Do I NEED a Black Ice Extreme III?

See my sig. I'll have $150 as soon as I finish building a pc for someone (waiting on a part), and it's been my plan to get the Black Ice Extreme III. I am going for subzero temps while massively OCing (or as close as I can get to both). Unless something better comes along (that's affordable), I was going to get the CM Stacker for this rig, so size will not be a problem.

Extra money for this project is really really scarce, so this is a factor. I've already got pc's all over the house, and my wife doesn't understand why I NEED it

In the other post, Aphex-Tom (I think) says that the Maze4 for TEC's doesn't cool as well as other waterblocks, but that it doesn't have to. I kind of got the impression that the WCing doesn't have to be so extreme with the TEC. The cpu temp will already be really cold, and the Maze4 and a regular BlackIce Extreme would do a good enough job of removing the heat from the hot side.

So... do I need the triple decker to achieve subzero temps with a massive OC? Or can I get a single or double and use the extra cash to order another part?

yeah aphex tom is right, the amount you cool your cpu does not in anyway affect the amount of overclock you can get out of it, what it does affect is the stability of that overclock. the cpu doesnt care if its running at 30 or -15 at either of those temps you should get the same overclock. but of course we all want the lowest temp we can get. so in response to the actual question it is a good rad but for much cheaper you can get a i think bonneville 77 core, put fittings on it buy a shroud or make one and get better performance for less than half the price.

You won't go subzero with TECs easily. Maybe if you used really massive TECs chilled by bong it would work... I'm not too much into extreme cooling but I assume that the only reliable way to get sub-zero relatively easy is phase change system.

Well that sucks. Guess that narrows it down to a massive overclock

Bob thanks for the heads up about the bonneville rad. I searched the forum and read a lot of stuff on it. I'm picking one up this week and will mod it over the weekend. This will free up enough money for the Maze4 WB.

A heatercore is a good idea. Your waterblock doesn't have to be as good if you are using a pelt, but the rest of your watercooling system has to be much better. It has to deal with around 300 watts of heat, so having a large pump and a good radiuator is a must.

QuakerOats said:

Well that sucks. Guess that narrows it down to a massive overclock

Bob thanks for the heads up about the bonneville rad. I searched the forum and read a lot of stuff on it. I'm picking one up this week and will mod it over the weekend. This will free up enough money for the Maze4 WB.

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no prob guy, im always looking for the most out of my money so expect other ppl to also, you might wanna look for the swiftech tec block i think it comes with a 226w pelt and i think ive seen it for 75 plus shipping from somewhere online.

Personally I wouldnt go with the BIX. Id get a 77' bonneville heatercore or maybe even two if you want to and use them. It will be cheaper and yield the same performance if not better.

I know that in America, this one would be extremely hard to find, but I could suggest getting one in this shape (sorry, but text is in Polish, I couldn't find anything in English):
Lada heatercore shortening mod
some pics from local internet auction
It's all-copper with VERY low air restriction compared to "normal heatercores". If only you can get this one or similiar, it would have really nice performance and low noise.

Yeah Venom I came across a thread where you were telling somebody about the Lada heatercore. Maybe for the next one I'll scour the net for one but for now I just drove over to Advance Auto Parts after work and picked up a 77 bonneville core. I even printed a picture from this forum and took it with me to make sure I ended up with the right thing.

When taking out the factory tubes to put barbs on have some patience when heating the solder. When I pulled mine out I slighly ripped the metal around the edge of the hole nothing a bit of jb weld couldnt fix but anymore I would have been screwed.

If you guys dont want to do your cores, pm me. I do them.
check my siggy

Thanks, Creepy, I'll keep that in mind this weekend. I've got Weapon's guide to help me thru the process, and I should be ok.

Thanks WA2, I was going to just buy one already modded, then wouldn't get the satisfaction of doing it myself.

Actually, WA2, I already visited your site when they first mentioned the heatercore to me. I will definately keep you in mind for future projects.

the amount you cool your cpu does not in anyway affect the amount of overclock you can get out of it

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I will have to disagree with this. With air cooling, my cpu will only boot at 4.01ghz. When I strapped a waterblock on it and pumped ice water through it, it would boot at 4.21 ghz. My Stable overclock went from 3.98ghz to 4.18ghz. So cooler temps do increase your maximum possible overclock as well as your maximum stable overclock.

Also ask anyone with a vapochill if their computer will even boot under air cooling at the speed that they can run stable with their vapo.

theres no way that cooling can increase the max potential of your chip, like you said it increases your maximum stable overclock. if a chip can only hit a max of 5.67 and you are using watercooling to get it to 40c idle and you strap on a vapochill and get it to -40c it still only has the potential to hit 5.67 the architecture of the chip dictates the max overclock, the cooling dictates the stability at that overclock. you can also possibly hinder your overclock my cooling too much (liquid nitrogen), but thats a whole different story.

I'd have to partially disagree. The electrical resistance of a semiconductor is related to it's temperature. Cooling the chip reduces the resistance and literally allows elecrtrons to move faster through the chip. (well not so much move as bump eachother over). The high speeds reached with phase change are largely related to the high voltages they allow, but I think there are some underlaying thermal effects as well.

It's obvisous that each chips has its limit, but notice that it's limit with given temperature. Lowering temp will result in better OC. Of course, if your chips says "NO" soon, freezing it won't give a lot more power, but it will g\ive at least a bit.

If you disagree, it's like assuming that CPU will go at cascade phase change no better than on stock HSF.

i never said that the cooling doesnt make a difference, but the overclock phase change can get you is possible with air but of course the chip would fry within seconds or be completely unstable. stability at higher overclocks is the answer we all seek, obviously if the chip wont boot with air cooling from an overclock its not stable, that doesnt mean the chip has more overclocking potential just because of the cooling. it just has a better chance of doing it stable. as far as the underlying thermal effects that is very true but theres a point where cooling will only hinder and break connections rather than reduce resistance.

BobSassafrass said:

i never said that the cooling doesnt make a difference, but the overclock phase change can get you is possible with air but of course the chip would fry within seconds or be completely unstable. stability at higher overclocks is the answer we all seek, obviously if the chip wont boot with air cooling from an overclock its not stable, that doesnt mean the chip has more overclocking potential just because of the cooling. it just has a better chance of doing it stable. as far as the underlying thermal effects that is very true but theres a point where cooling will only hinder and break connections rather than reduce resistance.

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If I can't boot up my comp or it crashes on windows loading screen, it's no OC dude.
And too low temp - a guy I know runs his CPU <-100*C for months - no problems so far - hard to explain? LN2 causes problems with CPUs pretty often, but it's for records only, so let's not consider it as typical cooling solution.

Final thoughts - the lower temp the better and cascade phasce change will not kill your parts.

BobSassafrass said:

yeah aphex tom is right, the amount you cool your cpu does not in anyway affect the amount of overclock you can get out of it, what it does affect is the stability of that overclock. the cpu doesnt care if its running at 30 or -15 at either of those temps you should get the same overclock. but of course we all want the lowest temp we can get. so in response to the actual question it is a good rad but for much cheaper you can get a i think bonneville 77 core, put fittings on it buy a shroud or make one and get better performance for less than half the price.

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i think what aphextom was refering to was that the amount of heat the block can take off the pelt.

i can reap alot higher oc with my cpu frozen as compared to just high end watercooling setup. with high end water i could barely even post above 4ghz with my current cpu frozen i can get it to post over 4.5 and stable @ 4.4

Do not waste your money on a BIX3; you are much better off with one of the large inexpensive heatercores that several people have reccomended already .

Incidentally, shrouds are easier to find for most heatercores as well .

BobSassafrass

theres no way that cooling can increase the max potential of your chip, like you said it increases your maximum stable overclock.

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Right, sort of. Each chip has a limit that it will not be able to clear, as you said. When the chip is fabricated, it can come out good or bad, or excellent. Luck of the draw; yields at fabrication.

However, your processor also has another "potential", dependant on the temperature at which it is run. Your potential at 50 degrees celcius, and -50 degrees celcius is always drastically different.

For example, I had a Mobile Barton that would not post above 2500 MHz with a crummy aluminum air-cooler. It's highest overclock, regardless of voltage, with the temperatures that the air-cooler got it down to, was ~2500 MHz.

The same chip posted at 3 GHz under my watercooling (unstable). The temperature does make a large difference in both how your processor overclocks, walls, and most importantly, heavily influences your processor's MHz gain:Vcore overvolt ratio/behaviour.

Which leads me to this:

matttheniceguy

I'd have to partially disagree. The electrical resistance of a semiconductor is related to it's temperature. Cooling the chip reduces the resistance and literally allows elecrtrons to move faster through the chip. (well not so much move as bump eachother over). The high speeds reached with phase change are largely related to the high voltages they allow, but I think there are some underlaying thermal effects as well.

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You are entirely correct about the effects of temperature. With lower temperatures, a processor will overclock much, much higher with the exact same amount of voltage, as it will with higher temperatures.

The MHz gain:Vcore overvolt can change and is very, very heavily temperature dependant. A lemon chip under air, will still be somewhat crummy under phase, but will see larger gains per mV overvolt.

Here's a theoretical example. We have a somewhat-bad Mobile Barton 2600+.

At 50 degrees celcius load, 1.9V, it does 2400 MHz
At 40 degrees celcius load, 1.9V, it does 2450 MHz
At 30 degrees celcius load, 1.9V, it does 2550 MHz
At 0 degrees celcius load, 1.9V, it does 2750 MHz
At -20 degrees celcius load, 1.9V, it does 2850 MHz
At -50 degrees celcius load, 1.9V, it does 3100 MHz

This is not a real-life example, and I use it only to better illustrate how temperature affects our processors. The temperature-related gains in this example probably aren't too accurate, when compared to a similar real-world processor.

The high speeds reached with phase change are largely related to the high voltages they allow

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This is incorrect; if you look at some of the best LN2, and phase cooled overclocks out there, you will see that they rarely ever stray above ~0.1V over what an extreme watercooler would use, Vcore-wise.

Diminishing returns per mV overvolt typically start to kick in around the same overvolt level regardless of cooling; overvolting above 1.9V with an FX-55 is unlikely to produce large gains, even under a three-stage cascade.

Another Mobile Barton example; many 3 GHz+ Mobile Barton overclocks have been achieved with ~1.9V and extreme cooling, around the same amount of Vcore that I used day-to-day to get 2700 MHz under water with an old chip of mine.

The temperature makes most of the difference, not the capacity for more voltage.