Questions On Water Cooling Industry

koss

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 21, 2004
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82
Back in 2003, I got interested in WC, and after much research, I've concluded that the quality was not mature enough and the price was too high for me to try WC unless I do much of custom work.

Recently, I thought I'd give another try at WC and did some research and found that there have not been much progress except many cases now has built-in screw holes and fan exhausts at the top of the case. Thermatake, SwiftTech, Koolance, and Danger Den still offer mediocre quality WC gears that are marginally better than good air-cooling. There are still no decent WC package/all-in-one solution that's worth your money. The best gears are still made & sold at Europe, unless you happen to be a reviewers to get these for free.

So, here's my question:
1) Is there any GOOD WC kit available that gives substantial improvement (5-10C or lower with lesser noise) over TRUE? I'm talking about 240mm radiators, BTW.
2) Why are there no real good WC system (such as AlphaCool or Aqua-Computing) readily available at US? Where could I get these from US?


Since I don't like the idea of buying WC parts from all over the place and own a welding shop to mod my own parts and build my custom WC system over countless hours of work, WC would still be unfeasible for me as of now.
 
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To answer your question.

1. Swiftech has a 240 based kit. Tremendous value. Btw, I am currently using one of their MCR Drives, pump/res/rad in one. Great value at super performance.

2. No idea.

Wes
 
I don't know where you get the idea about european makers. Even though i'm currently in europe, I imported "mediocre" Danger Den gear over aquacomputer (paying 70$ import and shipping), and set up correctly has my 4gh/z 930 cooled to 3c above ambient. I think your green siding it. You should also be aware than US copper is far less...galvanic than european copper because of how is its made. But water cooling isn't for everyone, because of its complexity. It's not a quick install and forget system and any system will need some adjustment to do well.
The corsair h50 is about on par with the TRUE air cooler, possibly quieter and cooler with better fans. Also the h70 is supposed to be cooler/quiter still. Modern cases like the Corsair 800d/700d and mountain mods cases have loads of room for radiators to be installed inside the case, so there is next to no work to do custom sets. If you want real cold tempretures with less work, get a phase change and cover your board in dragonskin. -70c.
 
Dirty little secret, you can take a hunk of copper block and drill some water channels in it and use any kind of pump you can find and a heater core from a car and get within %5 the performance of the most high priced stuff available. Point is there is not much new in WCing because the technology has been around since the invention of the steam engine made cooling down hot water important. Maybe older /shrug

The heatpipe air coolers greatly reduced the gap in performance as well.

Cases for WCing are still pretty much hit and miss as you describe.

My advice, you should WC only if you want to, I think an argument can be made that for a gamer it makes more sense to WC the video cards than it does to WC the CPU these days.

Its always been a niche market for people who like taking various implements of destruction and making something fit in a case. Little better now but not a whole lot.

I think the answer to #1 is yes but it requires a design plan that included the entire system so I cant make a kit recommendation.
#2 I think there is a typo or I am just not getting it and so will leave it alone.
 
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So, here's my question:
1) Is there any GOOD WC kit available that gives substantial improvement (5-10C or lower with lesser noise) over TRUE? I'm talking about 240mm radiators, BTW.
2) Why are the real good WC system (such as AlphaCool or Aqua-Computing) readily available at US? Where could I get these from US?

A TRUE is good but it's never been remotely close to sustaining the same heat capacity as a 120.2 radiator.
Alpha Cool and Aqua Computer are more flashy and not really performance oriented. Most of the major water cooling retailers do carry European parts though.
 
Dirty little secret, you can take a hunk of copper block and drill some water channels in it and use any kind of pump you can find and a heater core from a car and get within %5 the performance of the most high priced stuff available.

Exactly my point. Most really good WC setup I've seen is usually done with heavy modding and customization. I don't have a workshop or welding kit to do these kind of work. I am hoping for a good off-the-shelf kit system to just buy it, install, and get good result for my system.

Perhaps I have been to harsh on other WC system, but it was my impression that European (German in particular) WC systems such as Innovatek and Alphacool always had a good reviews compared to others. Plus they look very good!

Corsair H50 and 70 does look promising, but I am waiting for 120x2 radiator system with better aesthetics... almost!
 
A TRUE is good but it's never been remotely close to sustaining the same heat capacity as a 120.2 radiator.
I know I'm being pedantic, but please try to be careful regarding terminology. Someone whose first language is not English might get confused. Water's heat capacity is greater than air - and yes that is useful - but perhaps you wanted to use the term heat load. And again, to be overly pedantic that would be incorrect since both a TRUE and a 120.2 will dissipate the same amount of heat only at different temperatures.
 
You dont need to buy a kit............ Just order from one of the bigger websites who have lots of parts, and all you need is a radiator (triple xspc?) , pump(mcp355/d5), res, blocks(ek/xspc), and fittings. That should cost you around 350$ and that will smoke any kit you can buy. I dont think ive seen any watercooling builds ever use a welder or anything like that. The most modding tools you will need is maybe a dremel, and that is not very likely.

LOL, o lord, I just read some other stuff you posted. Those brands you posted innovek , aqua-computer, and alphacool arent even worth mentioning. EK, XSPC, Swifttech, thermochill, koolance, danger den (overpriced) are all good brands and have very good supply in the US.

sidewindercomputers.com , performance-pcs.com , frozencpu.com are all very good websites for watercooling.
 
i would not call dangerden or swiftech "mediocre" in terms of performance. they are certainly expensive, but for those looking for a very well engineered water block or accessory, they make some beautiful products that perform on par with any more expensive "european" imported hardware.

water cooling is just like any other hobby that isnt completely necessary. people dont drop $500 just to get that extra 5* temp drop. we dont only do it to make the computer quieter. most of it is the thrill of putting together a complex network of tubes with your own two hands and getting it to work. if that doesnt excite you that doesnt mean you are wrong or right, its just not for you- buy a $50 heatsink and dont worry about it.

weather you water cool or air cool, you are still passively dumping heat from the CPU into the air. you can only get so much efficiency out of a passive process. if what you are looking for is a heatsink-killer, you need to be looking at phase-change or water chillers or something much more exotic.

btw, the corsair H50 or H70 would not really benefit from a larger radiator. since its a closed system and you can only cool the CPU with it, and taking into account the size of the pump/tubing and flow rate of the water, you would not see much of a temp difference with a larger radiator.

you can test this by graphing the curve of airflow over the radiator in relation to cpu temp. if the radiator size was the limiting cooling factor, you would see a substantial drop in temperature with minimal increases in airflow. if you dont see much improvement in temps until the airflow gets very high, then the bottleneck is somewhere else. usually it is in the pump flow rate, or the efficiency of the water block. a single 120mm radiator is adequate to move 150-200w of heat.
 
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