Beginner watercooling - some questions!

hamfactorial · Post by **hamfactorial** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:44 am

I have done quite a bit of research over the past few weeks in preparation for an upcoming system upgrade. I plan on watercooling an AMD64 3000 and an ATI Radeon 9700 PRO, running on some nforce4 motherboard.

I will be watercooling for silence, and not to overclock. With that in mind, the Eheim 1048 water pump will be used, along with a waterblock on my CPU and VGA. A chevette heatercore will be used, along with a shroud and fan combination (I'm getting the Pro-120 from D-Tek since I don't have access to equipment to sweat my own barbs onto the core). The tubing will be 3/8" ID of some yet undetermined brand.

What exactly are the best low-flow waterblocks to use? While the pump can crank out a pretty decent amount of flow (twice that of the Reserator), a high head loss impingement design waterblock will just deaden my flow capacity, as well as not be nearly as efficient, given my choice of pump. A nice low-flow VGA waterblock would be nice too, since I won't be overclocking my video card either, and it runs pretty cool with the small fan it has on there right now.

In terms of future upgradability, I would like to fashion some HDD waterblocks myself (I am an engineering student with access to metalworking tools at school). In that case, I will simply add a separate loop with a second Eheim 1048 pump and heatercore, since I will be cooling 4 HDDs, and all of that piggybacked onto a single pump would likely result in too much restriction (though I am open to suggestions, if in-lining two pumps would perform better or be easier to maintain).

Also, a suggestion about which fans to mount on my heatercore shroud would be helpful. It will accept a 120mm fan. Rigging up a 7V fan would be easy as well, and no problem. With the total lack of any air cooling that this watercooling setup would take, I am sure I will need a case fan. I can mount 2 80mm fans in my existing case, and will likely be able to mount them when I get a new case later on. Any suggestions for those?

Remember, I have no hangup for small cost issues, and silence (or as close to possible) is important to me. A few degrees difference on my chips will not bother me so long as my CPU doesn't get over 45C, and my RAM doesn't explode.

Thank you in advance for your help!

pdf27 · Post by **pdf27** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:08 am

First of all, Welcome to SPCR!

Right, with that out of the way, on to the waterblocks.
Firstly, the CPU block. For low flow/pressure drop IMHO there's only one choice, the Swiftech 6000 series. You can find CPU block performance data here, if that helps.
For the GPU block, there isn't much (if any) test data out there. I'd go for the Danger-Den Maze 4 Acetal personally (lighter than the brass topped one, and mixing copper and aluminium is a bad idea).

polonator · Post by **polonator** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 8:25 am

I ran across some "cold plates" that might interest you at http://www.mcmaster.com. Just search for "cold plate". They look like they might work well for a hard drive cooler.

The Swiftech is a very popular choice and highly recommended by a lot of people. I have heard of problems finding one in stock though.

hamfactorial · Post by **hamfactorial** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 8:35 am

The 6000/6002 were somewhat difficult to find, but it turns out that Swiftech's online store at www.swiftnets.com had the 6002 for amd64s in stock. $45 wasn't too bad either.

The cold plate idea was especially helpful. I didn't know those were made, but I'm sure glad you pointed them out. The fairly large size of the cold plate makes me think I could probably put two hard drives on either side of the plate and cool them both.

Does most of a hard drive's heat concentrate on the top plate above the platters or on the sides where they contact the case?

eander315 · Post by **eander315** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 6:09 am

CrazyPC.com has most of the Swiftech blocks for a decent price, and you can get the Maze 4 directly from DangerDen or from Sharka, among other places.

If you're looking to bring your PC to near silence, you may want to look into the various methods of silencing the hard drive. Most of them don't invlove water cooling it, and all can be found on this site. Personally, I found that the Western Digital drive I was previously using was amazingly loud once I had the rest of the water cooling gear in place. I eventually switched to a Seagate which I sandwiched between two pieces of aluminum and placed on a soft piece of foam on the bottom of the case. Water cooling the drive is an option, but it seems to me that it would add a lot of trouble for very little return, especially where noise is conerned.

In my experience, it seems more drive heat is concentrated in the sides of the drive than the top. Having said that, I believe that as long as you cool either the sides or the top through contact with a large chunk of metal and/or some airflow, you'll be fine. It's only when a drive is suspended without any contact with metal and no airflow that you'll run into possible drive longevity problems.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:05 am

you need to recheck your system components first. A nForce 4 is a PCIe motherboard but the 9700pro is an agp video card. As for watercooling, that system is a pretty low power system so watercooling is not entirely necessary. My watercooled pc is my loudest one by far and it makes it difficult to make changes in the future. I want to change my tiny passive northbridge cooler but because the system is watercooled it is a difficult process because i have to take the whole thing appart. Air cooling can generally be quieter. but i am like you and like to tinker so you may have lots of fun making your own waterblocks. As for your total waterflow...your system is low power so there is really no need for two pumps even if they are low flow

hamfactorial · Post by **hamfactorial** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:18 pm

You were absolutely right about the PCIe / AGP discrepancy. I noticed that before I placed my order and changed to a VIA KT800 chipset with AGP. My original intention for the hard drives was to wrap them in all kinds of sound-deadening foam and rubber, and then place them in a sealed enclosure (homemade), hence the need for cooling. My case, the Antec Sonata, is difficult to suspend hard drives from without some Dremel work (another tool I don't have access to).

Thank you for the links by the way, I'd rather not have to buy all the parts from different places but it looks unavoidable at this point =].