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Help me understand if WC would benefit me

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gcwebbyuk

Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
I currently have the air setup in my signature.

I am considering dabbling with watercooling to try and reduce the noise in my case from the CPU cooler.

I have the Zalman controlled by SmartFan so that at idle or basic office / surfing it is running at 40% (950rpm), once the temp goes over 45c, the rpm increases up to 70% (1600rpm), if the temp goes over 60c the rpm increases to 100% (1990rpm). This works well and keeps the CPU within the safe temps.

However it means that when doing normal work its quiet (almost silent - the hard drives are noisier than all the fans in the case), but load it up a little and it gets noisy.

Am I right in thinking a watercooled setup would keep the CPU cool without having to increase fan speeds? Or is it a similar setup to air?

I have considered the Corsair H50 as it looks dead simple to fit, and I have spare 120mm fans to setup in a push/pull configuration. Or alternatively go for a proper WC setup, if I could buy a kit for less than £100 that would cool my CPU and GPU, but am guessing this is asking a lot.

So would WC benefit me - or is my air setup of similar efficiency considering I am aiming for silence rather than overclocking potential.
 
Unless you plan to invest quite a bit more in a good water loop than £100, I wouldn't bother with it, for what you are looking for. If you want quiet throughout the whole running regime you are going to need to invest in a big radiator (120.2 or 120.3 sized) because you will be losing some efficiency running quiet, low static pressure cooling fans on it. Then you need to consider buying a quality waterblock for the loop too and if you want to cool the gpu along with the proc in just one loop your rad requirements are going to double at least to stay within the quiet parameters.

With that said, you could buy something like an Apogee XT with the AM3 mount and a Swiftech MCR-320 drive rad/pump setup for a nice, neat and fairly easy setup. But it's probably going to cost you closer to £200 if not over (not real familiar with UK pricing).
 
Although that's not a bad kit by any means, I was talking more about a rad/pump combo like this Swiftech MCR320-DRIVE - With Pump along with a premium waterblock such as an Apogee XT or even an Apogee GTZ. But I don't know the cooling shops in the UK well enough to find that radiator/pump. The kit you found is better than the Corsair kit though and will cool that Phenom 2 of yours down. But the fans included with the kit are a little noisy at full bore and with a 120.3 rad you would have ample reserve cooling to run lower speed fans on it compared to a 120.2 rad like in that kit.

BTW, I do have that pump, rad and fans of that kit you found, so I do have direct experience with what is offered in that H2O 220 compact kit.
 
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Conumdrum, I think he want to be as quiet as possible, which is why I am recommending the 120.3 rad. The fans that Swiftech includes with their kits are around the same dB and cfm as a Yate High, but I do think Swiftech includes some kind of resistor speed reducers for the fans with the kit too.
 
The H50 is watercooling, but a very small rad etc. We don't consider it a custom watercooling setup in any way. The H50 setup with better fans is a bit better,some say than a top notch air cooler, like the one you mentioned.

Real custom watercooling properly built will give a decrease of 10C or more under load. With less noise.

My i7 (in sig) loads at 51C at 24C room temps under load. With a top air cooler I would easily be in the 60's and have more noise.
 
So if I was to go down the route of a custom WC setup rather than an H50 or one of the pre-configured kits, what are the main parts I would need.

They would be to fit inside my Coolermaster 690-II advanced case.
 
Muddoctor told you a great choice up a few posts. If the radiator fits in the case is up to you.

The rad will fit, but the rad/pump setup mud mentioned doen't do to well mounted horizontally. You'd be better off buying a seperate rad/ pump setup. And mount the 120x3 rad up top.

And hopefully you have read many posts and all the helpful links we have been providing for you. They list good parts and you should be able to figure it out. Read for a while.
 
Many thanks - I think I am just trying to rush into buying a kit, which is why I was looking at the H50.

I am trying to work out wether it is going to be easier for me to buy a kit rather than piece together parts and forget something.

This will be the third cooler I will have bought for the PC, so want to get it right...
 
Good, you got the gist of waht I was meaning. Yea, it takes a bit of time to understand the basics. Luckily it's a hobby for us and time is free.

If the PC is running okay then you'll be okay spending a while (while for me was 3 months) before purchasing your first part.

Hang out, read many threads here. Lots of info and many people ask the same thing about once a week. So there are many threads that will give you great info on what others asked and what we recommended. Even help on building the loop, maintaining it, different properties of fans and radiators, best pump etc.

Have fun, no hurry.

Ohh yea, thats a popular case. I'm sure there are more than a few build logs out there. Try Google ("your case watercooling")
 
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Will it be easier? Yes. It will also likely cool better than the Zalman you currently have. It will not, however, cool as effectively as a decent custom loop.

To learn a bit about what's involved in water cooling as a whole, have a look through this water cooling guide for beginners.

The MCR-320 Drive unit muddocktor linked to plus a good block is a very nice two-piece solution. All you need to add are barbs, tubing and fans. it would, however, need to be mounted off the back. The drive units can't mount horizontally IIRC.

How many HDDs do you have in your case? You can fit two 120.2 radiators internally in that case. I'm reviewing one right now actually. Tomorrow or early next week (more likely), you'll see an internal rad in photos.
 
The MCR-320 Drive unit muddocktor linked to plus a good block is a very nice two-piece solution. All you need to add are barbs, tubing and fans. it would, however, need to be mounted off the back. The drive units can't mount horizontally IIRC.

How many HDDs do you have in your case? You can fit two 120.2 radiators internally in that case. I'm reviewing one right now actually. Tomorrow or early next week (more likely), you'll see an internal rad in photos.

The Swiftech mcr drive come with metal barbs same with XT. So he just need Clamps :)
 
Yeah, Thermochill makes some top flight rads, that's for sure. And being in the UK, he should be able to get them for a good price too. IMO, they are an even better choice for silent watercooling because of the large FPI of the rad as compared to the Swiftech and would do well with quiet fans such as Yate Loon lows or some 1450 rpm Gentle Typhoon fans. But you would have to go with a separate pump and radiator like Conumdrum stated in post #13. A PA120.3 hung off the back of the case, with a Laing DDC3.2 with an XSPC res top or an MCP655 with a reservoir or T line would definitely do a great job and be nice and quiet.

And definitely do like Conumdrum said and do your research first and thoroughly. Since you are in no cooling bind right now, it will definitely pay dividends and save you money from reading, studying and looking at other people's setups. I researched for several months before I took my initial watercooling plunge back in 2002, but I went straight to using a TEC with my loop too. That required a bunch of extra research. When you are doing subambient cooling, you have some extra steps to go through to keep from frying equipment from condensation.
 
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