New system - Now need Quiet cooling

I've recently built a new system for my home office / gaming needs:

Antec Performance I P180 Case
Intel D 940 3.2Ghz Dual Core
SAPPHIRE Radeon X1900XT
ASUS P5WD2-E Premium Mainboard
Antec Phantom 500 PSU
PowerColor T55E-P03 Theater 550 PRO Tuner
CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin Unbuffered DDR2 800
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
NEC ND-3520A 16X Double Layer DVD±RW
(2) Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB SATA 3Gb/s Hard Drives

Currently I'm running all stock air cooling. This build was supposed to be a quiet air cooled machine that was silent for my office -- although it is very quiet, it still not where I'd like it to be -- the GPU and CPU fans are quite loud. So I've begun looking into watercooling as a silent option. I've seen passive radiator towers such as thermaltake' rocket and zalman's reserator, but the reviews seem a bit harsh. Since my goal is quiet and not to overclock, does anyone have a recommendation? I'm not restricted by a budget -- quiet is worth extra cost.

Thanks!

BIP 2 or 3 with some low speed 120MM 38MM thick fans
DD-D5 Pump
Apogee or TDX (or storm if you can find one... nearly twice as much $ too)
Maze 4 GPU


IMO theres no reason to go passive really.. the performance difference between near-silent and absolute silent is next to nothing. Undervolted low speed fans will be quieter than most pumps anyway.

Passive for that kind of system would require a very VERY large amount of surface area. In short, you would basickly have to burry ~100' of copper tubing 6' under ground.

IMHO, you are better off with a 120.3 radiator and quiet fans. With either a MCP350 or MCP655 both are quiet pumps.

sunrunner20 said:

Passive for that kind of system would require a very VERY large amount of surface area. In short, you would basickly have to burry ~100' of copper tubing 6' under ground.

IMHO, you are better off with a 120.3 radiator and quiet fans. With either a MCP350 or MCP655 both are quiet pumps.

Click to expand...

OK.. from what I've read, that sounds like good advice. Questions though:

* Which blocks for the CPU, GPU, and northbridge chipset?
* Are the Fans included with the radiator quiet enough or should they be replaced with quieter fans like a Nexus?
* Since I'm not overclocking, and focused on silence, how do i choose between the 120.2 and 120.3? Is there a thermal calc for this?

Thanks again...

120.2 vs 120.3:
Get the largest you can afford. Both in cash, and case space. If you plan to make it internal it will be a pain to get a 120.3 into a P180. The larger the radiator the greater the surface area, meaning less airflow needed to get the same performance. That in turn, allows for slower and quieter fans.

Water blocks:
CPU: I haven't taken the time to reserach the dualcore vs single core variable in watercooling, but testing wise the winner is swiftech storm. Next, I would look at the rest of swiftech's product line after that.
note: A MCW6002 might be a good block if you want to save a little money, I like the block mainly because its one brazed peice of copper, only possible leak is at the tube connections.
NB: Don't bother. Find a good Northbridge HSF and put it on. I have a NB-1 and I keep the fan at 50% and I can't hear it over the rest of my computer. With good case airflow, you might even be able to just leave the fan turned off.
GPU: I've seen the Maze4 recomended by several upper member.
Note: when switching over too watercooling, it will be nessacary to cool the RAM chips. The most common solutions are to either cut up some old sink and put it on each chip, or buy some heatsinks designed for such purposes. Somebody sells some cheap ones that should be more than enough in the classifieds section. However, you'll need 100 laget posts on this forum before you can access them.

Excellent... So parts list is:

Thermochill PA120.3
Swiftech MCP655™ Pump
Swiftech MCRES-MICRO Reservoir
Swiftech Storm CPU Block
Danger Den ATI-X18 GPU Block
Tygon 3603 Tubing 1/2" ID
PrimoChill ICE Coolant
4 Nexus 120 mm Real Silent Case Fans - Black & White

Missing anything? I'll mount the 120.3 on top externally...

I would avoid a res and go with a Tline. They are simpler, cheaper, and don't have a tendancy to break.