Thinking about watercooling a new rig..

R

RandysWay

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 5, 2004
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I built my current rig that's in my signature March '04, while keeping my 9700 Pro from the old system. I plan on upgrading within a month or two. I'm thinking about purchasing an AMD A64 X2 4400+ with an ASUS A8N [Non-SLI] motherboard and a nVidia 7800 GTX.

I will keep my 74G Raptor and put a 20GB in place, as well as take out my 2GB Corsair TwinX PC3200 and put 1GB of ValueRam in place. I would then 'donate' my old system to my parents as a web browser. Now, since it would be an entirely new rig I'm thinking about watercooling. Either cough up some more dough or purchase a X2 3800+ to help out with the WC costs.

I'm completely new to watercooling; I've never watercooled any system nor know anything watercooling related ;) I'd like to stay away from prebuilt wc solutions (such as Koolance) and build it myself. I've heard that DangerDen's products are one of the best. I went on their website and immeditaly saw the nice $125 7800 Series waterblock. Is WC that expensive for one waterblock?

I'd WC the CPU & GPU; what about the RAM, HDD, etc? Do you still need CPU & GPU fans? What about case fans? What about the noise of the PSU? I'd WC not only for noise but for overclocking. Knowing my luck I'd get a crappy overclocking CPU/GPU ;) It's mainly about 77 F in the summer and about 71 F in here during the winter. What kind of temps would I expect? What kind of OC's would I expect? How often do you change the water out? Any leak risks?

Anybody have a spare minute to throw together the needed parts (and price ;) ) so I can research them?

Thank you :)
Randy
 
You can avoid buying most of the parts separately and get the Swiftech H20 Apex kit. It includes all of the top components as of now, and can be internal or external. It comes with the Storm cpu block, which is basically the best on the market, a pump, radiator, res, and tubing. All you would really need is a gpu block and maybe a little more tubing. And for the gpu, the $125 DD block you were looking at isnt really worth it. Instead get something along the lines of the maze4 that just cools the GPU core and get some ramsinks to cool the RAM passively, alot cheaper. As for the hard drive, you dont really need to WC it, but there are some DD blocks and Koolance blocks for them. And for the RAM, I dont believe there is a current way to WC it. Since you're getting the Asus A8N I'd suggest getting a chipset block to cool that, as the nForce4 chipsets run fairly hot.

All this should get you started and on your way as I am fairly new to WCing, and more people with alot more knowledge than me will be popping in here to offer more help.
 
Water cooled RAM coming up. :D



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Ok a few things.

First, APEX kit gets two thumbs up from me, great kit with just about everything you need for some top notch performance.

Second, if you are watercooling your GPU and CPU that is removing most of the heat sources in your computer. You could cool the rest with one low RPM fan acting as an intake, and let your PSU be the outtake fan. HDDs (even raptors) only need a slight breeze flowing over them to keep cool.

Thirdly, the only reason to watercool the chipset is noise considerations. You will not get a higher overclock by watercooling the chipset. If the fan is bothering I would first try to lap the heatsink on it, and reapply it with some AS5. That is usually good for shaving off at least 5C if not more, which should keep the fan at low RPMs. If you are still bothered by the noise only then would I watercool it.

Fourthly, as was mentioned earlier the DD GPU+RAM and any other GPU+RAM block for that matter are IMO not worth the effort. You dont gain significantly higher RAM clocks with these blocks and they merely add more restriction and cost to your loop.

Fifthly, watercooling RAM is just as pointless as watercooling the Graphics RAM. It is almost as pointless as watercooling HDDs. Shoot RAM doesn't even need those fancy heatspreaders put on them to keep cool....so why would they need watercooling?
 
Erasmus354 said:
Fifthly, watercooling RAM is just as pointless as watercooling the Graphics RAM. It is almost as pointless as watercooling HDDs. Shoot RAM doesn't even need those fancy heatspreaders put on them to keep cool....so why would they need watercooling?
Click to expand...
I agree with that. My Corsair XMS heatspreaders never even get warm to the touch.
 
Well I suppose it does depnd on what RAM you have and how much voltage you decide to put into it. But water cooled RAM definitely has a place in the OC's arsenal of tools.
 
Top Nurse said:
Well I suppose it does depnd on what RAM you have and how much voltage you decide to put into it. But water cooled RAM definitely has a place in the OC's arsenal of tools.
Click to expand...
yeah, how hot your memory gets definately depends on the type of memory, and therefore how much voltage you are putting into it to get the best overclock out of it.

all the same, if we're confining ourselves to DDR memory, the heat output on memory modules is low enough, and the temps that hold you back are high enough, that a bit of air movement past the DIMMs will usually get your memclock as high as you are going to get it with an even moderately sustainable config.
 
I have Corsair XMS Pro's and I bought them for the LED action so I am not about to cover them up with a RAM cooler. However, my next set of RAM will probably be something that will run on a DFI board that I can OC the krap out of. So then I WILL be using watercooling for my RAM.

The NF4 chipsets get as hot as a pistol and do well from being watercooled. It really has nothing to do with performance other than taking heat off your board and disposing of it in the place you want it to be.
 
Wow, thanks for all the replies!

So I'd probably go with the Swiftech H20-APEX Kit as it seems highly recommended amongst our fellow [H]ers. So it seems, after I read the posts, as if it'd be down to only the CPU & GPU, and perhaps the chipset depending on what kind of noise it'll cut out as well as how much heat it'll eliminate. So I'll need a GPU Waterblock; what's a good block to start looking at?

I looked up the APEX and it's about $250.00. Ouch. I was hoping it would be a bit less... I'm most likely looking at about $320.00 here, right? Now, for $320 is the benefits of Watercooling worth it? I saw a few 'benchmarks', the H20-APEX vs XP-90 and it's only about 5C in difference, for the CPU. And, I noticed that the APEX radiator's 120mm fans are around 35dB; I thought it was supposed to be very, very quiet?


Again, thanks for the replies. :)
 
apex kit includes fan adjustment knob, you can dial them down into the low 20 db range. i think that as long as everything stays down below 30 db, a computer is pretty quiet. not silent, you can still hear it if you listen for it, but you drives chattering are going to be the most noticeable thing in there.

pretty good GPU block: swiftech MCW 55 with optional half inch barb fittings. DD maze 4 GPU acetyl top is prett good as well.

as for the benifits of watercooling: if you're looking for a big performance jump as compared to air, you should save up more money and look at somethin more exotic. water doesn't get you much lower temps than air. it's mainly about getting somewhat better temps with reduced noise.

for myself, i didn't go with straight water, because i was coming from a thermalright SP-97 and delta FFB0912EHE. there really wasn't watercooling readily available that could do more than a degree or two better than that. oh sure, that cooling solution was loud as hell, however i had gotten used to it (i think it's called hearing loss, in some circles :)) and i was not prepared to drop the kind of money that water costs in order to get roughly the same performance level. so, i went peltier, and it's hardcore, and it USUALLY works, and it has really cost me in accidently destroyed hardware.

now i just wish that there had been kits like the apex around when i was buying. it's safe, simple, performs somewhat better than the loudest and best air on the market, and is quiet enough to sleep around. my current pelt config is pretty quiet too, however i'm not comfortable sleeping with it on, given my previous track record.

you want good performing, somewhat less expensive components, there are people around here who can give you a shopping list. it all depends on the performance, noise and price level you are interested in.
 
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