Watercooling - 1st timer help needed

1dmf · Apr 10, 2006

Hello Guys,

I'm looking to build myself a new gaming PC and have been thinking about going the water cooling route, I don't have any experience with building a water cooling solutions so would appreciate any feedback you can give.

the case i'm thinking of is
http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Chassis/fulltower/xaser3/2000a.asp
and i'm concidering getting the Aquarius water cooling system (as it can easily be modified)
http://www.a1-electronics.net/Heatsinks/2004/Thermtake_AquIII_ModJan04.shtml
with the following replacment water block
http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Liguid/Upgrade/cl-w0037/cl-w0037.asp

But I have seen a benchmark where even a converted Aquarius III, was beaten by the Asetek WaterChill.

Asetek WaterChill
http://www.overclock.co.uk/product.php?productid=17426&cat=440&view=rel

Benchmark results
http://www.a1-electronics.net/Heatsinks/2005/6th/Asetek_WaterChill_pg6.shtml

So should I go for the Asetek WaterChill systems and would it be worth using the Volcano water block?

However I notice that this forum has 2 sections, "water cooling" and "extreme cooling" - now I thought water cooling was the extreme method of cooling your PC.

So am I to take it that there are better and cheaper air cooling alternatives to water cooling and would I be better off getting one of them?

If so , any recommendations as to what air cooling solution to get?

All help appreciated.
1DMF

clocker2 · Apr 10, 2006

Watercooling is a solution and you have yet to define the problem.

Since you are considering a waterloop, your first decision must be the case. A day spent looking at various forums will reveal dozens of watercooled PCs and the many and varied approaches to a loop install.
It's pretty easy to spot general trends...is the loop completely internal or does the radiator hang from the backplane or roof, etc.

After you decide on the case, install the internals using the stock air cooling and see what the thermal signature of your particular setup looks like.
This approach will not only tell you how extensive your waterloop must be but also what kind of room your chosen case has left to work with once all the required components are in place. Be sure to allow for the tubing...it can eat up a lot of volume making bends and connections.

Then you can start speccing out an effective waterloop.

No matter what, I doubt that an AquariusIII (modified or not) will be the correct answer to your question.

The "Extreme Cooling" section is primarily dedicated to solutions that will lower temps below room ambient (which H2O cannot do).

thorilan · Apr 10, 2006

if you could read this sticky and answer all of the questions preferably in order. the reason being that the questions may not seem important but they are way more important that you will begin to imgine

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=369636

"help me help you" Jerry McGuire

batboy · Apr 10, 2006

Right, extreme cooling generally means CPU temps are not only below ambient, but often even below freezing. Typically, this means phase change cooling (basically a refrigeration unit), but can also mean using a peltier (TEC). There are high end air cooling options too, that might be a little cheaper than watercooling. I like my watercooling system because it's quiet.

One draw back to watercooling is the initial expense. While there are low cost shortcuts, typically you get what you pay for, so if you go too cheap, you might be wasting your hard earned cash. About the only kit I would recommend is the Swiftech Apex. Check it out at SVC or Sidewinder (or several other retailers).

1dmf · Apr 10, 2006

My Spec

Hello, thanks for the replies.... here is my spec.

1. Why? - I want to increase performance and overclock my PC.

2. Budget - Best bang4bucks, lets say @ $300.00.

3. Tools? - What tools do i need?, I can always pop down the hardware store to get something!

4. Case - I pasted the case above (though I was also looking at the armor range) - no i'm not going to cut it up!

5. PC Parts, well I haven't got them yet they aren't available, but here's my spec....

AMD AM2 +5000 (or higher)
4gb DDR800 dual channel ram
2 x 9700 GTX 512mb Nvidia in SLi
1 x PCI-X U320 SCSI controller with 4 x U320 SCSI HD's
1 x CD
1 x DVD

The MB is either going to be the ASUS M2N32-WS (but await to see what SuperMicro will offer for AM2 & SLi)

Hope all this helps,
Regards,
1DMF.

Burdman27911 · Apr 10, 2006

With that planned system, I can definitely say that the AquariusIII isn't the solution for you. The graphs on what you linked showed 40-50C for only a 77watt load, and a 5000+ with 2 gpus will be way over that.

For $300 and a little bit of install work (shouldn't be hard at all), you'll walk away with something that performs much better than you would have expected, and also would be much quieter than a good air cooled system. I'm sure the experienced guys here would be glad to walk you through what to buy and how to install it. Also please do look around and read other threads on the topic (use search if needed), I'm sure many of your questions have been asked before.

Good luck with the planning of the system, and Welcome to the forums :welcome:

, if you have any questions you still feel are unanswered, please do ask!

1dmf · Apr 10, 2006

Time to build a beast!

Hey thanks for the warm welcome.

I'm a hardned system builder and have built many PC, but this is my first steps into Overclocking and keeping the beast cool.

I would point out that I was actually heading more to the Asetek WaterChill rather than Thermaltake Aquarius, but now I realise that It might actually be vapor-chill i'm looking for, this might be the wrong place to post this but here goes.

for bang for bucks does this vapor-chill micro http://www.asetek.com/default.asp?s...=sideid&myvalue=14&contentSection=2&menuID=-1 actual work, or do you really need to go for the full monty to overclock properly?

Or is this going to the extreme, I had thought the waterchill system had a compressor/fridge bit to it (hence the name chill) , but have now come across a thread which made the point there is no 'chill' in the 'waterchill' kit, rather mis-leading if you ask me.

The other concern I have now found is, do i have to turn the cooling on separate from the P.C. - who wants that? - don't any of these sytems turn on with the PC power button?

hmmm more food for thought, all help pointing me in the right direction is appreciated.

1DMF

clocker2 · Apr 10, 2006

1dmf said:
5. PC Parts, well I haven't got them yet they aren't available, but here's my spec....

yada, yada, yada

The MB is either going to be the ASUS M2N32-WS (but await to see what SuperMicro will offer for AM2 & SLi)

Since the hardware you plan on cooling is just vaporware (right now, at least) trying to design a cooling loop for it is just daydreaming.
Estimates, guesses and theory will only get you so far.

I'd recommend waiting till the hardware is well, hard...then you'll know what you're up against.

1dmf · Apr 10, 2006

Always best to do ya homework

Very true, the parts aren't available yet, but i'm sure as soon as everyone knows what shape and socket the new AM2 will look like it won't take 2 ticks for the water block manufacturers to make one to fit.

an ATX mother board is well ATX, the case is available and won't change, plus the case I'm concidering is a full tower, so will have plenty of room.

I think it is wise i'm investigating and getting my head around all the possible solutions way before I even purchase a single part.

I might end up going for a full vapor-chill unit in a vapor-chill case, as now I realise that a water cooled system is only as cool as the room it is in, it's not possibly worth getting, when for a few extra bucks I can get a proper cooling system, that actualy has a 'cooler' in it!

Then again I could always go for 8 gallons of cooking oil http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans1/

I think my current speculation over what to put in it has been extrememly usefull so far.

I know far more now than I did a week ago, and that can only be a good thing.

Daddyjaxx · Apr 10, 2006

Remember that watercooling has more risks asociated with it than air cooling and extreme cooling, such as Vapochill, has more risks than watercooling, condensation being the main one. Just like w/c, if you don't setup sub ambient cooling techniques properly, you run the risk of losing everything. I cannot justify a 1000.00 + price tag for new Vapochill units with all the mounting hardware and other stuff needed just to get a better oc. I would just buy a faster CPU. Granted, you can find some used units much cheaper and use it for future CPU upgrades.

1twelve2 · Apr 10, 2006

all i can say, is if you want "air-cooled" temps wit hno noise, get the Aquarius III, i had it in my case until i got tired of high temps. I bought a custom DangerDen setup for CHEAPER than the Aquarius system, and have MUCH better temps. Also, i dont have to lug around an external WC box whenever i have to move my PC.

im a true convert from kits like the aquarius to a custom setup.

ziggo0 · Apr 10, 2006

For $300 you can get a GREAT WC setup. I spent about $300 ~ $350 on mine and got something way beyond what I expected to get. 26C Idle & 34C Load O_O

thorilan · Apr 10, 2006

ok now that we have the important questions asnwered. tools needed really depends on weather you want to cut up your case which you said no to.

this will severely limit you in the radiator you can choose if you want an all internal setup.

if you dont mind the setup being outside of the case it will be eayer.

personally i recomend for an external setup a bip3 for the rad.
for an internal a bix2 .

with the bip3 you can go less powerfull fans and undervolted to get a more quiet system. with the system inside the case louder fans are ok because the enclosure limits the noise a little.

if you REALLLY are hard into OCing the proc and can stand high noise then go with a BiX3 and high CMF fans.

personally i like quiet systems
.
the diference in OCability between a a quiet and noisy system sometimes NIL and as wide as 250mhz ( but very arely more than 100 mhz better) so you have to decide for yourself whats right for you. once you hav e a good idea of what you will except then we can tailor your perfect sytem more accurately

batboy · Apr 10, 2006

You can easily put a really good watercooled system together for $300, but for a decent phase change that isn't junk, you'll probably end up spending twice that much.

If you are considering extreme cooling, then check out that forum section. I've heard of a lot of phase change rigs get buggered up with condensation problems.

If you are worried that a watercooled system can't cool very well, let me tell you about my personal experience. I had a 3.8 Prescott (also known as Preshott) P-4 running at 4.4 gig with a fair bump in vcore. This was with excellent case ventilation and a XP-120 heatsink with high speed 120mm fan. My full load temp was about 60 degrees. Same system watercooled dropped load temp down about 20 degrees. My current dual core system has a load temp of 42 degrees. I'd expect a little better temp with an AMD system.

1dmf · Apr 10, 2006

Well that's a lot to think about

Thanks for all the replies, I guess I need to way up each method, and what I really anticipate getting out of my PC.

I know some people report that with a vaporchill thay have clocked up to a ghz over the default chip speed, but this condensation thing worries me.

Isn't the compressor on the outside of the rig? does the "water block" still cause this even if the unit is external?

Obviously mixing water with electrics is also a worry and from my spec you can see i intend spending a few bucks and the last thing i want is to blow the thing up.

I currently run my P4 2.8ghz clocked 10% with no other cooling than the fan it came with and it seems to hold stable giving me 3.08ghz - not bad really.

So maybe going overkill with custom or fancy cooling is a bit OTT in the sceme of things, perhaps I should be less OC orientated, I know bit of a strange thing to say on an OC forum!

Maybe a decent air system is the safer bet, far cheaper and will still allow me to squeeze a few more mhz than with an out-the-box supplied fan.

Maybe if I do go watercooled - the aseteck waterchill kit is afordable and gives reasonable results.

Does anyone know if the Vaporchill Mini is any good, at least it's a sealed unit and so no leaks (you'd hope!)

and at the end of the day having a new 5000+ AM2 4 gig of DDR800 and 2 x 7900 GTX in SLi mode , will be fast enough without changing a single setting!

well I got a few more months do investigate and decide before the components will be available to buy.

Again thanks for the input, any further advice very much appreciated.

Regards,
1DMF

Premmer · Apr 23, 2006

1dmf said:
Thanks for all the replies, I guess I need to way up each method, and what I really anticipate getting out of my PC.

I know some people report that with a vaporchill thay have clocked up to a ghz over the default chip speed, but this condensation thing worries me.

Isn't the compressor on the outside of the rig? does the "water block" still cause this even if the unit is external?

Obviously mixing water with electrics is also a worry and from my spec you can see i intend spending a few bucks and the last thing i want is to blow the thing up.

I currently run my P4 2.8ghz clocked 10% with no other cooling than the fan it came with and it seems to hold stable giving me 3.08ghz - not bad really.

So maybe going overkill with custom or fancy cooling is a bit OTT in the sceme of things, perhaps I should be less OC orientated, I know bit of a strange thing to say on an OC forum!

Maybe a decent air system is the safer bet, far cheaper and will still allow me to squeeze a few more mhz than with an out-the-box supplied fan.

Maybe if I do go watercooled - the aseteck waterchill kit is afordable and gives reasonable results.

Does anyone know if the Vaporchill Mini is any good, at least it's a sealed unit and so no leaks (you'd hope!)

and at the end of the day having a new 5000+ AM2 4 gig of DDR800 and 2 x 7900 GTX in SLi mode , will be fast enough without changing a single setting!

well I got a few more months do investigate and decide before the components will be available to buy.

Again thanks for the input, any further advice very much appreciated.

Regards,
1DMF

Check this out.
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51662

Watercooling - 1st timer help needed

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