What water cooling setup to get

T

Toad21

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
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I have an XP Athlon XP 3200 + (32 bit) and a PNY 6800 GT that are begging for water cooling.

Can anyone suggest a system that would be good for me? I would like to keep it all inside the machine, and not break the bank.

I am a complete newb when it comes to water cooling, any suggestions?
 
you might want to buy a kit if your a newb to watercooling. I was a noob only a few months ago but I dove in read up and built a custom kit. I couldn't be happier but that's just me
 
if your going for entirely interal, and a kit, youll be limited alot. The only half-decent (and thats being generous) internal kit would be the Aquagate. If you don't mind external, but still want a kit then the best one to get is the Koolance Exos. <- should be enough for what you need it for.

Going for custom is always going to perform better and cost less. The Swiftech H20-120 is probably your best in this area bet as its a custom-kit which you assemble yourself and it performs very well. Entirely custom will be even better as you can have a 2x120 radiator and custom piping and select waterblocks. For the 6800 the best waterblock is the DD but its expensive as hell. You can buy swiftech blocks to mount on 6800 blocks which would go well with the h20-120.

Read up and ask questions in the watercooling subsection and most people will be glad to help you along your way.

In response to the other post about it being dangerous. If you take your time and do it properly then a water cooling setup is perfectly safe. After doing leak-testing and using the right water additives you can leave a setup going for months on end without any maintenance cept for topping it up. It's also alot more quiet than having fans blasting everywhere. The pre-made kits are more or less connect four tube ends and tighten four clamps., thats it. Entirely Custom may have more stuff you have to do, but its safe either way. Just don't rush it and it should all turn out funky.

Hope things go well and dun hold back question!

-Funk*
 
sohcugy said:
Water cooling seems dangerous, is it pretty fool proof with most kits?
Click to expand...
As long as you don't let the smoke out of the pump, it's fine. ;)

On a more serious note, not even air-cooling is fool proof. That's why they're fools. Anyways, watercooling isn't dangerous if you use quality parts and put stuff together correctly. Just a common misconception. Kits just save you from selecting individual components, and sometimes save you some assembly. Look at the Danger Den "kits" (really more of a package deal) that perform very well with not much more assembly than a lot of other kits.

My system went from 1000' elevation in Alberta, over the Rockies, and back home with me to Vancouver Island at just over sea level. No leaks, nothing rattled loose on the 1100km journey in my back seat. No problems at all in the (almost) 4 months that my loop has been running. As long as you take care of things, and don't get stupid when putting the system together (even a kit), you shouldn't have trouble with it.
 
Ok I will go with the custom setup!!

I am a competant computer builder and network engineer, I can handle it. I am just new to water cooling.

So could you list the parts you would suggest? Maybe even give links to them?

Maybe a link to a good tutorial? I haven't put any effort into learning much about it yet, but figured you guys could get me off on the right foot.

THANKS!!

-Todd
 
So I would get the DD 6800 waterblock, and end up spending about $200 for the whole setup.

And in the end, I might be able to get my 3200+ from 2.52ghz to maybe 2.7ghz

And my 6800gt from 420/1170 to 435/1220

Over all i would be going up maybe 800-1000 3d marks in 2005, at best.

I should just sell my 3200+ and a7n8x and buy a 3500+ a64 and a new mobo, and would end up spending about 200$ for that, and get the same performance increase.

So in final analysis, I would love to water cool my machine, but if i am going to spend money upgrading my computer, i might as well just buy faster parts to get the same performance increase for about the same amount of money.

-Todd
 
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