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Toying with EXOS

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dreammmatt

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2002
Hi all. I am planning on getting a wavemaster case, and the only bummer is that it wont 'comfortably' accomodate custom watercooling without looking stupid - but it looks like it could be paired with the EXOS-Al. Now, I know that cooling performance will take a hit needless to say, going from 1/2" tubes and a L30 to 1/4" tubes and two small pumps - so dont complain about that, lol. I just wanna stay watercooled and look good doing it.

Anyways... If I am gonna use this as my college machine (read: gently overclocked) the heat load wont be too huge - so - should the Koolance CPU-300-H06 (http://www.koolance.com/products/product.html?code=CPU-300-H06&category_id=3), and for the Northbridge the GPU-180-V06 (http://www.koolance.com/products/product.html?code=GPU-180-V06&category_id=3) do the job? The Koolance VGA block looks punny, but i'm still stuck with 1/4" tubes...so would something like the ThermalTake Aquarius VGA block do? (http://svc.com/thermaltake-vga-waterblock.html) After killing 2 Radeon 9800's I really dont care to overclock the video cards anymore, so, the heat load there will be whatever a 9800Pro is at stock idle/gaming. If not...I could always stay with Air cooling...I just thought water would be nice...

Comments & Opinions are welcome, as always
Thanx,
Dreammmatt
 
dreammmatt i can build you an external case that would match your wave case down to the brushed aluminum and be the same price as your exos, while having 1/2 tubing, and outperforming it.. just pm me
 
my friend has been using all swiftech blocks for his cpu mcw6000 or whatevers, the nb block and gpu block. stock koolance tubings and s few adapters and thats it.
 
situman said:
my friend has been using all swiftech blocks for his cpu mcw6000 or whatevers, the nb block and gpu block. stock koolance tubings and s few adapters and thats it.

Who is your 'friend' ?
:beer:

That's correct. I am running an Exos with 3 Swiftech water blocks.
Only modifications thus far were: Stock internal tubing on the Exos unit- but I cut at least 1 foot of tubing out, it was just curled inside the unit.

Outside from the exos to the case is standard 3/8" OD tubing, but once inside the case, it's all 1/2" OD. No problems what-so-ever and it runs great.

I could have gone custom, but I chose the Exos-al based on looks and performance.
 
Alright, cool, thanx for the replies guys - xenocide: i'll consider it when I get around to building my college machine - maxboost: interesting idea.
 
I'm using a stock Exos Al with CPU300H06.

I've got a Athlon XP mobile 2600+ at 12.5x 200 = 2.5 GHz @1.675v

The Loaded temps using the Koolance Exos is:
Ambient 28-29 C (welcome to California... )
MBM5 reported temps:
Case: 28-29 C
CPU Diode: 33-35 C Seen it hit 36 for just a sec but this may just be fluctuations.
CPU Socket: 40 C

The case temp sensor reads 28-29 C

I'm using prime95 to load it and reading the temp of the MBM5.

Of course it gets cooler at if the ambient gets cooler.

Seems to perform well enough.. probably get can get better with 1/2" tubing, WW/TDX/Swiftech blocks, but not an order of magnitude better. To do that you would probably need a waterchiller or phase change setup. This thing was VERY easy to setup. I also dont have to worry about temp monitoring/shut down since it handles that for me. Since it has 2 pumps, if one goes down it can limp along on the other until I can shut it down or whatever. (In case I'm away when it happens. My pc is on pretty much constantly so it needs to take care itself when I'm AFK.) Those were the primary concerns for me to making the decision to go with exos. It's not as cool as a DIY (in all senses of the word) but it does the job, performs pretty well and is hassle free.

EDIT: forgot to say case is Antec P160 (matches the exos pretty much exactly) and I'm using the front read out for secondary case sensor. For video I've got a Radeon 9500 -> 9700pro (hard mod/modded firmware) running at 384/297 (damn infineon ram) with a vga silencer from a previous setup. Since the silencer is quiet, performs well, and pulls heat from the case, I've left it as is and not mounted my GPU180 waterblock.
 
If I were you, I wouldn't waste my money on a Koolance block.

I'd get one of these.

The NexXos SP ranks pretty high on the watercoolingplanet chart, and they do know their European blocks, being German and all. And since SNT isn't going to carry NeXxos blocks anymore, it's discounted $19 until they run out. It's not really $35 because it doesn't come with barbs, but I'd get nylon barbs anyway. I don't like mixing plastic and brass. Stuff cracks too easily. Cheaper and better than the Koolance, by far.
 
I use a Wavemaster case with the following:

RBX
Maze4 GPU
MCP600
Dtek JR120 Rad

It's a tight fit but can definitely be done if you take your time. My WM has a 120mm blowhole btw. The rad pretty much takes up 3 of my 5-1/4 bays.
 
Well, for nearly three times the price, I should hope that block would be better than the NexXos SP (though it's still not as good as the NexXos XP). $100 for a waterblock is a bit excessive unless it's made out of solid silver in my opinion.


Why not mount the rad externally? It'll give better temps that way too.
 
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