Is WC/ing for me?

Gda'y all,

i am interested in getting into water cooling as i have a Pres-hott that runs rather toasty.

idle temperature is around 60-65 celcius

and loaded is around 70-80 celcius.

i noticed the TT BigWater kit for $160 AUS, which is around $118 US.
i have an Antec 1000AMG case with x4 80mm fans, and it has pretty good airflow.

i have read some of the opinons of this kit in the forums, and it seems rather mediocre. but custom building a W/C setup is not my cup of tea, so a kit like this suits me.

would this be the way to go, or is there another option?

Thanks

ya you would benifit if you are just gona put the proc on the loop should drop the temps to around 50 load or lower, but if you are gona put the gfx card on there also i would buy an xtra rad to go along wit it

Nah mate,


just after somethine basic, which is why this kit caught my eye.

Thanks

if you want to go kit, then dont get something like that, it will perform at or around the same as highend air for 2x the cost. Take a look at the Exos 2 from Koolance its ok.

some better kits include
http://www.dangerdenstore.com/product.php?productid=184&cat=2&page=1
http://www.asetek.com/main/page.asp?sideid=562
http://www.asetek.com/main/page.asp?sideid=753
http://www.koolance.com/shop/default.php/cPath/28_41?osCsid=44901de971d189f32f2f0fb057ad42ef

Whats the problem with making a kit yourself? Its not like it takes rocket scientist to do it.

All you need is
1. Rad (30-40)
2. Cpu Block (30-40)
3. Pump (30-100)
4. Tubing (10)
5. Clamps (5)
Extras to make things easier
6. Res or T line (5-40)
approx prices in US currency

I guess i dont see the point of spending $120 and not being able to upgrade it or have decent performance. For $50 you could get aircooling that would perform similar to the bigwater kit.

If your interested i can help you purchase things seperatly and make sure they will work with each other before you buy. Just pm me for more efficent means of contact.

ok, well performance is not a huge deal with me.

is the bad opinion of the BigWater kit experience or bias? (not trying to be nasty)

its just because i've read quite a few reviews of it, and they have used similar rigs to mine. and they give it high marks for what it is

i've tried to be selective, i.e, avoided sites that could have been bought off by TT

Thanks

The best watercooling kit is the Swiftech Apex. The Bigwater is a big disappointment. But, looking at your temps... dang... idle at 60-65 degrees??? That should be load temp. You must have almost no case ventilation. You need to get some air moving in there. Even with watercooling, you still need some air flow in the case.

The TT kits are crap. Bias due to real world performance. My friend had one and it didn't do any better than his air cooling. I've used their blocks before, not very good quality and they're made of acrylic which will crack in the long run.

If you're not going to do water right, it's not for you. Spend the money on better fans a a better CPU cooler.

Maviryk said:

and they're made of acrylic which will crack in the long run.

Click to expand...

I can't say I agree with that entirely, but...

There have been a few people that were happy with the bigwater, however if you do a search there were several people who stated that the kit pretty much fell apart on them. Low quality, low performing equipment compared to what we use in this community. We aren't just biased against the kits, god knows it offers simplicity, but most people who go kit usually end up redoing it with a DIY loop in the end. For these reasons it may be tough to get a recommendation on a kit like that from anyone here.

Hope that helps.

If you are getting low 60's idle and 70's load, your rig must be unstable or producing lots of errors. Depending on what you do with it you may not notice, but I would be suprised if a p95 or 2 does not produce errors.

As batboy said, you must have a serious lack of case ventilation, or a stock intel hsf with some OC, or the HSF is not intalled correctly, or all of the above. Or your HSF is all clogged up with dust and cat hair.

pscout said:

If you are getting low 60's idle and 70's load, your rig must be unstable or producing lots of errors. Depending on what you do with it you may not notice, but I would be suprised if a p95 or 2 does not produce errors.

As batboy said, you must have a serious lack of case ventilation, or a stock intel hsf with some OC, or the HSF is not intalled correctly, or all of the above. Or your HSF is all clogged up with dust and cat hair.

Click to expand...

I have a p4 3ghz rig that someone at my moms work built for her. Its load temps with 2x prime95 running put out temps around 65-70C. While the system is complelty stable and nor blue screens and prime can run for more then 10hrs.

But back to the TT subject. My main problem with the kit is upgradability. If you wanted to add video block you would have to switch from 1/4 tubing to atleast 3/8 or maybe 1/2. The TT kit is unable to be upgraded at all!

it does sound like you need to reseat the heatsink
my 820 ran really warm with no errors (68-72 load) so I know its possible but I slapped some AS5 on there and it dropped to around 58-62 which tells me that it wasnt seated properly.

As for the kit, the cooling ability is based on two things the rad's ability to disipate the heat and the block. Unfortunately this rad is pretty poor shape especially for a prescott (IMHO) I would also suggest a do-it-yourself because you know what you are getting.

For me its not even about performance as much as it is getting value for the dollar. You might be better off getting a Scythe Ninja or Big Typhoon type cooling as opposed to water if you dont want the hassle of diy systems.

I would estimate a cheap diy 'kit' to cost around $160ish cnd ($135ish USD) and for that extra $10 you would be much happier I think

i would say go with a cheap kit i did and im suprised it droped 12c off my oc temp compared to my stock amd hsf. you got some heat and i would go with somthing better than the tt. like the cosair cool kit.

i wouldent get a cheap kit unless you get a fairly high end kit or somthing with alarms incase your pump goes out so you can shut down your pc so you dont burn it out.

I would say if building a loop isn't your cup of tea to stick with a high quality air cooler. For example a Thermaltake Big Typhoon with some arctic silver 5. It will keep your presshot plenty cool. I had a thermalright xp-120 and it kept my 120Watt chip at 50C full load. A big typhoon will perform even better.

For people who aren't really interested in building a loop, I feel this is the best option.

okies the answer you are looking for ...

i have the tt bigwater 12 kit ... all i can say is if you are looking for quiet go for it ... if you are looking to drop temps look for the newer tt kit w/ 3/8" tubing (the bw12 runs 1/4"), i only realized about a 3deg c drop in temps
but better still fork out the cash for 1 of the better kits listed above - but truth of the matter is ... it would be cheaper to buy the pcs separately

i have been very disappointed

dependability - my cpu waterblock cracked w/in the first month - tt did replace w/ cross shipping and i have no issue w/ their support on that and the replacement has been fine

and upgradability/compatibility is limited - finding 1/4" gpu and chipset blocks is a pain, i ended up having to find and buy replacement barbs at lowes for my mcw30 chipset block - tt uses a non standard fitting and thread and the kit doesnt come w/ additional adapters that their separate parts come w/ and they dont really offer the fittings separately so that rules out modding them