Zalman Reserator opinions

[StoneNewt]

Anyone with a Zalman Reserator that uses it to cool their CPU & GPU offer opinions on how effetive or not it is in the real world please. I'd really like to hear from people running it to cool a higher end Athlon64 & Radeon X800. Thank you people.

 

[poley]

firstly hope this isn't reviving a dead thread...

I installed the new reserator plus 1 about a month ago and have in the loop a P4 2.8 @ 3ghz (northwood) and a 6800gt and it cools them both better than my previous air cooling...

bare in mind I only had bog standard air cooling before hand, but here's an idea of what I get with the reserator installed.

Before

Processor Idle : 45
Processor Load : 55+
6800GT (GPU) Idle : 55
6800GT (GPU) Load : 65+

After (currently, its rather hot in my room with summer night temps and all...room temp ~27C)

Processor Idle : 42
Processor Load : ~49
6800GT (GPU) Idle : 52
6800GT (GPU) Load : ~60

best thing about it though is that my computer is now virtually silent, only noise comes from the power supply which I'll be changing for a silent one within a few months, can't hear the hard drives or the case fans.

As to whether the reserator would be able to handle a Athlon64 & Radeon X800, I'd say easily, you'll probably get better results than I did.

 

[Happy Hopping]

Do you guys think the above results seems high in temp.? Should get lower than that.

 

[ZOMGWTFBBQ]

Do you guys think the above results seems high in temp.? Should get lower than that.

Not really. Considering hes running an overclocked p4 and a most likely overclocked 6800gt in a passive loop they're actually quite good .

An xp-90 or xp-120 will get you lower temps for sure with a reserator, but itll never be as silent heh. I get 33 degrees load with my p4 with a low speed fan on an xp-90 so it really depends how silent you want it.

Personally in my opinion i'd recommend the h20-120 or corsair cool, as they're almost silent but cool far better and have greater room for expansion. Not dissin the zalman though, its extremely well made and does what its designed to do perfectly, its just more a silence thing rather than a low temp thing.

 

[poley]

Do you guys think the above results seems high in temp.? Should get lower than that.

forgot to mention I've also overclocked the 6800gt to near ultra speeds...(core=390 ram=1100)

I'm not really trying to get massive overclocks, I've got a samsung 172x monitor so the max resolution I can take games to is only 1280*1024 and with the hardware I've got I can run most things maxed out, can't really ask for more...(apart from the F.E.A.R demo...my system didn't like that at all....)

As for the temps, I've checked on a few other forums, silentpc for one, and I'm getting pretty good temps considering what I have in the loop, there is a little mod I could do to the reserator to get maybe another 1-3 degrees off but I don't think its really worth it.

Involves sticking a bit of pipe to the Inlet on the pump so it draws water from higher in the reserator, instead of at the bottom next to the IN from the loop, why Zalman didn't think of this in the first place is curious....but then you do have the hot water rising and the colder water "hopefully" at the bottom...

But the main thing I'm going for is a silent PC that can play games at near the best settings...I'm also at university starting my masters in physics this september and will be doing a lot of typing and whated to get rid of the "hum" from the fans.

If your are looking for something totally silent I'd highly recommend the reserator, just don't go expecting huge overclocks, minor ones yes but nothing more, plus the whole setup looks cool

 

[StoneNewt]

After (currently, its rather hot in my room with summer night temps and all...room temp ~27C)

Processor Idle : 42
Processor Load : ~49
6800GT (GPU) Idle : 52
6800GT (GPU) Load : ~60

best thing about it though is that my computer is now virtually silent, only noise comes from the power supply which I'll be changing for a silent one within a few months, can't hear the hard drives or the case fans.

As to whether the reserator would be able to handle a Athlon64 & Radeon X800, I'd say easily, you'll probably get better results than I did.

Thank you, these are the kinda numbers I'm looking for, ATM I think anything is going to be an improvement over my current temps (both CPU & GPU heading off to 70C with ease), though I know how to lower these temps it's not exactly simple with my motherboard.

An xp-90 or xp-120 will get you lower temps for sure with a reserator, but itll never be as silent heh. I get 33 degrees load with my p4 with a low speed fan on an xp-90 so it really depends how silent you want it.

Yeah to exactly room temperature as the PSU gets removed from my chassis, thus stopping the computer from working . I actually have an XP-90 here, and did try to fit it but it's a no go. Also with a Zalman 7000B Cu I'm getting CPU temps in the 60~70C area (from 30~40C area in a midi tower) at load.

Personally in my opinion i'd recommend the h20-120 or corsair cool, as they're almost silent but cool far better and have greater room for expansion. Not dissin the zalman though, its extremely well made and does what its designed to do perfectly, its just more a silence thing rather than a low temp thing.

Again, space, I really don't have anywhere internally to put a rad for even an 80mm fan, so unless you can point me to another elegant external cooling solution the Zalman it is.