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Relatively cheap but performance oriented w/c kit

C

computergeek22

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 2, 2005
Messages
136
The title says it all. When looking for a w/c kit I'm looking for the following in order of importance:

1. Easy Installation and Proven Reliability - I'm a total and complete n00b at this. I just recently built my first DIY computer.
2. Silence (I have two nexus 120mm quiet fans which can be used to replace noisy stock fans)
3. Performance (I currently have a scythe ninja with 2 fans blowing air onto it, it's ducted, and has a push pull config with yet another fan exhausting the warm air. Even with this my temps hit around 55C fully loaded with my o/ced opty to 2.6ghz. So temps in the case as well as out of the case are pretty warm - CA heat....)
4. Price (Aiming for something along the lines of U.S. $200-300)
5. Again this is a reiteration of number 1 but I would prefer an external unit as I have a p180 which is already quite cramped.
 
Wow that seems like a pretty good system. I was actually aiming for an Asetek one which is similar to this but it's much more expensive. I can get this and a vga block for the price of the asetek kit. How's the installation process and the performance? More importantly do you know if those fans can be replaced by quieter nexus fans? If so how would one control the voltage? How quiet are the stock fans at the lowest 5v setting?
 
I can't speak as to external units (thought I hear the Corsair Nautilus is one of the best, but not that great).

IMHO the top kit is the Swiftech Apex. A lot of folks around here bought one as their first foray into WC, and like it a lot.

Let us know how it goes!
 
A vote for the Apex, but the older one with the Storm instead.
 
You can replace the fans, no problem. The kit comes with 7v adapters, but I'm not sure they will start with only 5v.

I don't have experience with the Asetek kit, but I don't think many people around [H] have it.
 
Thanks for the info. I think the two nexus @ 7v should be pretty much silent. Is there a lot of modification that needs to be done to the case? From the pictures there seems to be a little bit of modding involved which is a little bit of a turn off as I'm extremely bad with tools and I don't want to screw around with my p180...

GO MAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Are you thinking of using the Nexus fans at 7v for the radiator? If you are, i highly advise against it as Nexus fans are way too weak to be pushing or pulling through the fins of any radiator even at12v! Pick up some Yate Loons.

The Apex kit probably the only kit i would ever buy as the the parts included are pretty decent. However, i still think a DIY kit would yield higher quality parts at the same lower price.
 
Hmm... That sux because the nexus 120mm are really quiet. I don't think the stock fans would be anything near as quiet as the nexus. I saw that there needs to be holes drilled into the case which is a bit of a bummer. I'll try looking into other w/c units as well. How do you guys feel about the tt MINI symphony. I'm not a big fan of tt products because of they're a bunch of liars just like bose, but there have been some good products from them in the past such as the big typhoon.

Again, how quiet are the stock fans at the lowest setting? Does anyone know the CFM? I doubt they're running at 19db on their lowest setting as advertised....
 
Is there a way to route the tubes through the pci slots by inverting the radiator? I currently have 3 slots open and I could probably try to cut the metal and route it that way. What yate loons are you specifically referring to? I checked the stock fans and they seem to be deltas that run at 74cfm a piece at 12v. LOUDDDDDDDDDDD!!!

Are you sure that the nexus 120s can't be run? THey produce ~42 cfm at 12v and around 36 at 9v, which is pretty much silent...

I'm pretty sure that if those deltas at 74cfm can be run at 7v, then the nexus will probably work.

Anyway that's beside the point. THe main issue is the case modding. I really don't want to do that.
 
Altron3k said:
Are you thinking of using the Nexus fans at 7v for the radiator? If you are, i highly advise against it as Nexus fans are way too weak to be pushing or pulling through the fins of any radiator even at12v! Pick up some Yate Loons.

The Apex kit probably the only kit i would ever buy as the the parts included are pretty decent. However, i still think a DIY kit would yield higher quality parts at the same lower price.
Click to expand...

Nexus is just a rebadged Yate Loon, you know.
 
The Deltas will run just fine (& start I might add) at 5V. Yes, you can route the tubing through the PCI slots and avoid cutting holes, it just might take a bit longer to bleed.
 
Remember I'm new at this. What's bleeding? Is there a link to some other forum where there's some kind of guide or something. For overclocking I used some of the guides from DFI street.

Also where can u get the pci pass thru bracket. Is it sold thru the apex ultra or is it bough separate. The radbox when bought separately comes with the pci pass thru bracket. There's always ebay except the guy's charging and arm and a leg for the stupid bracket! $14 + $5-6 shipping!! :eek:
 
The PCI pass thru is for 3/8" ID tubing not 7/16" so you'll just have to run the tubing out the PCI slots but as long as it's not moving around it won't hurt anything and the kit has the pass thru.

As to bleeding...that's bleeding the air out of the loop. With the rad inverted that will take a bit longer.
 
You'll have to explain the first part about a little bit more. So the pci pass thru bracket has holes that are too small and thus you need to run it thru the pci slots instead of the bracket. Is this what you're trying to say?

I think xtremesystems seems to have a pretty good guide as well so I'll read up on it a bit more. Once again, thank you all for the recommendation of the swiftech and answering my questions.
 
computergeek22 said:
You'll have to explain the first part about a little bit more. So the pci pass thru bracket has holes that are too small and thus you need to run it thru the pci slots instead of the bracket. Is this what you're trying to say?

I think xtremesystems seems to have a pretty good guide as well so I'll read up on it a bit more. Once again, thank you all for the recommendation of the swiftech and answering my questions.
Click to expand...

Explain it? It seems you got my meaning just fine ;)
 
:) Okay, so I'm assuming the tubes will fit thru an open pci slot. Now on to the next dilemna...



















Saving up for it...
 
I ran the kit on a pair of nexus's until the ambient got too high for it (stays about 80F in my office ). I'm also running a dual core prescott; if you have a cooler cpu then it would probably work for you.
 
currently an overclocked 165 that stays at 40C idle and about 54-55 load. My temps are probably exactly like yours. It stays around 26-27C which is about 80F (26.666C). Prescotts run much hotter than an amd so I think it should be okay. What voltage were you running the nexus 120s at?
 
In terms of noise which is the highest priority for me besides reliability, how quiet is the swifttech pump? Are there any quieter ones available?
 
I ran the Nexus's at 12v and 7v, and with a reasonable ambient temp, no problem. Now, with high ambients, I switched to the stock deltas but am running it off of an automatic controller called an Aqua Computer Aquaero.

As far as the pump is concerned, some people say it's loud, some others don't. I think that it's loud, and most of the others that do are silence freaks like me. So, I have mine turned down to between 1 & 2 (out of 5), and am happy with it that way.

There are more silent pumps out there, notably the 350 and lower power Eheims (and their derivites by Aqua Computer and Innovatek). If you go for the 350, a lot of folks mod it for larger inlet and outlets, and you can get a very nice plexi top for it. Theres a review here .
 
If you put the 655 on 3 and can hear it over your HDDs you've either got 5400RPM drives or you put them in some sort of container.
 
Actually I have a 74gb raptor, one of the newer revisions before the 16mb cache update. I can't actually hear my raptor because my p180 stock rubber washers damp a lot of the vibration induced by the 10000rpm. I hear seeks but I'm not too perturbed about that. I'm a person who finds nexus 120mm @ 12v @ ~23dBa loud so I'm not a SILENT freak but I like thing quiet...

I guess I could try going for the kit and try it out to see how quiet the pump is or I could try picking out the parts I want from the kit and maybe replacing the noise producing elements of the swiftech setup such as the stock fans and maybe the pump.
 
Well, seriously I have my case sitting here open and I have the pump on 4 and the fans at 7V and I hear my hdds spinning. I don't consider my drives really loud but next to my 3 year old Samsung DVD-ROM they're the loudest things in my PC. With the pump on 5 it's about dead even with my HDDs. In case you're wondering the drives are WD1600JD's and really aren't all that loud.

The whole reason I went with water cooling was because I had an AXP 2500+ with air cooling on it and I got so tired of not being able to sleep with my PC on that when I built what is essentially this PC I went with water cooling to combat the noise. I've been evolving my cooling system ever since.
 
Well you have to take into consideration that your case is open and mine will most likely be closed and along with the p180 damped side panels it should be enough to muffle the noise. I guess there's no harm in trying it out at least. I'm assuming that even if I have the pump on a low setting 1-3, it should be much better, in terms of not only noise but also COOLING, than my current aircooling setup on FULL (i.e. all 3 fans 12v).


Go MAVS!!!!!!!!
 
I don't normally have my case open, I was just pointing out that with it open I only hear my drives. With it closed I don't hear anything until I do something drive read intesive and then I hear the heads or using the optical drives I'll hear those. Naturally though I have my rad in my case.
 
the swiftech pump has a potentiometer on the back so you can slow down the pump to reduce noise, i think down to half will still be ok for temps while making it near silent. I run my pump full tilt all the time, fans about 80% (use fan controller built into my case) and the loudest things are my hard drives makign that annoying tinny whir from just being on (all 7200rpm 8mb cache ata100/133) which use plastic rails to sit in the case. drilling the 2 holes out of my case was the most difficult part, i guess running it upside down will be ok but try and think about connecrting to any pci devices, might be impossible to connect video especially if you use a dvi to vga adapter.
 
hmmm shit. I didn't think of the dvi vga adapter! I might not be able to even use the dual fan radiator with the adapter sticking out of the back of my pc... I guess I could go with a single fan radiator and just use the w/c to cool my processor considering my vf900 is more than adequate for my 7900gt and is running at the lowest setting possible which is inaudible to my ears...

Then again I've mentioned this before, but silence is something that just when u think you've found silence; you'll start hearing something else that is "loud."

Does that thing NEED to be mounted to the back of the pc?
 
I've seen them mounted on the top, but that would probably require poking holes in your case. I'm not sure there would be anywhere else in your case. Could you get a cable and then put the adapter on the end?
 
Well I pulled out my comp, ONCE AGAIN, and I'm not sure if there will be a problem frankly because there doesn't seem to be too much intereference with teh vga adapter. However, I'm thinking that the water tubes might have to be bent - quite a bit to get them into the case. Are they pretty bendable or are they stiff?
 
If you'll face the barbs (where the tubing attaches) away from the case you'll be able to loop the tubing in a gentle arc that won't have any kinks. Considering how you'll be doing this you might want to purchase a few more feet of tubing just to be certain that you have enough and to give yourself wiggle room for mistakes and such. The kit only comes with 7 feet.
 
I was thinking of replacing the tubing with some of the flexible tygon stuff. Does this sound like a good idea? So I'm looking at the tubing and the kit at around 250-270 at frozencpu.com...
 
The tubing is pretty flexible as it stands, I'd just get another 7 feet of the McMaster-Carr 7/16's ID tubing that I keep seeing others link to around here. If you look at some of the other threads you'll find a link or you could try a search.
 
I bought the original apex with the storm and love it. Its easy to install, works well and is fun. Its an easy way to break into WC

-Kharz
 
would it be feasible to install this system in a qpack but mount the radiator to the side of my computer desk instead?

will the fan noise be unacceptable?
 
Personally I'm planning on replacing the fans with nexus 120mm @9v and only using the water cooling to cool the processor because my video card is cooled by my vf900 which keeps it below 50 and I've o/ced that card to, what I believe, is maximum and the nb on my a8r32 is pretty cool.
 
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