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Watercooling question

H

hawk_4031

n00b
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Messages
3
Hello all,

So I have an eVGA 9800GTX that I want to watercool. I only want to watercool the card and nothing else (CPU stays nice and cool already with the Zalman cooler I have :p). Is there some kind of relatively simple and cheap solution I can go with? Thanks in advance.
 
Unless you're planning to watercool other components, I don't see the point in watercooling it in the first place. Get an Accelero S1.
 
AVT said:
Unless you're planning to watercool other components, I don't see the point in watercooling it in the first place. Get an Accelero S1.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

With water, it's a lot like cars. You have three thing you get to pick from:
Performance (speed and cornering ability)
Reliability (likelihood of something breaking)
Economy (initial cost, cost for gas, cost for repairs)

You can have one of those things without paying too much, but not the other two.
Having two things at once costs more, but you can't have the third.
Having three costs a /ton/ and you generally still make sacrifices.

With watercooling the three things you can have are the following:
Performance (good temperatures)
Silence (low noise from pumps and fans)
Economy (cost of the system, cost of repairs)

You're looking for economy (cheap) and reliability (simple, not likely to fail). That's doable, but the drop in performance is such that it's pointless -- your card will likely get too hot anyway, and it probably won't be very quiet.

Watercooling a video card well generally costs about $150 if you buy all your parts second hand and do your research. That'd be enough to cover the cost of a 2x120 or 3x120 radiator and fans, tubing, a quality pump and a waterblock and RAMsinks for the card. There's really no way around this.

All in one style kits from Coolermaster and the like just aren't going to be able to keep up with the heat output of your card, so there's little sense wasting $65-80+ on one. Seriously consider an Accelero S1 or Thermalright HR-03 GT and a quality fan instead.
 
Alright, so let's step it up then. I just made the decision that I want to watercool both my CPU and video card. I've been researching quite a bit over the last few months because I was wanting to do it at some point, but now I think I want to start moving forward on that option. I probably want to go with at least 3/8" tubing (I have a friend that is cooling a Quad Core Xeon and an 8800 GTX and I'm getting better cooling than he is with just a few fans :p). I find myself wanting to overclock all the time, but have found the limits on air and it's not enough.

So here's an initial question: would it be better to just buy a kit to start off with (because I'm obviously a n00b), or should I begin by building my own kit?
 
hawk_4031 said:
Alright, so let's step it up then. I just made the decision that I want to watercool both my CPU and video card. I've been researching quite a bit over the last few months because I was wanting to do it at some point, but now I think I want to start moving forward on that option. I probably want to go with at least 3/8" tubing (I have a friend that is cooling a Quad Core Xeon and an 8800 GTX and I'm getting better cooling than he is with just a few fans :p). I find myself wanting to overclock all the time, but have found the limits on air and it's not enough.

So here's an initial question: would it be better to just buy a kit to start off with (because I'm obviously a n00b), or should I begin by building my own kit?
Click to expand...

Absolutely not. Almost every kit I've seen is cheap, low performance, and not worth upgrading to in the first place. Believe me, I've used one before.. performed worse then stock cooling..
 
Petra's Tech sells "kits" which are really just a bunch of Swiftech parts put together with a small discount on them. If you aren't willing to watch FS/FT here and pick things up second-hand that would probably be a good way to go, but costly.

What are the specs on your system (CPU, GPU, PSU, case, etc), your overclocking/silence goals, and anything specific you're going for? We need a better idea of what you're really after before making recommendations.

Cooing a modern quad core and a G80 or later GPU you really want at least 4x120 total radiator surface area in order to keep with reasonably quiet fans, though a 3x120 with slightly louder fans will work as well if space is an issue. Hope you have a big case or are willing to mount externally. ;)
 
The specs on my computer are as follows:

C2D E6600 (at the stock 2.4GHz)
eVGA 680i SE SLI motherboard
eVGA 9800GTX
Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 (2GB)
Apevia 680W PSU (probably getting upgraded very soon)
Sunbeam Plexi-case midtower that is external watercooling ready

Externally mounting is cool with me. Noise really isn't much of an issue as my case currently has 5 Antec 3 speed fans all set to high (4 120s and an 80). As of right now, all of my parts are at stock settings, but before my reformat I had them all pushed about as far as they could go in terms of overclocking. I personally don't feel that it was enough. I do a lot of benchmarking, so the higher the score, the better :).

This is why I was originally only wanting to watercool the video card. I know I can't squeeze much out of a 65nm dual core. I can get it up to about 3.2GHz before Windows takes a crap on itself. Sure watercooling only the video card might seem pointless, but my Zalman CPU cooler does it's job very well.
 
Replace the Apevia PSU before you even consider watercooling or doing /anything/ else with that machine. Apepvia is a brand to b avoided at all costs, and I'm amazed it hasn't literally melted under the stress of your system already.

Chances are your motherboard is what is holding back your CPU OC, though it doesn't help that the Zalman (even if it's a 9700) is really not that great a HSF.

I would recommend, given the amount of money you need to spend on the system to get the other parts (PSU, motherboard) up to snuff for substantial OCing you should stick to air for now. Sell the Zalman HSF and get a Xigmatech HDT-S1283 + bolt-thru kit ($35 + $7) or similar instead, along with an Accelero S1 ($25), RAMsinks ($20) and a quality 120mm fan (Panaflo, Scythe S-Flex, Noctua, ~$15-20) for the 9800GTX along with a new PSU (~$100) and motherboard (~$120).

A P43 or P45 based motherboard is going to set you back around $120, a quality PSU around $100. You can sell your current motherboard for ~$50-60 to offset that cost, but it's still pretty substantial, so again, stick with air. I would not put any money in to watercooling with your current setup, as I do not think you'll see a substantial increase in performance..
 
Darkatom said:
These parts would make for a great gpu loop even a cpu loop later down the road:

Block: http://www.petrastechshop.com/dfugfx2gpuwa.html
plus http://www.petrastechshop.com/cu98cokitbyi.html
Radiator: http://www.petrastechshop.com/swmcqposerab.html
Fans: (2) http://www.petrastechshop.com/12yalod1cafa1.html
Tubing: http://www.petrastechshop.com/7id5odmagepu.html
Res: Use a T-Line

Going cheaper might not be worth it with water compared to using a thermalright heatsink for example.
Click to expand...

Forgot about the pump. You could probably get away with a cheap pump for just a GPU, but I would recommend getting something higher quality in case you want to add your CPU in the future. An MCP355 or 655 would do just fine I think.
 
a double rad with 9800gtx will not support any oc'd cpu down the road so if you decide to plane for a cpu in the future get a triple rad
 
Headpunter said:
a double rad with 9800gtx will not support any oc'd cpu down the road so if you decide to plane for a cpu in the future get a triple rad
Click to expand...

Really, for an OCed dual core and a 9800 GTX with a mild to moderate OC you're going to need 4x120 of rad space if you want to run reasonably slow, quiet fans. With screamers 3x120 would be just barely enough, but 2x120 isn't going to be enough no matter what, agreed.
 
If you really want a "kit", you could go with one of the Swiftech setups and add whatever else you need. Their "kits" are essentially boxed sets of their components just as we would choose.
 
Headpunter said:
when is the pentium m laptop gonna get a rest and we get to see that new system
Click to expand...

It never rests.

New system is looking old, anymore... it may change entirely soon, here. I've been selling off pieces and replacing them every couple months.

If it makes it through in its current form:
Xeon X3220 quad @3.6Ghz under Xigmatech HDT-S1283 with bolt-thru kit
XFX 780i SLI with modified cooling
2x OCZ Geforce 8800 GTX in SLI watercooled with D-Tek Fuzion GPU blocks and D-Tek UniSinks
Laing D5 Vario pump, 2x Black Ice Pro II radiators, 4 Panaflo low speed 120mm fans, y splitters, t line for the GPU loop.
4GB Patriot DDR2-800 CAS4
2x Western Digital AAKS 640GB 7200RPM HDDs
1x Seagate 250GB 7200RPM HDD
2x LiteOn 20x PATA DVDRWs
Corsair TX 750 PSU
Lian Li V2000B Plus II modified for internal watercooling
Soyo DYLM24D6 24" 1920x1200 6ms P-MVA panel LCD
Klipsch Promedia GMX-A 2.1 speakers
Razer Tarantula keyboard
Razer Copperhead mouse
900 watt CyberPower UPS

I have a feeling the 8800 GTXs and 780i are going to go in favor of a single 4870X2 and P43/45 or similar shortly here, though, and the case may be replaced by something smaller once I don't need its cavernous interior to hang radiators anymore.
 
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