter and it's much cheaper and easier to play around w/ swapping components (which I tend to enjoy).

I'm certain there are ways to do a quiet water cooled system (reserator!) but for me it was easier to stick w/ air cooling.

McBanjo
Posts: 671
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:40 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by McBanjo » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:59 am

It should be pointed out that most humans cannot detect a change in sound power of less than 3dB magnitude.
2 extra fans is 4dB more ;-)
But yes, noise isn't an issue if you system needs only 1 extra fan.
Huh? Why would air cooling give better results than water cooling if the air is at 40C+? That doesn't make any sense.
I had this pointed out to me in this forum a while agoe. Aircooling suppose to be bether in very warm countrys. The reservoar acts like a cooker rather than a cooler or something.
Don't know the exact figures but moving air acts as if it's cooler than it acctually is (maby 36-38C or so) while the water holds steady 40C.

frankgehry
Posts: 1424
Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2004 5:00 am
Location: New York, NY

Post by frankgehry » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:28 am

Interesting you should ask. I just finished leak testing my new wc setup last night and replaced the xp-120 with a swiftech storm water block, d5 pump, and a single bi x-flow with a panlflo 120x38 L1A. This is not a hardcore setup by any means. My idle temps immediately dropped from 42 to 32 and with 2 x cpuburn the cpu temp never exceeds 42. I'm running the pump on setting 3 ( 5 = high speed). I now have the option of removing the case fans or setting them to 20%.

Honestly, I'm surprised. I'm not sure if it's all air vs wc. The storm water block is spring tensioned at 4 corners and the base finish is better than the xp-120 - very easy to install with good cpu contact. On the other hand, the D5/MCP655 is a big improvement over previous high flow pumps and the storm is a very good block. This combination works great.

My system sounds different, but not noisier, and I'm getting much better cooling with the option of adding higher performance graphics with little noise penalty if any. Without large air cooled heat sinks, there is an opportunity to build in smaller cases. Water cooling components take up space, but their placement is not as critical as in an air cooled solution.

Anyway, I would also pose this question at www.xtremesystems.org. They are using very efficient radiators and low speed yate loon fans, and my impression is they are very interested in quiet water cooling systems and are able to achieve excellent results.

Qwertyiopisme
Posts: 237
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2003 6:48 am
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Contact:

Post by Qwertyiopisme » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:35 am

McBanjo wrote:I had this pointed out to me in this forum a while agoe. Aircooling suppose to be bether in very warm countrys. The reservoar acts like a cooker rather than a cooler or something.
Don't know the exact figures but moving air acts as if it's cooler than it acctually is (maby 36-38C or so) while the water holds steady 40C.
If you manage to duplicate this then you'll be a millionare in a few minutes. That won't happen, probably the person in question was thinking of evaporative cooling (a sweaty human for instance) where a breeze will cool you down as it increases the amount of water vapor that evaporates.

FollowTheMusic
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2006 10:03 am

Post by FollowTheMusic » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:53 am

McBanjo wrote:When it comes to overclocking then water beats air in most senarios (if you live in Sahara then air is probibly bether).
Maybe he just meant -- you couldn't get any water there? :D

McBanjo
Posts: 671
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:40 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by McBanjo » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:56 am

Qwertyiopisme wrote:If you manage to duplicate this then you'll be a millionare in a few minutes. That won't happen, probably the person in question was thinking of evaporative cooling (a sweaty human for instance) where a breeze will cool you down as it increases the amount of water vapor that evaporates.
Go outside, there you got it :-P
I assumed it was something like that but don't know for sure in the computerworld. Might be to low airflow for that to happen.
I'm not sure but I think it's something like -1 degree C per m/s the wind is blowing or something like that. You can't measure it with a termostat or so but people have frozen to death in -10 degree C while the same people would be ok at -30C becourse if you calc in the wind then the "real" temp at -10C would be -50C
That's a fact...but if it's the same inside a computer I don't know.

Putting water inside a small closed container makes it boil rather fast. That's also a fact.

But when it comes to computer and watercooling in heat areas and so I have no clue myself but I'm going on posts on the net so it might very well be falseand I'll be happy to be corrected :-)

McBanjo
Posts: 671
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:40 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by McBanjo » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:47 am

FollowTheMusic wrote:
McBanjo wrote:When it comes to overclocking then water beats air in most senarios (if you live in Sahara then air is probibly bether).
Maybe he just meant -- you couldn't get any water there? :D
:lol:

peteamer
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1740
Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2003 11:24 am
Location: 'Sunny' Cornwall U.K.

Post by peteamer » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:55 am

paapaa,

I currently have:
an XP 2400+ Thoroughbred (not a cool CPU @ stock, ) and it's overclocked and overvolted ~ 10% ...
and a Ge-Force 6600 vid card overclocked from 300MHZ on the GPU to 525MHZ...
all cooled by a WACC resevoir (Think Reserator with top inlet).

I have no active cooling on the resevoir and let convection take care of the water circulation, so therefore no pump either :D .


On top of that I have a soft mounted 92mm Panaflo @ 5V at the front bottom intake (can't hear it ), a 120mm Panaflo (Yes, I know.. :roll: ) @ 5V moving air around the top of the MOBO and a Seasonic S12 330W PSU that never ramps up, (Can't hear it )...


The noisiest thing?...

The blessed Altec lansing speaker system that suffers from mains hum!!!...


Temps?...

Ambient ~ 17-23C , CPU ~ 49-52C, GPU 44C in 2D, system ~29C and SeagateV 80GB ~29C whilst Folding 24/7... 8)


Hope this helps some. :D




Regards
Pete

frostedflakes
Posts: 1608
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:02 pm
Location: United States

Post by frostedflakes » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:56 am

IMHO, most systems can be easily cooled by a well-implemented air setup. Water is probably quieter in very high-power systems (overclocked dual-core, SLI, etc.), but for the average PC, I'd just stick with air. It's easier to set up and generally cheaper.

For example, my Athlon64 X2 3800+ and X800GTO are easily cooled by two 120mm fans @ ~600RPM. Am even considering switching to a fanless power supply to bring the fan count down to one. :)

paapaa
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 1:24 am
Location: Finland

Post by paapaa » Mon Mar 20, 2006 1:07 am

jaganath wrote:A well-designed aircooled system will be as quiet, if not more so, than a WC setup. For instance, why add a case fan when you already have a fan on the CPU and GPU? Efficient ducting reduces the fan count to two, if the PSU is fanless.
I'm not so sure a totally passive case is even possible. I think there are other smaller heat sources than just CPU, GPU and NB. With ducting and 2 fans on CPU and GPU you can't cool the NB or other smaller active components like power regulators of the motherboard. Also, the life of electrolytic capacitors halve when the temperature increases by 10 degrees C:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolyt ... ctrolytics

Without any case fans this will be a problem. Everyone has read about failed motherboard capacitors. This just means that, IMO, a case fan is mandatory no matter what kind of ducting or water cooling you use. So air-cooling still requires 3 fans at least.
jaganath wrote:It should be pointed out that most humans cannot detect a change in sound power of less than 3dB magnitude.
I think humans can detect differences as small as 1dB but 1dB difference is not significant, of course.
TD22057 wrote:Water cooling generally gathers all the heat fairly silently (assuming a nice, quiet, foam mounted pump) and then moves it all to the radiator. At that point you have an air cooled system with 1 fan providing all the flow to cool all the components in your system. What I found was that this fan needed to run too fast to provide that kind of cooling.
That is true, but if one fan has to be run too fast, you should be using a much bigger radiator and maybe 2-3 fans running much slower. That would eliminate the noise. There are radiators that take at least 3 x 12cm fans.

The question boils down to:

Is it less efficient to have the fans directly on CPU and GPU than to transfer the heat outside the case to a single big radiator with water and have the same (or 1 fewer) fans operating there? At least the free convection will be stronger outside the case and ducting simply cannot be as efficient as having the radiator outside the case. But, on the other hand, fans outside the case can be harder to muffle. On the other hand the ducts make the sound of internal fans louder.

jaganath
Posts: 5085
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:55 am
Location: UK

Post by jaganath » Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:23 am

I'm not so sure a totally passive case is even possible
My PC has been running passive for the last 12 months, also see the computers from Hush and Zalman TNN series of cases, amongst others.
Also, the life of electrolytic capacitors halve when the temperature increases by 10 degrees C:
Given the rate at which computer components become obsolete/are upgraded, you will have thrown your motherboard away long before the capacitors fail.
I think humans can detect differences as small as 1dB
No, you are incorrect:
The threshold of perception of the human ear is approximately three decibels

+1 dB ------------------------- Not Perceptible
Noise Control PDF-page 9
ducting simply cannot be as efficient as having the radiator outside the case.
Why not? Ducting efficiently transfers heated air to the exterior of the case, the radiator does likewise.
On the other hand the ducts make the sound of internal fans louder.
Not necessarily. Ducts can be lined with sound-absorbent material.

paapaa
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 1:24 am
Location: Finland

Post by paapaa » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:08 am

jaganath wrote: My PC has been running passive for the last 12 months, also see the computers from Hush and Zalman TNN series of cases, amongst others.

Given the rate at which computer components become obsolete/are upgraded, you will have thrown your motherboard away long before the capacitors fail.
I was just saying that temperature does affect the lifetime of electrolytic capacitors and that I have seen many cases of those failing. There are many things that affect the outcome, like the quality of components. Still, if your computer is fine after 12 months doesn't mean that it can't fail in next 12 months. At least HDDs and capacitors don't like very hot environment. In my opinion a motherboard (+ other components) should be usable at least 3 years (like my present A7N8X has been). After I upgrade, I usually sell my old gear so this is an issue to me.
I think humans can detect differences as small as 1dB
No, you are incorrect:
No I'm not, please see this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel

"Under controlled conditions, in an acoustical laboratory, the trained healthy human ear is able to discern changes in sound levels of 1 dB, when exposed to steady, single frequency ("pure tone") signals in the mid-frequency range. It is widely accepted that the average healthy ear, however, can barely perceive noise level changes of 3 dB."

1dB differences can be distinguished, but the difference means most likely nothing in practice. And that is what I wrote in previous message.
ducting simply cannot be as efficient as having the radiator outside the case.
Why not? Ducting efficiently transfers heated air to the exterior of the case, the radiator does likewise.
Ducting transfers the heat outside quite well, but the air the fan pulls in is from the case interior. That air is allways hotter than pure ambient air - at least without a case fan. (It is possible that I don't understand ducting as I've never done that, but I guess there is no "intake" duct that pulls in cold ambient air?)

It would be nice to know which is hotter: 2 fans on CPU and GPU and ducts, or 2 fans on an external radiator in WC system.
Ducts can be lined with sound-absorbent material.
That is very true and probably helps quite a bit. How difficult it is to build very quiet and efficient ducts in practice? Or are there any kind of kits sold to help in building?

I'm trying to gather as much information as possible before I actually start this project - I also wait for the AM2 socket. There are many factors that affect my decision - these are in order of priority:

1. Noise levels.
2. Long term system stability.
3. Overclockability.
4. Cost.
5. Ease of installation.
6. The fun factor ;-)
7. The looks.

jaganath
Posts: 5085
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:55 am
Location: UK

Post by jaganath » Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:35 am

Ducting transfers the heat outside quite well, but the air the fan pulls in is from the case interior. That air is allways hotter than pure ambient air - at least without a case fan. (It is possible that I don't understand ducting as I've never done that, but I guess there is no "intake" duct that pulls in cold ambient air?)
Intake ducts are very common; in fact the Antec SLK3000B comes with one pre-installed.
It would be nice to know which is hotter: 2 fans on CPU and GPU and ducts, or 2 fans on an external radiator in WC system.
Neither (all other things being equal); with aircooled you are transferring heat from a small area of metal (CPU/GPU heatsink) to air, with watercooled you are transferring heat from a larger area of metal (the radiator) to air-the water is simply a heat transport medium. The extra performance from watercooling comes from the larger surface area of the radiator rather than any inherent superiority of watercooling. I would have though that the pipes containing hot water would radiate heat inside the case, but the watercooling forum is the best place for such questions.

I must say, I think watercooling for the components you have chosen (X2 4200, 7900GT + 2 SATA HDD's) is major overkill, even if you overclock (depending on the level of overclock of course). Perhaps if you really overclock that system to the extreme, then watercooling will be the more quiet solution.
That is very true and probably helps quite a bit. How difficult it is to build very quiet and efficient ducts in practice? Or are there any kind of kits sold to help in building?
Bluefront is the best exponent of silent ducts on SPCR; a quick search through his posts will probably save you many hours of experimentation:

Bluefront- CPU duct examples

clubhouse
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:11 am
Location: London, UK

Post by clubhouse » Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:41 am

paapaa wrote:
Ducts can be lined with sound-absorbent material.
That is very true and probably helps quite a bit. How difficult it is to build very quiet and efficient ducts in practice? Or are there any kind of kits sold to help in building?
I'm also very interested in hearing more about ducting. I am installing a Scythe Ninja over a Dual Core Pentium and I know that I will definitely have to do some serious ducting to cool down the CPU with one fan mounted to the Ninja...

EDIT: oops posted at the same time... Thanks Jaganath for the link :)

paapaa
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 1:24 am
Location: Finland

Post by paapaa » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:13 am

I was confusing things: all the ducts indeed are intake ducts. But the hot air from the heatsink remains in the case for a while and makes other components' temperature rise. Is there any possibility to direct the heated air directly out of the case with an "exhaust duct" or is a case fan the only option?

I found a few interesting articles, like this:

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1259/

According to those tests, water cooling is slightly better in terms of C/W. I think the tests were conducted in quite unified manner using a CPU die simulator. They say that it doesn't take the "secondary heatpath effects" into account. Also individual designs might vary quite a lot.

WC seems to excel because one is able to use a big external radiator which dissipates heat even with free convection. Adding (multiple) very slow speed fans improve the results even more.

For me overclocking is also an issue. Although WC costs more, some of the costs are offset by better overclockability.

QuietOC
Posts: 1407
Joined: Tue Dec 13, 2005 1:08 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Post by QuietOC » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:51 am

Which is more quiet: air or water?
Neither.

Ultimately all the heat has to go into the air in either type of system. In a closed loop system the coolant has no cooling ability. In fact, all pump-based liquid coolant systems needs to move slightly more air than a direct air system as you need to remove the heat caused by the pump and the friction heat caused by the coolant flow.

You could use say the earth as your radiator instead of a air-water radiator and make a water-ground radiator like a home heat pump. There have been people you have run their computers like this. The advantage of using liquid coolant in an air-cooled system is really packaging--putting the water-air radiator wherever you want it. Which is why most cars use this type of cooling.

If you really want efficiency go for phase-change, and most computer cooling has now as the simplest phase-change based cooling is a heatpipe. And heatpipes are more efficient then pump-based, non-phase change water cooling.

The most efficient cooling is a water-based evaporative cooler. Evaporation is very good at removing heat. You can actually get steady-state water temperature below ambient air temperature with evaporative cooling. You do need to add water to those periodically and they humidify the air of course.

Then there is real refrigerant based systems.

Really you can make any of these silent with enough time/space/money.

It is a lot cheaper just buying a big tower heatsink like the Ninja.

jaganath
Posts: 5085
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:55 am
Location: UK

Post by jaganath » Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:12 am

Is there any possibility to direct the heated air directly out of the case with an "exhaust duct"
Yes, there is. In fact most standard Dell desktops come with a custom exhaust duct:

Image

Image

Dell duct
They say that it doesn't take the "secondary heatpath effects" into account
What is a "secondary heatpath effect"? :?

EndoSteel
Posts: 308
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2004 7:50 am
Location: Moscow, Russia
Contact:

Post by EndoSteel » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:51 am

paapaa
I'm not so sure a totally passive case is even possible.
It is: http://www.geocities.jp/numano333

Everyone has read about failed motherboard capacitors.
That's because some manufacturers are trying to save on electronic components: caps fail just because they're utter crap. Never heard of failed Rubycon\Nichicon\Sanyo\etc. capacitors.

I was just saying that temperature does affect the lifetime of electrolytic capacitors
Even those rated 105C? :)


On the subject: in theory there's no difference - in the end all heat is dissipated into air anyway. A single-fan system can be built using both setups, but with watercooling this can be done much easier. However when it comes to passive systems, aircooling, imo, is more preferable: it's 100% failproof while WC has a weak link - the pump.

ont
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri May 27, 2005 10:11 am

Post by ont » Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:06 pm

hey,

not to attack some of you ppl, but I think you should've tried the things you are speaking about before you actually speak about them 8)

I've been using water to cool my rig for more than 3 years now. Of course in the beginning it is quite expensive, but the coolers are so powerful you don't need to upgrade your cooling system if you upgrade your processor, so in the end it will cost you as much. I am a proud owner of the Innovatek Basic LC Set + a HDD-o-matic and all I can say is, that it is the best thing for cooling I have ever seen. Even this basic set is able to cool any processor available at this time, in fact my temps didn't change switching from a AMD xp 1800+ to a 3000+, neither did they change later, when I added the HD-cooler into the system.

The radiator is just as big as a 120 fan and if you want more perfomance you can get bigger ones, some of them can passivly cool even high perfomance systems (like Innovateks konvekt-o-matic). The radiator sits right under the top of the case (of course I had to cut out a hole, great fun btw :) ) and is able to cool one samsung sp160 and the XP 3000+ passivly, the fan just starts spinning under heavy load over a longer period (i.e. gaming).
CPU idle is 52° and load 57°C which are not the lowest temps possible, but are more than cool enough (maximum temp a XP can take is around 75°C) If I run the fan at 12V I'll get temps around 45° load. The hdd akways sits at 38° and is put into a wooden box with dampening material wrapped around the disk.

The pump is not hearable at all. It does vibrate quite a bit, but once put on some dampening material (I've wrapped mine into an old t-shirt) you'll not be able to hear anything at all. take into consideration you'll want a good pump. Innovatek for examples ships all sets with Eheim pumps and those would be the only pumps I'd recommend (using the 1048 model myself). those are professional aquarium pumps which will easily last 15+ years 24/7 as they were constructed for reliability and length of lifetime (if your aquarium pump fails, your fish are going to die pretty quick...).

Total price I paid for the watercooling system is around 190€ but it was worth every cent.

peteamer
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1740
Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2003 11:24 am
Location: 'Sunny' Cornwall U.K.

Post by peteamer » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:01 pm

To repeat my earlier posts elsewhere... water cooling does not require a pump or 'active' cooling!!!


I have an overclocked Thoroughbred-B, Folding 24/7 with no pump or fan for cooling... with a graphics card, (very) overclocked, in the loop...

It runs @ 50-53C in an ambient of 18-24C.




Regards
Pete

jaganath
Posts: 5085
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:55 am
Location: UK

Post by jaganath » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:27 pm

water cooling does not require a pump or 'active' cooling!!!
I'll bet passive watercooling requires a very big radiator.

~El~Jefe~
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 2887
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:21 pm
Location: New York City zzzz
Contact:

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:37 pm

zalman reserator with poland spring Distilled water and like a 1/3 bottle of Water Wetter by Redline.

this will work for well over a year 24/7 on a gaming system for pure clean stability and SILENCE!

reserator 1 is what i have.

1 fan on my rear, a papst 120.

phantom 350 psu (all one needs for your setup, i have your chip!)

the gfx card is best power-performance ratio ever made.. 7900 GT is pimp.

peteamer
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1740
Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2003 11:24 am
Location: 'Sunny' Cornwall U.K.

Post by peteamer » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:37 pm

jaganath wrote:I'll bet passive watercooling requires a very big radiator.
I was using this:



Image


Approx. 8mm copper piped aluminium finned rad with a finned area of about 10” X 10.5” and fins that are seriously too close (~ 1mm) for any attempt at passive cooling only… or so I thought…

I had an overclocked and volted XP2400 Thoroughbred-B and an overclocked GeForce 3 thingy whatsit.

It worked a treat.



Pete

Post Reply