Nearly Silent System - Better with WC?

The alternative to direct air cooling

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flemeister
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Post by flemeister » Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:08 am

mikegray wrote:Hm. Which card did you buy, exactly? The confusion about different layouts on Radeons has me a little worried here.
This one
mikegray wrote:Oh - and I just remembered: do you lose your other PCI-e slot?
Yeah, you do lose it to the heatsink.

ascl
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Post by ascl » Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:16 am

mikegray wrote:You know, one thing kind of sticks with me: on the system I described at the beginning of this thread I'm definitely going to stick with AC on the CPU. But I'm going to keep considering a relatively simply WC solution on the 5770 - maybe a 2x120.

I'll need to see how that fits my case, though. (Silverstone Fortress ft02)

This thread has got very off topic! Please don't think I am suggesting you WC for your system, its not appropriate from what I know about it (ie its fairly low power).


MikeC is definitely correct about your system :)

Monkey Puzzle
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Post by Monkey Puzzle » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:38 am

MikeC: Has spcr ever done testing of the noise of watercooling pumps - would be very interesting to see how much noise a ddc 10w in a simple loop without any fans makes for comparison with a good quality fan.

~El~Jefe~
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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Fri Jul 02, 2010 11:39 am

Eheim 300 if you use a proper water additive *water wetter* you will not here the pump on unless you put your ear to the resevoir. Not near it, to it.

just dont use plexiglass in the system.

Tenoq
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Post by Tenoq » Sun Jul 04, 2010 11:29 pm

Olle P wrote:
Tenoq wrote:The limitations of WC are ... space. I stopped using water for the last reason more than anything else, because I wanted a much smaller case.
Now there's a matter of definition.
When it comes to space WC adds (compared to heatpipes) the volume of a pump, some tubing and (usually) a reservoir.
While heatpipe cooling requires the heatsink to be near the heat source, WC provides the flexibility to have the radiator(s) (and pump and reservoir) mounted wherever you have the space available.
If the computer case is very small with no room for a decent heatsink, there's no problem having most of the WC system outside the case rather than inside it.

I do admit though that there is a middle way where regular heatpipe cooling can be used efficiently and use less space than WC.

Cheers
Olle
True, if you don't move your case though watercooling will ALWAYS win, because you can put the noisy parts in a completely different room!

Generally though watercooling requires more careful planning and more space - I get that it means you CAN move the heat away from the hot areas in a space-efficient manner, but for an all-inclusive system you'll still need more space inside the case overall. For me personally there was no way to fit a 120.3 radiator inside an mATX case!

Tenoq
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Post by Tenoq » Sun Jul 04, 2010 11:30 pm

Monkey Puzzle wrote:MikeC: Has spcr ever done testing of the noise of watercooling pumps - would be very interesting to see how much noise a ddc 10w in a simple loop without any fans makes for comparison with a good quality fan.
YMMV, but I found the noise the 10w DDC too loud. It could be heard over four 120mm S-Flex E fans @ 5V. Some people claim they are silent though??? :?

ascl
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Post by ascl » Mon Jul 05, 2010 1:39 am

Pumps tend to be very sensitive to how they are mounted. If its not completely de-coupled from the case, it will be very noisy.


Also, people, especially people on overclocking forums (which are the most popular WC forums), call all sorts of crazy things quiet or silent... I've heard people say 2000 rpm fans are quiet...! That said, the 10w DDC is supposed to be quiet, so I would guess it was rattling the case.... or you have a very quiet room. In my set up I cannot hear the pump (D5), but my system is not silent (it is quiet, more or less).

Tenoq
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Post by Tenoq » Mon Jul 05, 2010 5:24 pm

ascl wrote:Pumps tend to be very sensitive to how they are mounted. If its not completely de-coupled from the case, it will be very noisy.


Also, people, especially people on overclocking forums (which are the most popular WC forums), call all sorts of crazy things quiet or silent... I've heard people say 2000 rpm fans are quiet...! That said, the 10w DDC is supposed to be quiet, so I would guess it was rattling the case.... or you have a very quiet room. In my set up I cannot hear the pump (D5), but my system is not silent (it is quiet, more or less).
No, my pump was de-coupled - it was just hanging off the tubing. The noise was not vibration of any kind, because it made the same noise outside the case resting in my hand. It is just the pump motor whine that I can hear!

And yes, it is a very quiet room. Perhaps there ARE completely inaudible versions of these pumps, but the one I have is definitely not one of them. Perhaps my hearing is just particularly sensitive to it. :(

ascl
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Post by ascl » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:13 am

This is the problem with talking about noise... everyone has a different idea of what is quiet. I generally can't hear my system, but I wont claim its silent! I live inner city, and have a pretty high ambient noise.

That said, I do believe its possible to find very quiet pumps, but have no experience with the DDC. Makes we wonder wtf people are talking about when they have 2 of the 18w DDCs and claim not to be able to hear them...!

Tenoq
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Post by Tenoq » Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:29 pm

ascl wrote:That said, I do believe its possible to find very quiet pumps, but have no experience with the DDC. Makes we wonder wtf people are talking about when they have 2 of the 18w DDCs and claim not to be able to hear them...!
I've heard if you dip them in concrete they're silent. :lol: :lol:

mattlach
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Post by mattlach » Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:24 pm

On the quiet front with watercooling one of the huge benefits is that you can move the noisy offenders out of earshot.

if I had more space I'd just get a 60 gallon rain barrel as a reservoir, a submersible pump and a couple of big honking old cast iron radiators at ~60EDR each.

according to my calculations this setup out to be able to keep a system at load dissipating 1000W with a coolant temp of below 40C, and as long as you put the pump and reservoir out of earshot it would be PERFECTLY silent...

ascl
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Post by ascl » Wed Aug 11, 2010 1:00 pm

I wish I had the room for this... living in an apartment would make it tricky! :)

Redzo
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Post by Redzo » Thu Aug 12, 2010 4:49 pm

ascl wrote:I wish I had the room for this... living in an apartment would make it tricky! :)
then rent another one next to your current and place the gear in it (except for screen and keyboard). Not cheap but silent :lol:

fumino
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Post by fumino » Fri Aug 13, 2010 12:39 am

just felt like pointing out two products.

first: Watercool Silentstar DDC-PROBOX a foam dampened box for a ddc pump, think silent drive
second: Watercool MO-RA3 a 360 x 360 "monster radiator"

on bit-tech there was a build with 2 ddc's and the old mo-ra 2 cooling an overclocked i7-920 and 4 gtx 295's. drop the thermal load and you can drop the fans needed (9 low speed yate loons)

a 2way sli setup and an i7-860 might even run fanless...
...of course watercooling is an order of magnitude more expensive than air cooling; but if you've got the money for a high end gaming rig, then you have the money for water cooling... or you have budgeting issues.


i saw another person who setup their pumps and mo-ra outside, and just ran tubing in to his room.

ascl
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Post by ascl » Fri Aug 13, 2010 1:59 am

The MoRa2 was very constrictive unfortunately, which made for a pretty low flow loop. I am not sure if they MoRa3 has fixed this or not... but certainly large surface area radiators are very nice!

Personally I run a 140x3, 120x3 and 120x2 in a separate rad box with slow running fans... makes for awesome amounts of cooling and very low noise :)

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