Thinking of water.....

hi guys, just started upgrading my system, still running a Q6600 but thinking about doing a W/C setup in the near future, not running SLI or anything, want it to look good as well as perform well, I recently saw one on here with neon yellow fluid (the guy had a giant bong in the case, and there was an integra type-r in the background if anyone knows the one im talking about), thought it looked great and wanted to do somthing similar.

The case im getting is an Antec df-85 so plenty of room in it, just from reading stickies breifly am I right in thinking the four main components are as follows?


Resivior - Radiator - CPU Block - Pump


If so, where does the big bong thing come into it, and does it do much apart from look cool? lol

Most people here would advise against adding coloring dyes to the water because it gunks up the blocks and will become a real pain to clean later on. Your're better off buying colored tubing and using distilled water plus a little biocide. I think there is a bong sticky (also called evaporator tower) in the extreme cooling section. If you don't know what it is, its basically a giant PVC pipe with a return on the bottom and an inlet up top. The inlet goes into a mister/showerhead that sprays the water down the pipe through the air until hits the bottom reservoir. This basically adds a ton of surface area to the water and cools it down. It is pretty impractical for most people.

If this is your first time water cooling then you should probably stick to a regular loop, a bong is pretty 'extreme'. As far as your loop setup, have you thought about what kind of delta T you're going for? And how much wattage you're trying to cool? You should read the stickies in the water cooling section first to get an idea of what you're dealing with. When you're down, come back and ask any remaining questions.

yes thats it
big bong thing will be his cooler i think

Cheers, havn't seriously looked at it yet was just asking a couple of general questions, thought the bong thing looked great lol, once im working again and i've got a bit more cash ill probably get into it and screw around with it a bit, i'd love to know if there would be anyway to make the bong bubble lol, would be like a small water feature within the case, kinda like a fountain... lol

I think colored fluid and a bong cooler would be an awful idea...colored fluid isn't a good idea to start and then having the water around it evaporated out just seems like you're asking for trouble.

m0r7if3r said:

I think colored fluid and a bong cooler would be an awful idea...colored fluid isn't a good idea to start and then having the water around it evaporated out just seems like you're asking for trouble.

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Lol, i've never looked at it before, itl be a while off anyway im just interested in what can be done with it, aside from performance i think if its done properly in a cable managed casse it looks way better than air cooling does, cheers for the advice but, im asuming also the dye wouldnt evaporate at the same temp the water would, which makes me think, the water would evaporate out and there would be a lot of dye left at the bottom of the bong

You have to fill up bong systems pretty regularly anyways (weekly for most, depends on your res size and bong size). I'm pretty sure the water would get sludgy and then clog your blocks, as dyes already have a tendency to do.

A lot of dust and other things will get in the water via the open air in the bong, so you might end needing to clean your blocks frequently. Your best bet is to get a good heater core or radiator and use that for cooling. I saw a custom acrylic case with a built in bong before on youtube... if only I bookmarked it. For a bong to be practical for cooling a single CPU, I would imagine it would have to be pretty big.

Dooms101 said:

A lot of dust and other things will get in the water via the open air in the bong, so you might end needing to clean your blocks frequently. Your best bet is to get a good heater core or radiator and use that for cooling. I saw a custom acrylic case with a built in bong before on youtube... if only I bookmarked it. For a bong to be practical for cooling a single CPU, I would imagine it would have to be pretty big.

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surely you could create some sort of system to minimise it if it was inside the case?, for example cutting a hole in the top of the case and mounting a fan in it? then having the top of the bong right up against the fan?
-more cooling
-less dust
or would this not work at all and im again missing somthing?

Umm I think you don't understand the size of a bong. They are usually 4-8" across and 3-7' high. Usually the bong is $100 or more in PVC, add the pump, piping etc. They have a large reservoir of at least a couple gallons at the bottom. They have a shower head or something similar inside to spray water in a fine spray.

They use large amounts of fresh room air. The exhaust has the heat of the water AND the humidity from the water. The room gets humid, the cooling potential goes down as the humidity goes up.

You WILL sooner or later have fun things growing in the water. It WILL clog a block in no time flat. So you add a biocide thats cheap and probably stinks. This floats all over the room, and might be bad for you.

This said, a Bong gives you lower water temps than normal watercooling. It's a fun project, and worth the time if you like to tinker. Not for first time watercoolers.

basically what Conumdrum said. Have you tried high-end air cooling yet? Its best to try some nice air coolers before you go under water. Most people are satisfied with the good temps you can get on good air.

the best advise is read read read....
gain some knowledge then attain some goals ..
then start making decisions...
i will say this with a "good" water setup youll never go back to air or wont want to..

Joshcrozer said:

... the guy had a giant bong in the case ...

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If you saw a "bong" in the case then my guess is it was one of the cylindrical reses out there. Did it look anything like one of these?

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/ekresx2400ba.html
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/reservoirs.html

When mounted in a loop it has a couple of tubes coming out of it and, under certain lighting conditions, could look like a bong. You might browse through the WC picture thread, I'm sure there are live examples in there ...

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=625468
No 56K!

PS
Here's a short fat one in blue http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/1028/dscf0058fl.jpg
Tall in red http://www.abload.de/img/7c5y1.jpg
Tall in blue - w/bubbles! http://aarons420.com/divvi/images/WC/finished2.jpg

Are those like what you called a bong??

boucher91 said:

i will say this with a "good" water setup youll never go back to air or wont want to..

Click to expand...

I would disagree to a degree. I used custom water setups for many years and although I did love the performance and look and they certainly surpassed air cooling in performance by a good margin, I grew tired of constantly having to change around my setup every time I switched hardware, which for me used to be all the time. I would change motherboards/cpu's and graphics cards on a regular basis requiring me to drain the system and re-cut tubing to match the new dimensions and distances needed for everything. It eventually became to much of a hassle and the additional overclock gained over good air, usually was not more than a couple hundred mhz.

Over the past couple years, I have slowed down how often I get new hardware so I potentially may revisit water cooling in the future, or just do a cpu loop to simplify things as that would make things far easier. Anyway, point I was trying to make is that water can be a PITA if you switch hardware fairly often and do more complex loops.