Good CPU water block

Hi everybody! thanks for the great job at this forum.

I have a custom "self made","recicled" water cooling rig, made with two pasive Zalman Reserator as rads, cooling the MOSFET's and NB of a GA-MA790XT-UDP4, a slightly OC'ed ATI 4770 and a Phenom II 955 at [email protected].

Everything OK, with the actual room temps (20 Celsius degrees), I have water at 32, and the CPU(full) at 57, with 130 litres/hour flow (0.5GPM), with a "old" Zalman ZW-WB3 waterblock. (remenber that is a passive rad solution, but it works )(I have a fan below a Reserator, that can refrigerate some excesses, but OC'ing a little bit more, or heating the room, the temps and the noise, slowly rise up, and the block can't absorb all CPU heat, surpassing the 62 degrees maximum temp for this CPU)

I wish to prepare it for hot summer, without cut off clock or voltage... is it recommended a another water block???

I read a lot of reviews, of modern blocks, but the showed Delta Temps, are similar to the that I can obtain with the Zalman old block... (the better block has a 25 degrees delta)

I doubt between a EK Supreme HF or XSPC Delta V3, but I don't know about better results...

Thanks to everybody

Seems the "best" CPU blocks are arguably the Ek supreme HF and the Apogee XT ATM. I'm a little confused about your current setup though. Do you ahve any pics so i can see what you mean? A new waterblock could help a bit but better still would be a proper Radiator with a good pump.

Detale said:

A new waterblock could help a bit but better still would be a proper Radiator with a good pump.

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This will be the best advice any of us could give. Also, if I'm not mistaken, those Zalman radiators are aluminum, which will cause galvanic corrosion with a copper block. The absolute best answer will be to get a better radiator, before you start worrying about your blocks. It is the radiator that will bring your temps down, the blocks are responsible for very little of the temps. The only thing they really do is transfer the heat from the CPU to the water, where it is carried to the radiator to be dissipated into the ambient air.

Well, about galvanic corrosion, in 12 months, with MilliQ water, and anticorrosion aditive, I can't see any corrosion symptoms...

Relative to radiators, I understand, that if I have got a certain water temp, the capacity of the block to extract and exchange, the CPU heat to water, depends of the block construction/quality, or of the flow quantity, not of the radiator cooling ability.

With the better radiator, if I have 30 degrees in my room, the water, never be under this temp, isn't it???

Then problem is in the block... and the low max temp for the 955, placed in 62 degrees

pepdolesa said:

Well, about galvanic corrosion, in 12 months, with MilliQ water, and anticorrosion aditive, I can't see any corrosion symptoms...

Relative to radiators, I understand, that if I have got a certain water temp, the capacity of the block to extract and exchange, the CPU heat to water, depends of the block construction/quality, or of the flow quantity, not of the radiator cooling ability.

With the better radiator, if I have 30 degrees in my room, the water, never be under this temp, isn't it???

Then problem is in the block... and the low max temp for the 955, placed in 62 degrees

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To start with, the anti corrosion additive will hinder the amount of heat that the coolant would normally pick up from the block by quite a bit. I don't know much about the Zalman block that you speak of, since I have no experience with kit setups. The biggest thing about cooling things down is in the radiator. For starters, aluminum doesn't dissipate heat as well as copper or brass (an alloy of copper), so the aluminum rads will hold you back a bit. Also, if that block is restrictive, it will keep temps higher as well, due to the fact that it is slowing the coolant down. I wouldn't say your problem is just in the block, but in the whole loop. For one thing, running passive isn't helping any, because you need the airflow over the fins of the rad to push the heat away from it. Chances are, if you put some fans on your rad, you would see a good drop in temps, but also taking the time to read up and learn a bit about water cooling and getting some better parts will do just as much good.

If your water temp is not getting down to ambient, the problem lies within your rad and flow rates. If you don't have the airflow over the rad, it can't cool the liquid properly. If you have restrictions in your loop (restrictive blocks, tubing too small, slow flowing pump), you can see these same problems as well. My guess, with that kit, is that it is a combination of everything.

pepdolesa said:

Relative to radiators, I understand, that if I have got a certain water temp, the capacity of the block to extract and exchange, the CPU heat to water, depends of the block construction/quality, or of the flow quantity, not of the radiator cooling ability.

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Here lies the crux of your misunderstanding. Your resulting water temp circulating through your loop under load is a direct function of the ability of the rad to remove heat. Or anything you want to call the heat removal devices.

The cooling you have isn't capable of removing the heat your generating. You have a Delta T of 12C (the room air temp vs your water temp). Thats pretty high.

You have about 250 watts of heat to dissipate. I'm fudging these numbers a bit because your also cooling the NB and mosfets. Your Zalmans aren't doing it buddy.

You say your flow rate is .5 GPM. Thats wayyy below what a modern block requires for flow rates. It needs to be 1 to 1.5 GPM for a modern block to work properly due to the design of the block internals. Thus MUCH better heat transfer to the water.
Scroll down 3/4 to 4/5ths of the way to the bottom, look at flow rates vs temps.
http://skinneelabs.com/swiftech-xt.html

My CPU loads at 250+ watts. My CPU temps at 29C ambients never got close to 60C. At at 23C my CPU barely goes over 51C under full testing load. It's purely a function of a good block, pump, and enough radiator.

In summary, your block, passive rads, and pump aren't up to cooling your rig. And none of the parts are able to be used in a better system. Sorry.

as others have said your problems lye with the pump and rads you have. if you don't have the proper amount of rads with proper air movement then you cannot remove the heat as good as a proper rad can. as a result no matter how good your block can remove the heat from the cpu it won't matter as you cannot remove the heat from the loop.

While I can readily agree with what others have said there is one thing you can do to help right now - and it won't cost you any more than the liquid to refill your loop. Take the MOSFET and NB chipset cooling out of the loop! Just doing that will lower the restriction in your loop, which should improve your flow rate and cooling.

That is an AMD system you're cooling so why do you have the MOSFETs and NB chipset under water in the first place? There's no need for that (especially at the low CPU voltage you're running) since those components simply don't get that hot. Make sure you've got a good rear exhaust fan on your case, some place for cool air to enter the case, and that should be fine to cool the MOSFETs and NB chipset - no water required.

If you want a more active approach turn the rear fan around to push fresh air into the case across the MOSFETs and NB - just make sure you've got plenty of exhaust holes somewhere else in your case. I have a very serious overclock on my old s939 Opteron (vCore = 1.55) and went with very active air cooling. I not only turned the rear fan around I put a deflector over it to funnel the air onto the MOSFETs and NB:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~rm23u2nd76g12/NB_With.JPG


So take those restrictive blocks out of the loop, put the heatpipe coolers that came with the board back on it (using some good thermal paste), and see how much it helps. Since it's virtually free there's no harm in trying it out before exploring more expensive options ...

QuietIce said:

While I can readily agree with what others have said there is one thing you can do to help right now - and it won't cost you any more than the liquid to refill your loop. Take the MOSFET and NB chipset cooling out of the loop! Just doing that will lower the restriction in your loop, which should improve your flow rate and cooling.

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While I can agree with this, the OP's pump is only rated at 0.5 GPM. Todays blocks require, at the very least, twice that to perform. He also has aluminum radiators, running passive. Putting fans on the rads will make the biggest difference, and the mixed metals requiring antifreeze doesn't help any either.

I would recommend the OP does some reading in our sticky's, and then make a decision about the problem in his loop.

Oh no, I didn't intend to discount what you guys had said at all! A low-flow pump and passive cooling towers are not going to perform well under any condition. The basic problem is with the pump and the coolers and buying a new CPU block isn't going to change that.


But if the OP wants to keep those components, or has no choice but to use what he has, there is something he can do to maybe improve the situation. That's all I was trying to point out. Working within a budget is something I've gotten better at over the past months. If it helps (or it's less expensive) then it's good, 'cause there ain't enough money to make it perfect anymore ...

QuietIce said:

Oh no, I didn't intend to discount what you guys had said at all! A low-flow pump and passive cooling towers are not going to perform well under any condition. The basic problem is with the pump and the coolers and buying a new CPU block isn't going to change that.


But if the OP wants to keep those components, or has no choice but to use what he has, there is something he can do to maybe improve the situation. That's all I was trying to point out. Working within a budget is something I've gotten better at over the past months. If it helps (or it's less expensive) then it's good, 'cause there ain't enough money to make it perfect anymore ...

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With such a low flow pump, taking out all of the unnecessary restriction will make a big difference. If budget is a concern, Yate Loon fans are cheap and decent quality.

As far as budget goes, I can understand completely. It took me about 5 months to buy all of the parts for my loop, and during that time, I did a lot of reading to get a good idea of what I was doing. If anything, replacing the pump and the rad will make all the difference that can be made. Expecting the block to actually create a huge temp drop is just misinformation.

Thanks to all "gurus" for your responses and ideas...

The reason for watercooling the mosfets and the NB is the practical ausence of case fan, only a Noctua at 200 rpm for the HDD's (2 laptop HDD in RAID 0, and RAID 1)(curious, but my MB can make the two type of raid at same time), the SB, the GPU memories, and a fanless PSU, searching a "total" silence.

In the actual situation (light OC, winter temps) everything is OK. All temps under control in correct and good values even under 24/7 100% CPU and 100% GPU loads.

My fear, is in summer, because I haven't got conditioned air, and the room temp will be around the 30's, and i don't want to decrease the GHz, and undervolting more yet

The passive rads, make their function, and with a fan situated below they, at full some noisy power, can achieve a Delta of 8 degrees. (air temp 20, water temp 28) at 0.5 gpm.

How some of you describe, the problem, resides on the limited flow, and maybe the block (comparing the fins of the Zalman http://www.3dnews.ru/documents/12568/7.jpg and the fins of Extreme HT http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=62cgmn.jpg (the pic is of the old version)) I can see the reason why my actual block can't extract all CPU heat...

I understand that my actual block, at any flow, can't extract more heat, but, reading a lot of tests and review of the actual blocks, I see that Delta's are similar to the I have it now

In my mind, before change the block, have the idea of change the pump (now I have a Eheim Compact 600, for a Aquastream XT), searching more power and silence.


I know, that, if I augment the flow rate, the pasive rads, don't extract heat like now, due the less time inside them... and the water temp increases...

Every rig is a world

PS: WTF the 955 and 965 have a 62C max temps!!!! I'm very happy with the 955, but this low max temp, heats my head

PS2: my apologize for my coarse English

Thanks again

Thanks for coming back. Ready for a long long post? Read it a few times, it's more of a But I hope it helps you.

Increasing the flow rate will help a modern block greatly. Increasing the flow rate through the rad doesn't help at all. Arg, you double the flow rate......

Anyone can find my post on flow rates? I really wanted to sticky that. It explains what happens for cooling rates in a rad, and I don't want to type it all again.

Anyhoo, glad your back. Your english is better than my ANY languages. I appreciate your ability, which is more than mine. Two years in the military in Spain, I could order a beer, get fun from women, and order food kinda. Your doing fine.

And you really got the idea about heat transfer, bravo!

If your CPU block was more efficient at removing heat you would have lower CPU temps. That means your water would be warmer though, your DT would be higher. Since your DT would be higher your water wouldn't be able to remove as much heat from the CPU.

You are stuck in a situation. You mention the loud noise from the fan on the reserator. I understand that completely. Due to the poor heat removal of your radiators, you need to compensate with a loud fan.

I have seen it more than many times. A top notch watercooling setup but too small cooling ability. Poor rad choice, usually due to too small of a rad. The only way to control temps is to push massive amounts of air through the rads. Some can tolerate it, I can't.

You want quiet, and me too. You want acceptable temps, me too. The ONLY way you can do this is by having the most effiecient cooling, and even then going extra big on the radiator system to use quiet fans.

Thats what you need. It's up to you to decide.

We are glad to help. It's really our mission (mine anyway) to help and inform those who are ready to take the effort on.

AMD based hardware doesn't normally generate a lot of heat, so the fets and chipset don't really need to be under water. Those type of blocks are very restrictive as is, which doesn't help too much with your loop. You want to get as much restriction out as possible, and having those parts under water doesn't really help anything. Faster flow and better radiators is going to be the best thing you can do. The Swiftech MCR320 is an excellent rad for low speed fans, and the Yate Loon medium speed fans are very close to silent at 7 volts. Even the low speed Yates are silent at 12 volts, and even quieter at 7 volts.

While the theory that water stays in the rad for less time with faster flow rates is true, that means that with lower flow rates, the water is sitting in the blocks longer, thus heating up more. If you increase your flow rate to atleast 1GPM, and get better rads, chances are you will see much better temps.

Yes, more flow, more heat exchange at blocks, but less heat exchange in the passive rads...or am I wrong??? (I don't find the rad/flowrate/heat exchange thread)..

I have to explain, that actually, my rig doens't need fans at idle CPU, thing that is that I want. I have 2 Reserator in serial, with "optimized" water inside circulation, providing them a rotational, and up to down movement around walls...

I prefer only one Noctua at 200rpm, a 3 or 4 Noctuas or Yate Loon at 200 in a classic radiator... I like silence, without spend all my money.

Put the CPU and GPU at 100% 24/7 is a recent personal decission participating in the Boinc (Jou user), but, if I need surf, "officeing", mailing, play or view a movie, the CPU and GPU are working in totally silence (except the Noctua and the submerged pump), I think is a big achievement for me, a totally noob in water cooling, with recicled blocks and rads, but, I need read your suggestions, and learn about the options I have... if I want to extract all the expectations of a 955 and the "little" ATI 4770, with the minimum noise...

Thus, even at full power, with 20 C room temp, I can manage the slightly OC'ed 955 and the 4770, with only few starts of the rad fan.

I know that if I buy two 3x120 rad, 6 fans at 3000rpm, the better blocks, and two 10GPM pumps, and a CPU capable of working @ 75 celsius , I will haven't any overheating problem even OC'ing a lot in the Sahara (example, because I'm in the south Europe)

Again, thanks

pepdolesa said:

I prefer only one Noctua at 200rpm
Again, thanks

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No fan made by anyone I know including the fans you mention run at 200 RPM. Your way off of your numbers of fan RPM. What Noctuna fan undervolted will run at 200 RPM? Prove me wrong. 200 RPM is like no airflow at all.

Your numbers don't make any sense at all.

I'm just about done with this thread, I have done all I can.

Your rig like I said before is lacking in all 3 areas.

Poor heat transfer from the CPU to the block you have.
Cure: Buy a better block.

Poor heat transfer fom the cooling radiators to the air.
Cure: Buy a better cooling meduim, meaning a radiator.

Poor flow rates.
Buy a better pump.

I can't do anything about your financial issues. Stuff is really expensive there because of import duties and shiping. Sorry but you'll just have do do what you can. Best of luck.

I say sticky anything this guy ^^Conumdrum^^ says, just learned lots of details in a very short time.


PM me the other thread you mentioned and i will definitely bump for sticky.

The NF-S12B ULN can spin as low as 175 rpm very well, and, monitoring and analizing the PSU, and SB temps, by an Aquaero, I can determine, that yes, at this low speeds, it moves some air (the enough in idle situation)

If I stop the fan, the temps go up.

Relative to my monetary situation, maybe I can buy all the equipment, but without work, I prefer pass the time, making selfmade socket adaptor for the block, or putting the fanless PSU upper in the case, under a hole, needing a frame inside the box, and seeing and monitoring the temps how rise up or rise down

pepdolesa said:

Yes, more flow, more heat exchange at blocks, but less heat exchange in the passive rads...or am I wrong??? (I don't find the rad/flowrate/heat exchange thread)..

Click to expand...

You will get the same amount of heat exchange at the rads with more flow. You might even get more heat exchange because your water temp will be a little higher and a larger water/air delta means more heat will go into the air. It will be a very small difference but it won't be worse than you have now.

pepdolesa said:

I prefer only one Noctua at 200rpm, a 3 or 4 Noctuas or Yate Loon at 200 in a classic radiator... I like silence, without spend all my money.

Click to expand...

If you only have one fan I would think about moving it to a better location. If the fan is at the front of your case then the air is spreading out farther before it gets to your board, where you really need it. If you move it to the back of the drives (between the drives and the board) you will have more airflow across the motherboard and there will still be airflow across your drives. From the back of the drives if you tilt the fan up just a little it may be enough to cool the MOSFETs and NB. Better yet, if you can position the fan a little higher in the case then point the center of the fan at the video card then half the airflow will go low for the SB and GPU memory and half the airflow will go high for the upper part of your board.

Adding holes to your case above and below the board will also help create a natural airflow but the side of the case needs to be solid for this to work well - no holes in the side.

pepdolesa said:

Put the CPU and GPU at 100% 24/7 is a recent personal decission participating in the Boinc (Jou user), but, if I need surf, "officeing", mailing, play or view a movie, the CPU and GPU are working in totally silence (except the Noctua and the submerged pump), I think is a big achievement for me, a totally noob in water cooling, with recicled blocks and rads, but, I need read your suggestions, and learn about the options I have... if I want to extract all the expectations of a 955 and the "little" ATI 4770, with the minimum noise...

Click to expand...

to BOINC!

I doubt you'll be able to run BOINC in the hot months but running it when you can is good ...