Should I bother with water?

Hello all! I am new to OC Forums, and not all that experienced with OCing.. however i am pretty good with electronics.. i built my own PC back in January and was toying around with the idea of overclocking .. so i upgraded my mobo to the EVGA 680i nForce mobo .. the full size one not the LT .. i was able to start getting my Q6600 up to 1333 FSB with the 9x multiplier making it 3.0GHz .. however while doing that, upping my RAM a tad, and having my tank of a gfx card the 8800GTS 640MB .. its been getting hot in the case..

to try and stop the long-winded intro .. lol.. i will now cut to the chase.. i would like to continue to push the limits of my system, as well as cut down on noise.. would it be a good idea to go with water with the following system specs or not?

Motherboard: EVGA 680i nForce SLI ATX
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
RAM: 4GB Buffalo Firestix (2 of These Dual Channel Kits)
GFX: EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 700W
Case: Thermaltake Shark (Black)

I have a Cooler Master UFO that must not be in production anymore because it was removed off of Newegg... also thinking of getting some OCZ SLI RAM that runs stock at ~1250MHz... and then getting a second 8800GTS to do SLI .. which i would think warrant the water cooling?

any thoughts/comments are appreciated?

BOTHER WITH WATER OR SUFFER DIRE CONSEQUENCES!

I don't see why you couldn't watercool all of that. You'll have to mod the case quite a bit to fit in a radiator, though. You've got quite the hot system, and if you plan on cooling your CPU and GPU, you'll definitely want a triple rad (I think a dual would cut it but would definitely be bottlenecking if you were to add another 8800). If you want a quiet WC rig, it's absolutely necessary to have as much cooling surface area as possible. Also, you'll want a rad with a low FPI count so you can use quieter and less powerful fans. The king of all rads is the Thermochill PA Series. They're also extremely expensive. Next best thing is the Swiftech MCR series. I'd recommend an MCR rad if you don't want to spend too much on a Thermochill.

Pumpwise, you can't beat the Laing DDC (MCP355). I'm not sure how far it's gotten now (I haven't followed watercooling parts for quite a bit now), but I believe it's at it's 4th revision. The 1st revision is possibly the best quiet pump out there, it's the 10w model, and was extremely quiet. The second revision was powerful and quiet, but not as quiet as the 10w (this one ran at 18w). I don't know anything about the DDC series past that.

For fans, you'll want Yate Loons. I'd personally buy 6 high-speed Yates and run them push-pull on an MCR-320 with a fan controller to slow them all down if I want to quiet them. This way, you'll have the power if you need it, but you can also quiet them down. An unbeatable fan controller is the Sunbeam Rheobus.

As for CPU waterblocks, I believe the top two blocks are the FuZioN and the Apogee GT or the GTX. The Storm is being phased out as the top-end block with the larger areas needing to be cooled on modern processors.

GPUwise, I'd recommend getting a single GPU block and air-cooling the vRAM and other areas on the videocard that needs to be cooled. Full-cover GPU blocks are expensive, and while they cool very well, they could go obsolete at the next generation of videocards. For a GPU block, I'd recommend the MCW60. Full-cover blocks, the EK 8800 series blocks are unbeatable IIRC. I myself run a Maze4 on my x850. It's a great block, and is very cheap.

For tubing, I prefer 7/16" Masterkleer. I got around 20 feet of it back when McMaster-Carr sold it for $.38 a foot It's raised in price a bit now, but is still very cheap tubing, when compared to Tygon at least, and it's great tubing. 7/16" ID tubing is difficult to slip over 1/2" barbs, but it does not require hose-clamps to seal as it's very tight fitting. You'll need some boiling water to soften the ends of the tubing and stretch them over the 1/2" barbs. It bends easier than 1/2", it has a tighter bend radius, puts less torque on your blocks, and the lower bulk I think looks better. For 7/16" tubing, you'll want 7/16" ID and 5/8" OD. For 1/2" tubing, you'll want 1/2" ID and 3/4" OD tubing. Either will perform the same (within under 1°C), so go off what you think is better

If you do get 1/2" ID tubing, make sure to get Worm-Drive clamps. I prefer the smooth-band clamps that can be found at McMaster. They aren't perforated, so they don't cut up tubing, and you can really crank down on them without any worries.

For coolant, use distilled water, a little antifreeze (if you want), and some biocide/algaecide. If you mix aluminum and copper (you shouldn't if you get the things I've mentioned), then you run the risk of galvanic corrosion. In that case, antifreeze is not optional, it is NECESSARY. Antifreeze acts as a corrosion inhibitor, and you'll need a reasonably high concentration to keep from corrosion (20-25% I believe). I'd keep away from water dyes. They're pretty but some are cheap and can damage parts

I think I've covered most everything.

And btw, welcome to the forums!

djsubsonik said:

.. i would like to continue to push the limits of my system, as well as cut down on noise.. would it be a good idea to go with water with the following system specs or not?

Click to expand...

Low noise and big overclocks don't go together for water.
The more air you put through a rad, the more heat it will remove. And yes, just like waterflow through a block, there are diminishing returns, but with rads those returns are much less diminishing. You say you want to "push the limits of my system", then that would be a PA120.3 with three 200 CFM fans...not really quiet. You can put the fans on rheostats and run multiple overclocks (everyday, gamming, benchmarking), but generally a high CFM fan undervolted to 50 CFMs will be much louder than a 50 CFM, low noise fan at 12 Volts. So you kinda have to decide what you want, noise/cooling wise. There are many charts and graphs available for rad performance vs air flow and fan CFMs vs noise. The more "homework" you do the better your results will be. Generally though it will be your third watercooling setup where you get it right.