Anyone here have experience with the Zalman Reserator?

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MuadDib420

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Aug 21, 2004
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hi guys... sorry if this subject was already discussed.

i'm interested in the zalman reserator no-fan water cooler for my cpu and vga. here are my specs:

Athlon 64 3200+ (stock speed of 2.2ghz, 512 L2) w/ thermaltake k8 "silent" fan
Gigabyte k8n pro
2x256 mb kingston pc3200 ddr
XFX 6800 GT (370/1000) stock cooler

the reason i want water cooling is to bump up my athlon to 2.4 or possibly 2.6. is this possible w/ the reserator? i know it's not the best for OCing.

the second reason is the unacceptable (to me) sound coming from my XFX 6800 GT.

the third is the crazy crazy geek factor of a huge blue radiator :D

anyone w/ experience w/ this? is this a good idea for me? i don't mind paying the 280$ for it.

TIA,
MuadDib420
 
I personally don't think it will handle the load. I can't say this from experience, but if you wanted an opinion, that is mine :p
 
i would say no to the zalman handling the overclock. if you want an external that can overclock i'm gonna say you'll need the exos. i know it's gonna create some more noise, but that's what it's gonna take for you to oc it.
 
The goal of the reserator is silence. So heat is not going to leave the water circuit as fast as with an extremely high-flowrate pump and some fan-cooled radiators. This system relies entirely on the air convection in the room to keep it cool-- it's not really a 'performance' machine.

The tests I've seen, it kept parts around 45C full load-- certainly within acceptable ranges, but not something you'd want to overclock from. It just won't handle the stress well.

What would keep me from buying a Reserator is the complete inability to attach it to a case, without welding. ;)
 
Epicenter said:
The tests I've seen, it kept parts around 45C full load-- certainly within acceptable ranges, but not something you'd want to overclock from. It just won't handle the stress well.
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I'd have to disagree with you this. The Reserator handles a hot-by-default Prescott 3.2 handily. The temps are just around 40C. Sometimes they get near 45C. But in a relatively warm climate (Georgia), that's NOT bad, given that it's completely silent.

Personally, I'd have to believe that the Reserator could handle overclocking fine, particularly the levels the original poster was talking about. He's not turning a 2GHz P4 into a 4GHz overclocked system.

We (my friend and I) tried to overclock his Asus microATX board with the Prescott to see how it did, but there were no overclocking features on this particular board. I can't believe, though, that such a massive temperate drop as we saw (20C minimum) in both idle and load temps would have occurred if the Reserator wasn't up to snuff.

IronChefMorimoto
 
IronChefMorimoto said:
I'd have to disagree with you this. The Reserator handles a hot-by-default Prescott 3.2 handily. The temps are just around 40C. Sometimes they get near 45C. But in a relatively warm climate (Georgia), that's NOT bad, given that it's completely silent.

Personally, I'd have to believe that the Reserator could handle overclocking fine, particularly the levels the original poster was talking about. He's not turning a 2GHz P4 into a 4GHz overclocked system.

We (my friend and I) tried to overclock his Asus microATX board with the Prescott to see how it did, but there were no overclocking features on this particular board. I can't believe, though, that such a massive temperate drop as we saw (20C minimum) in both idle and load temps would have occurred if the Reserator wasn't up to snuff.

IronChefMorimoto
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Interesting... maybe I will pick up one of these babies for my devbox/TV :cool:
 
Every article Ive read about the reserator says the same thing, great for silent operation at stock speeds, not for OCing. And that doesnt even take into account that he wants to add the Vid card to the mix.

I think its a super cool looking unit and i love Zalman peoducts but this one wasnt designed for OCing.
 
MikeP said:
Every article Ive read about the reserator says the same thing, great for silent operation at stock speeds, not for OCing. And that doesnt even take into account that he wants to add the Vid card to the mix.

I think its a super cool looking unit and i love Zalman peoducts but this one wasnt designed for OCing.
Click to expand...

Do post those articles then.
 
The articles all will give glowing reviews but in each, at some point they will say:

" A high performance heatsink and fan will cool better than the Reserator for much cheaper, but if you're looking for quiet computing then look no further. The Reserator is truly silent " -Devhardware.com review.

Heres their full review- http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Cooling/Zalman-Reserator-1-Review/5

And another quote:

"In all honesty, the goal of the Reserator 1 is not to be the best performing cooler on the market. Or even close for that matter" -Hardcoreware.net

Heres their full review-http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-232-5.htm

THe reviews are always that is excellent for being silent BUT...and its the BUT that kills it for a serious OCer.
 
Does anyone know if it's a practical proposition to convert a Reserator to 1/2"? If you lose the pump and look at the right-angle channels in the base, could these be drilled out to a wider bore?

I like the look of the Reserator, and am thinking of incorporating one in my next rig to act as reservoir rather than for active cooling (which will be handled by a BIX2). My only concern would be the 3/8" couplings killing the flow. I would be looking at a rig which would include the Reserator, BIX2, DD TDX, chipset and 2 x GeForce 6800 blocks.

[k]
 
MikeP said:
The articles all will give glowing reviews but in each, at some point they will say:

" A high performance heatsink and fan will cool better than the Reserator for much cheaper, but if you're looking for quiet computing then look no further. The Reserator is truly silent " -Devhardware.com review.
Click to expand...

Yeah -- I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. If you look at the tables they have listed, they have stock idle temps on a 2.4GHz P4 running at 3.06GHz around 46C.

We were running a hotter than hell Prescott that, at stock, was about 10C higher. When it was under a Reserator cooling setup, that idle temp dropped (in hot Georgia weather) to around 30C - 35C idle. It never gets above 45C at load. I WISH we could prove it to you by getting the damned thing overclocked.

Anyone know how to do that with the motherboard I mentioned from the original thread? It's an ASUS microATX. Did not appear to have overclocking features.

IronChefMorimoto
 
I have ordered the reserator and when i got it running i plan to test putting a a tube on it with distances in the bottom and a real quiet fan on top of it running on subvoltage (7V). At that voltage its so quiet i cant hear it running 2 feet away so dont give me any grief about missing the point with the reserator being fanless :).
If it works out im going to get a tube of acrylic glass instead and maybe some nice lighting :p
 
reserator will be able to handle heat as well as other wc systems out there. i dont think zalman is a type of company that will sacrifice performance over noise. i know one reserator can cool upto 2 cpus in optimal conditions (not oc'ed). i know someone oc'ed from 2.5 to 3.x and kept the temps on high 30's in sunny socal. soo i'd say its more than capable.
 
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