any advantage to 2 smaller rads over 1 large?

Xymurgy · Jul 11, 2003

Setting up a WC system for myself (first try, wish me luck). Problem is that I when I built my comp all those months ago, I had not planned on WCing it so I bought a mid-tower case (a Lian Li PC-65 to be exact). Fitting all the components inside the case is going to be tight, but doable.

At any rate, I was originally going to put a Chavette HC inside the case by the front intakes, which would mean I would need to take the 3.5 and hard drive bays and put the HD and floppy up in my 5.25 bays (no problem there).

Granted this would work well, but I would rather set up the innards of my computer to work with the case, rather than move stuff around.

So I started second-guessing myself when I found one of these and two of them would fit the two front case intakes perfectly (assuming I want to pay $90 for some rads [bleh]).

http://www.d-tekcustoms.com/product.asp?0=205&1=244&3=101

I guess my question is, if I were ever able find rads that have these same specs, and were say, 66% less expensive, would they provide adaquate cooling as the Chavette HC? I was going to use a Hydor L30 pump with WBs on the CPU and GPU.

Just brainstorming and never read anything about two rads, so kind of curious.

anvil82 · Jul 11, 2003

Don't forget, 2 rads means 2 (or 4 if you double side the rad) shrouds and fans.

Top Hat Theater · Jul 11, 2003

Not necessarily. You could sandwich a single fan between the two rads and see how effective it is before putting a second fan on there. The additional fan doesn't always guarantee better performance, just more noise. For instance, I for one didn't see any performance increase from adding a second fan so I got rid of it and have a slightly quieter system now.

~THT

Toysrme · Jul 11, 2003

It takes little more than a breeze to get most of the cooling out of a heater core.

That being said. Use one heatercore. You're not going to pick up any added cooling and have done nothing but lowered your flow.

Xymurgy · Jul 11, 2003

Couldn't find any heatercores or radiators in the database that matched the dimensions of that micro. Found a thread on another forum about putting in a Black Ice X inside without having to take off the 3.5 bays... but that's a $70 HC.

What I did find was a Black Ice Micro II, which is basically two micros combined (at the same consumer price /boggle). No HC's were in the database that matched those dimensions either, so I had to go ahead and spend the money on it, which I was ok with (equivalent of 2 of the micro HCs at 50% the cost... not too far off my goal).

Now everything will fit, everything will be black... and I broke down and ordered a couple sound activated cathode tubes, so now everything will be bright....

This should be cool.

Grimdeath · Jul 11, 2003

I just installed a single Black Ice Extreme in my PC-65. I removed the internal 3.5" drive bay and its mount (drill the 4 pop rivets). I am then able to wedge the BIE between the upper 3.5" bay and the bottom of the case, roughly 2 inches back from two front fans. It is firmly held in place and everthing looks VERY neat. I have an Enermax 12FAB 120mm fan attached to the core.

Xymurgy · Jul 11, 2003

That's exactly what the picture looked like. If I had not found this micro II, that's what I would have done. I saved the pic to my HD for future reference, I'd post it if I could (can I using ftp? never tried posting with that).

evowatercooling · Jul 12, 2003

2 radiators can help compared to one large one. First of all you will get less flow restriction. Secondly the water velocity will be less in the two smaller radiators thus allowing them to cool of faster.

thorilan · Jul 12, 2003

1 radiator is better than 2 .

evowatercooling · Jul 12, 2003

thorilan said:
1 radiator is better than 2 .

Do you have some articles that shows that? I am just wondering cuase i would like to read it. If not then what is your reasoning?

Xymurgy · Jul 13, 2003

I don't think you can make any sweeping generalizations, but I would think under the right circumstances two smaller rads could surpass a larger one (in terms of cooling).

Paxmax · Jul 13, 2003

Two rads in parallell will have a lower flow resistance.

If you sandwich two rads you will compromise some of the second rads cooling capablity since it gets slightly warmer air passing through, though I don't think it will matter by much.

Two smaller rads are easier to fit than one lage.

But... I'd rather have one heatercore than two Black Ice coolers.....

Maeterlinck · Jul 13, 2003

sandwiching will be bad in general because, as Paxmax said the warmer air from the first will reduce the cooling ability of the first. The relationship between a specific source of heat and it's transfer of energy to the ambient is not linear. i.e. it gets harder to get rid of the heat the closer the Rad temp is to the ambient.
in terms of placing i'm not sure which would be best: parallel or series. This would depend on the effiecency of the Rad. If it reduced the temp by loads then having them in series wouldn't achieve much. On the other hand if it didn't then this arrangement would work well. Parallel might be good whatever because the energy would be split between the two, plus there would be a presure drop and that is good for heat transfer.

Gautam · Jul 13, 2003

The biggest issue at hand here is the flow rate, which will be dramatically reduced by using two rads as opposed to one. Sandwiching may hurt temps, but not by very much, as heatercores can dissipate heat very quickly. All in all, one radiator is better than two.

cpufan · Jul 14, 2003

Gautam said:
...the flow rate, which will be dramatically reduced by using two rads as opposed to one...

Only if running the radiators in series. If setup in parallel, the flow resistance will decrease, and subsequently, the flow rate will increase.

Jeff

Calavera · Jul 27, 2003

Hey Xymurgy, have you looked at the black ice micro2? Its basically 2x 80mm side by side. I would think this would fit your PC65 with no modifications. They're about 65 bucks. beats having to buy two 80mm radiators worth 40 each.

rogerdugans · Jul 27, 2003

Less flow restriction is always better.
More surface area is always better.
Heat transfer works better with the largest temperature differential.

For those reasons sandwiching radiators and using them in series is bad- probably will get no better temp than using just one of exactly the same radiator and most likely worse due to extra restriction.

Parallel rads are a different story: they should improve perfromance by a small margin for all the same reasons that series is likely to show no improvement at all

Just don't expect a huge improvement, because I don't think you will get one....
Clearly I need to try dual rads myself....

Xymurgy · Jul 27, 2003

I did get a BIM2! I just haven't received it yet. Once I saw the BIM2 I knew it was what I was looking for (and cheaper than 2 BIM's). I got four good 80mm fans for push/pull, and am going to use the casings of the four 80mm case fans included with my Lian-Li as shrouds. Hope it cools well.

I never really thought about doing two rads in parallel, since I was never really fond of buying two small, expensive rads.

Calavera · Jul 27, 2003

after you're done please snap some nice pics. =) I'm eager to see how the result will look like since I'm in the same position as you.

thorilan · Jul 27, 2003

Only if running the radiators in series. If setup in parallel, the flow resistance will decrease, and subsequently, the flow rate will increase.

i just want to state any time you add any kind of stress to the system you reduce flow even in parallel BUT tht dos not allways mean worse performance but usualy it does because in the average WC setup our radiators need large temp differences of water to gain the most benifit .
what this translates into is that by deviding the work up with 2 radiators ,unless the water is higher tems it really wont net any better performance for the ammount of stress added to the system via more tubes connections ect ect .

i posted this a while agoin this thread but it seems my post didnt go through the first time ( was a much beter post that went into more detail but im to lazy to re wrie it) ohand i have tried 2 radiator systems btw

any advantage to 2 smaller rads over 1 large?

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