• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

How big does a resivor have to be??

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
Not very big. If you are going with an in-line pump, then you only need a very minimal resivior, just enough to allow you to easily fill and get rid of any air pockets. If the pump you are going to use is the submerged type, then you will need a resivior that will allow the pump to be completely covered by water. Typically a 4 x 4 x 4 in box is big enough to hold a submergable pump and sufficent water.
 
Though a larger resivour will allow the water to cool off more, therefore allowing less heat taken to the cpu...

I was thinking of getting me one of those Yeong Yang cases for my next PC and turning the entire other side into a resivour...well, mostly. Leave some pockets for radiators, drives, PSU and the such...
 
Eventually the water in the system will reach equilibrium, no matter what size the reservoir is, within practical limits.
 
Granted, but I would think with a larger amount of water you could cool it more easily or something.
 
I have mine going through a 5 gallon bucket. with no fans cooling anything, my t-bird stays at 42C under full load, and it's darn quiet.
 
5 gallons is beyond the practical limit. It's nice to be able to put your box on a hand truck, load it horizontal in the trunk of the old bomb and drive it across town. Hauling a 5 gallon bucket would be a RPITA. The same goes for ducted cooling of outside air in the winter.
 
I peronsally dont ever move my computer anywhere so I am thinking of using something along the lines of a 5 gallon gas container or a 7 gallon bucket. The more water you have the longer it takes to heat up. But once the system stabilizes, the only difference is the surface area the water has with the surrounding air. By default more water = more surface area, but this temp difference will be quite small, and if you have a quality radiator even a small amount of water will be fine. So it really doesn't matter. I am using something bigger because it is more convenient for me and I dont care how ugly this looks.

-Dan
 
Back