To water cool or not to....

[Showtime]

I've been thinking of trying water cooling for a while. I didnt like any of the existing kits except for maybe the corsair one, but that was way too big for my taste. Building one from scratch would perform better but its time consuming, expensive and with me very dangerous. Good ole news page to the rescuse. From what I read the globalwin silent stream looks like the perfect water cooler for me. It's quiet, relatively cheap, easy to install and cools better than tt900/smartfan combo I'm running now. http://www.globalwinusa.com/products/water/silent.html

I wish they would have had this kit when I built my last system. My 1.8a does 2.7ghz+, but it gets too hot/loud and needs a lot of air to cool it. I found that I'd rather run it at 2.52ghz and it be more quiet than get the extra performance.

Only $85 shipped at http://www.1coolpc.com/ (great rr).
Thats a great price considering I paid $50 for my cooler and $10 for the fan and the 4 case fans and the fan controller was another $50 or so. Even now it would cost me around $75 for my air cooling set up.
Time to bring out my old antec case, the beast. It still has my 1.6a cpu and mobo in it. I'd love to try out one of the new prescotts with this cooler and it already has green fans. :wow:

Anyone here use water cooling? Could I built a better one for the same price?

-jel:halo:

[Kevster]

I use an Innovatek copper block coupled with an Eheim 1250 pump. I custom-made my reservoir out of a 100 CD-R container. It looks really homebrew, but it works great. I haven't had to add any liquid for over a year. On the extreme side, my radiator is a 35lb all-copper 18-pass radiator that is about the size of a legal sheet of paper and about 4" thick. My fans are 2x2" deep 120mm fans on an acrylic mounting plate. I have a 2-speed fan controller that I use to start up the fans then bring them back down to normal running (aka:quiet) speed. This whoel homebrew setup cost me about $145 with all the plumbing accessories and such. The pump was probably the most expensive since it has a 317gph output. I can keep using this system for some time even with new processors or motherboards - I am thinking of getting a new reservoir though - something like the innovatek tank-o-matic or a 5 1/4 slot one.

[Bires]

Originally posted by chosenfool
my days of extreme overclocking are all but over now. id go for it if i had the patience of a monk...

Well put. I'm in the same boat. No more overclocking for me (except video core's). I've had 50% over spec and noisey (P4 1.6A-->2.4GHz) and I'm using cool and silent right now (400SC). I like quiet better.

[johnnymk]

Something doesn't sound right about the size of these pumps.

I have seen power requirements of P4's listed at around 100 watts. 100 watts equals around 400 BTUs per hour or 6.5 BTUs per minute.

That 317 GPH pump equals around 5 GPM. That's a lot of flow to cool 6.5 BTUs.

Either the radiator is vastly undersized, the fans are way too small or improperly positioned or there is something that I am not familiar with these systems.

[DaNewbie]

Originally posted by johnnymk
Something doesn't sound right about the size of these pumps.

I have seen power requirements of P4's listed at around 100 watts. 100 watts equals around 400 BTUs per hour or 6.5 BTUs per minute.

That 317 GPH pump equals around 5 GPM. That's a lot of flow to cool 6.5 BTUs.

Either the radiator is vastly undersized, the fans are way too small or improperly positioned or there is something that I am not familiar with these systems.

you have to factor in the resistance that comes with pushing the water thru tubing, the radiator, and the waterblocks; by the end of a loop, there's little chance that the water is still going 317gph. but for a single cpu system it is slightly overpowered, but overpowered is better than underpowered :) I use the same pump for my dually setup :)

[Kevster]

Originally posted by johnnymk
Something doesn't sound right about the size of these pumps.

I have seen power requirements of P4's listed at around 100 watts. 100 watts equals around 400 BTUs per hour or 6.5 BTUs per minute.

That 317 GPH pump equals around 5 GPM. That's a lot of flow to cool 6.5 BTUs.

Either the radiator is vastly undersized, the fans are way too small or improperly positioned or there is something that I am not familiar with these systems.

I could have gone with a smaller pump, but I decided to build a little headroom on my setup for future processor heat requirements. Thanks to various pressure losses (mostly water hammer) and water head height my system gets somewhere around 2GPM.

[Showtime]

Originally posted by Kevster
I use an Innovatek copper block coupled with an Eheim 1250 pump. I custom-made my reservoir out of a 100 CD-R container. It looks really homebrew, but it works great. I haven't had to add any liquid for over a year. On the extreme side, my radiator is a 35lb all-copper 18-pass radiator that is about the size of a legal sheet of paper and about 4" thick. My fans are 2x2" deep 120mm fans on an acrylic mounting plate. I have a 2-speed fan controller that I use to start up the fans then bring them back down to normal running (aka:quiet) speed. This whoel homebrew setup cost me about $145 with all the plumbing accessories and such. The pump was probably the most expensive since it has a 317gph output. I can keep using this system for some time even with new processors or motherboards - I am thinking of getting a new reservoir though - something like the innovatek tank-o-matic or a 5 1/4 slot one.

Pics please.

One of the main reasons I want this kit is beacause it takes hardly any room. If I go prescott 3.0 or 2.8c I'd be looking for 3.6+ stable. Any less would be a waste of time and effort. Besides prescotts don't outshine the current batch till around 3.6+. Either way I will probably decide in time for a summer project. I usually shut down at night but might leave it on if its quiet enuff. The watercooler might go great in a sff if I can find one that can OC well. SFF's are getting better and better with every batch.

Any negatives on the kit itself? Everything I've read said most of the preproduction problems have been fixed.

-jel:halo: