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Radiator suggestions that could use 2x120mm fans

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Krusty

Insane Overclocking Clown
Joined
Sep 17, 2001
Location
Orange County
Now that I have my new Opteron rig up and running, it's time to start working on a completely custom case w/water cooling. Since I'm building a case from scratch, I can essentially make the case fit any radiator I want fit.

What I want is the best performing radiator that would work well with 2x120mm fans. There is a little bit of wiggle room, particularly with radiator width, for an odd sized radiator that wasn't designed to go in a computer. Can anyone give me some suggestions on best radiators out there that would fit my requirements?
 
Aight, so with the BIX2 model, do you think that has enough heat dissipation to deal with a cpu, northbridge, and gpu? This is going to be an upgrade from my current heater core radiator and 172mm fan running at 7v. I'm planning on starting with just cooling the cpu, but will likely be tempted to cool my northbridge and gpu soon afterwards.
 
if you are looking for a 2x120 rad, thats a very good option - I would assume that a heathercore might be able to dissipate more heat. They also take 2x120. I personally like the PI line myself.
 
Get a heatercore from AutoZone for 20.01 shipped. It comes with ~1/2 copper tubing that you can stretch 1/2" ID tubing over after a bit of effort. I forget what part number it is, send me a PM if you really need it.
 
Heatercores are better and cheaper than BIX, but only if you have the tools and patience to make a shroud for it, and mount it in your case without the ease of using 120mm fan hole mounts.

Black Ice Pro excells in cooling performance over a Black Ice Xtreme until around 80cfms. Black Ice Xtreme takes the lead only after noisy(52dbl+) fans are added.

With BIX, you need a shrouds for optimal performance , while with a BIP, a shroud is not necessary because its not that thick/single row.

Heatercores/BIX/ any 2 Row Heat Exchanger is designed to work with a High Cfm Fan. Their added thickness only allows 50% of the CFMs to pass through. While Single Row radiators such as BIP allow close to 70% of the CFMS to go through

Thermochilll PA Series Radiators have very low fin density, thus allowing nearly all the Cfms of a fan to pass through. They are considered to be the best of watercooling radiators because they can match Heatercore performance while using a 50cfm fan (heatercore would need 100cfm fan for same performance)
 
Zenjirou said:
Heatercores are better and cheaper than BIX, but only if you have the tools and patience to make a shroud for it, and mount it in your case without the ease of using 120mm fan hole mounts.

Black Ice Pro excells in cooling performance over a Black Ice Xtreme until around 80cfms. Black Ice Xtreme takes the lead only after noisy(52dbl+) fans are added.

With BIX, you need a shrouds for optimal performance , while with a BIP, a shroud is not necessary because its not that thick/single row.

Heatercores/BIX/ any 2 Row Heat Exchanger is designed to work with a High Cfm Fan. Their added thickness only allows 50% of the CFMs to pass through. While Single Row radiators such as BIP allow close to 70% of the CFMS to go through

Thermochilll PA Series Radiators have very low fin density, thus allowing nearly all the Cfms of a fan to pass through. They are considered to be the best of watercooling radiators because they can match Heatercore performance while using a 50cfm fan (heatercore would need 100cfm fan for same performance)
This seems like great information. Just out of curiosity, where did you obtain it from? I have searched for comparisons like the ones you've mentioned but couldn't find any?

So about the BIX III, is there any place that sells shrouds for them? The only one I found was this one and when I received it I was shocked at how skinny and essentially worthless it is. :eh?:
 
maviryk is gonna get back to me with the model number of a heater core that is 2x120mm shaped ;-)

I'm all for using a heater core seeing as my last system used a heater core from a...i think 1987 ford escort.
 
Fedco Core #2-302 is 5-5/8" wide X 10-3/4" long X 2" deep.

This core will accept 2-120mm fans, its width allows it to be fit inside the 5-1/4" drive brackets (assuming you have a case that the 5-1/4" brackets are full height - IE CM Stacker, Aerocool Masstige, etc)) and is one of the 'cheap' heater cores available at most auto parts stores. My last one cast me $18.99 + tax.

Couple of warnings-
1. You will need to either make or purchase a shroud for this heater core or you will see a definite performance dropoff.

2. You will need some fairly powerful fans to make this HC really shine in terms of performance. its 2" thick with fairly dense fins. It takes some pretty strong fans to push air through it but once they do...hubba hubba.

Modding will most probably be required as well. Either the lazy mans approach -cutting off the factory installed barbs to leave only the 1/2" OD tubes- or doing a full barb removal/replacement will normally be needed in order to mount most standard tubing sizes. I simply cut mine off at the bend for each barb. AFter that it was a bit of a struggle but I was able to get my 7/16"ID-5/8"OD tubing on after removing the flared barb ends.
 
so it sounds like I'll need a noisy fan to get adequate performance out of a heater core. I'm not unfamilair with noisy fans (last setup used a comair rotron 235cfm fan), but I'm looking for a more quiet setup this time around. Would using 4x120mm quiet fans in a push-pull setup provide enough pressure to get good performance out of one of these heater cores?
 
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