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To watercool or aircool the Commando's NB... that is the question

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eightballrj

Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2005
Location
Missiskippi
Well, I am doing a complete case/power/cooling renovation of my system. I am going to have enough cooling capacity for pretty much anything I can throw at the water loop(s). But, I don't know if cooling the NB is worth the trouble of putting it through the water loop.

Here are my options:

Thermalright HR-05 chipset cooler (fanless)
Swiftech MCW-30


Any opinions are welcome... Commando owners especially.
 
i would stick with air cooling. in my opinion water cooled north bridges is just going too far.. but its up to you i guess.. many people will argue that it looks cleaner but in my opinion the extra length of tubing isn't that appealing.
 
I wouldn't go to the trouble to watercool the northbridge unless you're looking into trying for wr's and such, I think a good aftermarket aircooler is gonna do just as well, I'd consider the mcw159 cooler with the 40mm fan
 
I'd go with the HR-05, but if you like the idea of watecooling the chipset, go ahead. The MCW-30 is not restrictive enough to put a significant dent in performance, and chipsets don't generate enough heat that you're going to notice the difference either way. Let your preference be your guide.
 
The MCW30 is only slightly more expensive than a HR-05.

The MCW30 does NOT restrict fllow all that much.

The water cooled NB will be much cooler than an air cooled (Passive), thus increasing your potential to OC.

The MCW30 is just as easy to install as the HR-05.
 
Mycobacteria said:
The MCW30 is only slightly more expensive than a HR-05.

The MCW30 does NOT restrict fllow all that much.

The water cooled NB will be much cooler than an air cooled (Passive), thus increasing your potential to OC.

The MCW30 is just as easy to install as the HR-05.
I agree with everything here, it is one less fan in my case :beer:
 
Mycobacteria said:
The MCW30 is only slightly more expensive than a HR-05.

The MCW30 does NOT restrict fllow all that much.

The water cooled NB will be much cooler than an air cooled (Passive), thus increasing your potential to OC.

The MCW30 is just as easy to install as the HR-05.


Well its just as easy to install but its one more thing that I have to put into my loop and another connection to leak, etc. I think the HR-05 it is. I will also be running it passively.


Even more nutty I am going to be cooling the southbridge with either an enzotech lo pro sink or another HR-05 SLI. It will at least LOOK neat, haha.
 
eightballrj said:
Well its just as easy to install but its one more thing that I have to put into my loop and another connection to leak, etc. I think the HR-05 it is. I will also be running it passively.


Even more nutty I am going to be cooling the southbridge with either an enzotech lo pro sink or another HR-05 SLI. It will at least LOOK neat, haha.


Actually I thought about doing that too (HR-05 on southbridge

My boards NB stays very cool... even at 480 MHz its still cool

South bridge though even at stock burns the fingers.
 
Mycobacteria said:
The water cooled NB will be much cooler than an air cooled (Passive), thus increasing your potential to OC.
This would be true if we were talking about tiny stock heatsinks, but with large aftermarket heatpipe coolers like the HR-05, the temperature difference will be much less. If there is very little airflow past the NB, the waterblock would clearly be the way to go, but if you have decent airflow in the case, an oversized passive cooler should also work very well.
 
Hell, if you have the room you can plunk an Athlon XP heatsink on either the nb or sb and get significant cooling.

WC just seems a waste of money.

Really, I haven't seen a difference since the nforce2 days, as far as OC. On the other hand, I'm not a crazy person.
 
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