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Watercooling nForce3 250Gb Chipset?

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Would you watercool the southbridge on a socket A board? Because that is what you would be doing on the NF3 chipset as the core functions of a northbridge are done by the processor.

No, water cooling the chipset only hurts flow and is not needed for the measly 10 watts of heat it puts out (If even that). If you want better cooling I suggest you look at the Swiftech or the Thermalright chipset coolers.

I personally purchased a Zalmen fanless unit as active cooling is not needed. I did not even really need this, as so far the stock HS is fine.
 
uhh, my Nforce2 chipset gets way hotter than 10watts would be putting out, and that's with a copper HSF on it and AS5 under that... and I've heard of a few people being able to squeek out 10-15 more Mhz out of their system by having the NB actively cooled.. Not sure about the Nforce3 ones though.
 
That is because on the Nforce 2 the chipset is not built into the CPU. The chipset on Nforce3 boards is in the CPU, the chip on the motherboard is actually the south bridge. Now thats not the exact explination, but for all intensive purposes the chip you see on the mobo on Nforce3 boards is like the southbridge on socket A boards.

Now, it would not be benificial to watercool it as it would only restrict flow. A passive option like a Zalman is more then enough. If you really must have some good cooling, get the Swiftech chipset cooler.
 
As you are bitten by the silence bug Liquid_cooled, passive is definately the way to go. Getting a Thermalright NB1-C and leaving it fanless would be overkill, but you should do it. :cool:

Sell your Maze4GPU on classifieds and use some of it to get the NB1-C. Good luck on your planned upgrades... I hope you dont change your rig TOO much, but maybe the Maze4 should be replaced as well? The 6002-A64 are back in stock at swiftech. :clap:
 
yes.... it is time to upgrade.....

maybe:
A64 3000+
DFI Lanparty 250Gb
510w PC Power and Cooling Turbo
x2 74gig Raptors

DD TDX
Thermochill 120.2 (120.3 if i can fit in silverstone case)
Silverstone TJ03
 
Liquid_Cooled said:
yes.... it is time to upgrade.....

maybe:
A64 3000+
DFI Lanparty 250Gb
510w PC Power and Cooling Turbo
x2 74gig Raptors

DD TDX
Thermochill 120.2 (120.3 if i can fit in silverstone case)
Silverstone TJ03

I am thinking the same thing. I have a dtek WW, Z-chip, HLfusion on my current setup. For A64 I would go the TDX w/brass top and sell the WW and Z-chip. I think I will be waiting until 05 for the upgrade and look for some new year specials.
 
Actually the chipset on the 250gb boards gets extremely hot. It should be treated more like a nb on an nforce2 board than the southbridge. If you want a good overclock then you need at least something like the Vantec. I made a passive one out of my stock AMD 64 from the combo heatsink that still gets very hot. The problem is the height limit that something like a VGA silencer causes.
 
wannaoc said:
Actually the chipset on the 250gb boards gets extremely hot. It should be treated more like a nb on an nforce2 board than the southbridge. If you want a good overclock then you need at least something like the Vantec. I made a passive one out of my stock AMD 64 from the combo heatsink that still gets very hot. The problem is the height limit that something like a VGA silencer causes.

I use a small 40mm HSF combo on my current SB. It is a very low profile design (similar to the "large" HS that is packaged with the vantec). It does a nice job, do you think that will be good enough?
 
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