question regarding radiator size

[scared0o0rabbit]

My setup involves a radeon 9800 pro, and 2 athlon 2800+ MP (Barton) that need cooling. I'm not overclocking, nor will I ever be overclocking. My problem is that at ambient temperatures, even when I keep the fuzz out of my case and heatsinks, and with proper airflow my case still just gets too darn hot (since I live in california with no A/C lol).

So I was going to run water cooling a couple years ago, but got stalled in the middle of it and only have like half of what I need. The 2 primary things I really need are a radiator and a reservoir.

So onto the question, what size radiator can I get away with running? Where I'd really like to stick the radiator is only really about 6"x6"x8" so that's only really big enough for a single 120mm radiator. So, are there any radiators that are a single 120mm fan in size that would adequately cool it?

Otherwise it's looking like I may have to either cut a whole in my case and run an outside radiator or maybe I could run 2 single 120mm radiators cause I have another 6"x6"x6" opening elsewhere in my case.

I'm looking for some guidance here as I'm pretty lost and it's reached the point where I can't do anything on my computer anymore due to this heat wave.

[thideras]

Well, honestly, if you are never going to overclock, watercooling really isn't worth the hassle. You can pick up a decent air cooler that should do about as good as water.

What is going to really hurt you the ambient temperatures that you reported. Even with water, your temps are still going to be pretty high ;)

:welcome: to the forums!! :D


EDIT: What temperatures are you hitting on your stock cooler? I'm sure there are a few of us here that can help you lower those temps without buying anything.

[imposter]

Well thideras remember that friend i had who had Kick-butt pc and had every thing at stock?
hes going water :o and its gonna be at stock.

Understand that your temps are never gonna get lower than ambient so if its hot in your room your processor is going to be hot, unless you got phase change etc.

[QuietIce]

Find the best sized heater core for your opening and use it. I'd still say the best you can expect is 5°C (~10°F) over ambient for your coolant temp ...


Edit: After a little research I find the idea of doubled rads to be invalid - it would make things worse. :-/ As a result I heavily edited this post ...

[PearlJammzz]

10 degrees over ambient is not bad at all. Are you going for a more silent approach? Or what?

a 2x 120mm could work. This is how I would setup my loop. pump->front rad, CPU1, read rad, CPU2, res, pump, front rad, etc. Now depending on the board setup and location of the di's this could add a lot of tubing, thus taking away any advantage, and possibly giving a dissadvantage, to you going with a radiator in-between. Try it both ways, see what your temps are. Either way you need about the same product.

For a resevoir, get a Swiftech micro res, if you don't you're stupid lol. The res is small, even has hinges to pop out for filling. Heard nothing but great things about it and is what I will be purchasing here soon.

As for a pump, if you have 2 water blocks (assuming yer not gunna try and cool the 9800pro w/ water...it'd be a waste, doesn't run that hot lol) and 2 radiators and an ass-load of tubing, you're going to need a decent pump. Swiftech makes 2 that are good. a 355 and 655 iirc? Anyways, the 655 is a lil big, but I know you have the room. a 355 MIGHT be enough for you as well, and is lots smaller. Maybe a side-pic of your case setup would be nice?

[scared0o0rabbit]

Even a few degrees above ambient would be great... but I'm consistently running over 50C on cpu 2, even when the computer is sitting idle. And I know for a fact that my ambient temperature isn't anywhere near that hot lol.

As far as the pump, I think I'm good on that, I dunno what model it is, but I do have an eheim AC Pump.

As of right now, I've got 2 inlet fans, and 2 outlet fans (not counting the radeon silencer that's on my 9800 pro right now and the power supply exhaust fan). All of the 80mm fans are panaflo M rated (except for the cpu fans which I'm running panaflo h rated on). For heatsinks I'm running thermalright SLK900a's on both cpu's, and routinely pull the fans off them and remove the dust that's accumulated on them (and various other parts of the computer lol). I've done a fairly decent job of routing the cables, atleast the air coming into the case and exiting the case past the cpus is unobstructed by cabling. As far as my case, I've got one of those antec/chenbro/etc. server cases that are some common... but mine is the 6 5.25" bay model (for a grand total of 6 5.25" and 6 3.5"). Unfortunately despite the size of the case I don't have a lot of room in the case since I'm running an MSI k7d and it's a rather large motherboard lol.

As it stands right now, the only time the computer is really usable is at night, after it's cooled down, with the side off the computer and a large fan pointed right at the inside of the computer... at which point my case temp in MBM5 reads as about 31C... but cpu 2 still reads at right around 50C...

With a difference between ambient temp and idle temp of cpu that is so great, I just can't help but think I need to do something besides air cooling to make this computer usable at this point =/

[HiProfile]

If not overclocking, why not try undervolting? Since heat production increases expotentially with voltage, it will decrease in the same fassion.

I'm also curious what type of air coolers you have on, and if they have flat bases. If you insist on W/Cing it, 2 stock bartons aren't close to the heat output of a C2Q. Thats something on the order of 55w * 2 + 35w total with the vid card. Basicly any single 120mm fan radiator can deal with that heat.

[||Console||]

For what you sned on a good water kit you could get a new system thats faster and runs cooler like a new Celly

[PearlJammzz]

You really can build a C2d on the cheap these days...Hell, quad cores for 250 bucks! Once you start adding ram and stuff, it does start to get expensive.

Quad is only useful if you're doing a lot of encoding/compiling. If not, just go w/ a 6420 or sumthin for 100 bucks less. 2 gigs of ram costs ~80 bucks now, 650i mobo ~120, vid car, whatever ya want. Good water cooling could equal up to 400 bucks or so.

[Mustanley]

For real cheap you could get an '86 chevette heater core (6.25" x 7.25") from the auto parts store and run a T-line instead of buying a reservoir.

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1022/

[scared0o0rabbit]

Well, like I said, I already have the waterblocks and all that sitting around from when I went to do this a couple years ago. I've already lowered the voltage down to the lowest I can set it and still maintain stability under a full cpu load... The heatsinks I have right now are thermalright slk900's, pretty much the highest rated heatsinks I could find when I built the pc. They are solid copper, have flat bottoms, and neither the cpu nor the heatsinks have ever had any other kind of thermal paste besides arctic silver 5 used on them.

If I go with a single 120mm radiator, which you say should be able to handle it, then should I be shooting for one of the dual core ones or whatever? I really don't have a problem with buying 2 separate 120mm radiators and running both either. I don't really have the funds to spend more than about $200 on this computer in the next several months, and this computer has to last me at least another whole year, since I'm currently paying off credits cards and stuff in preparation of buying a house. The computer does everything I need it to do currently since I don't really do much gaming on it (mostly older stuff, and the sims 2 for my fiance). That idea of using the chevette radiator looks interesting, I could even use 2 of those without too much work I imagine, and it would be a lot cheaper than the radiators made for this. I'm a little worried about sweating the new ends onto the heater core though...

Basically my choices are only use the computer at night for the next year or more. Or I can spend like $200 on cooling and be able to use it all the time and go back to leaving it on. I used to have air conditioning and it wasn't such a big deal, so I used it to host a website, an ftp, and various other things also. However, since I can't leave it on all the time anymore, I've had to shut down the things I host.

[Mustanley]

That single chevette core I mentioned above would be <$20 and outperform most commercial WC 120mm rads. best if paired with a 120x38 fan

[QuietIce]

If you only have to add a rad and res you can get by MUCH cheaper than $200. A pair of those Chevette cores for ~$40 and a T-line that runs ~$10 for hardware. If you're using 1/2" tubing all you need do to the heater cores is cut off any extra pipe you don't need. IDK about the Chevette core specifically but I bet it uses 1/2" copper for the IN/OUT just like the Bonneville core does. 1/2" tubing goes over 1/2" copper pretty easily.

You can also use a copper T and short, 1/2" copper pipe stubs for the T-line. I like to use a 1/2x1/2x3/4" T so the T-line (@ 3/4") has a little more storage space - about half as much as a MicroRes if you only have a one foot T. If you can sweat pipe than you've probably got all you need. If you can't sweat pipe there's some stuff in the hardware store that's kinda' like epoxy but it's designed for copper water line and it's very easy to use. Not sure if I would trust it in my house, under 50 PSI, but it's more than adequate for our water loops.


And if you DO want to spend $200 more on WC buy yourself an office water chiller at Walmart and hook it up. It's been done at least once here on OCF if you want to search for it ...

[Mustanley]

That's the only issue with the '86 chevette core is that one barb is 1/2" and the other is 3/8". If you end using some 3/8" tubing or make a reducer to go from 1/2" to 3/8", I doubt if it will affect the flowrate significantly so long as you have a strong pump.

[scared0o0rabbit]

My waterblocks are 1/2" so that's what I'll be going with, but I think I'm going to give this a shot, shouldn't be too expensive at all to get this up and running.

[QuietIce]

3/8" copper is OK for 1/2" tubing, too - it's 3/8" ID but 1/2" OD. Not quite the snug fit that 1/2" copper is but not bad ... :)