A Good Watercooling System ?

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rooy

rooy

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Dec 3, 2013
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Hello anyone can help me with watercooling system i want the best watercooling system for CPU and GPU with Lowest Temps i have now Corsair H100i for CPU my Temps its 39c at idle and 59 Max load...
My case is Aerocool Xpredator Full Tower!
 
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I have a similar system (3930K @ 4.7, Corsair H110, ASUS P9X79 WS, 1475W PSU, 64GB GSkill TridentX/2400 set to 2133,
quad-GTX 580 MSI L.E. 3GB, etc.) and I've used two H100i units on other 3930K/3960X builds. IMO you already have a good
cooler, and your temps are nice. I don't think you need to change anything, and if you did, I doubt you would achieve any
useful cooling improvement over what you already have (given the expense of an upgrade to a custom loop or somesuch).
You should be delighted with 59C load temp at 4.7, that's excellent. 8)

Ian.

 
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Ryan, I just read your article, excellent stuff!! I hope you feel my comments above were sensible.

Re where you mention the noise levels of CLCs can be higher than people assume, too right!
Though I like Corsair's H80/100/etc. units, the fans they supply are terrible IMO. I replace them
with Nanoxia Deep silence (NDS) PWMs and the results are sooo much better. I built a 3930K/4.7
setup recently for someone, using an H100i and 4 NDS fans (similar build to mine, though with a
K5000 and two GTXs 580s), the noise levels were really good, much better than I'd expected
(the end user was delighted, way quieter than his old dual-XEON Mac Pro and ludicrously faster),
whereas with the original Corsair fans it would have been awful. Sure, they move a lot of air, but
the noise is unbelievable. For reference, with NDS fans the H100i gave a max load temp (hrs P95)
of 75C which is well within sensibleness I reckon.

It's a pity I find it necessary to replace the stock fans with these CLCs at all, but there ya go.
I have a stack of about 20 unwanted Corsair fans now. Ditto a whole pile of 14cm/23cm fans
removed from HAF 932 and other cases (replaced with better models).

Hmm, shame Nanoxia doesn't make a water cooler...

Ian.

 
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The biggest negative of the CLCs is not enough radiator cooling field to get the job done, mainly because they're making them for convenience of fitting inside a mid tower case, so even the best and most expensive of them is barely better than a high end air cooler.

To attempt to get better cooling results they put high speed noisy fans on them, really they don't have a choice as the consumers may have cases with horrible case airflow, and they have to have a certain guaranteed airflow through the radiator or the cooling performance is pitiful.

Even water cooling you still have to have good case airflow to keep the system memory modules and motherboard cool.

 
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That's true, and indeed I did change the case fans around to have a rather different airflow. The rear
fan is an exhaust of course (NDS 14cm), the side panel has four NDS 12cm as intakes, but the front
is a Bitfenix Spectre Pro (153cfm @ 29dBA) acting as an exhaust, ideal since the three GPUs partly
dump air inside the case, so it's pulled away nicely. The H100i sucks air downwards, so it's fresh,
and helps cool the mbd. Works very well, better than I thought it would.

Note the built-in front 23cm fan was only 43cfm, barely good enough for anything.

Ian.

 
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The large diameter cooling fans are CFM lame, as they are playing the quiet card, it seems you have a good grip and understanding on getting what you can from your own personal setup!

I'm running a Chilled Water Cooling system to cool my CPU, and Radiator cooling to cool my GPU, check it out when you get a chance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282844-29-peltier-water-cooling

 
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4Ryan6 writes:
> The large diameter cooling fans are CFM lame, as they are playing the quiet card, ...

Yeah, an asthmatic gnat would be more effective.


> it seems you have a good grip and understanding on getting what you can from
> your own personal setup!

Coming from the SGI world as I did, I was well used to how loud systems can be (the
rack Onyx in my garage sounds like a jet engine, while my 36-CPU Onyx3800 is even
worse), so starting with PC building a few years ago I really wanted low noise. Have
to say, 120cm fans have definitely improved since then. It's quite a popular mod in
the SGI hobbyist scene to replace the loud stock fans in a Fuel or other SGI system
with modern PC fans. I have an Octane like this, so much better. Not done it to my
Fuel yet, bit more tricky for various reasons (strict lower RPM limits imposed by the
mbd's L1 controller, or it'll shut the system down; one can turn off the env monitoring,
but that's risky of course).


> I'm running a Chilled Water Cooling system to cool my CPU, and Radiator cooling
> to cool my GPU, check it out when you get a chance.

Very cool stuff!! (to coin a phrase, hehe)

Love where you refer to the, "cold side thermal output", reminds me of when I
first read about electron hole flow in the mid 1980s. 😀

I don't think I'll ever go that far, I'd never have the time, etc., but maybe I'll start
looking at custom water loops next year.

Your air-cooling numbers are amusing, couldn't help think of the hordes of
people who insist the NH-D14 is Better Than Anything. The TRUE is an amazing
cooler, I have more than 20 of them, including various followup editions - several
TRUE Blacks, about four Venomous-Xs, etc. My open-air day-to-day 5GHz 2700K
has a VenX with two Cooler Master Blademaster 120 PWMs. Bought a few massive
Phantek units aswell, here's one on a 3930K setup I built for someone in Feb/2013,
at this point testing open-air before being moved into a HAF 932:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/pcbenchmarking.jpg

My own replica system had a Phanteks Black for a while before I switched to an H110
in a different case. Here's the same open-air testing before it was moved into a HAF 932:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/pcbenchmarking2.jpg

I use a home-built Dell T7500 as a table. 😀


I am however using an H80 to cool all test CPUs on an ASUS Striker II Extreme,
which will eventually have a QX9650 as the final test chip, but for the moment
it's started off with a low-end P4/HT-550. It's an open-air setup, so holding the
H80 steady was important. I attached two metal rods to two of the mbd mounting
holes (the rods came from an SGI Octane mbd assembly), a slight bend in each
rod so the spacing would exactly match the lower 120mm fan on the H80. Thus,
the whole setup sits above the mbd, with the push/pull air flowing downwards
onto the mbd. With the lowly P4, idle and load temps at stock are barely any
different. 😀 Haven't tried to oc it yet. Large rubber feet are on the mbd base so
there's a good air gap below.


Hey, rooy, do you have your H100i fully inside your case? Where is it? My XPredator
didn't remotely have enough space at the top for an H110, so only the lower two
140mm fans are inside the case; the radiator and upper fans are on top. I removed
the normal top cover, and the power button panel is just attached by green cable
ties; looks a bit Heath Robinson, but hey at least it's colour matched. 😀

Ian.


 
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The ASUS Striker II Extreme was one killer motherboard, it allowed me to overclock my Q9550 to 4ghz on air cooling, ArthurH had the same setup using ice chilled water cooling and overclocked his Q9550 to 4.250ghz, I think he still sports a CPU-Z validation of it in his sig.
 
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4Ryan6 writes:
> The ASUS Striker II Extreme was one killer motherboard, ...

I was lucky, managed to get an unlocked QX9650 for a good price. 8) Cost me
138 UKP total; had to wait 2 years to bag such a good bargain. And it's the later
stepping aswell, most important I figured.

Doubly lucky in getting the S2E. Time and again people would bid well
over 100 UKP even for just a board and backplate. I remember some
boxed-complete listings selling for nearer 200. Finally after 3 years
waiting, I found a listing of a complete, boxed unit in excellent condition
with all accessories for 65 UKP with free shipping. Grud knows why
nobody else bought it first (plenty of watchers according to eBay), so I
nabbed it. 8) Maybe people were suspicious at the low pricing, which
would be very ironic if so. Here's some pics, showing the H80 setup:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/asus_s2e.zip

Meanwhile, here's my open-air 2700K/5.0 (it's the one on the right):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/2nd_2700K.jpg

The identical setup on the left I built for an engineering company to run their
CAD apps with a Quadro 4000 (Antec 300, 840 Pro, Enterprise SATA, H80,
etc.). Knocked the socks off the single-XEON Dell they'd been considering;
here's some Viewperf data:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/viewperf.txt

Lastly, here's my XPredator with the rather industrial looking H110 and whacko
quad-580 config (all MSI Lightning Xtremes, mainly for AE research - it's not
linked up for SLI atm):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580b.zip

I'm an '80s guy though, so I like it. 😀


rooy, do you have any pics of your XPredator setup?

Ian.

 
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No prob! As it happens they're already there. I bundled them into zips so as to avoid
oodles of links in one post. 😀 Here are the direct JPG URLs:

For the ASUS Striker II Extreme (btw, the PSU is a 1475W, ready to handle whatever I throw
at the setup re 3-way SLI, hehe):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/asus_s2e_box.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/asus_s2e_with_H80_1.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/asus_s2e_with_H80_2.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/asus_s2e_with_H80_3.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/asus_s2e_with_H80_4.jpg


For the 3930K/quad-580 system:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_07.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_08.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_09.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_10.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_11.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_12.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_13.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/3930K_quad580_14.jpg


Forgot to mention, I also obtained an XFX NForce 790i Ultra SLI, boxed/complete, etc.
for a very low price. In theory the same chipset as the S2E, though in practice I don't
expect it to perform as well. Assuming it does though, this means I can reduce the CPU
swapping, eg. use the S2E to test the upper-end CPUs (E8400, Q6600, QX9650), use
the XFX for the others (P4/HT-550, PentiumD 945).

Ian.


 
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@ Ian, until I saw the 3930K setup I thought you had something against cases! :)

So what overclocks have you achieved with the Striker II Extreme?

I got a lot of good information from Anandtechs review of the Striker II Extreme, probably one of the best motherboard reviews ever, especially covering the BIOS!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2500/14

Regarding the Striker II Extreme motherboard I see in your pictures you are not using the Northbridge water block, I just wanted to share with you that I was completely air cooling at the time so I removed the actual water block, and replaced it with an aluminum heat sink that I thermally adhesive mounted in place of the water block.

I scavenged the aluminum heat sink from an older motherboard, and the tall aluminum finned heat sink actually cooled the Northbridge better than the water block did, as a friend of mine running water cooling discovered, after I gave the motherboard to him.

Keeping that Northbridge cool when overclocking is very important.

 
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4Ryan6 writes:
> Ian, until I saw the 3930K setup I thought you had something against cases! :)

😀

I have so many benching setups, they have to be open-air or storage would be
impossible. Most of them sit on the same shelves as my hifi stack and VHS archive
(14 boards in this pic, all with TRUE coolers):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/loungeJul2014a.jpg

but another 7 mbd setups are on other shelves elsewhere. One more setup is in a
case - Asrock P55 Deluxe/875K in a Xigmatek Asgard, H100-cooled.


Btw, this is my home-made, reconfigurable GPU storage shelf (about 20 cards are
not visible as they're on boards about the place):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/gpushelves15.jpg

And here's what I've been doing this week, testing my first 7970/GHz card (note the
huge MSI 3GB 580 to the right, next to a couple of normal 580s; my 3930K system
has four of those MSIs):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/loungeJul2014b.jpg

I've added the 7970 results to my site.


> So what overclocks have you achieved with the Striker II Extreme?

None yet, still doing stock speed tests with the P4/HT-550, plus I was indeed not
entirely sure whether to proceed with only the original waterblock installed, as your
comment affirms.


> I got a lot of good information from Anandtechs review of the Striker II Extreme,
> probably one of the best motherboard reviews ever, especially covering the BIOS!

I read that one several times. 😀

One thing I've been wondering about is how fitting the board with the max 8GB will affect
what it can do, or indeed if it can use 4GB DIMMs at all.


> and replaced it with an aluminum heat sink that I thermally adhesive mounted in place of the water block.

This is something I need to investigate further, see what others have done, options
available, etc. I have some aftermarket chipset heatsinks, not sure if any are
applicable though (various Thermalright units).


> Keeping that Northbridge cool when overclocking is very important.

Definitely! Not had time to look into this much yet though.


> @ rooy
> Sorry for the thread hijacking, I hope something that has been shared here has helped you.

Where is he? 😀 I'd really like to know how he fitted an H100i into this XPredator case...

Ian.

 
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