Rate My OC

[mastrmndv2]

Just as simple as it sounds. I recently decided to do the water cooling venture after college dorm room temps. kept me from a) having any type of a decent ambient temperature and b) much more room noise with all the fans in a smaller environment. Due to these reasons I chose watercooling and decided to do things a bit different.

Upgrades:

SiverStone Tj07 Case

2x Black Ice Pro Rads

DD Low Profile Blocks for Gpu's

DD Res

Thermaltake CPU Block (I chose this for a variety of reasons and tbh I'm quite happy with the results even though I know there are alot of TT bashers out there.)

Other Misc Equipment (tubing, fittings)


Hardware:

Asus A8n SLI Deluxe

AMD 64 3000 Venice Core

Corsair CMX512-3200C2 3-3-3-6 DDR 400

2x MSI 6600gt's SLI


Results:

The results I obtained from overclocking after watercooling were quite high to say the least compared to what I was getting on air.

Cpu = 2.7 ghz at 1.5v on 10x multiplier at 30 idle

Gpu's = 601 core and 1202 on the mem. Idle 34 degrees

HT = running at 1350 mhz at 5x mutiplier

RAM = 448mhz at 2-3-3-6 timings at 1t

Load temps settle in between 38 and 40 degrees all across the board. Water tubing size is 3/8 and 1/2.


For a quick comparison with this same hardware I used to net a score of 2205 (nonoc'd) in 3dmark06. Overclocked on air I could get 2841 in 3dmark06. Overclocked on water I now get 3183 in 3dmark06.

For another quick comparison in 3dmark05 I used to net a score of 5498 (nonoc'd) in 3dmark05. Overclocked on air I could get 7060 on 3dmark05. Overclocked on water I now achieve a score of 7825 in 3dmark05.

*Keep in mind no hardware was changed other than a new case and watercooling parts replacing air cooling.

What do you guys think?

 

[DFI Daishi]

is it fully stable in both prime95 and superpi?

 

[Danly]

Nice OC. Only thing I'd say is lower the HT multi if it's unstable.

 

[cornelious0_0]

Well, not tooo bad, but could be a lot better. My guess is you just don't have the proper motherboard/cpu to take full advantage of what that setup could do.

With my DFI Ultra-D and 3000+ Venice I hit 2.97GHz with the stock cooler /w 1.6v in a closed case...but that was a gem of a cpu. I wish I could have tried water with that chip before it went down...but ah well.

Long story short it's not a BAD oc...but the h2O isn't really being put to a lot of use there, as I've seen 3000+'s and 6600GT's at higher clocks then those on aftermarket air cooling. Not trying to slam you, I just expected better is all.

 

[DFI Daishi]

Well, not tooo bad, but could be a lot better. My guess is you just don't have the proper motherboard/cpu to take full advantage of what that setup could do.

With my DFI Ultra-D and 3000+ Venice I hit 2.97GHz with the stock cooler /w 1.6v in a closed case...but that was a gem of a cpu. I wish I could have tried water with that chip before it went down...but ah well.

Long story short it's not a BAD oc...but the h2O isn't really being put to a lot of use there, as I've seen 3000+'s and 6600GT's at higher clocks then those on aftermarket air cooling. Not trying to slam you, I just expected better is all.

personally, since i don't really count on an OCer getting a particularly good stepping on a retail CPU, i would rate that OC as quite good if the OP will affirm that it is fully stable.

then again, that's all that i got out of my own chip so, so take that for what it's worth.

 

[cornelious0_0]

personally, since i don't really count on an OCer getting a particularly good stepping on a retail CPU, i would rate that OC as quite good if the OP will affirm that it is fully stable.

then again, that's all that i got out of my own chip so, so take that for what it's worth.

Fair enough, and my chip was handpicked from a local store...but I never expected results like that.

All in all the OC's listed here aren't too bad, but I wouldn't go as far as to say they're amazing.

 

[mrmodman]

very nice dood i just replaced my 3000+ @ 2.4 (wasent as rich as your are)

 

[mastrmndv2]

Yea, thats the greatest part about the whole thing is that its fully stable as far as my testing shows. Also in response to the CPU its hitting a wall at 2.75. No matter how much voltage I apply to it at 2.75 it won't run prime stable and crashes, hence the reason I backed it down to 2.7 as it runs perfectly stable.

In regards to the GPU's if I go any higher on the core I start to get green artifacts in games like Oblivion and Doom3, however, there seems to be none in other games like Starcraft or an equivalent. Since I am getting artifacting at anything much higher than 600 on the cores I just leave it there as it seems to be the ceiling for stability without artifacting.

Thanks for the views and replys keep them coming.


Also on one more note the watercooling has had 2 huge advantages for me in that its no longer as LOUD as a train and also my room stays much cooler now that the computer isn't acting as a heater for the room (the room has seriously dropped 15C.) So in response to Cornelius I guess it just depends on how you look at it. To me maxing out my hardware, which I could not do on air (in my particular environment), and keepign the noise down along with keeping my room cooler (it really sucked you felt like you walked into a steam room) it seems as though I'm getting the max potential out of my water cooling setup. Again though its all about how you look at it.

 

[DFI Daishi]

In regards to the GPU's if I go any higher on the core I start to get green artifacts in games like Oblivion and Doom3, however, there seems to be none in other games like Starcraft or an equivalent. Since I am getting artifacting at anything much higher than 600 on the cores I just leave it there as it seems to be the ceiling for stability without artifacting.

big secret: starcraft doesn't even stress your GPU, which is why it doesn't artifact.

i run old games from time to time and i'm looking at framerates of 100+ and saying to myself "when that was new, it was a real strain to run it!" which is about how it should be with starcraft, unless it is really poorly coded (i don't know because i don't play it).

it would be better if you had more than three levels. i would be willing to give you a 4/5, butt as things stand........that OC is good, but does not by any means warrent a perfect score. perfects are for something REALLY special, and this is just above average.

 

[mastrmndv2]

Yea, thats why I figured I was hitting the ceiling for my GPU's and backed them down.


BTW if you guys would like pics I can take them but the camera I have is VERY poor quality, although it is quite the unique setup.

 

[mastrmndv2]

big secret: starcraft doesn't even stress your GPU, which is why it doesn't artifact.

i run old games from time to time and i'm looking at framerates of 100+ and saying to myself "when that was new, it was a real strain to run it!" which is about how it should be with starcraft, unless it is really poorly coded (i don't know because i don't play it).

it would be better if you had more than three levels. i would be willing to give you a 4/5, butt as things stand........that OC is good, but does not by any means warrent a perfect score. perfects are for something REALLY special, and this is just above average.

What do you mean by three levels? Also I know its not perfect I'm just looking to see what people think and also to show those who might be in a similar situation to me why taking the plunge into water cooling is a little more cost effective than some people play it out to be.

 

[DFI Daishi]

What do you mean by three levels? Also I know its not perfect I'm just looking to see what people think and also to show those who might be in a similar situation to me why taking the plunge into water cooling is a little more cost effective than some people play it out to be.

your poll only has three options, which i termed three levels. if it had 5 levels, i would rate a 4/5, however since you only have 3 levels, i can only give you a 2/3, since it's not perfect, but still decent.

as for budget watercooling, i agree that you can do it reasonably, however i don't think that you could have done much worse with you CPU block. it's a shitty design that holds back your rads and GPU block. you don't list a pump, so i can't say for certain what would have been the best option, but that block isn't at all good regardless of what other components are ing the loop. i don't care that it's made by Tt, since A-C still sells similar blocks for 3x as much and i have a low opinion of those as well. strictly based on the design, that's a bad block.

a used swiftech MCW6002......now THAT'S value........

 

[mastrmndv2]

your poll only has three options, which i termed three levels. if it had 5 levels, i would rate a 4/5, however since you only have 3 levels, i can only give you a 2/3, since it's not perfect, but still decent.

as for budget watercooling, i agree that you can do it reasonably, however i don't think that you could have done much worse with you CPU block. it's a shitty design that holds back your rads and GPU block. you don't list a pump, so i can't say for certain what would have been the best option, but that block isn't at all good regardless of what other components are ing the loop. i don't care that it's made by Tt, since A-C still sells similar blocks for 3x as much and i have a low opinion of those as well. strictly based on the design, that's a bad block.

a used swiftech MCW6002......now THAT'S value........

Ok, sorry it now makes sense about the 5 levels.

Although I know alot of people bash the Tt block (and there are plenty of better ones out there) I figured I would drop the 30 dollars on it and it turned out not to be such a bad choice seeing as how it doesn't go over 38 degrees on load and idles at 30 I'm pretty satisfied with it and personally don't think its as bad as some people think, granted its also not on the level of the switech and DD cpu blocks. Also its not on the same loop as the video cards because I'm running 2 loops, one for chipset and cpu and one for gpu's. The loops are powered by 2 DD mags (aka c-systems mag). I have no measurements but judging by the occasional tiny air bubble that makes its way into the loop I'd say the flow rate is pretty good.

 

[sculelos]

Decent overclock, I've seen alot better and alot worse, it's bad to pump more then 1.4Volts into a Athlon64/X2 processor though if you want it to last a couple years.

(Spec voltage is 1.35-1.4, If its spec it should last at least a couple years)

 

[DFI Daishi]

Also on one more note the watercooling has had 2 huge advantages for me in that its no longer as LOUD as a train and also my room stays much cooler now that the computer isn't acting as a heater for the room (the room has seriously dropped 15C.) So in response to Cornelius I guess it just depends on how you look at it. To me maxing out my hardware, which I could not do on air (in my particular environment), and keepign the noise down along with keeping my room cooler (it really sucked you felt like you walked into a steam room) it seems as though I'm getting the max potential out of my water cooling setup. Again though its all about how you look at it.

unless you are putting the rads outside of the room, this is utter bullshit.

if you have the rads out the window or something, more power to you.

if the rads are inside the room, you have have an over active imagination and a lousy grasp of thermodynamics.

 

[DFI Daishi]

Decent overclock, I've seen alot better and alot worse, it's bad to pump more then 1.4Volts into a Athlon64/X2 processor though if you want it to last a couple years.

(Spec voltage is 1.35-1.4, If its spec it should last at least a couple years)

if it's spec voltage, it shoudl last 20 year. that's the design life. if you over volt, to a reasonably degree, it should still last a few years, just not the 20 that it is designed to last.

 

[DFI Daishi]

Although I know alot of people bash the Tt block (and there are plenty of better ones out there) I figured I would drop the 30 dollars on it and it turned out not to be such a bad choice seeing as how it doesn't go over 38 degrees on load and idles at 30 I'm pretty satisfied with it and personally don't think its as bad as some people think, granted its also not on the level of the switech and DD cpu blocks. Also its not on the same loop as the video cards because I'm running 2 loops, one for chipset and cpu and one for gpu's. The loops are powered by 2 DD mags (aka c-systems mag). I have no measurements but judging by the occasional tiny air bubble that makes its way into the loop I'd say the flow rate is pretty good.

you could have a new white water for $5 more. it is a superior block.

you could have a used MCW 6002 for the same of less, and it's also a superior block.

you could have a new maze 4 for a similar price, or even cheaper used, and it would still probably do better.

there is nothing at all about that Tt block that makes it worthwhile.

had you choosen to run a single loop with quality components, you could have done a good bit better. who's to say if that would have helped you OC or not, but it would have helped you cooling.

 

[onlynark]

its pretty good, but i think your cpu can go higher. Drop the HT to 3x and ram up the fsb higher. You can probably do 1.6v on the core and still stay resonably cool.

 

[sculelos]

if it's spec voltage, it shoudl last 20 year. that's the design life. if you over volt, to a reasonably degree, it should still last a few years, just not the 20 that it is designed to last.

Key word reasonable voltage, just the way voltage works something thats getting twice as much voltage gets four times hotter, although I don't know how how this affects cpu life I know it makes it shorter, and I've heard quite a few peoples cpus blowing out in under a year that were overclocked to like 1.5+volts.

 

[DFI Daishi]

Key word reasonable voltage, just the way voltage works something thats getting twice as much voltage gets four times hotter, although I don't know how how this affects cpu life I know it makes it shorter, and I've heard quite a few peoples cpus blowing out in under a year that were overclocked to like 1.5+volts.

i'll tell you when i meet one such person.

and although it's not the same, my AXP-M is almost ready to celebrate it's third birthday overvolted the whole time. rated for 1.45V, and it's spent most of it's life at 1.9V. it's now running at around 1.7V in my sister's rig, still nice and stable.

if i get bitten by this issue personally, i'll let the board know. i had a bad experience with DFI, and i feel that many of the issues that i had have not been properly resolved even now, and i'm not afraid to say that either.

somthing that kills more procs than you probably want to think about is voltage backflow from the RAM when running UTT or BH5 at high voltage on a modern a64. the memory controllers don't like being subjected to 3.3 volts, for some STRANGE reason.

 

[mastrmndv2]

unless you are putting the rads outside of the room, this is utter bullshit.

if you have the rads out the window or something, more power to you.

if the rads are inside the room, you have have an over active imagination and a lousy grasp of thermodynamics.

Actually I believe its because there is not near as much airflow coming out of the case as there was with my fan setup. Although your probably right and 15C is a really high claim but it has made a pretty big difference. Keep in mind though that the room is very small and my door stays shut the majority of the day since I'm in classes.

 

[mastrmndv2]

you could have a new white water for $5 more. it is a superior block.

you could have a used MCW 6002 for the same of less, and it's also a superior block.

you could have a new maze 4 for a similar price, or even cheaper used, and it would still probably do better.

there is nothing at all about that Tt block that makes it worthwhile.

had you choosen to run a single loop with quality components, you could have done a good bit better. who's to say if that would have helped you OC or not, but it would have helped you cooling.

Yea but thats the whole problem is that I've pretty much maxed out the cooling. The components run on par with the ambient air temperature (although the 1st Gpu sometimes spikes to one degree above the ambient because of the ATI Tv Tuner card underneath of it that puts off more heat than Hell itself) and as far as my knowledge of thermodynamics goes I can't drop it under the ambient air temperature unless I put ice in the loop, use phase change, peltier, or some other sort.

Also in regards to the CPU even dropping the HT to 3x still does not help as it still hits a wall at 2.75, nor does relaxed RAM timings.

 

[DFI Daishi]

Actually I believe its because there is not near as much airflow coming out of the case as there was with my fan setup. Although your probably right and 15C is a really high claim but it has made a pretty big difference. Keep in mind though that the room is very small and my door stays shut the majority of the day since I'm in classes.

still bullshit.

unless the CPU temp is rising throughout the day, then the same amount of heat is being moved from you thermal solution into the air, regardless of if it's with a higher temp differential and a lower volume of air move or a lower temp differential and a larger volume of air moved.

you know that law that runs along the lines of "energy can not be created or destroyed, but can only change forms"......?

even if you have watercooling, you still have the same heat dump being put into the same room. the heat doesn't disappear because you are watercooling, it just gets into the air of your room that much more efficiently.

might the heat have been turned off or set lower, with the onset of spring? A-C turned on, perhaps?

 

[DFI Daishi]

Yea but thats the whole problem is that I've pretty much maxed out the cooling. The components run on par with the ambient air temperature (although the 1st Gpu sometimes spikes to one degree above the ambient because of the ATI Tv Tuner card underneath of it that puts off more heat than Hell itself) and as far as my knowledge of thermodynamics goes I can't drop it under the ambient air temperature unless I put ice in the loop, use phase change, peltier, or some other sort.

unless you live somewhere damn hot, you room is not 37C at this time of year. check your thermostat or a thermometer.

heat from a add-in card isn't going to affect a watercooled GPU temp at all. it may affect ambient, but not the GPU internal diode.

you are entirely correct in that you're not going to get below ambient without doing some thermodynamic work, however you could be a whole lot closer to ambient than you are now, for the same price.

 

[mastrmndv2]

Wouldn't that require that the entire water system be 100% efficient though in its transfer of energy (which its not)? As in the water absorbs a portion of the energy and the rest goes to the air. Then when the water is passed through the radiators some of that energy is released to the air but not all of it. What I'm getting at is that the water is absorbing some of the energy and keeping it in the loop while the air cooling essentially just sucked it all out of the case and there was no absorbtion factor. Although I'm far from a physics major and these are just ideas circling in my head.

And yes it is spring but the temperature is controlled via room and I leave it set on 70 degrees and I believe the unit has around a 3 degree tolerance. Would be nice to figure out why room temps have dropped but I can attest that they have enough to be pretty noticeable.

 

[DFI Daishi]

Wouldn't that require that the entire water system be 100% efficient though in its transfer of energy (which its not)?

the water cooling system, or air cooling system, always gets 100% of the heat from the opperational components of the computer into the air.

the issues is what kind of temperature gradient it takes to make that happen.

put quickly: the thermal solution becomes more efficient at moving heat into the air as it becomes hotter with respect to the air. the thermal solution will become as hot as it needs to become to transfer 100% of the input heat into the air, in order to reach a steady state. the goal of thermal management is to design a thermal solution that doesn't need to get all that hot in order to deal with the heat being produced.

if this were not the case, then the temperature would rise constantly until the processor melted down.

the same general principle applies to getting heat out of the processor and into the thermal solution.

the advantage of watercooling is that it allows you to deal with the heat load on a large, heavy copper surface that is not practical to incoroporate into a heatsink which applies a large torque on processor and mobo, with a large, slow-turning and quiet fan(s).

watercooling doesn't increase the "efficiency" of the cooling solution in terms of heat dealt with, it just does the job with a smaller temperature differential.

and just FYI: 70 F is 21 C, which i would call normal room temperature. 37 C, which is within 1C of your proc's temp and what you initially claimed as your room temp is in fact almost 99 F...........quite a difference.

 

[mastrmndv2]

the water cooling system, or air cooling system, always gets 100% of the heat from the opperational components of the computer into the air.

the issues is what kind of temperature gradient it takes to make that happen.

put quickly: the thermal solution becomes more efficient at moving heat into the air as it becomes hotter with respect to the air. the thermal solution will become as hot as it needs to become to transfer 100% of the input heat into the air, in order to reach a steady state. the goal of thermal management is to design a thermal solution that doesn't need to get all that hot in order to deal with the heat being produced.

the same general principle applies to getting heat out of the processor and into the thermal solution.

the advantage of watercooling is that it allows you to deal with the heat load on a large, heavy copper surface that is not practical to incoroporate into a heatsink which applies a large torque on processor and mobo, with a large, slow-turning and quiet fan(s).

watercooling doesn't increase the "efficiency" of the cooling solution in terms of heat dealt with, it just does the job with a smaller temperature differential.

and just FYI: 70 F is 21 C, which i would call normal room temperature. 37 C, which is within 1C of your proc's temp and what you initially claimed as your room temp is in fact almost 99 F...........quite a difference.

70 F is what the temperature gauge is set at downstairs, however, the central air system that is installed is very ineffective and 70F downstairs translates into around 85-87 F upstairs. Also the only time the processor is at 37C is when its under full load and by then the ambient temperature of the case has went from 30C to 38-40C.

You made some good points in your previous post and now I'm starting to believe that maybe your Spring assumption was correct. It could be that maybe the sun doesn't quite hit my room for as long now as we move closer to summer opposed to the length of time it does during winter.

 

[DFI Daishi]

70 F is what the temperature gauge is set at downstairs, however, the central air system that is installed is very ineffective and 70F downstairs translates into around 85-87 F upstairs. Also the only time the processor is at 37C is when its under full load and by then the ambient temperature of the case has went from 30C to 38-40C.

You made some good points in your previous post and now I'm starting to believe that maybe your Spring assumption was correct. It could be that maybe the sun doesn't quite hit my room for as long now as we move closer to summer opposed to the length of time it does during winter.

i'm not going to disagree with anything that you have said this time.

the only thing that i will note is that i feel that load temps are the only meaningfull ones. i could go around listing my idle temp of -5, but that does not accurately reflect the temps that my proc sees when i'm doing anything with my computer.

 

[mastrmndv2]

i'm not going to disagree with anything that you have said this time.

the only thing that i will note is that i feel that load temps are the only meaningfull ones. i could go around listing my idle temp of -5, but that does not accurately reflect the temps that my proc sees when i'm doing anything with my computer.

You definitely have a good point there. I was just referring to idle temps due to our discussion we were having as I felt it was relevant and maybe could help give insight. Don't get me wrong I have thoroughly enjoyed this discussion and take no offense to being proved wrong Besides it beats studying for this 9 am exam that I have tommorow

 

[cornelious0_0]

Wow...a fairly informative discussion going on here.

DFI, you can expect me to come to you to verify a few things when I look at redoing my h2O loop that I'm gonna have for my X850XT-PE. Original you might remember me mentioning a 3 block loop, but I'm going to have a single stage phasechange system cooling the cpu. The ss holds evap temps of -40C while under a 250W heat load...so it'll be fun, but I still consider you to be the expert on h2O around [H]...and your knowledge will become very valuable to me.

Listen to what he's saying mastrmndv2...every word of it, DFI Daishi knows h2O like nobody else around [H]...and I'm willing to back him up at any point.

 

[Mayhs]

nice oc...dont have time to read the thread but dont let anyone put you down and say its shit because it isnt

 

[mastrmndv2]

If my reading skills are up to par with every body elses I believe that nobody has thought of anything as shit except for DFI's problem with the Tt water block. Ofcourse I knew I was going to draw flack for that when I first posted. To each his own though and I have learned some valuable information from this thread. And yes DFI definitely knows his stuff.

 

[matt00926]

You should be able to get higher which such nice equipment. I've oced a newcastle more than 600mhz with a small voltage bump and crappy ram.

 

[Dark_fire]

my room stays much cooler now that the computer isn't acting as a heater for the room (the room has seriously dropped 15C.)

watercooling doesnt magically reduce the amount of heat your computer dumps into the room. if anything it increases due to heat being more effeicently removed. there is some other variable at play here