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Help deciding weither to go external or internal...

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Suigyoken

Registered
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Hey there... I have two basic questions to ask here; I have a Coolermaster CM 690 case and I plan on using those two water cooling ports on the back in the near future (Preferably when I upgrade to a good dual or quad core) and since the two port holes are made for external cooling, I'd like to know what are some good external water cooling kits out there? Or rather, could I be safe with normal internal water cooling parts just sitting on my desk? This is the desk space including my monitor and such;

s7300113rp7.jpg


Save for cleaning it up I should have plenty of room...

The second question goes, if there aren't any good external kits, does it look like I have enough room for an internal? Here is a screen from inside my case:

s7300112wi6.jpg


Note that soon I'll upgrade to a 8800 so it's going to get a little cramped in there... but for now I'm keeping my wires all out since I'm still doing some small upgrades and not ready to close it up :b but now I just need suggestions if it's a good idea to go out and buy some external kit (However I'm going to get a better waterblock then what they'd offer) or just build my own and try to fit it all in.
 
Haha a dual rad setup? Now when I have a rad in the top it'll basically defeat the purpose of the two available 140mm fans on the top (Case is well enough ventilated though so it shouldn't matter much) But I'm also under a somewhat budget of spending no more or less then around $130-$170 I'm also going to mainly just cool the CPU which I'm deciding on a nice 1333 FSB dual core (Quad wont be optimized for gaming in a while so why bother?)
 
I'm with Wayward, that case is BEGGING for an internal setup.

Those holes in the top look like 120mm holes to me. If so, I'd definitely use those to mount a rad to. I'd probably cut out holes for a triple rad, you have plenty of room.
 
You could go single rad as well, but I don't think $130-170 is a realistic budget for a quality water loop on a dual or quad. I think water cooling is more expensive for a quality setup than many people realize at first.

A triple rad in the top would eliminate some complexity but at the expense of extra case modification.

And if you wanted to utilize the top 140mm slots you could still use a 2x120 rad and fabricate a custom shroud to use 140mm fans in a pull configuration.
 
I don't think that a triple radiator or two radiators should be required. If you really have room for 140mm fans however you may want to consider a bonneville heatercore for your radiator. The bonnie should fit extremely well in that profile and provides a lot of cooling. Two high speed fans on a fan controller would give you a nice punch with the option for quiet computing. Besides that an Apogee GTX or Dtek Fuzion and a Laing D5 pump (a.k.a. MCP655) would make for a good system.
 
Ah, forgot the b'ville HC fits 140mm fans... and I have one!

It's a bit thick and restrictive so you'll need some more powerful fans than say, an MCR220 or a PA120.2. But you should easily be able to get by with one.

I personally don't think it'd be able to handle a quad and two 8800GTS's though.
 
Well save for the quad and a 8800 waterblock, I think I'll just got with a really good dual core and have the 8800 on it's own, plus there isn't going to be SLi on this since the mobo doesn't support it :b But but everything aside I should mount the rad on the top and have the tube lead inside to the pump and res? I could probably get a drive bay res and leave the pump somewhere in the spare hd bay. But now I suppose I need help with a list of parts, and if $170 is too low... what would fit my budget for a good single cpu cooling solution?
 
I'd mount the rad internal, that way you won't need to cut any holes in the case at all. The pump would easily fit in the drive bay I'd suspect. $170 seems fine to me (My first loop which was a whitewater, D4, Bonneville HC, 2x Panaflos, Maze4GPU, tee-line was around $150ish). If you're on a tight budget I'd skip on the res. If you need a cheap block, a WhiteWater LE is definitely the cheapest out there I believe, however it's a bit of a hassle to route with the 3-barb configuration. I'd say to get an Apogee, it's still a great block and is quite cheap now with all the new blocks out.
 
Nice case! How does the PSU get air?

How bout taking those dual fans and turning them around. Make a cardboard duct so their air flow is channeled outside. Take off the back fan and let free air flow in to supply the dual fans. Your case will be COLD and your cooling will improve nicely. No need for any other fans.

Looks like you have something like an SI-128 for cooling? I have a Q6600 B3 on one of those with an exhaust fan and its doing 3.1 ghz with a temperature of 55c (room 22c). The single fan panaflo fan is at 70% power @1600 rpm (I can't remember the exact number). Dual fans should do even better!
 
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Well the case is completely ventilated (Save for the sides) with most of it being a tiny grill. I could mount a rad on top and leave the two top internal fans out of it, and my PSU ets air from the bottom hole of the case... if I need to post more screens or even a video of my case to give you guys a better layout of it feel free to ask. But my budget is going to be somewhere around or under $200.
 
I am pretty sure you can easily mount a 120.2 rad up there without any mods. Internal would be the way to go with this case.

How is that Geminii working out for you?
 
The Geminii is currently 30-38C at idle (Hot CA weather isn't good for computers haha) And gets to around 47-49 around full load, and this is when my cpu is overclocked to 2.9 Ghz It's doing fine for the current chip I have at the moment but I'm afraid that overclocking a E6750 the Geminii wont be up to snuff.
 
If you're on a tight budget I'd skip on the res.
Personally, I say screw the res. :bday: I've never been a fan of the things, they take up a bunch of room that can be used for other stuff, and offer absolutely no performance advantages*. Not to mention that they cost more than a T-line and I've seen them break.



Also, a bonieville heatercore (2-302) runs about $15 at your local autoparts store. Buy some high quality fans and better parts with the money you save. Their main disadvantage though is that they aren't exactly small. If your interested in them, say something and I'll write up a nice post about them.
 
The Geminii is currently 30-38C at idle (Hot CA weather isn't good for computers haha) And gets to around 47-49 around full load, and this is when my cpu is overclocked to 2.9 Ghz It's doing fine for the current chip I have at the moment but I'm afraid that overclocking a E6750 the Geminii wont be up to snuff.

What CPU do you have now? E6750s aren't that hot actually, but yeah you do want to upgrade your cooling if you want to penetrate the mid 3ghz range.
 
Well for a Res I'd get one that takes up a drive bay, since I'm only going to just use one DVD drive haha... I'm going to be looking for some with a flow indicator too. But that Bonnieville heater core seems like a interesting idea, since it was made for auto use it'll probably be more durable. Also how large are they?
 
What CPU do you have now? E6750s aren't that hot actually, but yeah you do want to upgrade your cooling if you want to penetrate the mid 3ghz range.

I've got a E2160 Allendale Oc'ed to 2.83 Ghz at the moment, it reached around 47 at the heat of the day with the case open. And the highest I'm going to overclock would be around 3.2-3.5 and higher if I could (Getting ready for Crysis P= ) Since I don't want to kill my PSU and mobo in the process haha. But that's what I'm solely going to cool, since I'll just let the 8800 use it's own cooling and the case should be sufficient enough when I fill all of the fan ports up with some nice 120-140mm fans.
 
Well for a Res I'd get one that takes up a drive bay, since I'm only going to just use one DVD drive haha... I'm going to be looking for some with a flow indicator too. But that Bonnieville heater core seems like a interesting idea, since it was made for auto use it'll probably be more durable. Also how large are they?

Mines something like 1' by 5&3/8ths
 
Really depends on how much you're planning on OC'ing. If you want the best temps I'd mount externally to take advantage of the lower ambient temps.
 
I'm probably going to go 3.5 and no more, since the spectrum of good processing is right around there for me. And I suppose I will mount a rad on the top and use the two holes on the case to mount the rest inside p=
 
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