Dangerden vs. Overclockershideout

[EclipseJP]

I want to get a watercooling system for my computer but now I have come a fork in the road. I am not sure which one to get. Is that cooling cube from the DD any good. Or would I be better getting a regular radiator. I want to put some a 140-172 watt tec on my cpu and I know that will generate a lot of heat. I also want a video cooler as well. So please help me out folks.

[Hoot]

Unless, you get a reply from someone who has actually used both brands in a head-to-head comparison, you will only get one-sided opinions. Kind of like Ford vs Chevy posturing. I have only used the D.D. setup and all I can tell you is that it worked right, straight out of the box, for my setup, which does not include a peltier device. My informed impression is that the setup I use (in my sig) has a lot of heat removing headroom left to accomodate a peltier. I have a 170W peltier that I played around with, but I do not trust it for a long-term setup because if that peltier fails, you will have literally seconds before you smoke your CPU. CPUs are not cheap and I question whether some automatic shutdown program will respond fast enough to save the CPU. Peltiers are great to play around with, under close scrutiny, but I would not feel good leaving one unattended. That is my personal opinion and probably not one shared by everyone. I am a big proponent of air-cooled setups and have spent countless hours experimenting with them, but Water Cooling is the ultimate solution, if you can afford it.

73, Hoot

[FrozenInHI]

I have two machines here, one uses the overclockershideout stuff, it's the heatseeker pro from their site, with a bong, it works so good, i can't tell you enough good things about it, and it's been pelted before with a 156w tec, i too don't like pelts for long term solutions, but the watercooling itself worked flawlessly in maintaining a great temperature for my cpu (averaged 15c here in hawaii), the other machine has a maze 2 waterblock and an overclockershideout radiator on it, i have the cube but i didn't like the pressure drop it made in my system, the och radiator fits nicely in the case and works really well with a good 120mm fan on it. If it were me starting out in watercooling all over again, but with the knowledge of both that i've got, i'd definitely go with och, they have great products. if you don't like the two metal block they use, then go for a maze block, and get the rest of the stuff from och, i like their reservoir much better, their radiator is excellent, and everything worked first try out of the box, no leaks, no problems whatsoever. my cube leaked around the barb connections coming out of the radiator, come to find out, they forgot to seal one of them, they offered a refund/replacement, but i just fixed it myself and it worked fine, just too much of a pressure drop. hope this gives at least a little insight, remembering it's just one man's opinion, you have to decide where to jump in for yourself.

[mEKbOY]

Well i have used the complete OCH kit in one machine and a Maze 2 waterblock and super cube in another. Performace wise they were pretty much similar as i thought they would be. For total easiness out the box and looks and convience the OCH kit was my personal choice. Its up to you and what you prefer i personaly would go for the OCH stuff everytime. never got any leaks, the res and pump is awesome looking, effective, and easy to setup. No bleeding to worry about. The radiator fits just about anywhere a 120mm fan does and works very well. The new monting scheme for the Z4 block is awesome as well. It uses the safe 4 hole mount while having a mount peice that doesn't force you to remove your motherboard everytime you install it. My service from there is top notch to. You can talk to someone via icq and get support and questions answered. I have about 5 orders from there and never had a problem except for once. My item wasnt shipped but a quick message on icq and it was shipped the next day.

[EclipseJP]

So without a tec I could get my cpu to 15c with watercooling. Well Ill try the OCH one then, but Ill get the big radiator with 2 120 fans. Thanks for your help guys.

[Hoot]

Without a peltier device and using a radiator of some type, the best temperature you will reach will be the same as the room temperature. Even that is highly unlikely as there is always some resistance between the core and the waterblock. At idle and with some kind of halt-on-idle program, it is not unusual to get within 1-3C of ambient. That will go up as the CPU generates more heat. From my experience, I have found that a 10C spread between idle and full load is about as good as you can get. IE, say your system temp is 20C. At idle, with halt-on-idle enabled, you might get 23C. At full load, like running Prime95 Torture, your temp would be 33C. That depends a lot upon the speed and voltage you run your CPU at. The higher the wattage consumed by your CPU, the greater the spread.

73, Hoot

[ButcherUK]

Personally I'd only trust a pelt setup with a hardware shutoff in case of pelt failure, something that can react faster than software.

[EclipseJP]

Where could I get a pelt falure shutoff? Would the FOC work?

[Colin]

I have had a few pelt systems and consider pelts to be reliable. I would not worry about a shut off. Most problems with pelts are due to condensation or switching the pelts on without any cooling. One thing is for sure, a Cooling Cube is going to be stressed running a 172 watt pelt. I've been there. If you choose to pelt your system, get a heater core.

Before you play with pelts, please consider building a watercooled rig first. After you have it tweaked out, then consider pelts. Adding pelts to the equation first is not impossible but can be confusing without a firm background in watercooling.

BTW, I am a big Danger Den fan. :D