Upgrading my loop while its down for maintenance.

J

Joni Nitro

Gawd
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Mar 20, 2005
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After being gone for 6mo on my last deployment I decided to tear down my loop and change my fluid and tubes. While it was down I upgraded to a hex core 1366 Xeon and a 7970. I was using a D5, MCR320, MCR240, and MCR120 with medium YL. Temps were pretty good with my 930 and even better with the L5640 at 3.8

One of my YL quit working and I have always wanted push/pull so I ordered a bunch of Corsair SP120s. I am waiting for my new tubing and a few items to show up and now I am wondering if I should change out my rads. The Swiftechs have served me well but I am wondering if it would be worth upgrading to something newer and better matched for my new fans. I am thinking of running some thicker 50-60mm rads and would 360 and a 240 be enough for my rig?
 
A single 360 is more than enough for a hex-core 1366 and 7970. If you really feel the itch to upgrade, the Alphacool UT60 series are very good radiators.
 
Thanks. I'll look at it. I have heard Alpha cool has had quality control problems, but I see a lot of people running their stuff.

I'm also using a HK 3.0 LT which seems to still be a solid block even today.
 
Ive got a fair amount of alpha cool stuff .... gotta start offloading some sometimes i think lol, no QC problems that i can see. What QC issues are you talking about?
 
I have only read a couple of times about rad frames that weren't straight. I have a nzxt switch 810 I'm thinking of doing a 240 on top and a 240 on the bottom with the sp 120s in p/p.
 
Hmm, no experience with that ( Ive got 2x 480mm UT60s beside me, both look pretty damn straight to me lol)


I dont think I saw a case mentioned, what case do you have ?
 
The only alphacool rad I ever bought had a pretty bad dent in the end of it where the fillport cap was at. It went back to FrozenCPU. The rad looked pretty nice other then that and I would have definitely used it if it did not have that issue.

What speed are you planning on running your fans at anyways? With 2x 120.2 they should be able to go fairly low and the low-FPI Swiftech rads would work well for that.

Although they get a bad rap on at other websites (*cough* RRR *cough*) I think the Swiftech would be fine still; they've always had pretty decent performance when Martin tests them anyways. I wasn't a fan of the SP120 at lower speeds though, the motor noise was annoying to me. My opinion, of course.

Edit - Nice build too, very clean!
 
It is not worth the cost tbh. If you were buying a new loop I would recommend the Alphacool over the Swiftech. However since you already have the Swiftech you will only see a minimal improvement (if any) over your current setup. The most important thing in cooling is surface area, and you already have that in spades with your current radiators. You are looking at quite a bit of cash for extremely minor improvement.
 
Is there a formula or calculator to determine how much cooling is needed and what is overkill? If I was cooling cpu and 2 7970s what rads would work with my fans at 5-7v? I was thinking either 2 60 mm 240 rads or one 60 mm 360 rad. All with p/p fans at low speeds. I want some overclocking head room, but my system is for daily use, gaming, and some video editing.
 
There is only really a rule of thumb....120x120mm per component being cooled (on average) *and* another 120*120mm area over that....

That said, a single 480 would be good (or 2x 240s), this is for thinner radiators.

There are alot of variables to account for, so no "sure fire" way to calculate it easily, now youve got me thinking of making a rough one.... regardless......a nice thick (RE: UT60) radiator @ 360x120, you should have enough capacity to have fans low at idle, you may need to crank em a bit at load (depending on load and fan)
 
Now I'm thinking I might go 2x 240 or for overkill's sake a 360 and 240. I know my swiftechs would handle the load but they have been used in a lot of rigs and seen better days. I could always use them my upcoming "wife" project.
 
Ok, one last question. I am planning on running my Corsair SP120s in push pull. I dont want to run a fan controller because I dont want to give up the room and have all the extra wiring to deal with. With as much surface area as I have I would like to just wire them at 5v. They are whisper quiet, but will it move enough air?

As of right now I am planning on sticking with my 3 swiftech rads.
 
W.Feather said:
Ive got a fair amount of alpha cool stuff .... gotta start offloading some sometimes i think lol, no QC problems that i can see. What QC issues are you talking about?
Click to expand...

Have any UT60 rads for sale?
 
No. I was going to try some myself but most people agree it wouldn't really benefit my setup.
 
I think Reality was referring to me :)

Joni, the reason to go with newer/better/larger (Take your pick) rad, would be to have better noise profile. Larger rad has larger cooling capacity, and in turn it would require less total noise to cool. When my new build is done ill be going from a single RX360 to probably 1x 480mm UT60 and 1x 360mm Black Ice GTX (Still not 100% decided the route yet, have 2 of ea. those rads)......This is mainly to allow lower fan speeds overall in my system and lower noise.


As for your question on if enough air will be moved, I cant help unfortunately , my only experience is with AP-15s, I have 8x NB fans in house right now that i need to get around to testing and seeing if they are worth using..
 
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