Opinions on single fan radiators?

I just want to know everyone's experience with a single fan radiator. example, blackIce Pro or a single heater core. Is there really a big difference between a blackice pro 3 and a blackice pro? How big of a difference temps?

It really depends on what you intend to cool with it and whether or not the radiator can handle the heat load. There is a huge difference in what each can handle. Black Ice Pro (1501 BTUs per hour) BIP3 (6875 BTU per hour). What do intend to cool with this WCing setup and are you looking for quiet or compact form. Why? because with a more powerful 120mm fan pushing greater then 80CFM you could always use a Black Ice Extreme (3134BTU per hour) to keep it small sure the fan will be a little louder but it could give you the cooling you need.

I'm using a single 12T which is equal to a BIX, when gaming I just turn my Delta on and temps only rise by 2-3C but you can't game without headphones.
Is more then enough to cool down my rig, the rad is cool to the touch and my temps are in the low-mid 30's on the CPU and mid-high 30's on the VGA.

I had a Dtek JR-120 rad and that did amazing for CPU only cooling and pretty well for CPU+GPU pelted cooling but it started show that it could only take so much once I put the GPU on there.

I have a 76 corvette heater core which only has 1 120mm on it and it keeps my graphics card and cpu at ambient temp. On full load I only see about a 5C increase.

speed bump pretty much said what i would tell most people. dont take people here as an example of whats required as most of us here OC and keep our systems to a much higher standard. and dont go by temps. temps mean absolutely nothing for the most part. go by the rock stable condition at which you can OC your comp

thorilan said:

speed bump pretty much said what i would tell most people. dont take people here as an example of whats required as most of us here OC and keep our systems to a much higher standard. and dont go by temps. temps mean absolutely nothing for the most part. go by the rock stable condition at which you can OC your comp

Click to expand...

Don't forget noise.... oh the noise....

alright well the main priorities for me are.
1. quiet
2. space (i want a small rad)
3. potential to keep my system cool

I really just want a quiet system. if i can run it fanless even better. So you think the black ice xtreme 1 is fine to just cool athlon 64 3500+ without overclocking?

and thx for everyones expertise.

edit: i use a zalman cpu block the ZM-wb3 (no one has probably even heard of it) and a eheim 1048. I haven't set up the system yet i'm still gathering info.

bix120 with specs in sig, keeps cpu in the 30's with a lot of volts

if your 1 priority is quiet go with a bip instead of a bix so you can use a quieter fan

ok bip is what i thought i should get. ok thx for confirming this. i'm gonna get the bip is it possible i might be able to run it fanless? i'm gonna search on this

Personally, I like the idea of putting as large of a radiator as practically possible. That way you don't have to buy a new radiator if you feel like cooling two GPUs and a hot CPU some time in the future .

Penny, I'm new to this all but have been doing alot of research on rads. The pro is what you want with a low cfm fan for quietness. I recently ordered the new thermochill pa160 to try out, supposed to be as good as most dual rads on low cfm, Its large...roughly 7" by 7" and very expensive for a radiator. As far as running fanless on a internal rad, you gotta have something to move air through it. This is my 2 cents since you are wanting the same priorities as me. Quiet, space, cooling performance. Any of you awesome WC guru's please correct me if I'm wrong in my radiator opinions. Always looking to learn more.

Since you want a smaller radiator and a quiet system see if you can get a Black Ice Pro 2. I know it's a double 120mm radiator however you can run a couple 50CFM fans in near silent operation and have great cooling capability for a well overclocked processor and even graphics if you wish. I have one on my prescott and 9800, it works great and around 9v on my 2X Delta 3-Blade 120mm's they are completely silent.

In addition to a larger radiator for a quiet computer you should look into a few other quiet parts. A good pump, if you can still find them, are the DDC-12v or MCP350 11w pumps. They are basically the samething however with a different label. There are 18w versions out there however are a tad louder, consequently they are more powerfull though. I'd recommend an 18w if you have more then one block, larger then a double 120mm radiator and more then a few meters of tubing. A good block for a low restriction system is the Swiftech Apogee. From its base design it offers great performance for the buck and very low restriction with a low required flow rate. This makes it a good choice for the DDC 11w pump because despite it's high pressure capabilities it somewhat lacks flow rate due to it's restrictive compact design. Another thing to consider is tubing size, personally I swear by Tygon R3603 7/16ID (11.1mm) x 11/16OD (17.4mm). I use it in my system and I believe it's the right balance between flow rate (up to 10L per minute) and size. It has a massive 1/8 (3.175mm) wall so this tubing can really take a sharp bend without kinking plus doesn't hold shape after a long period of time so it's easily reuseable if you want to redo your loop. It also can go over 1/2 barbs and because it's a little bit smaller it creates a better more leakfree seal.

So for a very quiet cooling solution I would suggest you buy some kind of GPU block (unless you already have a quiet air HSF), the Swiftech Apogee, a double 120mm radiator, DDC-12v/MCP350, 7/16|11/16 Tubing, and a couple of 120mm fans around 50-75CFM. I guarantee with that setup you will be very happy.