New to water cooling

F

Fading Phoenix

Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2006
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It gets hot here in the summer, so I thought this year I might look into setting my computer up with a better cooling system. I've never done water cooling before so I've been reading about setting up a system in various threads on here and on toms hardware. I thought while I was trying to sort everything out though and while I'm browsing I would ask for more professional opinions on parts. I know almost nothing right now, so talking to me like I'm a child would probably be best :D.

I'm working in a Cooler Master Cosmos case with a DFI 790FX M2R motherboard. I'm not too worried about the graphic card right now (maybe in the future). I'm really just concentrating on my processor and my motherboard/chipsets, most significantly my northbridge.

I should also note I'm looking for cheap, but reliable.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
Cheap and good/reliable don't go hand in hand in the WC section :p Go hard or go home.

Also note that WC depends heavily on your ambient. If your room gets extremely hot during the summer, WC might not be as beneficial as you think it might be. On that note, this is a great kit to get started with

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/swh2edukit.html
 
soulesschild said:
Also note that WC depends heavily on your ambient. If your room gets extremely hot during the summer, WC might not be as beneficial as you think it might be.

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/swh2edukit.html
Click to expand...


Not sure exactly what you mean by that.
Also, I realize that watercooling isn't "cheap" I was just using it as a relative term. I don't want to spend the money on the best water cooling solutions out there.

What you linked to though seems like a nice one, I think I'd be able to save though if I either did it myself and left out the vga block or found a kit that didn't have one. I'm having trouble finding a kit that includes cooling for the chipsets without cooling for graphics though. Not really surprising, most people doing watercooling want to extend it to their video card.
 
I would pass on the chipset cooling. Get a Thermalright HR05 if your concerned with it. I run one passively on a P5Q with a Q9650 at 4.0 for daily use.
 
nissanztt90 said:
I would pass on the chipset cooling. Get a Thermalright HR05 if your concerned with it. I run one passively on a P5Q with a Q9650 at 4.0 for daily use.
Click to expand...

This.

What I meant about the WC not being as useful is that the way it works is that the rads need air pushed out or drawn through them. If your room is crazy hot in the summer then the air going through the rads is going to be warm, therefore your temps aren't going to be as great as you may want them to be.
 
I have a different opinion. Such shortcomings also affect air cooling as well. It all depends on the Delta T (difference in temp) between the air flowing over the fins (ambient air) and the temp of the fins (heated by the cpu either by water flowing through the loop or heatpipes or just conduction through the heatsink metal). The amount of air is the second big variable, again vaild for both types of cooling.

The larger fin area of a 2x120 rad should outperform all but the largest (and perhaps even the largest) "normal" heatsink at the same CFM air flow. Granted the 2nd fan on the 2x120 will add to the noise but it will not be doubled. Either solution, air or water, can be managed by using high speed fans on a controller so that the noise vs cooling can be adjusted as needed.

The other thing is the capaciaty of a rad to dissipate heat. I have not seen compent testing but in theory it is fairly easy to saturate the heat conducting abilities of even heatpipe type heatsinks, in other words there is a point at which the heatsink is transfering as much heat as it can to the fins and even increasing the cfm/airflow has little/no effect on additional cpu cooling. . Basically the heatpipes are doing all they can and thats it. A rad is much more tolerant of such a situation and while the coolant temp will rise (which actually will help dissipate heat based in the Delta T mentioned above) until you produce steam which would likely blow out a fitting, the rad will dissipate more and more heat. Of course this a very unlikely situation and none of us run our systems anwhere near such a operating point on water or air.

My opinion is that that WCing is no more dependent on ambient (the temp of the air in the room or in the computer case that is used to cool the heatsink) than anything else that uses the method of blowing air over a surface to cool it. I submit that due to the increased fin surface area and the likely use of more fans WCing is more suitable for use in a high ambient enviroment. If the reverse where true we would all be riding around in automobiles with air cooled engines and while the original VW beetle was air cooled and it worked well (with no AC) you didnt take one to the dragstrip and expect to beat anything other than another VW.

On the other hand a $120 room window air conditioned will keep both you and the computer much more comfortable and is likely easer to install than watercooling. /shrug.

Any decent set of WCing parts will do the trick.

2x120 rad - $60
pump - $80
cpu block - $60
NB block - $40
fans - $25
speed control $15
tubing and misc $20
Tline fill port $10 ( or reservoir if the budget can handle it).

The real beauty of a well engineered/installed WC system is that with a little skill in making block holdowns you can use the same system for years and years. My old school system that started off on an old socket A NF7-S was then used on a P4 and now a C2D E6300 sytem which is highly OCed, is still working great since it was installed mid-late 2002.

I will caution you, buying the parts is the easy bit. Fitting them into a case takes a lot of time and some skill and making it look decent - thats the challenge. Some of us love that kind of stuff - some people dont. You can slap on a TRUE and glue a fan on the NB heatsink in an hour or two and buy the AC for the price of a good WC system. Not so with a good WC install but people buy high performacne cars with the speed limit most places at 70mph max - its all about style or something.

I tend to agree about the NB. a good air cooling solution is more than sufficent and that is where I would trim the budget.
 
soulesschild said:
This.

What I meant about the WC not being as useful is that the way it works is that the rads need air pushed out or drawn through them. If your room is crazy hot in the summer then the air going through the rads is going to be warm, therefore your temps aren't going to be as great as you may want them to be.
Click to expand...

Just want to add, in my experience, the CPU temperature change isnt quite as drastic with water, meaning a water cooling loop isnt as sensitive to ambient temp change as a purely air heat sink is, such as the stock intel heatsink. That heat sink is pretty sensitive to ambient temperature compared to say a TRUE, again, in my experience.
 
Heh, it's kinda funny everyone seems to be against putting water on the chipset, that's the part I was the most worried about :p. Eh, I'm on vacation in michigan right now and haven't really thought about it while I've been up here. My cyber time has been tied up trying to get my monitor replaced...there is a hell..and apparently it''s dell's customer service.
 
I guess this all depends on your overall goals. Do you want an internal system or is external fine? What kind of fabricating skills and tools do you have? Do you want a good performing system or a silent system or a combo? How resourceful are you. The most expensive part of a "cheap" WC system will be the water blocks. Get some decent tubing, you can find this at a hardware store, although tygon is super nice, it's not needed. One of the easiest, best performing systems I ever built used a second hand pond pump submerged in a 10 gallon fish tank that I sealed and added a fill port to. For a radiator I used a used car heatercore from a junkyard and built a custom shroud that used 2 120mm fans. It was an external system, internals require a lot more planning and are more expensive. Just remember to plan things out, take your time, and leak test more than you think you should.
 
you should be able to get some parts used a little cheaper than you think I got a nice 3x120 rad with fans for 35$ shipped you can get parts cheaper used seems like people are getting rid of a lot of water stuff cehap latley. Buy a new pump its not worth getting a used one that breaks.
 
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