Just started water cooling, any opinons? what are your temps?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
L

Lavacon

Distinguished
Jan 17, 2008
244
0
18,680
Well, I did it. I finally moved to water cooling. I am taking baby steps mind you, but, I plan on expanding.

I picked up a Swifttech H2O 220 setup on Newegg for 129.99 this week and installed it into my Armor + Fulltower. The dual 120mm Radiator fits great in the bottom of the case.

I have started to do some mild OC'ing with the new setup. Using the basic auto OC w/ Asus Rampage formula board I am running a C2D E6600 a solid 3.5ghz. Not much of a jump, but it's a start. I am idling around 39c and staying under 50c under load. Is that decent?

I plan on expanding off this setup eventually. I was thinking of adding a 120mm size radiator from swittech with built in res and an extra pump possibly so that I may add a pair of 4870's or an 4870x2 to the loop and perhaps the north bridge. Any ideas on witch way to go with that? Should I start over with a all new water cooling setup instead of trying to expand the H2O 220...

I am open to any questions, comments, and flames :)
 
Well, you are starting out very carefully - which is wise of you. So many people rush into watercooling without doing the "time" to properly research the various aspects involved. Good starter kit to begin with. You'll find out, eventually, that Swiftech is a very reputable company that you can rely on - among a host of others.

 
Only comment I would make is to stress your system for a while to ensure that the temps wont raise up much ove time. The radiator is nice, but remember this, even without the radiator, the water is able to absorb more heat then the air that would be next to the stock cooler. The water can, however reach a point where it has absorbed as much energy as it can take and then the temps will rise quickly. So, make sure that your temps really are going to max out at 50 degress by stressing the system for a couple of hours. Sounds really bad, but if you think about it, it isn't much different then playing a demanding game for a couple of hours. Bet your high temp is different at the end of your stress out then at the begining.
 
I have watercooled for 5+ years. You did pick a relatively good starter kit, especially the fact that you can get some good additional blocks for your loop if/when you want. I am running my Q6600 @ 4ghz and don't hit any higher than about 47C at load. I played at a LAN a few weeks ago after I first hit that speed and that was the highest temp I peaked at all day. 9800gtx runs in the 45C range, which is definately better than what I have seen people post with stock cooling; 80C+.

Just remember, a big part of watercooling is often the custom and DIY factor involved. I have found that over time, I wanted radiators mounted differently, different blocks, etc. I am always curious to see pics of other rigs to see what they have done; many have gone the route of custom making components such as resevoirs and using different components for radiators. There is definately a pride factor involved with someone who wants to have a clean looking case and set up their water system to get great results.
 
I plan on turning off the AI OC on the board and manually tweaking the bios to get the best OC possible. The AI OC was just a temporary thing to see how well the Liquid did vs my Xigmatek cooler. I plan running it through the gauntlet until I get the highest stable overclock. It has run @3.5ghz for over 8 hours, so far so good.

Phreejak, I see you are using a push pull setup on your radiators. Does this offer a decent cooling gain? I am using Scythe Slipstream fans on my radiator pushing for over 125cfm when at max speed. I could add 2 more to the bottom of the radiator for a P/P setup if it offered a decent gain. It is something to try I suppose.

Note: I am/was using the Ai OC within the Bios, I would never Over Clock from within my OS.
 
Yes, I do get better results than a single fan solution when I am using "push-pull" I started out using that method when I used to use TEC cooling and kept it when I went back to straight watercooling.

rads.gif
 
That quite the setup.

So I ran my system tonight for 4 hours or so. My 3.5 was not stable at all this time and I turned off the OC for the night. I can't seem to get my cpu below room temp even @ stock settings tonight. My office is sitting around 35c and my cpu was 38c... hmmm maybe it's time to AC the office.
 
Well, watercooling isn't going to get your temps below ambient (environmental temp) - it will just get your temps closer to ambient than air cooling - provided you have the right equipment.

The only way to start getting BELOW ambient at this point is to progress to TEC cooling. Phase -change can also achieve this. On the whole, though, phase change isn't very practical as most ktis only cool the CPU and only the more expensive units are made for CPU/GPU combos. Phase change is also, woefully more expensive than watercooling or TEC cooling.
 
My current box is running a 6600 at 4.1 ghz stable and it settles in at 37° C after about 4 hours at load (ambient temp of 24° C) using a Swiftech Apogee water block. The machine idles ate 29. Also, I have a single 8800GTX on a DD VGA water block (with ramsinks), and it gets to 45° C at load. All this on a dual 120mm radiator with 2 fans in a push/pull config. And the beast is QUIET.
 
Sounds like I need to A/C my office :) It's upstairs so It's pretty warm up here. Ambient is 35c during the day... I think I am needing a little more cooling on my Northbridge, it was getting up around 65c when I was OC'd to 3.5ghz. I think it ran better the night before because it was around 22c up here @ 2am :)

Hounds, would you mind sharing some of your mobo settings on your OC? 4.1 is very nice. I was shooting for 3.8-4.0ghz after I have time to go through and tweak all of my mobo settings. I have my system in my profile if you need to know what I am running. Nothing fancy, but it works for now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom