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When to choose BIX vs. BIP?

X

Xylo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
Messages
421
What sort of airflow for the Black Ice Extremes?

I am buying either a BIP.2 or BIX.2 soon, and I'm trying to figure out which....

I know given the thicker nature of the BIX that it really needs more air flow to benefit...but I've never seen any specifics on just what sort of CFM or pressure people are talking about?

What sort of fans are needed to make good use of a BIX? And below what, should one just use a BIP instead?

Also, how much of an overall gain in performance is found w/ a BIX and more powerful fans over a BIP and less so?...

Thanks!
Xylo
 
I would say right now to try and set a cutoff for what cfm is necessary for a BIX by considering that a BIP2 is more than $20 less @ DD than a BIX2 ;)

I wouldn't trust that review too much though, as the review is done by Radiical, & guess which radiator cooled best? If you can get a good price on a Radiical2 then maybe look at a couple more outside reviews and consider it; otherwise just get a BIP if you think your chosn fans might not be enough for a BIX (remember that a BIP will still cool better with Tornadoes instead of Nexuses, but a BIX would work better with the Tornadoes of course).
 
80-90 cfm is the iffy range. Above that get a BIX, below get a BIP.
 
Yeah, that review is crap...

Still trying to decide....Frustrating, just because I'd like to use some prettier UV fans, than the plain ol' black, but none of the really nice fans are made UV (or LED)...I mean, nothing of the Panaflo quality or similar, I don't think?...

In any case, I'm having a very hard time judging these fans as I'm not really sure what the dBA levels are really like...but I suppose 35-36 dBA would still be reasonable??...(shrug) In that range, I've seen a number of fans 70-86 CFM.

That enough to make the BIX worthwhile, I wonder?


(also vaguely debating making my setup 3/8" instead of 1/2", but that's doubtful)
 
jeez the whole thicker cores need super fans thing is WAY overblown.

I use a 2 1/2 thick heater core with 6 x 80mm fans pulling air and they pull PLENTLY thru the core. I can "fly" a stack of 6 sheets of 24lb bond printer paper over the fans. Not a very precise measurement but proves the point, the cores are not that darn restrictive to air flow and the rads you are considering are at least an inch thinner. Keep in mind if you hold any core up to the light you can see thru it.

If you get anything over 60 CFM you will be fine as long as they can breath, dont restrict the air flow on the other side of the core.

Now before I get flamed, yes higher CFM fans will cool a little better (if you acually need it) and dont mind the noise compared to a medium CFM fan. However in my experience unless you have some really wild heat dissipation issues, remember you have a nice big dual fan core here and it will dump lots of heat, the difference between a medium CFM fan (50-80 CFM) vs a high CFM (>80 CFM) is minor. The room ambient temps (or case temp) will probally have a greater impact in most situations depending on how/where you mount the rad. If it where a single fan core I would probally recommend a high CFM fan on a controller.
 
ok here are some hard numbers. now this is with a BIP III but the thickness of the rad is the same as yours. Lets look at how the fan CFM affects the cooling. This is taken from http://www.overclockers.com/articles1163/

Flows 61 CFM 90 CFM 135 CFM
BTU/Hr @ 0.5 gpm - 0.08 psi 1248 1293 1350
BTU/Hr @ 1.0 gpm - 0.20 psi 1579 1613 1685
BTU/Hr @ 1.5 gpm - 0.41 psi 1548 1683 1751

I will just look at the 1.0 gpm water flow rate you can do the math on the others :D

For watts, multiply BTU/Hr x 0.2932

Watts.
at 61 cfm heat dissipation is 462 watts
at 90 cfm heat dissipation is 473 watts 2.3 % better than 61 cfm
at 135 cfm heat dissipation is 494 watts 6.9 % better than 61 cfm


Some improvement but 135 CFM probally sounds like a 747 in your computer room. Keep in mind an AMD processor puts out around 100 Watts (I havent looked it up lately so that is just a ballpark guess) at full load. I beleive they rate the 2x120 cores at about 300 watts of dissipation and I doubt you will come close to generating that much heat. Anyway hope this helps you with your decision. The point is that higher CFMs does help with heat dissipation but not to a huge amount once you get some decent airflow to start.
 
Hey bro, if you want a cheaper alternative to a BIX let me know. I sell cooling rads. 2x120mm, fittings and painted for $35. I have had several people say they cool better then a Black Ice II.
 
2Fresh said:
Hey bro, if you want a cheaper alternative to a BIX let me know. I sell cooling rads. 2x120mm, fittings and painted for $35. I have had several people say they cool better then a Black Ice II.
Click to expand...


heh 2fresh i might be up for that but what about in single 120 size?
 
If he doesn't sell them, DD does.

I would never get a BIX, heatercores (the common ones) are the same thickness but are much cheaper. BIPs tend to be the same price as heatercores.
 
Russ said:
I would never get a BIX, heatercores (the common ones) are the same thickness but are much cheaper. BIPs tend to be the same price as heatercores.
Click to expand...

Over at DD currently...
the dual heatercore w/ shroud they stock: $35
the BIX.2: $58

A $23 difference...Decidedly, not insignificant...but also not massive...
hmm...
 
Thanks for the info ww....

I'm still having a hard time deciding...largely just because I don't have any good grasp on what different dBA levels are like. Meaning, I don't know how annoyed I would be by 40+ dBA fans or not... As such, having a hard time deciding....I figure something around low 30s dBA would be reasonable?...

And if so, that would fall sort've in the middle between the BIX and BIP, I guess?...
 
The OC.com radiators reviews are heavily flawed. So flawed in fact that they present next to uninterpretable results to me despite my best efforts to decode/understand them.

The "crossover" between BIP vs BIX is around an 80-90cfm rated fan at 12v operation. So basically you need to be using a 100+cfm fan before you can say that the BIX will provide cooler temps than the BIP, and even then, we're talking pretty small differences. Get upwards of 130cfm and the differences will be noticable, but still less than 0.5c. IMO, the BIP is the radiator of choice from the HWLabs range.

Radiator thickness is not all bad. It all depends on what's going on with the fin density. Thick low-fin-density radiators can actually be very good as they can be quite unrestrictive to air-flow. When assessing radiators, you need to take into account the surface area, the fin density, and the thickness. Blindly using just one of those criteria to judge over all others is the incorrect way to generalise about radiator performance.
 
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