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TJ07 with 120.3

F

Fluoro

n00b
Joined
Jul 5, 2007
Messages
15
Evening. Going to start my first w/c project soon, got a couple of parts for it already, a Black Ice GT Stealth III rad, and a DDC-Pump Pro. I'm going to be cooling an 8800GTS and C2D e6300. I don't really see a need to cool my north/south bridge, although I'll be overclocking a little. Going to mount the rad down at the bottom, moving the HDDs up to the 5.25 bays. Thinking about six fans in a push/pull config around the rad. Now, I'm obviously posting this because I don't really know what I'm doing, so here we go:

  • Am I making a mistake not cooling my bridges?
  • Are the bits I've got for cooling so far alright?
  • What should I be looking for in blocks?
  • This is going to sound stupid, but I can't seem to find much info on emptying/bleeding/filling the system, and I don't know how. I'd like to put in a bay rad for the looks, but you all seem to think they're useless here
  • I'm a very average, or below average handyman, and I don't know how I'm going to mount the rad to the bottom of the case

I'll probably be asking more questions here as I remember stuff I don't know (odd thing to say) so I'd appreciate your patience, and thanks in advance. Any other tips you could give to me would be great.
 
Fluoro said:
[*]Am I making a mistake not cooling my bridges?
Click to expand...
Depends on your motherboard. Does it have massive heatsinks like the Gigabyte-P35-DQ6? I don't bother watercooling it because the stock cooler is fine with minimal airflow. On the other hand, if you have a board like the eVGA 680i which has poor NB cooling you may want to watercool it if you want to avoid noisy active cooling.

Fluoro said:
[*]Are the bits I've got for cooling so far alright?
Click to expand...
I'd get a better radiator. A GTX or Swiftech or Thermochill. The Thermochills are the best but most expensive. Swiftech's a re pretty good value for money. And I'd take the 18w DDC (think it's called the Ultra or the MCP355)

Fluoro said:
[*]What should I be looking for in blocks?
Click to expand...
Get CPU blocks with good reputations for dependable performance. FuZion or Apogee GTX for the CPU. You can buck the trend and get one with a reputation for "looks", like Koolance, but if this is your first build, I'd stick to the proven performers. EK or Swiftech for GPU.

Fluoro said:
[*]This is going to sound stupid, but I can't seem to find much info on bleeding the system, and I don't know how. I'd like to put in a bay rad for the looks, but you all seem to think they're useless here
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with a bay rad. But it's going to be a bit difficult to drain. Some people use T-Lines at the bottom. I just take my res out and pour it into a container while tipping the case - that takes care of the water in the tubing. That leaves some in the rads at the bottom, and I just take them out and empty them. This is not the nicest way, but works for me.


Fluoro said:
[*]I'm a very average, or below average handyman, and I don't know how I'm going to mount the rad to the bottom of the case
Click to expand...
Here's a pic of my my rads just before I inserted them into the case. Note the acoustic foam lining the bottom of the case. Now once I insert them in, I just put a few pieces of folded tygon tubing (which act as springs) on top of the rads to keep them in place so the rads are trapped between the foam and the folded tubing. I can turn the whole case upside down and shake it and the rads don't move. Plenty of other ways, but I did not want to do any mods and this works for me.

IMGP0629.jpg
 
Fluoro said:
[*]Are the bits I've got for cooling so far alright?
Click to expand...

Just noticed you already bought the Laing Pro and the Stealth radiator. Well, not my first choice, but if you've already bought them, might as well keep them. (You might consider adding a dual rad at the bottom and using 5 fans, rather than using 6 fans on your existing rad).
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I like the look of your sound damping thing down there, would suit a useless guy like me. Is it really as stable as you say though? I guess I haven't got the best equipment I could have got, but I assume the stuff I have is still decent enough to use and get fairly decent performance from all the same? Obviously I don't want to start buying new parts, although I realise I should have looked into this more before getting them.

Don't suppose you can recommend a good Irish, or UK site to order parts from? I'd usually use scan.co.uk, but they're not great for WC. I'd be willing to order from mainland Europe or even the Americas too though if shipping was alright...

I really like the thought of sticking a 120.2 in the top of the case, but there just doesn't seem to be a simple and clean way to do it.
 
Fluoro said:
Thanks for the quick reply. I like the look of your sound damping thing down there, would suit a useless guy like me. Is it really as stable as you say though? I guess I haven't got the best equipment I could have got, but I assume the stuff I have is still decent enough to use and get fairly decent performance from all the same? Obviously I don't want to start buying new parts, although I realise I should have looked into this more before getting them.

Don't suppose you can recommend a good Irish, or UK site to order parts from? I'd usually use scan.co.uk, but they're not great for WC. I'd be willing to order from mainland Europe or even the Americas too though if shipping was alright...

I really like the thought of sticking a 120.2 in the top of the case, but there just doesn't seem to be a simple and clean way to do it.
Click to expand...

Can't do a PA120.2 on top as it's too thick. As for stablity, I suppose having two thick thermochill rads in the bottom makes it more stable. If you only have a thin single stealth rad, it'll not be as sturdy. However, squeezing the rad between folded tygon and foam is very effective at keeping it in place. If you're putting 6 fans on, maybe put the folded tygon on the fans rather than the rads for extra stability. Anyway, as long as you don't kick the case around too much, it should still hold.

However, the UK is brilliant for watercooling and you should be able to get everything from UK based e-tailers. In fact, you really lost out with your purchase of a BI Stealth, as Thermochill is based in the UK, and you'd have been able to get the best watercooling rads for a lot cheaper than US customers.

As for e-tailers, there are lots. Scan is great, one of the best, except, as you say, for watercooling. Goggle "over-clock uk" (these guys are Thermochill; I'm referring to 'over-clock.com' (the site you want) rather than 'overclock uk' (which is some other site I never used)). "coolercases uk" and "specialtech" are also dependable e-tailers as well. There are "lots" of other good watercooling e-tailers in the UK.
 
I guess I could always sell my rad, as it's still boxed and unused, but would I really see a big performance difference?
 
The stealth rads are not known for their performance. Mounting the rad in the bottom is a snap with a couple galvanized brackets from Home Depot. Drill a couple holes in them to match your rad and couple in the bottom of the case and your set. Don't have any pics of the brackets themselves but here's a couple pics for ya. Maybe give you some ideas...

Converted the case to an inverted ATX style by flipping the mobo tray.
NewWC4-21-07067.jpg


Moved the hd's to the front bays with a Coolermaster 4-3 hd adapter
NewWC4-21-07064.jpg


Made my own grills for better airflow to the rad
NewWC4-28-07014.jpg


Ended up painting them black
NewWC4-28-07022.jpg


Stealthed the front drives for a clean look. And I've always loved the look and functionality of a bay res.
NewWC4-21-07045.jpg
 
Sideroxylon said:
The stealth rads are not known for their performance. Mounting the rad in the bottom is a snap with a couple galvanized brackets from Home Depot. Drill a couple holes in them to match your rad and couple in the bottom of the case and your set. Don't have any pics of the brackets themselves but here's a couple pics for ya. Maybe give you some ideas...

Converted the case to an inverted ATX style by flipping the mobo tray.
NewWC4-21-07067.jpg


Hey thats awesome! I didn't know you can flip your motherboard tray like that. I'm going to try that and see if it will improve my air cooling. I think it will help tremendously since my 8800GTX OC will be on top and the heat will suck out better this way. Right now the 8800GTX is blowing into my CPU. This case is much cooler than I thought.

Thanks!


EDIT: darn, can't do it since I have the window version.
Click to expand...
 
Fluoro said:
I think you need to do a bit of modding to be able to flip it, I read ASIA911. Have a look here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=110535

Another question, would I see much benefit changing the pump? I read people saying sometimes that lo-flow is just as good for cooling, or would I run into other problems too?
Click to expand...

The DDC pro is a decent pump is solid and should be sufficient to handle your two blocks and one rad, especially as you're only looking to cool a C2D and GTS. This is optional, but I'd consider getting the modded top to reduce sound and increase performance.
http://store.over-clock.com/pumps.html#a746
 
Sideroxylon, I guess you bought a sheet of that stuff you used for your grill, and used your existing grill as a template for cutting it and slotting it?
 
Fluoro said:
I think you need to do a bit of modding to be able to flip it, I read ASIA911. Have a look here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=110535

Another question, would I see much benefit changing the pump? I read people saying sometimes that lo-flow is just as good for cooling, or would I run into other problems too?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you understand my situation. My case is a version with a clear window on the left side. Flipping the mobo tray will cover it up and what I'll see through my case window would be the back of the mobo tray.
 
Fluoro said:
Sideroxylon, I guess you bought a sheet of that stuff you used for your grill, and used your existing grill as a template for cutting it and slotting it?
Click to expand...

Bought the grill from Home Depot. It was actually mesh to go over the gutters of your house. Used the stock grills to make a template out of wood. Once that was done it was a piece of cake to make the new grills. My temps used to go up by about 3-5c when I put the side on with the stock grills. Now it only goes up about 1c and that's only because I have some filter fabric in there to reduce dust.

Here's a mini worklog of the grills
 
Thanks. Don't suppose you have a worklog of the W/Cing just for me to take as another reference?
 
Sideroxylon said:
Bought the grill from Home Depot. It was actually mesh to go over the gutters of your house. Used the stock grills to make a template out of wood. Once that was done it was a piece of cake to make the new grills. My temps used to go up by about 3-5c when I put the side on with the stock grills. Now it only goes up about 1c and that's only because I have some filter fabric in there to reduce dust.

Here's a mini worklog of the grills
Click to expand...

Nice, I'll probably give this a try when I don't(duh I mean DO) go water cooling.
 
Where did you get the acoustic foam? That's a good idea, I check Home Depot, Michael's and Hobby Lobby but could not find foam thick enough nor was it acoustic.

Update: I found some Damping Sheets on the internet but was wondering how thick was the foam you used to make that tight fit?
 
Thinking about putting a PA120.2 out the top, even if it is a bit of a messy fit, just to get my temps as low as possible. I'm also thinking about keeping an element of aircooling in the case to keep the bridges cool and have a lower ambient temperature.

Yay or nay?
 
Adding another rad doesn't always equal lower temps. If your current rad isn't completely saturated then adding another rad won't help with temps. In your case it probably will since the stealth rads aren't very good and the PA series are. Actually the PA120.2 will cool better than the stealth rad you have. Personally, I'd ditch the stealth rad and just pick up a PA120.3 or the GTX480, and mount it in the bottom for a nice clean install.
 
I'll maybe do that then, and what about keeping an element of air cooling? Don't suppose you have any idea what sort of temps I should be expecting from this? Currently with case fans blasting and stock coolers on my video card/CPU I'm getting about 56c idle on each, that's with the video card fan going full pelt in ntune.
 
Aren't you going to wc you vid card? I have the 2 back fans on mine bringing air in. I have a piece of cardboard that I'm using to direct the air onto the mobo right at the cpu socket area. I have no fans on top and my case temp is sitting at 40c with 23c ambient.
 
Going to cool the video card too, yeah. I keep reading that it doesn't matter too much what order you put your stuff in, but I can't help but think if my video card can run up close to 100c without taking bad damage, and my CPU can't go much hotter than 60/65, it must be a bad move to have the video card dumping heat into the loop before the CPU.
 
Most loops only have a difference of a couple degrees between the inlet and the outlet of the rad. Hottest water going to the inlet and the coolest water exiting the rad. So, a couple degrees difference probably won't make much of a difference for your vid card temps. Typically you just want to run the shortest loop you can and don't worry much about where your rad is placed in the loop.
 
Alright, after some thought I'm ditching the rad and going for a PA 120.3. So I'm going to buy most of the parts I need in one go soon to avoid additional cooling costs. A second opinion and more informed advice on what I'm going for here would be appreciated.

  • I think I'm going to go with tygon piping. Do I need a special type of cutter for this? What sort of length should I go with (remembering I'm sort of clumsy)?
  • I'm thinking about this reservoir, any reason I should avoid it? http://store.over-clock.com/reservoirs.html#a645
  • What's the best waterblock for a C2D, and for a 8800GTS? Sorry for the seemingly lazy question, but there's so much stuff out there.

I'll probably order most of my equipment from http://store.over-clock.com/. Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
Deathspine said:
Where did you get the acoustic foam? That's a good idea, I check Home Depot, Michael's and Hobby Lobby but could not find foam thick enough nor was it acoustic.

Update: I found some Damping Sheets on the internet but was wondering how thick was the foam you used to make that tight fit?
Click to expand...

That's Acousti AcoustiPack and I'm using the 8mm version.
 
Fluoro said:
Alright, after some thought I'm ditching the rad and going for a PA 120.3. So I'm going to buy most of the parts I need in one go soon to avoid additional cooling costs. A second opinion and more informed advice on what I'm going for here would be appreciated.

  • I think I'm going to go with tygon piping. Do I need a special type of cutter for this? What sort of length should I go with (remembering I'm sort of clumsy)?
  • I'm thinking about this reservoir, any reason I should avoid it? http://store.over-clock.com/reservoirs.html#a645
  • What's the best waterblock for a C2D, and for a 8800GTS? Sorry for the seemingly lazy question, but there's so much stuff out there.

I'll probably order most of my equipment from http://store.over-clock.com/. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Click to expand...

1. Good choice on the PA120.3

2. Just use scissors for your Tygon. 10-12 feet would be plenty, even if you make some mistakes and need to redo your loop.

3. Don't see anything wrong with that reservoir. However, I haven't used it personally myself.

4. If you're buying from http://store.over-clock.com (which is a pretty reliable store), the D-Tek FuZion is a dependable block for your CPU. And the EK FC8800GTS is a decent block especially for lazy people who don't want to mess around with RAM sinks. I've got the GTX version and my 8800 GTX, at stock, stays lower than 40c under load.
 
I'd read somewhere that WCing the RAM on your video card is overkill. Also, the EK FC8800GTS uses aluminium, isn't it a bad idea to mix metals?
 
Fluoro said:
I'd read somewhere that WCing the RAM on your video card is overkill. Also, the EK FC8800GTS uses aluminium, isn't it a bad idea to mix metals?
Click to expand...

The GPU RAM must be cooled somehow.

1. If you don't want to watercool them, you can get a Swiftech MCW60 with G80 adaptor. And then buy RAM sinks. And then spend time gluing on the RAMsinks else they can fall off if you rely on the thermal tape. And make sure you have air flow to cool your RAM sinks. And then have fun removing those RAM sinks later on...

Using my full cover block I get around 38 to 39c on load at stock. If I used the MCW60, I might get 2 or 3 degree less. Maybe. But I can't be bothered to mess around RAM sinks just for that.

I recognize the performance advantages to non-full cover GPU blocks. But it depends on you in the end. I had the MCW60 and didn't like it as I have little patience for such minimal gains. More patient people, or those for whom an extra 2-3c on GPU temps matter could have a different view, and that's fine.

2. "Base is made of electrolytic copper....Aluminium part is made for cooling the mosfets of 8800 GTS series"

It's a copper waterblock. The aluminium part is attached to the waterblock but is never exposed to water, and is the section that fits over the mosfets to keep them cool. No danger of mixed metals.
 
No worries. And you're right about the problems of mixing metals. Better to check first than make real mistakes. Good luck on your build.
 
Just be careful with the plexi res; mine has cracked and I believe I have heard of others doing the same. Don't screw the mounting screws, barbs, or plugs too tight. Check it often for leaks.

Otherwise, looks great. IMHO Thermochill PA's work better in a push-pull config, no?
 
Thanks headala, would you recommend against one? I just would rather have a bit of eye candy, without blinging out UV, LEDs and colours. If I stick it in the case, I'm never going to see it. I have heard bad things about bay res's I'll admit but I think they look cool, and it would be a hassle to mount any other res. I also don't want to cut up my case (but I guess I could cut the mesh at the top actually) to fit a t-line.

I read pull-pull, like two fans strapped together actually works best, but do PA's work better in push/pull?
 
No, I don't recommend against them across the board; you just have to be careful by not wrenching down too hard when you screw barbs and stuff into it. Most plexi cracks in WC seem to come from that mistake (incidentally, most noobs are nervous about WC'ing and screw stuff down waaaay to hard, like I did when I was a noob and cracked my bay res).

Whatever you read about the best config of the PA is probably correct; I just thought I remembered a discussion on it a while back.
 
I've been using acrylic bay res' for years and never had a problem. Like was said, just don't screw things down too tight and you'll be fine. Also keep in mind that acrylic and alcohol don't mix.

As far as fans for your PA rad, one set of fans will do just fine. One of the reasons those rads are so good is because of how easy it is for air to pass through them.
 
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