liquid cooling and memory for A64 3500+

[imported_Ebola]

Due to the price finally dropping on the 3500 cpu I'm going to begin assembling my new system. I'm going to have the 3500 in a NF3 ultra motherboard so I can lock the PCI/AGP busses as I'm of the mind to try my hand at liquid cooling.

Koolance Exos, does anyone have any opinions/experience/advice re this all in one package? Any other liquid cooling kits I should look at?

Memory, what speed of memory and timings should I go for? I was leaning towards PC4000 but the timings on the chips that I've looked at seem extraneously high?

Also, I know the Gigabyte motherboard with NF3 works well, but I've also heard about an MSI that should be out soon? Is this something worth waiting for or should I just go with the Gigabyte board?

 

[OMG1Penguin]

From what I have heard, Dangerden (dangerden.com) has some pretty nice products. Might want to look in to them.

 

[RadioHead84]

Originally posted by: EbolaZaire
Due to the price finally dropping on the 3500 cpu I'm going to begin assembling my new system. I'm going to have the 3500 in a NF3 ultra motherboard so I can lock the PCI/AGP busses as I'm of the mind to try my hand at liquid cooling.

Koolance Exos, does anyone have any opinions/experience/advice re this all in one package? Any other liquid cooling kits I should look at?

Memory, what speed of memory and timings should I go for? I was leaning towards PC4000 but the timings on the chips that I've looked at seem extraneously high?

Also, I know the Gigabyte motherboard with NF3 works well, but I've also heard about an MSI that should be out soon? Is this something worth waiting for or should I just go with the Gigabyte board?

This is probably a really stupid question seeing you rgetting a liquid cooling system but...whats yoru budget?

 

[hemi]

Look at Dangerden (http://www.dangerden.com), Swiftech (http://www.swiftnets.com), etc. (DTek, Innovatek, Asetek).

I have a 3500, and I'm waiting for the MSI NF3 board to become available. I think the layout is better than the Gigabyte, plus it has a better range of adjustments, and it's listed about $60 less at the moment.

If you are looking for higher mem speeds (250+), you'll need some PC4000 or take 3200-3500 and loosen the timings anyway, so that's your call.

Good luck - sounds like we'll have similar rigs (I'll be watercooling mine too).


Tom

 

[imported_Ebola]

As I need a new case too, I've actually been seriously considering one of the dangerden setups, they seem like a great all in one package.

I keep hearing people say that they're waiting on the MSI board to come out. Is there any particular reason why? Looking at the review Anandtech did of the 939 boards it seemed like the MSI board was gimped on the bus settings, the gigabyte could do 200-455 while the MSI could only do 200-300 for some reason... or did MSI fix this in the production model? But on the other hand the gigabyte board is gimped on memory voltage while the MSI can go up to 2.85. Please tell me that the MSI has had it's FSB problem fixed, please?

As far as memory, I'm getting fairly confused. Last time I built a system (two years ago) it was more valuable to have low latency memory at a reduced bus frequency but lately I've been hearing the opposite. I was looking at PC3700 and PC4000 and the latencies appear to be horrid! And what's the deal with matched pairs of memory?

Is PC4000 even necessary since neither the gigabyte nor the MSI board support FSB's over 455 which is within the window of PC3700 (466Mhz I believe)?

This 1gb matched pair of PC4000 looks pretty decent;
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-934&depa=1
and apparently it can do cas-2 with the voltage cranked up according to one of the reviews

As far as budget goes, I need to keep things reasonable (no vapor phase systems) but I have some manuevering room. So I'm really debating going with a dangerden case w/ system assembled or the exos and a Lian-Li case. The dangerden setup looks like it's a better deal (the verge at least, the vexx looks like it should have a spoiler and some ground effects on it), any items I should definitely upgrade on it?

Thanks for the help guys, it's very much appreciated

 

[EvanB]

Tell me, how would you EVER take an A64 over 300 HTT? Think about that... I have yet to see memory that runs at 600 other than ddr2. So dont worry about the MSI not being able to go over 300. Oh, reading the rest of your post I realize that you don't realize that when they say that pc4000 is 500mhz, that is because it is DDR, double data rate, so in actuality that would be 250mhz FSB/HTT.

 

[imported_funbun]

I went with a Danger Den waterblock. I custom built mine wcing rig as you can see from my sig. You can get everything from DD for conveinence but a heater core can be bought localy from a junk yard or better a radiator shop. I paid $20 bucks radiator and it's bigger than DD radiators that sell for $60+. You can save cash doing that. You can eaisily build your own reservoir buy shoping at Lowes or Home Depot.

Anyway, plan whether you want cooling in or out of the case. This will defermine the case you buy as well as radiator size. I wanted as little of the cooling system in the case as possible to I opted for external cooling. Which allowed me to buy a small Lanboy case. Also, All I wanted was CPU cooling. Some poeple like to wc their GPU and Chipset. My case is just too small for that much stuff.

For internal cooling you may do better to go with DD solution because everything is sized for 120mm. I f you want internal cooling go with a hugh tower case. There is plenty of room for radiaotr .pumpp, res, etc.

I spent $150 for my setup. I built 4 different reserviors, experimenting with sumberible vs inline pumps. I went with sumbersible to save space and for simplicity.

check out http://www.overclockers.com/topiclist/index31.asp#WATER%20COOLING for tons of wcing how tos.

Be sure to leak test like crazy.

I love wcing.

 

[imported_Ebola]

Originally posted by: EvanB
Tell me, how would you EVER take an A64 over 300 HTT? Think about that... I have yet to see memory that runs at 600 other than ddr2. So dont worry about the MSI not being able to go over 300. Oh, reading the rest of your post I realize that you don't realize that when they say that pc4000 is 500mhz, that is because it is DDR, double data rate, so in actuality that would be 250mhz FSB/HTT.

Damn, I have been out of this for a while. Thanks for the explanation and clarification Evan. I guess all I can blame is spending too much time in the lab mutating yeast cells, I'd forgotten that the DDR stands for double ><. Sounds like I need to revaluate the motherboard and read some specs so I don't end up doing something stupid. I didn't even realize that the 3500+ was running on a FSB of 200 to begin with. Realistically speaking using a good watercooling setup on the 3500+ what kind of FSB should be feasible and what spec memory should I go with?

And I've pretty much made up my mind to go with the danger den verge case. I want a in-case cooling setup and I want something that I don't really have to put together or do case modding to. Now the verge case (http://www.dangerden.com/mall/cases/verge.asp) says it supports up to three water blocks so I could do the cpu, chipset, and gpu if I wanted to. What I'm unsure about is how to go about removing the stock fans/heatsinks on the motherboard and the videocard (I'm probably going to get a evga 6800GT) and then mounting the waterblocks on them. How critical is it to watercool the chipset if I'm watercooling the cpu?