Cheapest WC Set up for less than $200? Me haz it :D

[Shadow703793]

MY recommendations for a sub $200 water cooling set up.


Ok,
First off let me make it clear that I am assuming a bit of modding skill from the end user who will be building a loop like this.
Second, the pump will need a bit of work to be fitted and will not be the best pump and therefor, performance will NOT be like a D5.
Third, I was looking for the cheapest loop that can be built with out using ridiculously low quality parts (ie. not using "used" stuff )
Fourth, this loop is meant to be upgraded when the builder has more money (esp. the pump)
Fifth, a loop like this is not for everyone.
Sixth, cooling assumptions are based on a i7 or similar system.


CPU Block:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835108110

Swiftech GTZ. This is a high end water block and the top of the line block from Swiftech. It's more expensive than anything else in the loop, but this block will be used by a user for a few generations of CPUs.
$60

Pump:
This usually is one of the most costlier parts in a loop. A decent pump that can provide good flow will work quite decently. Based on personal use for projects, this works well. I would say this is similer to or a bit better than a MCP355 (when it comes to flow rate). Actual flow rate for this is ~250GPM or so NOT 500+ GPM:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Via-Aqua-306-Aquarium-Fountain-Pump-0-526-gph_W0QQitemZ270433689216QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3ef71a9e80&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
$20-25
Also, note that this is an AC pump, so you can't just plug it in to your PSU. You will also need to get a relay to turn off/on pump with the PC. ( http://www.dangerden.com/store/pump-relay-switch-kit.html
$18)
Total for pump + relay: $38, which is ~ ½ the price of a MCP355 or a MCP655 (aka D5).
More specs for pump: http://americanaquariumproducts.com/ViaAqua306.html

Res:
You have to be creative here. Use any thing that can hold water . Price $10-20 or Free. (I find that any large sized plastic object works as long as it's leak proof)

Rad:
Review of a heatercore: http://martinsliquidlab.i4memory.com/Bonnie-Heatercore-Review.html
Note: Shroud will improve performance but that's about $15 more. Instead you can find a way to mount the fans ~1/2" away from the heater core. Use your imagination.
2nd most important part in a loop imo. A heater core can be picked up for $34 here: http://www.dangerden.com/store/double-heater-core-with-fittings.html
(Make sure you get the correct fittings selected when ordering)
Fans for a heatercore should be highflow fans for best performance.
2x Scythe Slipstream fans work well
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185060
($9 each)
Total for rad + fans : $52.

Tubing:
I prefer Tygon for water cooling due to the flexibility.
http://www.petrastechshop.com/1id3odtyr.html
Total (for 4ft): $16

Total for everything: 60 + 38 + 10 + 52 + 16 = $176
Price comes close to the usual “water cooling kits” sold by TT,etc. This will perform better than most of those kits hands down and has better quality (better block, good rad/fans, pretty decent pump). Shop around, and you might find these things cheaper.

Word of advice: DO NOT buy used pumps,etc from Ebay as you do not know what's happened to those pumps. Blocks are OK I guess. But it's still a risk imo.

 

[Conumdrum]

I like this! Good post Shadow!
Lets talk about it's ability to cool. Is it better than a good MCR 220? Then you add $10 and still under $200.

The pump is enuff for this loop.

It's a winner, but a much easier rad to work with should be considered.

I still like it.

 

[rubix_1011]

Heater cores work great with a little DIY. You can use about any fans with them because they are lower density fins (most of the time) and they have a lot more copper/bronze in them making heat transfer better. They are ugly, though and require some work to get them to fit in most applications. IF you want to look past that for price/performance and set up your fittings, fans, mounting...etc...they work great and almost always offer very low flow restriction.

 

[Shadow703793]

I like this! Good post Shadow!
Lets talk about it's ability to cool. Is it better than a good MCR 220? Then you add $10 and still under $200.

The pump is enuff for this loop.

It's a winner, but a much easier rad to work with should be considered.

I still like it.

I'll take a closer look to the rad and get back to you on that.

 

[Shadow703793]

Ok, looked at the rads, and if one doesn't want to mod sure the good o'l 220 will be fine. If one plans to mount like lat say... a small mini 9" desk fan (some thing my friend has done lol) heater core will be better.

 

[overshocked]

nice post shadow!

 

[Shadow703793]

Pics!

Same pump, random rad, my own CPU block* Didn't have any spare 120mm fans so had to use 2x80mm. Using some cheap Acrylic tubing I had lying around.

Sorry for the mess

Bonus points for who ever can guess what I used for the res :lol:
I took over my sis bath room, since she's at summer camp :lol:

*Will provide update on that in a few weeks.

 

[rubix_1011]

Giant canister of peanut butter filled pretzels?

I have a oil cooler like the one you have, but its got a lot more passes. I had 4x 120's on it and it still had room left. 1/2" tubing fits right over the top...interested?

 

[overshocked]

Deleted

 

[Conumdrum]

Pretzels!

 

[Shadow703793]

Giant canister of peanut butter filled pretzels?

Nope. It's a can of Chease Balls. Going to fit it on my test bed today

 

[MU_Engineer]

Giant canister of peanut butter filled pretzels?

I have a oil cooler like the one you have, but its got a lot more passes. I had 4x 120's on it and it still had room left. 1/2" tubing fits right over the top...interested?
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll98/gcarver2006/IMG_2983.jpg

What kind of a pump do you have that has enough head to handle that multi-pass oil cooler? I'm just curious as I don't know a whole lot about the finer points of water cooling and have just started to read up a bit on it. I'm wanting to learn more about water cooling as I am most likely going to water cool my next build (see my sig) because I want it to be quiet and also because of the lack of good air coolers for dual-socket machines. I want to more or less have a decent clue about it before I go ahead and build it. I don't exactly want to have one of those "teachable moments" that leads to a grand or more worth of parts letting the magic smoke out.

 

[Shadow703793]

^Long time no see man. The clasic cut'n paste:

I'll just snip the whole thing, I just redid parts of it.

Us guys have done the WC thing, there are basics you gotta know. Take a look, don't take it as a diss on you or a rebuttal, look at as a friend saying "Dude, you gotta know what to say and how to communicate".
.......................................
CPU HS $65
GPU HS and air HS for vram and mosfets $95, full cover block, $100-$200
Radiator $60 min, up to $130
Pump $50 +
Resiviour $25
Hose, some barbs and clamps etc (min $25, more like $35)
Fans $15-30

I went top notch and spent close to $600 to cool my CPU and GPU.
First you gotta learn about WC. It's not like walking into Best Buy.
Spend a while (weeks is best for your sanity) at these links.
Look at the hundreds of loops close to your case and components in the stickies, read a couple 50 or so threads over the next week or so, you'll be on the ball to make the right choices and by then know how to put it together.
Not 'Roket Sience', but basic knowledge is required.
And you should spend a few hours on the listed sites reading threads. It's how we learn. Once the goodies show up on your doorstep your on your own.
For your benefit please spend a few days reading a LOT. At the busiest places for WC masters. Guys who have done it for YEARS at OC Forums and xtreme forums. It took me a while (I was OCing on air, aftermarket stuff, bios settings, best chipsets etc etc) to learn the language and the tricks to a easy install.

Don't expect miracles or SUPER DOOPER over clocks. What you will get is a quiet system that can handle OC to the max of your hardware IF you buy quality and buy smart. And minor maintenance too, a bonus for the water cooler.

Also while there please read on case mods etc. The radiators are not for small cases, pumps and hose routing, wire management and other things are important. Google your planned case and the word water-cooled in one line. You might get lucky.
............................
Edit: The next paragraph was from 2008. With the advent of the HOT i7 and bigger GPU's, it has changed. A 220 size MIN rad for an i7, you want big overclocks, better go 320 sized rad.
................................

IF you just cool your CPU and your NB if you want, you can get by with a 120.2 sized radiator (RAD). And MAYBE fit in inside depending on your mod skillz. You want to cool your GPU too, you'll need a 120.3 sized rad, and it probably won't fit inside. The rear external rad really works great. No matter what your adding 10lbs to your PC.

Once you got an idea of what is good/bad then start getting your system for WC put together and we'll be glad to help.
,…………………………………………………………
Here is the poop on solid info on air/water temps. The link is to an MCR320.
http://martin.skinneelabs.com/Swifte...20-Review.html
Scroll half way down and you can see the in/out air diff on the chart. It depends, like I said on fannage what the out air temp vs. the in temp is.

You can also see the water in/out is very close in temps. No more than 1.5 C. Amazing eh? I thought so too once I deciphered the charts.

So if you put a second rad with good airflow, you still get good results. Fannage needs to be higher to compensate for the increased air restriction. Meaning double fans on the rad setup, but it's a viable solution.

Equilibrium (tough word) means with a set heat load (idle/load) after an amount of time temps in a WC loop will stabilize. The heat load is the same, ambient air is the same, fannage is the same, pumps are the same, size of rads are the same, temps will stabilize for those conditions. Any of these parameters change, it has to stabilize. …………………………………………………………
Cleaning a loop, not a new loop: I do this once a year, I drain and refill at 6 months, the next time I do this……..
Wash hands very well, getting rid of hand oils.
For pumps and blocks, fittings, clamps, acrylic res/block parts.... not hose, tear it to smallest pieces, put in a bowl, heat water up not to boiling add 10% vinegar, when hot, pour over parts. Rinse in 10 min or so. Put aside.
The bocks will probably have some black oxidation. Take the copper parts out of the pile of parts you took out of the water. Dry well and pour ketchup on them, and set aside. Only the copper parts need this.
Rad cleaning: fill with very almost boiling hot water. Let sit 10 minutes, drain half out and shake for 5 min. Repeat till liquid is clean.
All the pump, block, fittings, and clamps, inspect, get in the tiniest corners with a tooth brush. Kind of meditative, time consuming, you learn a lot about o-ring size, how it all feels. Run a rag using a caat hanger and dish soap through the tubing, rinse well.
Rinse all the parts and hose with distilled, dry then really dry with an air compressor (nice extra step to get rid of water spots). Don’t need to dry the inside of the hose.
Now on to the copper parts, they should have been soaking an hour or two. A toothbrush and ketchup should clean much of the oxidation. It probably won’t be like new, but pretty darn good. Rinse, dry, and blow the parts.
That’s it.
………………………………………………………
Benching software and such is very varied. I use these for each purpose:
These are pretty standard and used by many.
Monitoring the PC temps overall: HWmonitor aka hardware monitor
CPUZ for CPU info
GPUZ for GPU info
CPU only: RealTemp
GPU only: ATI Tool, I have a Nivida GTX280, so it works on Nvidia

Loading/benching tools:
CPU loaders: Prime95 and OCCT
GPU Loaders: ATI Tool and the best one is Furmark, nothing pushes the GPU harder right now.
Benching for overall graphics/gaming performance is 3DMark06
……………………………………………………………
Guides
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=282232 Pretty up to date info and buying guide
http://gilgameshreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75:hokiealumnus&catid=40verclocking-and-cooling&Itemid=86 Another good guide
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=312743 What to do once all the stuff is in the door

Forums
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/index.php? Not a noob site, but great stickies
http://www.ocforums.com/ My fav, good peeps, know their stuff, less hardcore
http://www.over-clock.com/ivb/inde [...] opic=20277 A GREAT Europe site
http://www.overclock.net/water-cooling/ Decent site

Tests on equipment, not reviews, truly scientific tests
http://translate.google.com/transl [...] n&ie=UTF-8 Info on rad testing
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=220593 More rad testing
http://skinneelabs.com/ Host for Martins lab and some newer tests
http://www.skinneelabs.com/MartinsLiquidLab/ Test results, very technical


Stores
http://www.dangerden.com/index.php [...] e&Itemid=1
http://www.petrastechshop.com/
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/
http://www.jab-tech.com/
http://www.performance-pcs.com

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252455-29-water-cooled-computer#t1801333


I see that you plan to do a 2P Opty, why? And ETA of 2011??? Are you waiting for those Ocot cores?

 

[Conumdrum]

Well.... The retail kit, meaning quality parts and not:
Thermaltake
Zalman
Koolance cooling unit (Koolance makes some good individual parts tho)
Corsair H50
etc

You need a good pump and waterblock as the foundation. The rad and res and even hose can be played with to keep costs down.

 

[MU_Engineer]

^Long time no see man. The clasic cut'n paste:

I see that you plan to do a 2P Opty, why? And ETA of 2011??? Are you waiting for those Ocot cores?

I intend to do a dual-socket Opteron build because the things that really tax my current system are massively multithreaded and take a long time to finish. Probably the ugliest thing my computer does is compile a lot of code as I run Gentoo Linux on my desktop. I have tried to "kick the habit" and switch to a binary-based distribution on my desktop but keep coming back to Gentoo as it often is the easiest way to do certain things. However, you have to do a lot of compiling to get it running and to keep it updated. For example, it is great to have a tweaked 64-bit copy of OpenOffice.org that slices through the 60 MB PowerPoint files that everybody sends me like a hot knife through butter, but it's not so great to wait for five hours for the thing to compile. Ditto for having a nice KDE4 desktop that doesn't have the multitude of bugs that plague KDE4 on every binary-based distribution I've used. KDE4 also takes forever to compile. The other two tasks that are the most taxing are managing disk images and video editing. I use Parallel Bzip2 to compress huge disk images down to a manageable size, but it takes forever on my dual-core system and still takes a long time on a quad-core that I had the pleasure of using once. Editing 1080-line HD video also smacks my computer around something fierce.

The ETA is 2011 as that's when I can afford to buy a new machine- I have to graduate first and earn a paycheck. I am starting to "get the itch" to build a new system since I have seen roadmaps that go out that far. I suppose I could get Xeons instead of Opterons, but my budget isn't ridiculously huge and lower-end Xeons usually are typically pretty crippled. The least-expensive and most-expensive Opteron in any given line generally only differ in clock speed. Just look at the current Nehalem-EP Xeons- the E5520 is the least-expensive one that has Turbo Mode, HyperThreading, can support more than crappy DDR3-800 RAM, and has the full 8 MB of L2 cache. The E5520s cost $380 each, while you can get two 2.4 GHz Shanghai Opterons for that price or one six-core Opteron 2427 for about $70 more than the E5520.

 

[rubix_1011]

I have the MCP655 Liang pump. It worked well, but with those oil coolers, the channels are round and you don't get as much surface area heat transfer from the coolant. It wasn't bad, but the flow was pretty decent once I yanked out a 2' piece of aluminum they had in there for some reason...laminar flow or something. (I am a system/network engineer, not a physics major). It actually did a decent job of cooling, but it really made a difference once I added the fans. I ran a box fan on high vs. passive and there was about 6C temp difference...so that was a big part of the problem. I still have that oil cooler in my garage, available if anyone wants it.