Looking for input on current, off-the-shelf, active cooling options

Howdy all,

First post. I'm planning on going hard-core for my next cooling system. I love my custom loop and it does well for me, but during the summer I always have to lop 100Mhz from my CPU to keep it cool (I do a lot of rendering). Yes, it's only 100Mhz, but it's annoying. Also, in 1998, 100Mhz would have been HUGE. So, yeah.

I'm looking at the Little Devil case, Cooler Express, and the liquid chillers from Koolance. I'm planning on going 24/7 with this setup, so keep that in mind. The liquid chillers look especially nice, since I can set a specific coolant temp and can integrate it into a custom loop. But the prospect of a CPU going to sub-zero temps is also very cool, so to speak.

Long story short, I have no idea in which direction I will go and would very much appreciate anyone's advice, information, experience, and anecdotes.

As for anecdotes, my first and last experience with active cooling was back in the late 1990's, when I used a peltier to overclock my 800Mhz Pentium III to 1.01 Ghz. I thought I put enough foam around it to prevent condensation but was wrong and I rusted out my video card. My solution is one that you will all appreciate. I coated the entire thing in lacquer and put a pyrex measuring cup underneath it all to catch the water.

Welcome!

Good thing its not 1998 anymore, ehh? 100Mhz is nothing these days of 4Ghz processors.

Personally, I would stay away from anything subambient for the reasons you listed. Running subambient and particularly sub zero is just not a valid 24/7 thing... it has huge risks. Id just grab a good AIO and call it a day personally.

If you want to go subzero (dont even have to) though, come on and join our benchmarking team!!!!! We can help with that but suggest benching on a different system than your daily driver.

EarthDog, thanks a lot for the quick response.

I previously was using a Corsair h100i but my AMD peaked at 4.9Ghz, and I was going to be damned before I got so close to 5.0Ghz without reaching it. So I built a twin-rad setup just for that purpose. The new setup let me almost hit 5.1Ghz, but during the summer I can't keep it there unless I crank my room AC to an absurd level and keep the whole room at something like 65deg.

Obviously, 5.0Ghz is pretty nice, but hitting something even higher is irresistibly fun. That's why I'm thinking about the liquid chiller. I won't get the benefits of cold-scaling, but at least I won't have to worry about condensation.

And actually, once I have some more time, joining the bench team would be fun. If I'm going to do that, with a pure bench system, I'm going full liquid nitrogen. I won't half-*** that.

Welcome to AMD and the sheer amount of heat it puts out at those clocks, LOL! That is a lot of expense just to chase after a magic number. Are you voltage limited at this point? What CPU do you even have, I do not see it mentioned, but see multiple mentions of days long gone, LOL!

Oh, I have many stories of days long gone. Been an AMD boy ever since Thunderbird.

I'm currently pushing an FX8350 at 5.0Ghz. I forget the voltage and I'm not near my desktop, but I think it's 1.50-ish. During the winter, I can go to 5.1Ghz, but the temps are intense. And since I regularly max every core with a render for hours on end, temps are really the limiting factor. I just can't wick it away fast enough.

On the Corsair, I was able to run a full SiSoft Sandra bench at 5.29Ghz. That produced enough heat to bake a ham, though and was distinctly not 24/7 stable. Prime95 would cause the CPU to hit 75deg within 30 seconds.

1.5 is a ton of volts daily.... not sure you ha e headroom in the first place...

1.5 volts is stock for most 9590s... Basically the same chip..

I was able to push it to 1.53 with no issues aside from heat. I run it that high because even though it's fine for almost all applications, I call a CPU stable only after 48 hours of Prime95 without errors. And that is one hell of a test. I've been able to get errors out of CPU's set to stock speeds with that test.

I've run the CPU at 100% for, I'm not joking, nearly an entire month when I was rendering a big animation. It's solid as a rock. With a standard ambient temp, I'm about 62deg. That said, while the prospect of pushing the 8350 past 6 or even 7Ghz with supercooling is a cool prospect, this cooling system is anticipating Zen. I enjoy overclocking, but my desktop is primarily a workstation, meaning that squeezing out another 10% is of little interest. If I could get 6Ghz 24/7, that would be worth it, but I'm just geek-rambling right now. I want to be among the very first to own Zen and I want to immediately push it as far as that ******* will go.

The easiest, most effective way to actively cool your rig is to place an a/c unit in front of the intake and fabricate ducting of some kind( cardboard and duck tape works great ) to force the cold air into your case. This is what i do when I'm not benching with LN2.

Are there any how-to's on making a system with a full A/C unit bolted to it? I mean, I could easily rig something up that would work, but I don't want it to just work. I want it too look like it just came off a factory line. That's why I'm looking at the Koolance chiller and the Little Devil case. They're pricey, certainly, but I'm willing to pay for the build quality. And assuming that I did buy an A/C, and that I am running a blazingly-overclocked chip, what wattage am I looking at for the A/C unit? Has anyone ever tried simply hooking up a phase change unit to a metal heat sink with a fan to chill the air inside a case?

amartincolby said:

Are there any how-to's on making a system with a full A/C unit bolted to it? I mean, I could easily rig something up that would work, but I don't want it to just work. I want it too look like it just came off a factory line. That's why I'm looking at the Koolance chiller and the Little Devil case. They're pricey, certainly, but I'm willing to pay for the build quality. And assuming that I did buy an A/C, and that I am running a blazingly-overclocked chip, what wattage am I looking at for the A/C unit? Has anyone ever tried simply hooking up a phase change unit to a metal heat sink with a fan to chill the air inside a case?

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I don't think so. I have the luxury of a basement and care more about performance than looks. Ghetto rigged for sure, but works great. A chiller is another option, but can be pricey. I just used an a/c unit I had from apartment living when I was younger. I have a 10000btu unit, but a smaller 5000btu unit would work well too. Both cost between $100-$250.
Beyond an a/c or chiller, you're looking at a phase change unit with a whole other set of worries with condensation and insulation for and around your cpu and mobo.

amartincolby, welcome to AMD land!!!! They do make for good space heaters! If you are planning on using this as an everyday setup running sub ambient temps, first and foremost as said above condensation is going to be your biggest enemy. Hotrod has a good suggestion with the A/C, trying to make duct and have it cool the rads to get the water temps down. The other option is getting a water chiller, if you decided to do this you would probably be better off getting a fish tank chiller. I feel those are the only sensible solutions if you plan on using it as a daily rig doing real work, like rendering animations as you mentioned above.

An option for the winter months being in RI, if you want to run big clocks is stick the rad out the window with some antifreeze in the lines. I do this for benching and it could also be used as a daily setup. I've seen -20c water temps on really cold days and my 8350 has been near 5.8 Ghz with those temps.

For strictly overclocking purposes, not sensible for 24/7 get a Cpu Pot and just DICE/Ln2 it!!!!! If you want to see some big clocks! I've had mine to 7.8 Ghz on Ln2, you're not the only one looking to push a Zen if and when we see one.

Mandrake4565 said:

amartincolby, welcome to AMD land!!!! They do make for good space heaters! If you are planning on using this as an everyday setup running sub ambient temps, first and foremost as said above condensation is going to be your biggest enemy. Hotrod has a good suggestion with the A/C, trying to make duct and have it cool the rads to get the water temps down. The other option is getting a water chiller, if you decided to do this you would probably be better off getting a fish tank chiller. I feel those are the only sensible solutions if you plan on using it as a daily rig doing real work, like rendering animations as you mentioned above.

An option for the winter months being in RI, if you want to run big clocks is stick the rad out the window with some antifreeze in the lines. I do this for benching and it could also be used as a daily setup. I've seen -20c water temps on really cold days and my 8350 has been near 5.8 Ghz with those temps.

For strictly overclocking purposes, not sensible for 24/7 get a Cpu Pot and just DICE/Ln2 it!!!!! If you want to see some big clocks! I've had mine to 7.8 Ghz on Ln2, you're not the only one looking to push a Zen if and when we see one.

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Glad to be here! A little warm, but at least it's a dry heat. Another anecdote, when I was doing my big renders late last year, I had my desktop, a laptop with an Intel 3940XM (which was depressingly quite a bit faster rendering than my blazing-hot AMD desktop), and four Opteron 8439s all running 24/7. No exaggeration, we didn't need to turn on the heat in two rooms upstairs.

I was looking at aquarium chillers online and the major difference between them at the Koolance units is the flow rate. The Koolance is 1/3 slower or more. With the smaller tubes and radiators through which I'd be pushing water, are these flow numbers no longer accurate? And does the Koolance unit have other things that are PC specific?

During the winter of 2013-2014, I opened all the windows in my office and set up fans until I got the temps into the high single digits in the early morning. I was able to do a SiSoft Sandra run at almost 5.4Ghz. Quite a thrill.

On the subject of the chillers, is it standard practice to put a radiator directly after the hot parts and directly before the water goes back into the chiller? This seems common sense, but I'm wondering if there are concerns with water pressure or something like that. Obviously, when the parts aren't at full-bore, this would warm up the fluid going back into the chiller, but if the parts are getting very hot, it could be a benefit.

I was also noticing that a lot of people are reporting that temps on the Little Devil are around 25-35deg Celsius after heat soak has settled in. For me, that means that the super-low temps at idle are just fun numbers. Functionally, the concern must always be what the peak temperature is, because that's what we must tune for. With temps that high, I'm thinking that the water chiller might actually provide the best performance, and not simply the best overall package.