Do i need a new radiator?

I am running a vantec water cooling kit right now. It currwently cools my cpu NB and SB on a striker extreme 680i I have lapped the water block and the top of my e6750. Running stable at 3.9ghz but i wanna push to 4ghz obviously 3,9 is just to close to call it quits. I run an extreme stree test Orthos small ftt's Orthos blend and 3dmark loop all at the same time to test my stability i found just running orthos isnt enough if i only orthos for 34 hours i get crashes in heavy physics games and older rts's that use software rendering. Anyways under my stress testing my average cpu temp is about 55c and it peaks at 60c It seems like ive hit a cooling wall i dont want to really push more voltage. The cpu is currently at 1.49 under load is see people running higher than that on air is my water cooling just crap?? As i mentioned i lapped the block and the cpu, would it be a better investment to buy a dual or triple rad i am currently using a singe 120 rad, or would buying a dtek block be a better investment? i cant belive my temps are so high at 1.49. I had to cut all those heat pipes off and cool the NB and Sb though becuase my mobo just wouldnt get stable over an 1800mhz fsb. It seems to me that maybe the liaquid cooler is somewhat qdiquit becuase it is cooling the nb and sb alot better than all thos crazy heat pipes with three blower fant mounted on them.

"is my water cooling just crap??" ....Yes. I assume you chose the Vantec kit based on Vantec's advertising, and never did any calculations on heat load.

http://www.over-clock.com/ivb/index.php?showtopic=20277
http://www.thermochill.com/PATesting/
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77260
http://translate.google.com/transla...&article_id=222&langpair=de|en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=151627

A 2x120 at least. As you say, what you have now isn't as good as mediocre air cooling.

I'd think about a new pump and block too.

is there a particular reason you put NB and SB under water? This can restrict the flow which some pumps dont handle very well. Passivle NB/SB coolers are available that will do a better job then what it sounds like you have.
Having said that, a good pump will push that water through the bridges without problem

As bill has said ya, probably a dual rad is a good idea.
I dont know which metal vantec uses but be aware that mixing copper blocks with other metals can cause corrosion unless proper measures are taken to prevent this (there are several dozen threads here that deal with this)

Uhmm i had a an crazy heat pipe system on the north brigde/south brige and mosfets with blowers fitter on the heat sinks. I took it off becuase my board wasnt stable at a fsb over 1800 now it good up to 2000 maye higher havent tested it. I guess the pump is decent its 185gph. The kit came with a vga block cpu and sb and nb block so i just chose to cool the board that way. i mean what should my temps be at 1.49 volts under full load in 20c ambient? is 60 really high? Also the water cooler is copper aluminum i just mix the anti corrosive coolant in the kit with distilled water it says not to but i think thats kind of bs to make you buy there coolant or something.

oh ya im sorry i keep forgetting to say this in my posts but one reason i dont know if its the rad is that my loop goes, res>pump>rad>cpu>nb>sb, and all the water is the res seems reasonably cool.

It shouldn't as the temperature of the water will even out eventually anyway.

But if that's the same vantec stingray kit I'm seeing on their website, I wouldn't trust that thing for the CPU, let alone adding the NB to that.

Kits like those don't do anything other than let you say you're using water cooling, it's not going to be any better(likely worse) than a decent heatsink.

You'd need to replace the radiator, pump, and likely the blocks as well, which leaves you with the tubing left over(and it may not fit the new hardware).

ya i just tested the water after running orthos it get pretty warm, i know the rad is a pos, but what is wrong with the pump? when i look at frozen cpu 185gph seems to be pretty standard not i mean it looks like the next step up is the dtek or swiftek punmp that are 300gph is 185 really that bad?

boorishid said:

ya i just tested the water after running orthos it get pretty warm, i know the rad is a pos, but what is wrong with the pump? when i look at frozen cpu 185gph seems to be pretty standard not i mean it looks like the next step up is the dtek or swiftek punmp that are 300gph is 185 really that bad?

Click to expand...

When a pump manufacturer give you the GPH (flow rate) of a pump, he's only telling you one half of the story. Pumps also have a pressure (head) specification. So while you pump may be able to deliver 185gph into a bucket, it won't pump anywhere near that amount of water against the back pressure of your system.

Also, each pump has a PQ curve which relates how much water it will move vs how much pressure is is working against.

Very good explanation on that, billb.

Another point to consider is how reliable that pump is that came with your Vantec kit too. How much efficiency will it lose in a few years and will it start leaking? I'm very paranoid about leakage from the pump's seals or housings and I don't mind spending the money for pumps that I know are reliable and pretty well leakproof. And to me, those kit pumps are neither.

Thanks for the explanation. I have planned on building a new cooling system one piece at a time im just trying to figure out where to start.

As far as pumps go when i replace this one itll be with the swiftech im just trying to figure out wich will yeild better results a new pump or a bigger rad. My intension is to keep 3/8 hose 1/2 is just to big, it appears that those swiftechs are for 1/2 id can you screw barbs into them? Also my pump is external right now som if it leaks its not gonna be a big deal. I do have a question though on the pressure, looking through the specs it has a rating of 700 l/h. What exactly is l/h i tried to google it but didnt acually find an explanation is 700 decent?

700 l/hr (liters/hour)=185 gals/hr. But that doesn't tell you anything about how much head pressure the pump puts out. That is just flow rate with no hydrostatic head to buck.

To give you an idea of what pressure your pump can output if they give you a delivery head number (specs of my present pump, which is an Eheim 1250 is 6 1/2 feet), you can easily convert that to psi with the following formula:


PSI=Head Pressure (in feet) X 8.3 (weight of fresh water in pounds/gallon) X .052 (constant)

Substituting the numbers in the equation yields the following for my Eheim:

8.3 X 6.5 X .052=2.8054 psi

Yeah, your system is probably sub-par. If you are going to swap out parts one at a time as you can afford it, start out with a Swiftech MCR220-QP rad. Yes, you can get 3/8" barbs for it. Since you have to drain your loop to do this, pull the southbridge block out of the loop and use a good passive heatsink instead. The northbridge is far more critical for FSB and gets way hotter than the southbridge. As others mentioned, these small blocks cut down flow. Heck, if I were doing it, I'd probably eliminate both S/B and N/B blocks from the water loop. A nice active cooler on the N/B might be worth considering.