Considering WC system for a planned SLI setup

A

Arseface

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
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Okay, first up I'm a noob at water cooling, so feel free to point out any blatently obvious things that I may have overlooked :D


Well, I've got a Vapochill XEII (so I don't need CPU cooling). I'm running a 6800U at the moment, but I'm planning to upgrade to dual 6800GTs in the relatively near future.

I was hoping to water-cool the SLI setup, but there isn't really too much room inside the vapochill case, and more to the point, the case supports only 3*50mm(!) case fan vents. Obviously if I've got 2 high end video cards pumping out heat into the case (whether via air cooling or water) it's going to get pretty hot in there, when the only means of ultimate heat escape is these three puny fans.

So - I'm looking into a watercooling setup external to my case. I was thinking about setting up a radiator on the top of my case, although I'm quite open to having a 'stand-up' system stood beside it also. I haven't planned exactly how I will construct a support or housing for the radiator or pump yet, but I will do that once I have bought them.

I'd want the setup to be reasonably quiet, although there is no requirement to be silent. My last PC had 5*80mm fans rated at ~34dBA, (as well as a 7-volted 92mm tornado). I'd *definitely* want it to be quieter than this, but there is no requirement for it to be 'silent'.

I was thinking of something along the lines of:

* Thermochill 120.3 radiator (probably mounted with the fans vertical)
* 2*NV68 water blocks for the GPU (although I'd consider the maze4 block instead, if it was likely that the nv68 wouldn't fit the next generation of video cards)
* a decent pump. Haven't really looked specifically into these at all yet...
* 3*vantec stealth 120mm fans.

Does anyone have any suggestions / comments?

I'm wondering how the 120.3 holds up against the black ice extreme III, and also if there are any other realistic options for radiators, given that I will be having them external to the case.

Also, how much of a performance increase would I see from going for fans that have a larger airflow? I'd like to use 38mm fans rather than 25mm like the zalmans, but it seems to be difficult to find fans that are 38mm but aren't designed to be very noisy.

Any other comments, or helpful tips for this noob? :cool:

I was thinking of using 1/2" tubing also.

Thanks for reading :)



edit - could someone also explain to me the benefit of having a resevoir? Other than the small passive heat loss that it will provide, I don't understand the benefits!
 
I would go with a modded 77 bonny bore that you can get at the autoparts store for around $20.
I would also look into the silverprop fusion line of gpu coolers. The sl is low profile and the hl is the normal size one. The bga ram on the graphics cards can be heatsinked if you like.

I would look at the AquaXtreme 50z pump if you want a dc powered pump or an Iwaki 15 or 20 rlt if you want an ac powered pump (ehims and panworld-bluelines are good also).

I too am making an external case. I built the first one out of MDF (home depot) cause it was cheap and easy to work with (wear a mask when cutting this stuff). I am now going to make one out of acrylic or some similar material. You can buy colder quick disconnects to make moving your external setup easier.

the 38mm fans are definatly better you can usually find good ones on ebay, making the fans silent(er) can be done by using a pwm circuit
http://www.cpemma.co.uk/pwm.html
fairly easy to construct -- there are plans all over the net if you search.

Well I answered what I could for now
 
2 NV68s will be impossible to fit in an SLI setup. I'd recommend the Koolance blocks as they are only 60 dollars and are thin enough to fit in an SLI setup. Sure it's lower in tubing, but with the right setup, 1/2" setups aren't necessary anymore and bring only diminishing returns (unless you spend the right amount for an iwaki and Storm block... but that's entering phase-change prices territory.. hence the diminishing returns).
 
Thank you! I'll look into all that :)

How are you planning on shaping your acrylic, or are you just going to make it from plane sections?



By the way, I think I understand what a resevoir is useful for now. I've been looking at the tank-o-matic, but I'm still a little unsure of how it connects to the case... How hard will it be to fit one of these securely to the back of my case?
 
quicksilverXP said:
2 NV68s will be impossible to fit in an SLI setup.
Click to expand...

Really? :(

I was under the impression that they took up less space than the stock Ultra heatsink?

How about with an Asus A8N-SLI board? I know the space between the two PCI-e graphics card slots is a bit wider with this board...

How much benfit is there from cooling the memory on the 6800 cards anyway? I know that the DDR3 modules don't produce a huge amount of heat, but I've seen people overclocking their memory way over 1300 with watercooling, whereas it's rare to see much above 1200 on air...
 
Arseface said:
Thank you! I'll look into all that :)

How are you planning on shaping your acrylic, or are you just going to make it from plane sections?



By the way, I think I understand what a resevoir is useful for now. I've been looking at the tank-o-matic, but I'm still a little unsure of how it connects to the case... How hard will it be to fit one of these securely to the back of my case?
Click to expand...
I am going to use a router, band saw and a heat gun. Plus glue and some alum. parts.
 
Arseface said:
Really? :(

I was under the impression that they took up less space than the stock Ultra heatsink?

How about with an Asus A8N-SLI board? I know the space between the two PCI-e graphics card slots is a bit wider with this board...
Click to expand...

WIth the DD 6800 cooler on, Vid Card 2s input/output pushes on VId Card 1 making it Vid Card 2 sit at a pretty good angle, not to to mention the fact that there is now way to connect the water lines. PIC
 
debello_64 said:
WIth the DD 6800 cooler on, Vid Card 2s input/output pushes on VId Card 1 making it Vid Card 2 sit at a pretty good angle, not to to mention the fact that there is now way to connect the water lines. PIC
Click to expand...

Wow! that really sucks...

The Asus A8N has a much bigger gap between the two card though;



sli12xv.jpg




Not that it leaves much room for PCI cards underneath... although I guess with a nv68 block that would be a bit better.
 
Doesn't mean anything... because you'll need A LOT of space to fit two NV68s and no motherboard offers that. You're only choices for a nice clean setup with the least amount of tubing is wither the Koolance blocks or the aquacomputer blocks as they use rotateable barbs, and they aren't in in an "L" position like the NV68s (meaning... the barbs stick straight up towards the top of the case, making SLI inconvenient).
I'd say go with the Koolance blocks, buy some adaptors to switch to 3/8" tubing, and run an MCP350 with it and you'll be fine. If you plan to cool your cpu... then that's a whole different story as well. For that, I would run the same setup, but either use two rads or one huge rad, and 2 MCP350s in series.
 
Arseface said:
Wow! that really sucks...

The Asus A8N has a much bigger gap between the two card though;

Not that it leaves much room for PCI cards underneath... although I guess with a nv68 block that would be a bit better.
Click to expand...

The extra room on the A8N will help alittle, but with 1/2 tubbing it would be a pretty empresive to get that thing plumbed (in serial it would add alot of unneeded hose, parallel might eliminate the extra hose but might add some flow problems). If the MAZE4 that would fit the 6800 would get released, along with a 3/8 set up, would be much better just for the orentation of the fittings.
 
Thanks guys :)

I guess I'll forget about running dual NV68s then. It'll save a bit of money so I can probably spend more on the pump.

Also, after looking at various people's setups, I think it would be better to go for the 3/8" tubing after all. There won't really be much room in my case for the tubing to leave the case anyway (into the resevoir), so it should make things easier.

So just to confirm - the maze4 block that is available at the moment doesn't fit the 6800 cards? :confused:

Is there any confirmation on when the block that fits the 6800s will be released?


edit - by about how much do 90o or 45o elbow joints limit flow? Would that allow a nv68 to fit?!
 
DangerDen is releasing their new Maze4GPU cooler which will fit on the 6800 and the 6600. Also, their SLI cooler is coming soon. Id wait for the Dangerden SLI block.
 
iownyou14 said:
DangerDen is releasing their new Maze4GPU cooler which will fit on the 6800 and the 6600. Also, their SLI cooler is coming soon. Id wait for the Dangerden SLI block.
Click to expand...

Interesting!

How is this SLI block designed to work in particular, to make it better than two regular GPU waterblocks? Are there any reviews or pictures floating around?
 
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