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The Ultimate Water Cooling Thread

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hokiealumnus

Water Cooled Moderator
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
This thread is to try and clean up the water cooling section and make it easier to access needed information. Hopefully it will help point new water coolers in the right direction as well.

Here are stickies from OCForums:

Beginner's Guide to Water Cooling Your PC - Just what it says. If you're new to water cooling, this one's for you.

Things to note when assembling a water cooler & miscellaneous things to note of.- Excellent summation of steps required to put together a loop; a corroboration between Conumdrum and Blazing fire.

Flow Rates, Summed Up - Excellent summation by Conumdrum.

Guide to Delta-T in Water Cooling - Another great read by Conumdrum

WATER COOLING FAQ - Read this AFTER you read the links above!

Radiator Comparison Thread - Bobbybubblehead went to a lot of trouble to give us accurate measurements for all types of radiators, from their mounting to their FPI.

The Impact of Tubing Sizes - Cathar's epic post on how much (or little) your tubing size will affect your pressure & temperatures.

2010 Poll - How Do You Fill/Refill Your Loop? - One in a series of water cooling polls posted by muddocktor

The Water-Cooled System Picture Thread - Started in 2002 and merged with a more recent offering, this is eye candy for the ages. Post your photos in here.

How to Mod a Heatercore (Dual 120mm Vers - An oldie but a goodie, a great tutorial complete with photos.

Building Your First Evaporative Cooling Tower - Also known as a "bong" due to their similar shapes. Not necessarily practical for every day usage, this is a fun item to experiment with.

Water Cooling Retail Outlets by Locality - Bobbybubblehead

How much did you spend on your water cooling setup poll? (2010) - One in a series of water cooling polls posted by muddocktor

Conumdrum's Post of Water Cooling Linkage Goodness! - Just what it says; click it.

The Water-Cooled System picture thread! (Version 1.0 and closed) The original featured Watercooling Picture thread, which has been replaced with a new thread that has pictures hosted by the forums only to prevent dead links.

Items will be added and subtracted from this as needed. Other posts will also be reserved just in case.
 
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Clean up please - " The Impact of Tubing Sizes - Cathar's epic post on how much (or little) your tubing size will affect your pressure & temperatures." that is 2,5 yrs old does not apply anymore with the highly restrictive blocks of today.
Neither does he's statements about heat development in serial pumps - it's history - the guy is aged out
 
Sticky submission, review please

Instructions on how to clean the blocks, rads etc before installation.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=592874
This one is being worked on. It's not in sticky form yet, but there is a lot of good info we hope to get into sticky shape.
Clean up please - " The Impact of Tubing Sizes - Cathar's epic post on how much (or little) your tubing size will affect your pressure & temperatures." that is 2,5 yrs old does not apply anymore with the highly restrictive blocks of today.
Neither does he's statements about heat development in serial pumps - it's history - the guy is aged out
Yes, it's a little old, but there are quite a few lower restriction blocks on the market - HK3.0, EK's new high flow block, Enzotech's Sapphire Rev. A, all of these are pretty low restriction compared to, say, Koolance's CPU-350.

Even then, the Swiftech Apogee XT is restrictive but its performance is insanely resilient to flowrate decreases. Per Vapor: "Here we see something fascinating--low flow resilience from a high performance block. While this block performs amazingly at 'normal' pumping power settings (single/dual DDC3.2/D5), it also has very little performance degradation from reduced flow. What does that mean in Layman's terms? For a low-flow system (one with a weak pump and/or a lot of other secondary components and/or 1/4" tubing), this block really distances itself from its predecessors--its performance is easily the best in the business."

The temperature data is aged of course, but wouldn't you agree the premise is still accurate - flow rates are not heavily impacted down to 3/8" ID tubing and thus the difference between running 3/8" and 1/2" isn't enough to be an issue of concern for the average consumer?

Obviously if you need every tenth of a degree out of the setup, 7/16" or 1/2" is the better choice but barring that, there is no reason to strongly recommend against 3/8". Some people need tighter bends, which 3/8" will afford them - HTPC applications come to mind in that case. They would be just fine going with 3/8" without fearing much of a negative impact.

EDIT - Well, looks like xtreeme won't be gracing us with a response (buh bye), but I'll leave mine up in case anyone has the same issues with Cathar's excellent work.
 
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It might be a good idea to sort this in terms of usefulness to newcomers. I'm guessing that flow rates, for example, might be more useful to most than bongs and heatercores, and it would be helpful in giving new people some priorities for where they should begin.
 
You mean I actually have to do work? :p How about...

http://overclockerstech.com/index.p...s&catid=40:overclocking-and-cooling&Itemid=86 (You keep this updated, don't you? I think it's a good starting point)

Flow Rates, Summed Up - Excellent summation by Conumdrum.

Radiator Comparison Thread - Bobbybubblehead went to a lot of trouble to give us accurate measurements for all types of radiators, from their mounting to their FPI.

The Impact of Tubing Sizes - Cathar's epic post on how much (or little) your tubing size will affect your pressure & temperatures.

2009 Poll - How Do You Fill/Refill Your Loop? - One in a series of water cooling polls posted by Muddocktor

The Water-Cooled System Picture Thread - Started in 2002 and merged with a more recent offering, this is eye candy for the ages. Post your photos in here.

How to Mod a Heatercore (Dual 120mm Vers - An oldie but a goodie, a great tutorial complete with photos.

Building Your First Evaporative Cooling Tower - Also known as a "bong" due to their similar shapes. Not necessarily practical for every day usage, this is a fun item to experiment with.
 
Hehe, yes, I do but have been informed that this sticky is to be OCF / Overclockers.com content only. I don't blame anyone for the decision and am not complaining about it. I'm just happy seniors are allowed to link to their personal sites, which is why it's allowed in my sig.

I'll rearrange those in my first post as soon as I get another minute (still at work right now). Thanks!
 
Yes, you should!

Hey, while you're at it, you could write a frontpage article on it. Heck, you could write up your 2004 thread for one. It's still relevant and thankfully all the photos are still there. If you're interested, PM me and I'll get you started. :)
 
a couple for the suggestion box.

#1 getting a need for some guide on cleaning equipment procedure.

#2 some pointers on mods, upgrades and the general rule of thumb to how much effect each progression may yield.

e.g. pump volt mod compaired to another rad you can guess the latter may have the greater effect.

(next time I break my sys down its off on a long journey and may not get rebuilt for months... with computers coming out my ears anyhow. So time and the photo oppertunity stops my coming up with the goods :shrug: but im game once the dust settles :thup:)
 
I just added a link to BF and Conumdrum's thread on building a loop to your original post, Hokie. And spiffed up the formating of the links a little too, so that they stand out a little better and catch the eye easier. :)
 
I know I am kind of new. But there should be a section on fans use on the radiators and the associated effects. IE what size fans, what speed, known brands, pull vs push vs pull/push, etc. That is the information that I am currently trying to figure out currently for my build. Obviously a pull/push radiator sandwich will net the most head dissipation, but be louder. But what about pull vs push?

This thread was one of the first I read when looking into the subject and has a lot of good information. But there is a lot of things that should be added.

Conumdrum was kind enough to link this site to me http://www.skinneelabs.com/
the wealth of information here is amazing, and should definitely be on this list. The spread sheet link you have for radiators up there is good, but only if you already know what your looking at/for. Skinneelabs takes the time to explain these stats so a nooblet to water cooling such as myself can figure out how to use tools like that spread sheet.

Thanks for all the information and effort this site has made to put it all in one easy to find location.
 
There is so much info and it's on other sites. It's not polite to post other sites stuff as a sticky. It's out there, but not in a solid consise form. This is where you really dig down, get and idea, and then ask once you hope you got it right.

Once you figure it out, your welcome to write such a deep consise document. It's a TON of work. And you really can't use others efforts. Me for one don't want to spend $1000 on testing equipment and hundreds of hours testing. Not counting buidling relationships with manufacturers and retailers and even users who send stuff for free to the testers.

For example, I can tell you to use this site and it predisessor. But putting in the sticky is just not proper. I hope it helps. I'll give you a few links in fact.
http://www.skinneelabs.com/
http://martin.skinneelabs.com/
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=312743
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/781-6/dossier-vraie-consommation-73-cartes-graphiques.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/253958-29-watercooling-guide
 
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