Liquid Cooling, is it quiet?

[baddaddy]

I'm pondering liquid cooling for CPU and graphics card on a new PC, SOLELY for the purpose of eliminating fan noise. This will be and AMD X2/Nvidia 7900 PC used in for a Home ent. PC.

I know liquid cooling gets rid of the fans, but then does the liquid itself have to be fan cooled, or does the liquid cooling system heatsink have a fast enough thermal transfer rate in air to handle it?

Also, if you liquid cool the cpu and graphics board, do you still need any fans at all for mobo and hd?

 

[RichPLS]

Their are passive and active water cooled kits, and the passive ones usually can have a low speed 120mm fan or even a desk type standard fan blowing over them to increase efficiency.
Most 12v water pumps are very quiet to reasonably quiet, much more so than any fan cooling heat sinks.

 

[penguin_d]

Yes, there are passive liquid cooling products out there, the reserator comes to mind. However, with the hardware you are looking at I'm not sure if the heat transfer would be high enough.

As for fans in the case, YES, there should be at least 1 fan in your case (120mm silent fans work well) as there are many components on your motherboard, plus your HDDs and other components that rely on the airflow through the case for cooling. But there are silent case fans for this purpose.

 

[a_Jhawk]

just make shure you dont mess up and spill water over all you stuff. 😀

 

[penguin_d]

Yes...

Pre assemble and test all the plumbing OUTSIDE your box.. first.

Or you may end up with an ultra quiet paperweight.

 

[tchiwam]

I have ordered a Cape Cora 642 (black) and I will modify it so that the water is forced trough all the pipes, basically using "L" instead of "T". I will also use solid metal pipe between each element so that it matches the side door of the case while leaving 1cm air between the elements. The people in computer shop(www.coolputer.fi) said it could be good enough for a X2 4800+ and Nvidia 6800 if modified. They also said to me that it should be very silent with a Laing DDC-12 pump.

I also have a fanless Yesico 550W in a Tai-Chi Thermalake case. The nice thing here is that I can start the case fans only when really needed and it is controlled by the Power supply. The heat in the case really does go out and keeps the fanless power supply happy if I don't put papers on the top vents.

My plan is to put the Heatsink hinged to the back of the case so that I can leave as much air as possible when using it while being able to move it around easy. I know the total weight of this thing will be enormous.

If it is not enough I will order the silver Cape cora 642 and put it on the other side mixing the black and silver to match the front of the Tai-chi case. Something like 4 black + 2 silver on one side and 4 silver + 2 black one the other side. The look should be interesting when I get all the parts.

Already without the water cooling it is VERY quiet for the power in the box. You do have to change the studid 120mm fans that comes with the case, they have this annoying low frequency humming.


I hope this can give you some ideas.


PS: I hate any lights, and the leds they have on the fans are just making me sick.