size of Res?

Wondering if the size of the Res matters.

I'm looking to get the Criticool Waterplant. Is the $5 worth it for the 6" version?

larger res's can offer more substance for absorbing heat if the fan fails or something...

mostly Id say it gives a larger buffer between refills.

Isn't BIGGER always better?

A large resevior will slow flow because the water will decelerate only to have to accelerate again. Of course, they are also good for cooling if made of a conductive material. Otherwise, it doesnt really matter. It is just one more thing taking up space and having the potential to leak.

accelerating the water shouldnt matter, that arguement would than say you should get tubing of a size so that the flow of water in the tube is no slower or faster than the flow through the block, so it doesnt have to change speeds.

a larger res should have less resistance, if you think about it, the resevior is a really big tube that the water flows through, the larger the tube, the lower the resevior. turbulence makes this statement alot less definite.

Easiest way to overcome any "flow resistance" of a reservoir is to just use the res to feed the pump water, instead of using the pump to feed the res water.

Simplicity at its best.

Hmmm...I never thought about making the res out of copper....has anyone tried this?

BlueMan said:

Hmmm...I never thought about making the res out of copper....has anyone tried this?

Click to expand...

Not me, but I'm thinking about melting copper fins into my resevoir and blowing a fan on them. *snicker*.

melting them into plexiglass is a waste. overall theres little cooling to be had. thats a pretty big thing to try and mount fans on, you could mount 4 fans or more to cover it all. and youll get very little cooling unless you put the copper all the way throught into the water, and then you have flow reduction, and a pretty gaurenteed leak. if it doesnt go all the way through, you have virtually no chance of a worthwhile amount of heat getting through the plexiglass to the copper fins to be cooled.

a copper square would just be a passive cooling kinda thing, you could add fins and fans, but youd be better to just add a second radiator if you really need more cooling.

Ive seen aluminum, I think thats easier to weld.

aluminum = bad with WC setups though if you're trying to go all simillar metals. copper, brass, etc.

If your heat input (cpu wattage) and heat escape (radiator) remain the same, your res will reach the same temperature, no matter what size it is. It will just take longer for a large one to get there, but get there it will unless it too dissipates heat (like a copper res).

That's not to say there's no advantage in a larger reservior though. Some I've seen are barely adequate at letting all the bubbles out of the waterstream, like some single bay reserviors.

How effective is the one you're looking at (I don't know the brand you elluded to).? Are the inlet/outlet separated well?, do they seem a decent distance apart (not one pushing into the other)?

If you got mad skillz, copper is a great choice for res materials...but it'll take some work. Soldering a box is hard to master. Copper pipe does come in 2" and larger though.

*Went to take a look at it, and it seems to be a fine res. Not much advantage to having the larger one except that maybe if you have a lot of tubing, you may have to cycle the pump twice to fill the lines when using the small one on the first fill-up. Thereafter, there'd be little difference.

Diggrr said:

How effective is the one you're looking at (I don't know the brand you elluded to).? Are the inlet/outlet separated well?, do they seem a decent distance apart (not one pushing into the other)?

Click to expand...

http://www.criticool.com/7accessories.html

What is a good general i/o distance?(I'm sure it depends on orientation and head n what not, but)
I'd personally like a T since it takes less space, but I do like some of the benifits of a res.

Yeah, I'd found a link to them in another post and poked around abit.

They look like a fine res actually, and I like it setup the way they have it pictured (in the case) on their page. Outlet to the pump on bottom, inlet into the top...keeps the bubbles separated. With a pump that fast, you don't want to place them directly accross from one another, as bubbles might take longer to separate out from the waterstream.

What I'd said about the size...if there's enough tubing,radiator,waterblock volume in your setup, the larger one maight be easier to use, since you'd have to fill the res, then start/stop the pump a few times to fill the tubes up to the point that you can run the pump without going dry.
Other than the initial fill-up, there's not much difference between how they'd perform.

And never use straight alcohol to clean or fill an acrylic/poly res, it doesn't like the glue joints. Mixed with water like in Windex or your cooling fluid, it should be okay.