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Thermaltake TRIBE, a Second Look & modding approach

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I like your approach, but if you want to save some money, just get a heatercore, the popular Bonneville 2x120 model is about $25 and will meet if not exceed the performance of the black ice. That, and a 1x120 heatercore (chevelle) is capable of reasonable temperatures in an A64 + 6800gs SLI rig. I am typing on such a rig as we speak (@ +6c above ambient).
 
I've used heater cores before and had some troubles when the solder and flux leached out, my tubes got really dirty back then. To get the right core i spent a hour at NAPA since they are not stocking many cores anymore. No predrilled holes etc.

Initially I thought about the lowest budget myself, just to trick the most performance out of a TRIBE but my work hours on this project will just mount for "scientific purposes" and it IS pretty much foreseeable how the TRIBE will perform with lesser components.

Having said that, I might still post a theoretical instruction for people TRULY on a low budget, messing with a TRIBE or other 1/4" gizmo setups. I'm also willing to part with the original pump, rad, tubing and reservoir from the TRIBE and donate them to somebody who TRULY has no other means of purchasing parts.
I assume that if one doubles up the pumps and rads in e.g. a TRIBE system, the performance will rise quite substantially and also improve reliability. All you need is a few 1/4" T's and some time to spare.:beer:
 
For the price it's much more cost effective to pick up a few second hand parts and just cobble together a rudimentary loop of 3 components which should perform better anyway.

7
 
There certainly are situations when I cobble together a few things but this time I'm after something that's pretty AND functional.

I checked the article where somebody on Overclockers.com wrote about doing the cheapest possible cpu WC set up and even after employing cardboard and tape he still spent about $150 "cobbling" together his setup.

What I'm doing is trying to get an EXTERNAL WC setup that equals e.g. the ASETEK Waterchill or the SWIFTECH H2O-220 Extreme. Their c/w's are just under 0.2 and if I reach that I'm more than happy since I can point to a pretty housing that they DON"T have yet.

The means are quite similar, they use almost the same rad and the same pump and go 1/2" all the way. The cpu block won't make a huge difference in my setup. At least I won't have to deal with plugged holes on a STORM...that would drive me bonkers :bang head.

I admit I started this thread "on the cheap" to see what could be done with the TRIBE with minimum effort but the problem is that the pump is a joke and the rad can't be trusted enough to buy another one to see how two of them would workin parallel.

Let's say for arguement's sake I buy the second rad and the two 1/4" T's and hook it all up, mounting in the case etc. When there is no noticable difference, then I have wasted my time AND money and STILL have to go forward with plan B...AND have to listen to ALL the wiseguys (and n00bs) here.

No, it is a reasonable assumption (thank you all!) that the pump is useless and the rad too ineffective to provide decent heat exchange, the 1/4" loop too restrictive.

My price point of $230 to $240 is competitive if we look at the cute case that is included.

If I still want to impress I'll also glue the TT temp-LCD-gizmo onto the TRIBE case as a bonus for $23.99...but that would just be gravy.
 
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