How much is enough?

R

rumandmonkey

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Joined
Sep 16, 2007
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I've been researching the watercooling options for a future build (probably January/February) for about a week now, and I'm wondering how much heat dissipation is enough. I'll only be cooling the CPU, a Penryn quad (QX9450 most likely) and I'll definitely be OCing. Right now I'm looking at 2 x 120.1 Black Ice Stealths but those are rather expensive. My case will be the NZXT Lexa Blackline, so there's no room for a 120.2. Will 1 Black Ice Extreme (120.1), or Black Ice Pro be enough? What about 2?
 
A Black Ice Xtreme with a medium speed yate loon should cover that CPU up to around 3.2ghz...

Black ice pros from dangerdenstore.com are cheap, 2 of them would easily fit the bill.
 
Darkatom said:
Well this guy managed to hit some incredible speeds on air, so im thinking that the upcoming chips will be a bit cooler :D. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162552
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Yeah, you can have the best watercooling equipment made and still not overclock well. It is more important to have high quality CPU, RAM, motherboard, and power supply than watercooling. Only real big advantage of watercooling is you can run slightly cooler with little to no noise. Judging by my observations on seveeral hardware forums the air cooling guys are typically overclocking higher than most watercooling guys......
 
Thanks for the info, I'm really looking forward to those new quads now! It looks like I'll be going single Black Ice Extreme initially, I can always throw in another one if I don't like the temps. If you've got any more advice, though, I'm open to pretty much anything.
 
A single BIX will work fine, although if you plan to use weaker (<80cfm) fans, I'd recommend looking at 2xMCR120 or 2-BIPs if you can fit/afford them.
 
R1ckCa1n said:
Yeah, you can have the best watercooling equipment made and still not overclock well. It is more important to have high quality CPU, RAM, motherboard, and power supply than watercooling. Only real big advantage of watercooling is you can run slightly cooler with little to no noise.
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Ain't that the truth of it... :D
 
R1ckCa1n said:
Yeah, you can have the best watercooling equipment made and still not overclock well. It is more important to have high quality CPU, RAM, motherboard, and power supply than watercooling. Only real big advantage of watercooling is you can run slightly cooler with little to no noise. Judging by my observations on seveeral hardware forums the air cooling guys are typically overclocking higher than most watercooling guys......
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Ain't that a bunch of BS.

Before switching to watercooling on my home office machine, my Ultra120 was typically 20C hotter on load then when I switched to water. 20C turned out to be the difference between an e6600 hitting 3.3GHZ and 3.9Ghz.

Better temps will allow for better overclocks. Even a simple 150$ water kit over a 75$ Air cooled HS can result in a large overclock improvement.

While it's true that one's component selection plays a crucial role in overclocking, it's only half of the equation. In the case of a CPU, although the absolute value of the overclock is a combination of your component selection and cooling, the relative value will always be higher with watercooling.
 
Ranker said:
Ain't that a bunch of BS.

Before switching to watercooling on my home office machine, my Ultra120 was typically 20C hotter on load then when I switched to water. 20C turned out to be the difference between an e6600 hitting 3.3GHZ and 3.9Ghz.

Better temps will allow for better overclocks. Even a simple 150$ water kit over a 75$ Air cooled HS can result in a large overclock improvement.

While it's true that one's component selection plays a crucial role in overclocking, it's only half of the equation. In the case of a CPU, although the absolute value of the overclock is a combination of your component selection and cooling, the relative value will always be higher with watercooling.
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A chip doesn't magically get past a barrier if you cool it 20c... If temperature is your limiting factor (usually isn't) then yes, WC will help. More often though, you've hit a FSB wall, bad core or just require too much voltage to be stable.
 
Arcygenical said:
A chip doesn't magically get past a barrier if you cool it 20c... If temperature is your limiting factor (usually isn't) then yes, WC will help. More often though, you've hit a FSB wall, bad core or just require too much voltage to be stable.
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Then by the same assessment, those of us who've dabbled with LN2, chilled alcohol, and phase must be throwing our money away.
 
Ranker said:
Then by the same assessment, those of us who've dabbled with LN2, chilled alcohol, and phase must be throwing our money away.
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WRONG..... Watercooling and aircooling provide very comperable cooling performance where phase change offers sub zero cooling which is required to hit 3.8-5ghz speeds. If you read in xtreme, many of the 5ghz runs are off retail products.
 
Ranker said:
Then by the same assessment, those of us who've dabbled with LN2, chilled alcohol, and phase must be throwing our money away.
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No. You didn't see what I posted.

"if you cool it 20c" != "If you cool it 60c" which is about the low-end of a phase setup. Semiconducters increase efficiency as their temperature decreases... So, it makes sense that a great amount of cooling can really affect a chip's ability to switch... But 40c load isn't anywhere near the temperature required for this.
 
I've gotten by for almost a year now with no issues using a single 120x1 Black Extreme X-flow and fairly basic setup as seen in my sig. I game daily and currently am running an athlon 5000+ at over 3GHz. Used to run an overclocked 3800+. It also cools my 7900GT. Not perfect but plenty adequate and everything fits inside the Coolermaster Centurion 5 case very nice and cleanly. Fan config is 2x120 in push/pull.

Temps right now with OC are 38 idle, 50 load. Again, not perfect but it's a single rad loop with both CPU and GPU. It has been solid as a rock for a year now. It's been I can't speak to intel as I'm an AMD groupie :D
 
R1ckCa1n said:
WRONG..... Watercooling and aircooling provide very comperable cooling performance where phase change offers sub zero cooling which is required to hit 3.8-5ghz speeds. If you read in xtreme, many of the 5ghz runs are off retail products.
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And you know from first hand experience?

Unlike yourself I actually have dabbled across the whole spectrum from air, water, TEC, LN2, and a custom Chilly1 unit. Air -> Water -> Chilled -> TEC/Phase/Cascade/LN2.

You seem to forget that I live on XS. 5Ghz runs are not the norm for the average user and nor are the runs posted on XS for normal 24/7 usage. The jump in overclocking headroom is about roughly the same going from air->water as is water->sub-zero for normal 24/7 day to day usage. Each jump would provide, by my experience, a 20% larger overclock. My assessment still stands, the average waterkit will always allow for a larger overclock than average air.
 
Ranker said:
And you know from first hand experience?
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Why yes....

Ranker said:
Unlike yourself I actually have dabbled across the whole spectrum from air, water, TEC, LN2, and a custom Chilly1 unit. Air -> Water -> Chilled -> TEC/Phase/Cascade/LN2.
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Very laughable and will not take the bait on this one. Wayyyyy too tempting.

Ranker said:
You seem to forget that I live on XS.
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Yes, join date March 2007 makes you a true lengend. ;)


Ranker said:
5Ghz runs are not the norm for the average user and nor are the runs posted on XS for normal 24/7 usage.
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Umm,, they (3.8-5ghz) are quite the norm on xtreme, just not in the liquid cooling sub forum. Since only 31 of your 1800+ posts have been outside the Liquid Cooling subforum i'd say you don't look too much........
 
Arcygenical said:
Even I've played with watercooled 240w TEC's and they produced no noticeable gains.
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I love the mess you make using tec's! Nothing like sitting there waiting to see if condensation was going to be your enemy.
 
R1ckCa1n said:
I love the mess you make using tec's! Nothing like sitting there waiting to see if condensation was going to be your enemy.
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Yeah... And the dielectric grease on the motherboard is an absolute bitch to get off. You have to put the board through the goddamned dishwasher :mad:
 
Arcygenical said:
Yeah... And the dielectric grease on the motherboard is an absolute bitch to get off. You have to put the board through the goddamned dishwasher :mad:
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Yep, I remember going through cans of electronics cleaner to get that shit off everything...
 
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