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Water cooling question

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inkfx

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2004
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Im thinking about getting a watercooling system for Christmas and I was wondering if this is a good kit. http://www.xoxide.com/aquagate.html Im new to water cooling, so if that is bad for starters what is a good kit for starters?

Someone also told me that I would be better off making my own WC system but would that be to hard for me since I have 0 expirience with WC?

Specs:
AMD 64 3400+
MSI K8N Neo Platinum nForce3 250
1GB OCZ Platinum Series Enhanced Bandwidth PC3500
2x80GB
GeForce FX 5900128mb (hopefully ill have a 6800GT by then)
Thermaltake 480w PurePower

Thanks for any input.
 
I had 0 experiance with my WC before I built it, came out fine. I would say build your own kit, but if you really have to buy one, get one of the swiftech kits. They are among the better kits out there.
 
swiftnets.com, dangerden.com, and dtekcustoms.com i think are the 3 most popular sites.. just buy all the parts individually.. waterblock, radiator, pump, blah, blah, blah.. a diy radiator/heatercore will save you money and most time be better performance.. search this forum on that subject..
 
www.frozencpu.com and www.cooltechnica.com are both pretty decent. Also check out Sidewinder, as they have some pretty good stuff. I don't remember their address though.

NewEgg is overpriced for their extremely limited range of watercooling products. Directron has more selection but they're not exactly the best pricewise.

This is what I think of the most effective watercooling options:

http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=3129453&postcount=5

(original thread)

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=333728

It's all about price to performance ratio. The major waterblocks are all effectively the same, no more than 1C apart in an average loop. That leaves you with pump, tubing and radiator selection. You can get a high performance cheap pump that you have to modify a bit to make reliable (Mag 3) or you can get an expensive high performance pump (MCP650) but that'll cost you double. Or you can get a moderately priced, moderate performance pump for a moderate amount of money (Eheim 1048). For radiators get the biggest you can get for the best performance, ideally a double heatercore paired with powerful 120mm fans (Sanyo Denki's or Panaflo H1A's) with a fan controller if noise bothers you and 3/8" vs 1/2" tubing is a matter of preference. The Swiftech waterblock is better off with 3/8" tubing if you don't have a powerful pump, but the DangerDen blocks need 1/2" so far as I know (though I've never seen a 3/8" barbed TDX). You could get watercooling for a little over $100 if you really cheaped out but you're easily going to be 5C or more warmer than the $200 setup. I did mine for $150ish because I was willing to make some compromises and not just get a plug it in and go setup.
 
Thanks for all your help on what parts to get and where some good places to get them are. Im going to be willing to spend up to 200-250 if I really need to. Also do a lot of you go laning with your rigs watercooled and if so is it an easy process going from your house to the LAN?

Those waterblocks you posted are for AMD XP systems, are there any for the AMD 64 754 that you recomend?
 
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www.frozencpu.com is my preferred vendor. They have the most selection and they're about 3 hours from my house so everything arrives pretty quickly despite FedEx being retards and shipping it from Syracuse to somewhere in New Jersey, then to Newburgh then to my house. Two days isn't that bad though for cheap shipping.

Also check out www.sidewindercomputers.com because they're also pretty good and have a decent selection. I haven't used www.cooltechnica.com but I hear they're alright.

All of those waterblocks have AMD64 equivalents though they may be a couple dollars more. The Swiftech block is at least.

If you design your system correctly and make everything portable you can go to LANs pretty easily. My case is steel, I have a dual bay reservoir, way too much tubing, a 19" CRT and lots of other crap that makes it extremely difficult to go LANing. Maybe when I buy an LCD monitor I'll go more often but I don't enjoy hauling around 100+ lbs of computer crap to play with a bunch of 13 year olds. But watercooling is okay with LANs provided your crap isn't too excessively heavy.

But then again I haven't played that many games in the last year or so anyway.
 
I also found some really nice deals at Voyeurmods . They were running a 10% off sale stacked on top of half priced tubing/clamps/RBX blocks at the time I setup my system so I netted out around a $70 savings when all was said and done.

I would also look at non-standard vendors for WCing.

Marinedepot for pumps.

McMaster for some really nice pricing on tubing, fittings, and clamps.

Depending on your skill level for doing some DIY projects a simple pair of sheet metal bending pliers ($5) + some simple tin snips ($5) + a sheet of 22ish guage steel = just about any sized custom shroud you would like.

Autozone for inexpensive heater cores. If you dont feel particularly good about modding the core itself a 1977 Bonneville Heater core is about $18 and usable right out of the box. Its better if you can replace the barbs but very usable right out of the box. You will need to get a couple extra clamps and some 5/8"-3/4" tubing to adapt your tubing for the larger of the two leads on the heater core however.

However if you really dont feel confident in doing any type of fabrication off of the start I would definitely check sites like Voyeurmods, Jab-Tech, Sidewinder, Cooltechnica, DangerDen, D-Tek Customs, and FrozenCPU for their pre-assembled kits as well as DIY kits. Most sites have simple drop down menus where you can really customize your system the way you want it.

***EDIT***

One quick suggestion if you consider using Voyeurmods however. Thier shrouds are 'low profile' which means they only have about a 1/4" standoff between the shroud and the radiator/heater core. I would not buy their Primochill shrouds, instead look elsewhere for a Venturi shroud with a 1" or so standoff between the fans and radiator/heater core. The Venturi types allow for the air pressure generated by the fan to equalize for a more effective and uniform airflow through the radiator/heatercore.
 
inkfx said:
Thanks for all your help on what parts to get and where some good places to get them are. Im going to be willing to spend up to 200-250 if I really need to. Also do a lot of you go laning with your rigs watercooled and if so is it an easy process going from your house to the LAN?

Those waterblocks you posted are for AMD XP systems, are there any for the AMD 64 754 that you recomend?


Hey i just got my first watercooled rig up and going. Fit it all in a thermaltake lanfire case (midtower). I only used a 120mm Rad though so thats where u suffer. Still everything fits nicely inside the case and i can pick up my case and move just by unplugging the the stuff in the back. Did some more work on it last night so its off line atm (i host my pics off of it). I'll get it back on tonight and post some pics.
 
Thanks for the info on the LANing. Reason I asked is because I live in San Antonio and there is a pretty big gaming community here with a couple of good LAN centers. Also thanks on the extra links for where to buy parts. Bugsmahser this would be my first time with WC so I plan on buying everything pre-assembled. Not skilled enough to build my own stuff, maybe in time.
 
To be honest there is really no 'right' way to get into WCing from what I have seen. Some people like myself like the multiple components from multiple vendors so we can tweak and play with the final product. Others prefer to get right to it and get it done via a solution that covers all needs. No worries either way. The one thing I would caution against however would be to get something that has combined components like a radiator/reservoir/pump in the same package. The only reason I say this is that if one fails....all need to be replaced. Much the same reason I refuse to get a TV/DVD combo but then again I am an old fart and set in my ways.

Swiftech has some really sweet offerings as do many others. For that matter you can even go as far as to get the all-in-one sets that do require assembly but bottom line what that really means is using a box knife to cut tubing and either pliers or a screw driver to tighten clamps. On my Voyeurmod kit I also had to use some teflon tape around the fittings for the reservoir but that was the sum and total of my 'handywork'.

Keep in mind that you may also down the road a bit want to do a little more customization, maybe not but it never hurts to make sure you can. Things will change as computers evolve from completely different CPU blocks to Vid card blocks etc. I would suggest in order to avoid having to chuck the cooling system to make sure whatever company you go with seems able to adapt to changes in the hardware. Who knows, we may end up watercooling the memory before long. ;)

I consider the investment required for watercooling to justify making sure its not a 'one trick pony'. That is that the system will handle some modification if needed to move it to another rig down the road. Otherwise that $200-$250 you wish to spend may have to be spent again the next time you build or buy a new rig. Its doubtful of course but better to make sure it doesnt happen.
 
here are the pics of my setup i recently got up (like less than 2 weeks old :D). Already undergoing more upgrades, a DD fill port is going in and some lighting (mainly wanted a longer t-line).

side.jpg


t-line.jpg


all parts are listed in my sig.

just to show how easy it is to keep it portable ;)

btw didnt add much weight to the system overall. still nice and light.
 
Ill post pics of my case here in a bit so you can tell me if I have enough room to do that, since im not to sure that I do. Ill install the drivers for the webcam now and take some pics of it.
 
Bugsmasher said:
I consider the investment required for watercooling to justify making sure its not a 'one trick pony'. That is that the system will handle some modification if needed to move it to another rig down the road. Otherwise that $200-$250 you wish to spend may have to be spent again the next time you build or buy a new rig. Its doubtful of course but better to make sure it doesnt happen.

Aside from the waterblock, what can't you reuse in watercooling? When you change chipsets you'll have to change the block unless it's universal (not very common anymore), but everything else stays the same. I'm not sure what you mean by 'one trick pony'. Watercooling setups are purpose built. They do one thing and there is always an optimal way to do it.
 
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