Does Watercooling Suck?

[V8VENOM]

Not sure what your expectations are from water cooling -- if you're looking for overclocking potential you will need to add water cooling to a TEC setup to see some real benefits.

However, if you just want watercooling with some mild overclocking and still retain a relatively quiet system (nothing compared to a MacPro -- sorry had to get that dig in) then watercooling is very reliable and keeps the components at a very stable consistant temp.

But if you really want to take advantage of the water cooling, then get a TEC (Thermal Electric) setup and run you CPU (or other components) below freezing

It really doesn't cost that much more to go water + TEC and you can really see some impressive gains if your willing to do some prep work to the motherboard.

I run my X6800 at 3.9 Ghz with a TEC and my PC is very quiet system and I run it for hours and hours and hours of gaming/simulations without a hickup. It does tend to heat the room up so you'll want a cool room or well ventilated room.

As has been pointed out, there are huge variations in the quality of water cooling systems offered. I personally went for specific components that were well reviewed by folks here and elsewhere. You might want to check out http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/extremecooling1.html

There is new stuff coming out every day, some good, some not so good.

I'm a big fan of Swiftech as they have done me well, but I'm sure there are other brands that might be as good or better.

Rob.

 

[gondo]

I'll have to read up on TEC..I am a noob in that department. Thanks guys.

 

[aigomorla]

Heres some tease for you guys:

I just got a apogeeGTX today. I bowed it:

Now b4 you bow mount a block you should get a backplate:

And this is how hard you need to crank the block ontop of the CPU:

And all i have to say about this GTX, is WOW. But you need a LOT of flow.

Does that justify sucking? my load temps are a Tuniqs idling temp. ahahaha..

 

[clue69less]

I live right near the University of Michigan, but I doubt I could scavenge stuff from them, but anything is possible.

The scavenging of quality scientific cast-offs is an art form I perfected while in the university.

If I do that, would it be safe for me to take the ihs for lower temps, or does it not get freezing beyond belief like phase changes?

Chillers are like cars - performance varies widely. I've used chillers that run down in the -10 to -20C range. Best done in low humidity environs.

 

[gondo]

So basically a TEC is a super Peltier in layman's terms.

Peltier's have been used for years. They are even boxed with some water cooling kits now. Hmmmm.

I used to be into all this stuff back when I was an electronics/computer engineer. Now I'm an electrician and out of the hobby. I just do my usual updates to the system and that's it.

I remember once i had a waterblock attached to a fountain pump I bought at a hardware store. I had a bowl of water with antifreeze in the freezer of the mini bar fridge. I pumped freezing water through the block. Temps were around 0 idle and +10 load.

Then 1 day I looked and didn't see the green stuff running through the tubes...it looked stagnant. I touched the block and burnt my finger. The pump died.

I havn't done anything crazy since. Maybe I'll try out a TEC project

 

[V8VENOM]

Sounds like you needed a shutdown trigger connected to a temp and/or pressure guage -- you can get those too.

Most newer CPUs will have a thermal shutdown also.

Water & TEC isn't as bad as you might think for effort vs. rewards. Sure you can screw it up, but you can do that just installing a fan also -- if you don't figure how you want the air to flow, you can start a real collision of air with incorrect fan orientation.

But always do a dry run (with no components) on any water and/or TEC setup -- besides it's fun getting ones finger frozen to CPU block

Rob.

 

[honestjohn]

Top end water cooling costs to much $$$ , Its cheaper to buy a faster cpu
Just my thoughts , I believe in the "k-i-s" system !!!

K-i-s means "keep it simple"

 

[V8VENOM]

As far as I know, there is no faster "produciton" CPU than what I'm running X6800 @ 3.9Ghz.

I don't think folks who overclock with water & TEC are looking for cost effective ways to be as fast as a top of the line CPU -- many of us start with that CPU and extended well beyond it.

My overclocking with a TEC is pretty humble compared to what others have achieved @4.5 Ghz. It is very much about having a considerably faster CPU than the currently fastest CPU available on the market.

Are there games/apps that need this much processing power, hell yes! MS FSX comes to mind, H.264 video rendering, surround audio processing, and more.

Rob.

 

[stefx]

Do you know how the engines work on cars? There are two main forms (there are others, but these are the primary two), either a piston based engine or deasel based engines. A piston engine has in sets of two for powerful cars, pistons that burn the fuel into gases to push the piston and make the car work. What happens in the piston chamber is either a two phase or four phase system where basically gas is squirted into a piston and then a spark plub ignites the fuel. Only on very high powered engines do you see the four phase pistons where they draw air into the pistons, so oxygen is only sometimes needed for the ignition process, the other times there already is enough oxygen in the fuel from the start for oxidation to start combustion. Though all cars have vents on them at least in the front for front engine cars to cool down the radiator somewhat. Then on deasel cars, in an air tight chamber, the engine gets extremely hot and then the fuel combusts, there is never any phase where oxygen is drawn in and gets of the less phases they are more efficient (also less fuel is wasted in the ignition process, but that's besides the point), the oxygen is there before hand, perhaps drawn in at any earlier phase, but not during the ignition phase.

Tacos,

I respect your knowledge on computer hardware technology which is no doubt beyond mine, but I would respectfully ask you to refrain from getting into car engine technology in which your knowledge isn't sufficient to go to that depth. Most of what you wrote above is incorrect.

 

[aigomorla]

V8 your getting all the noobies stured up.

TEC should never be tried until you grasp water. TEC should never be aircooled like the crapstic monsoon coolers because minus a few here reading, you have no concept of what a TEC exactly is.

A tec is not a supercooler. It has no freon or evap gases running though it like a phase unit does. A tec is a small piece of ceramic plate?? that has electron channels inside it. These channels allow HEAT from one side moved to the top, which then allows the bottom side to be cold.

NOW all tec's regardless of voltage, can run a set amount of heat to the hotside. The more voltage you supply a TEC, the greater speed it will move that heat.

You need to cool a hotside of a TEC with water. There is no arguement on this subject, because if you carefully see all the crappy tec products out there, there not that much further then a tuniq tower at twice its price.

What most reviews fail to mention in comparision is, a Tuniq with 2 detlas, which make the same noise a monsoon, will perform on PAR. Hows that for wasting money.

So b4 V8 drives all the noobies here from going out to petras and picking up the MCW6500- T or on fleabay and building a TEC chilled on a heat pipe cooler, i recomend everyone to goto xtremesystems.org/forums, do a little newbie tec reading, and then see if its right for you.

Water knowledge is a definite must in TEC.

 

[clue69less]

So basically a TEC is a super Peltier in layman's terms.

Not sure why you put the "super" in there. A TEC uses the Peltier effect.

http://www.ferrotec.com/products/thermal/modules/?gclid=CN-X9qWCrYsCFQRDYQodgiZaPA

 

[clue69less]

TEC should never be aircooled like the crapstic monsoon coolers because minus a few here reading, you have no concept of what a TEC exactly is.

Considering the stuff you say below, that's hilarious.

A tec is a small piece of ceramic plate?? that has electron channels inside it. These channels allow HEAT from one side moved to the top, which then allows the bottom side to be cold.

That is not a very good intro to TECs. TECs are semiconductors, typically. Link. Wiki also has an inexpensive treatment of the Peltier effect.

NOW all tec's regardless of voltage, can run a set amount of heat to the hotside. The more voltage you supply a TEC, the greater speed it will move that heat.

It's just not that simple. The rate of heat removal from the hot side has a huge effect on TEC performance. Also, TECs do not have an unlimited voltage range so you can't just keep pumping up the volts to get more cooling.

Water knowledge is a definite must in TEC.

Some TEC knowledge is useful too.