New Water Cool AMD64

[Nnyan]

Hello everyone first time poster here,

I'm in the process of researching the components for my new PC. Here are my primary goals for this PC:

1. Budget is no more then $2400 including taxes and shipping.
2. I want to put together a custom water cooling kit using best of class/best bang for the buck components. Barring that a top quality kit.
3. I am VERY noise sensitive so I need to minimize the number of fans/noise.
4. Prefer most if not all of the system to be internal (an external rear mounted radiator is fine).
5. Will upgrade to SLI/RAID0/2GB somtime in the future so I would like to configure the watercooling system to take the SLI into account (spliters and such already installed).

The research I'm doing now is the following:

1. Which water cooling components offer the best performance and fit into my budget?

1b. Should I put the water cooling together or buy a kit?

2. Which case offers the best (easy) install of the water cooling unit with very quiet performance?

3. Do I need a single fan or dual fan radiator?

3b. Which cases can fit the dual 12CM radiator?

Anyway the Water Cooling Kit at the top of my list ATM is the Asetek Waterchill Water Cooling Kit KT12AT-SL35. If I put one together it has to offer better performance (cooling and sound), fairly easy install/maintenance and NO LEAKS! = ), and fit into my budget.

Here is what I have selected so far (I'm waiting for the 4ms LCD's to come out next month to get one of those):

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 90nm Winchester
DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Mobo
1GB OCZ EL PC4000 VX Gold Pair
XFX GeForce 6800GT 256MB PCI-X
320gb Western Digital WD3200JB
OCZ PowerStream 520 PS
NEC 3500A DVD Burner
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Logitech MX1000 Cordless laser mouse
Natural Multimedia Keyboard
Creative Inspire T7700 7.1 Speakers

Thank you!

 

[Gravity]

For the money you can get a vapochill II or III. Why mess with water?? You've got enough $$ to get a phase change cooling system.

 

[kamranziadar]

Well i am not using water cooling but i was able to overclock upto 2.28GHZ with factory cooling.

 

[Nnyan]

Well spending $700-$900 on a VP XE II System or a Lightspeed would not leave me enough money to get the system that I want. And that would only cool my CPU still leaving the GPU's/chipset on air.

 

[fstime]

Who ever reccomended phase change is foolish, the winchesters have what some people call a cold bug, they dont like any temps lower then -10ish and flip out after that. The people who use Vapo chill are usualy claw hammer cores such as the FX-55.

Btw - Visit xtremesystems.org, you will get more help there.

This website lets you customize your own watercooling setup on their site.

 

[Nnyan]

I'll check out xtremesystems thanks. I've been buying stuff from FrozenCPU for years now they are great!

 

[Nnyan]

Anyone have any suggestions as to which cases have dual 120mm (one on top of the other) exhaust fans? I'm having a hard time finding one.

 

[fstime]

Dual 120 mm exuast fans? I doubt you will find one, they're some cases which offer intake/exuasr 120mm fans though.

 

[Nnyan]

Ok, then I guess my question would be what 120mm radiator/fan combo will cool two 6800 GT's and an overclocked Athlon 64 3200+?

 

[Erssa]

Water cooling is hardly never more silent then air. But check out http://forums.silentpcreview.com/ for tips with silent water cooling/fans/case. You are gonna need a huge case with really good airflow, if you are planning on making things internal. Anyway if you aren't in a death hurry in building up your system, I would wait for the venice proressors to hit the market in next month. Also Antec will propably have their P180 out by then.

If you really are as noise sensitive as you say, you will need to replace the DFI's nb heatsink/fan combo with zalman nb47j as in here.

 

[steamnputer]

I OC (2.6 is as far i could get it to stay stable)a winchester at times and have never hit more then 50C with prime 95 tourture test they run pretty cool, if the DFI board is C&Q compatible they run even lower I run at 39ish on mobo and cpu with ASUS a8n sli del with 2 vide cards albiet not 6800s, if DFI layed out there cards like ASUS you may have a hard time getting cooling to the vid cards with outofthebox kits. I would save the money buy a good HSF and and case with a least a couple 120mm. Right now my nvidia chipsset far and away is the hotspot and also produces the most noises(other when i am in Jet asisted takeoff mode with the fans all the way up.)

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: Nnyan
Hello everyone first time poster here,

1. Which water cooling components offer the best performance and fit into my budget?

1b. Should I put the water cooling together or buy a kit?

2. Which case offers the best (easy) install of the water cooling unit with very quiet performance?

3. Do I need a single fan or dual fan radiator?

3b. Which cases can fit the dual 12CM radiator?

Welcome to the forums!

1. DangerDen blocks are high-performance FRU's that come at a reasonable price. They have two solutions for SLI rigs currently. Look around the site a bit and get a feel for the specifics.

1b. In the bang-for-you-buck department, you'll be better of buying parts separately. However, there are some kits available that give good dollar value. It all depends on what sort of performance you want and how much expandability you need.

2. Very few, if any, cases come out of the box ready for FRU's like dual rads. This equates to you either having to mod the case yourself, or having someone do it for you. I bought my case here and had them do the cuts and punch-outs. One thing to consider if you plan on having an internal cooler, and I realize how esoteric this sounds at your current skill level, but you're going to need enough fresh-air intake to feed your exhaust and rad fans. Keep this in mind during the planning phase for good performance.

3. If you want to keep noise to a minimum, yes. Look at it this way: A small rad needs LOTS of air pulled through it to function well. A large rad (or two smaller ones) need less throughput to function at an equal level.

3b. See number 2. Keep in mind that it's POSSIBLE that you can find a stock case to suit you needs, but I haven't seen one.

If you have any more questions, general or specific, just ask. :thumbsup:

 

[Nnyan]

First of all, thanks all for the great info/advice! Especially Erssa and Hardwarrior.

Ok so I'm thinking I'm going to change that to mounting the radiator externally. I've been reading various forums and it seems that you can cool two 6800's, an Athlon 64 3200 and an NF4 chipset with one really good 120mm radiator and water cooling setup (I understand results can vary). I think I'll have to go with one or two seperate 120 rads since mounting a dual 120 rad might be a problem, or I'll just go somewhere and get that mod made.

I haven't been keeping up on AMD's roadmap so I didn't know much about Venice but I think I'll hold off and nab one of them. I've read previews of the Antec P180 and it does look sweet.

Does anyone know of some good websites that focus primarily on watercooling reviews? I would like to see up to date reviews on wc components (cpu blocks, radiators, etc...). I am having trouble finding one that has up to date review in any quantity. So far I've been pretty impressed with sharkacomputers.com, they seem to carry all the major brands.

So far here is the config for my DIY kit:

PolarFlow TT CPU and Chipset Blocks
Coolance VID-NV2-L06 Nvidia 68XX GPU Block
Danger Den DD12V-D4 Pump
Danger Den Single 5 1/4" Bay Reservoir or Thermaltake CL-W0009 Reservoir
HWLabs Black Ice Xtreme Radiator
Thermaltake CL-W0012 Liquid Flow Indicator
Tygon 3603 Laboratory Tubing
Luberex Dielectric Lubricant

What I'm not sure about is which types of fittings/connectors I should use?

 

[HardWarrior]

My pleasure.

Reviews aren't all that easy to come by, especially with things like rads. For blocks it's slightly easier. Just goggle "Polarflo TT CPU block review", or something like that, and you'll get the skinny. I agree, considering your planned load, that you go with two 120mm rads. TBH, I'm amazed that anyone would suggest just one in your case. Your selection looks good. Except you may want to consider a dual 5 1/4 inch res or something like this. Standard single-bay res's have a tendency to suck foam. Fittings? My personal preference is 1/2 inch ID. This bore supports the best blocks currently available in the US. What do you mean by "connectors" and, if I may ask, what's the dielectric grease for?

 

[Nnyan]

Ok good to know about the single bay res, I can do the double bay ones thats not a big issue. Reason I'm thinking of going with the drive bay res is that I read that the res should be relatively "high" in your system, Not sure if thats valid or not anymore (haven't found a really good current How-To build a water cooling system).

I'll go with two 120's or a dual rad with my config, I'll just have to plan it carefully when I select the case. My question on the fittings/connectors is about the actual pieces used to connect the tube to the WC components and T-connectors and such. I see alot of plastic and metal stuff, barbs, clamps and quick connects, totally cluesless about that.

The dielectric grease was just a thought, I read some reviews that certain types of tubing are very "sticky" on the inside making it a pain in the arse to remove it.

 

[HardWarrior]

It's generally true. My res is slighlty lower than both of my rads, but it works just as it should.

Unless you configure your rads in parallel (which is adviseable), you won't won't need T-connectors. If you do go parallel, I'd suggest Y-connectors. I'd also suggest that you secure your barbs with SS worms clamps, the 1 inch kind that Home Depot sells. You MIGHT be able to get away with nylon clamps, but SS clamps supply a bit of insurance, and if you use nickel-plated barbs they're mandatory. One thing that you need to make sure of, since you didn't mention it, is that you get the thick-walled Tygon. I think it's 3/4 inch OD.

Actually the stickiness inherent in high quality tubing is a good thing. Look at it as a bit more insurance. I've never had a major problem trying to pull tubing from barbs.

 

[imported_Mitchell]

I used Swiftech's kit and I love it. See sig for pics.

 

[HardWarrior]

Very nice, Mitchell. :thumbsup:

 

[Nnyan]

Very nice indeed Mitchell! What are your temps? Is your single rad just keeping up with your system or still has some overhead? I really would like to keep my fans down to a minimum, say 5 120mm fans tops (2 for the radiator(s), one for the power supply, 2 for case (intake and exhaust).

 

[fstime]

Here you go man, this lists some top natch watercooling things. Including pumps, cpu blocks, gpu blocks, best watercooling kits, etc,


http://www.gruntville.com/kingofthehill.php

 

[thunderroller]

if you bare a littel noise then normal fan works fine.Inside the cabinet it wont make mich noise

 

[Nnyan]

Ok kill the lubricant, thanks for the Gruntville link! Although I would still like to find a site with reviews of various components. Still haven't decided on my case yet, anyone know of nice cases that you can mount a dual 120mm rad on the top?

 

[Nnyan]

Just found a great resource for water cooling at www.ocforums.com

 

[HardWarrior]

:laugh: I think you'll find ocforums an interesting place.

 

[Nnyan]

Well after much advice here and other forums here is what I'm going with:

D-Tek White Water
Danger Den MAZE4 GPU
Danger Den Maze4 Chipset
Black Ice Pro II Rad
Yate Loon 120mm Fans
AquaXtreme 50Z-DC12 Pump
Danger Den 5.25 Bay Res
PrimoFlex 1/2 Tube
FluidXP

I'm looking into the CM Stacker and Armor VA8000 cases since they look very easy to install a dual 120mm rad into. I went with the BIP over the BIX b/c I will be running the fans in low rpm settings and in that scenario it seems the BIP would be better then the denser BIX.

I'm giving up on the G4 Storm b/c I can't seem to get any answer back as to whether or not they are still making any at this time. I've heard good things about the Swiftech MCW6002-64 (seems to have very good performance. Even if its not the very best its a great bang for the buck)