MAZE4-1GPU v MCW50-T

[gouda96]

Anyone have any idea how the MAZE4-1GPU compares to the MCW50-T? Both are similarly priced, and I am looking to get one. Seems like the mcw50-t is insulated better. Other than that I have no idea which would be better.

[saaya]

link to maze4 block?

[gouda96]

i just went to dangerden.com. You have to install insulation yoruself. I am just gonna get the mcw50-t.

[krag]

I have the MCW50-T and am gonna go with the Maze4-1gpu. THe swifty ain't doing such a great job on my 445/750 9800 Pro. My GPU idle temps W/mcw50-t are 33.5 (probe on back of gpu) and my load temps get up to 46c....that just sucks!!! I got a new rad coming a Black Ice Pro and I am gonna go with the Maze4-1gpu cause you can put a higher watt tec on it...I am gonna slap a 172w on it and power it with a Meanwell 320-12.

Question: The Meanwell has some good amps but it is only a 12v psu the 172w TEC is a 24v TEC but it is 40mmx40mm (fits the maze4-1). Will the 12v Meanwell power my 24v TEC? Will I get 172w of cooling power out of it?

[Colin]

krag there's something wrong with your setup...

With my 9800 Pro @ 535 MHz GPU my card runs load at only around 10 degrees and if I let the system idle it can go below freezing.

Are you sure the block is making good contact with the core? What rad/fans are you using? Did you get the Swiftech barbs to convert to 1/2" ID? How hot is the water?

[krag]

Originally posted by Colin
krag there's something wrong with your setup...

With my 9800 Pro @ 535 MHz GPU my card runs load at only around 10 degrees and if I let the system idle it can go below freezing.

Are you sure the block is making good contact with the core? What rad/fans are you using? Did you get the Swiftech barbs to convert to 1/2" ID? How hot is the water?

I think it's my weeny rad. It is actually the smallest water cooling rad i have ever seen it came with my water cooling kit...the 8500B Swiftech kit

Here is a shot of it, the fans (back & front) are 80mm so that should give you an idea of the overall size.
http://home.comcast.net/~krag81/MCR80-F_2x80mm_fans.jpg

It is a MCR80-F Swiftech copper core rad.

[krag]

My hose is 3/8 ID & 1/2 OD. I need the 1/2 OD for it to insert into my swifty block. My water temp is pretty hot to the touch...don't have a temp probe on it.

Colin...are your temps taken on the back of the GPU? That is..the top of the vid card? if I could get my gpu to 10c I would be happy. I will wait on the new TEC but I have the Meanwell & Black Ice Extreme on its way. Hopefully the new rad will give me better temps.

[Colin]

I learned how to watercool with the Swiftech H20-8500 myself. ;)

krag unfortunately that Black Ice Micro rad is total garbage... :( Do you have a CPU block hooked up as well? There's no way that thing can cool a TEC even by itself.

I'm using a BIX sandwiched between two Vantec Steath 120mm fans which cools just the Radeon 9800 Pro and the MCW50-T and the water gets very hot (above 40 degrees after a few hours, Prometeia for the CPU).

When it comes to TEC's flowrate and water temps are very important. If I were you, I'd get the 1/2" OD to 1/2" ID barbs as that will let you get more water to the MCW50-T block.

I took the temps from the back of the GPU just like you did. :) The new rad will definitely give you an improvement but make sure you get a lot of airflow through it.

[krag]

My new rad isn't the micro its the Black Ice extreme. I got a 172mm Rotron with a 12v molex I was gonna use as a case fan but...I might just use it for the Black Ice extreme and use a 120mm Vantec Stealth fan for the case instead. There isn't enough room for the Rotron & rad inside of the case. But if I put the rad inside & the Rotron outside (sucking air through rad) then it might work good. I have my cpu cooled with a Vapo PE and my GPU/TEC is the only thing on the water cooling loop. Whada ya think? Rotron for water cooling or a 120mm Vantec Stealth?

[]JR[]

Hmm dd moving into mixed metals, and casting aswell? Them blocks are surely ally tops, and look cast also.

]JR[

[Colin]

krag my appologies, I meant the Micro as your current rad.

I'm using two Vantec Stealth's myself and I find that they're a bit underpowered... I'd say go for the Rotron if you can focus most of its airflow through the radiator. Of course if you want to be neat then go with the Vantec Stealth's just don't expect too much as the fans are a bit weak.

[gouda96]

...holy bejeezus! I just noticed it was krag that was posting here.

Welcome to xtreme Krag!

I have seen you over at ocforums alot...they seem to be slipping a little...not seeing to many good responses there anymore...

I hope you stay are in xtreme, once i started coming here i didn't stop :D

[krag]

Originally posted by gouda96
...holy bejeezus! I just noticed it was krag that was posting here.

Welcome to xtreme Krag!

I have seen you over at ocforums alot...they seem to be slipping a little...not seeing to many good responses there anymore...

I hope you stay are in xtreme, once i started coming here i didn't stop :D

Thanks brudda!!!!:)
I kinda like the whole "extreme" idea. heh! Yeah ocforums is my home. But I like the extreme focus here. There are some very interesting topics here, V-mods for mobo's, gpu's & such. I am sure I can learn a lot from you guys. I have been doing a lot of lurking, maybe when I become more "extreme" I can contribute more.:2cents: :)

[gouda96]

that is how it started for me...sophmore year of hs my dad finally said he would let me build a comp...found ocforums. I benched my comp with 3dmkar obviously...that led me to xtreme due to the fact at the time i think they had like 1/2 the people on the first 2 pages :D. junior year I bought an ax7 and a tornado to do some "extreme" oc'ing...those first xp's were not too good at oc'ing...the only thing that was extreme about that oc was the "extremely" loud fan!!. Finally the natural progression towards college and higher education led me to a higher extreme...I immediately skipped regular wc'ing...I have all my stuff here for pelt cooling my 2.4c and hopefully a 2.6c that is coming, aswell as my gpu.

This is going to be quite a leap...from my first tbred 1.4ghz that i never oc'd to what I hope to be a 2.4c@3.7, and a 2.6c that should go even higher :D

Ocforums opened the door, and for that i will always be faithful, but when i have an xtreme question the only place i come is here...and [h], but some of them are just complete a$$'s, and their color scheme gives me a headache :D

anyway...i hope you stick around xtremesystems...of all the forums I frequent this is my favorite, and I frequent about 10 a day...

[cowpuppy]

You can fit a 40x40mm 172w in a swifty MCW50-T without any problems no need to run out and buy a dangerden just for that reason. You wont get much more performance out of the 172w pelt without running it at 24v you might as well keep the 80w pelt installed.
I agree w/the others spend your money on a better rad to cool your water temps to achive better temps on your gpu, It's not the swifty. unless the pelt went bad? Did you pull the pelt and check it? Is it wired up right? just pull the block off and run the pelt ad cooling system it should frost up in a matter of secounds if everthing is working corecttly in the pelt.

[krag]

well, I got my Black Ice Extreme up and running and I have been able to clock my 9800 Pro up to 470mhz from 445mhz before the new rad. I think I can get more out of it but the little nylon nuts are stripping out on the mcw50-t...I got some replacement parts but it didn't come with the nylon nuts...it came with some small allen head scews. I don't know how these are gonna work? Maybe they are intended to replace the other screws/nylon nuts and come up from the bottom of the block instead of the top? Anyone know about this? THe online Swiftech manual won't download for me. krag

[cowpuppy]

Krag: Just go to the hardware store and pick up some metal nuts the nylon nust strip easy. The replacement parts that you are discribing sound like the small allen heads that are used for the G-force line of cards, take a look at your instuctions that came with the swifty, I'm not sure thow I threw my instuctions away.

[krag]

Originally posted by cowpuppy
Krag: Just go to the hardware store and pick up some metal nuts the nylon nust strip easy. The replacement parts that you are discribing sound like the small allen heads that are used for the G-force line of cards, take a look at your instuctions that came with the swifty, I'm not sure thow I threw my instuctions away.

Yeah, I think thats what I am gonna do. I would like to get some bigger thumbscrew type...like whats on the Maze 4 GPU...those look perfect.

[krag]

Well, I got my thumb scews on it and a freash coat of AS ceramic. I twisted the thumb scews down pretty good it scrunched the little pressure spring down to almost to its limit. I can go a little further but I didnt' want to crack the core on my R350. My temps have improved a little idle is 16c and load is 29c. These temps are no where near Colin's:(

[cowpuppy]

Krag did you verifie that the pelt is working? by turning it on and the water without it mated up to the gpu? is it frosting up? You know if it gets wired backwords that the hot side would be agianst your gpu. Dont just asume swiftek installed the pelt right. If they put it in wrong then when you wire it up it would be backwords even if you think your wiring it up right.

Then agian pelts create extreme amounts of heat and you may just need more kooling (ice bucket) what is the act water temp?

pelts go bad too I had a 226w that went bad in a week. It wouldnt cool wired up black to ground. I wired it red to ground and it worked so i turned the pelt over and used it like this. Hot side became the cold side with wiring it backwords.

[krag]

Originally posted by cowpuppy
Krag did you verifie that the pelt is working? by turning it on and the water without it mated up to the gpu? is it frosting up? You know if it gets wired backwords that the hot side would be agianst your gpu. Dont just asume swiftek installed the pelt right. If they put it in wrong then when you wire it up it would be backwords even if you think your wiring it up right.

Then agian pelts create extreme amounts of heat and you may just need more kooling (ice bucket) what is the act water temp?

pelts go bad too I had a 226w that went bad in a week. It wouldnt cool wired up black to ground. I wired it red to ground and it worked so i turned the pelt over and used it like this. Hot side became the cold side with wiring it backwords.

No, I didnt' confirm it like you suggested earlier. I forgot.:rolleyes: I don't know the actual water temp yet...I don't have another thermal probe.

But my 3DMark 2003 score is 7027! (http://service.futuremark.com/servlet/Index?pageid=/orb/projectdetails&projectType=10&projectId=1269071)

[cowpuppy]

Hey thats a nice score you got there krag in 2k3 bumped me anyways this pos 5900U cant run with a 380.00 vid card and i need to make a bracket to mount my mcw50-t to it.

well verifie it when you get a chance if all is working proper than it will frost in a matter of seconds. If all is well than you need to work on your cooling.........rad, water pump, fans...........many extremests run thier pump in the bottom of a bucket filled 1/2 way with ice and water w/the rest............but then you will have to worrie about condensation on the hoses, waterblocks, MB

when you check the pelt take a look at how the contact was w/the gpu. should just be a light film (even) across the gpu with no highs or lows.

You can run the nuts till it cruches the springs without any worries just watch the warp in the card along the agp slot

oh and watch for condensation on the springs and nuts you may want to protect this area with some liquid electrical tape. actually the hole areafrom spring to spring and then cowverthe liquid electrical tape with the neoprem

[zippyc]

I believe they are on the right track regarding the heat of your water loop.

Two questions:

What pump are you using and in what configuraion do you have the system? (Pump > then? > then? > etc.)

I would specualte that either you do not have enough flow going by the GPU block to reach the same cooling efficiencies as Colins rig, or your radiator/fan assbly. is not doing as good of a job at cooling as Colins.

Even a small pelt like what you find on the MCW-50 will create more heat than most cpus (generally speaking), and the warmer the water is passing by the backside, the warmer your gpu will be (it is a near-liner relationship, your water temp goes up by 5 degrees, so does your gpu).

I'd reccomend you get a temp probe and see how wrm it really gets.

Hey Colin, what was your water temp when you noted your GPU temps? And what radiator and CFM fans are you using?

[ThommY]

Is there extra insulation requierd pelting my gf4 ti4600 with the MCW50-T? Kind of new to making pelt setups:)
Thx in advance!

[cowpuppy]

No the swiftek kit works really good the only thing I would ad for extra protection is some liquid electacal tape on the backside of the pcb board, directly where the gpu sitts and out past the springs. you could spread some on the pcb around the gpu socket as well on the front side as i did. You can never be to carfull :D

Just so you 2 know you can pick this stuff up at any hardware store for under 5.00

[cowpuppy]

Zippy how did you make your custom cooling for yor vid card mem? got any pic's? could you do the same for a fx 5900 ultra? I would like to do the v/mem mod to my card but Mickey say's they run really hot after the v/mod

[krag]

Originally posted by zippyc
I believe they are on the right track regarding the heat of your water loop.

Two questions:

What pump are you using and in what configuraion do you have the system? (Pump > then? > then? > etc.)

I would specualte that either you do not have enough flow going by the GPU block to reach the same cooling efficiencies as Colins rig, or your radiator/fan assbly. is not doing as good of a job at cooling as Colins.

Even a small pelt like what you find on the MCW-50 will create more heat than most cpus (generally speaking), and the warmer the water is passing by the backside, the warmer your gpu will be (it is a near-liner relationship, your water temp goes up by 5 degrees, so does your gpu).

I'd reccomend you get a temp probe and see how wrm it really gets.

Hey Colin, what was your water temp when you noted your GPU temps? And what radiator and CFM fans are you using?

My loop is as follows:
pump>block>rad>pump

My tubing is 3/8 ID and I have a black ice pro with 2 low noise 120mm fans on it. The fan that is sucking (on backside of case) is a Vantec Stealth and the fan that is pushing (inside of case) is a Antec low noise fan with a temp control diode. I wonder if I clip the diode off will my fan speed up? I'm sure it will but I don't know if I want the noise that goes with it?

If I bumpup the ID of my tubing then I will have to get a new pump, block, fill & bleed sytem. The swiftech fill & bleed sytem works very good.

[cowpuppy]

Krag: I just went and looked at DDen and seen the rad you are running this rad is way to small to cool a pelt to a reasonable temp. You need the Black Ice Xtreme II and that would be just for your vid card. If you were to ad anouther pelt say to your NB or cpu you would have to ad anouther pump and rad to each of them. You may want to try a heater core you can pick one up at a auto suply store for 20.00 and atach 2 120 fans to it.

You wont belive the amount of heat a pelt puts into your cooling system. here is a example on a cool day my chiller will cool the water temp to -10f with a closed loop system and a 80w pelt on my gpu (cpu/nb/gpu). I then added a 226w to my cpu and i couldnt get my water temp below 38f this resulted in a worse OC for the hole system as now my nb was running much hotter.

Go get a better rad

[zippyc]

First, it might make more sense to go pump>radiator>block, that way you can get the heat from both the pump and the block to accumulate before hitting the radiator for cooling (Higher delta T will give you more heat/better dissipation).

That might make a degree or two of difference.

Secondarily, if you have room on the surface area of the radiator to allow the two fans to sit side by side and then blow or suck, you could almost double the amount of airflow you are seeing now and still stay quiet.

Or turn them up as they are now for better airflow. That makes a HUGE difference in cooling efficiencies.

Are they just bolted on each side of the radiator, or is there a shroud? You got a pic?

And finally, did I miss the part about what pump you are using?

If it is a 300GPH or better pump with at least six feet of head, you’re ok there for one GPU block. If it is lower, you might consider a different pump.

And I personally think you are OK with 3/8 ID, although 1/2 is better, you are bottlenecking at the block anyway. You'd get a little less backpressure with the bigger hose, but changing the other items I mentioned will have a much more dramatic effect on your overall performance.

[zippyc]

On the memory coolers I simply cut and soldered together readymade brass '90's I found at a plumbing supply with a MAPP torch.

I cut them (a barrel off of every other one actually), taped then together to mock up the mounting positions and to figure out the orientation I needed, being careful to get the mating surfaces as close to a flat plane as possible. Then I made little copper sleeves to fit inside the barrel apertures, which held them together and gave the solder something to stick too as well. Used lots of flux and solder to fill all joined surfaces.

THEN I lapped 'em (after testing for leaks) making it a near-perfect flat plane formed between the flat sides of each 90. Worked and mated like a champ. It was part planning/part luck that the orientation worked out so well for the 9700.

I don't have a 5900 to physically look at, but from the pictures I've seen it would take an entirely different design to accommodate the memory chips on that card, which look like they are spherically oriented around the GPU, complicating matters quite a bit.

I did see where bowman made some effective (albeit Ghetto) memory coolers out of simple 1/4 or 1/2 in copper tubing with flat plates soldered to it where it mated with the memory. That design looks to be more feasible for this 5900 card IMHO.

You might get the 90's to work for you. You could pick up just a couple of brass elbows to use to measure with and see if the routing will work for your card....

[G H Z]

Originally posted by krag
well, I got my Black Ice Extreme up and running and I have been able to clock my 9800 Pro up to 470mhz from 445mhz before the new rad. I think I can get more out of it but the little nylon nuts are stripping out on the mcw50-t...I got some replacement parts but it didn't come with the nylon nuts...it came with some small allen head scews. I don't know how these are gonna work? Maybe they are intended to replace the other screws/nylon nuts and come up from the bottom of the block instead of the top? Anyone know about this? THe online Swiftech manual won't download for me. krag

Hey Krag, what were you able to do on the core prior to the Swifty TEC? I been thinkin of one of these for my 9500, and want some idea's how many mhz I stand to gain.

Thnx man,

G H Z

[krag]

Originally posted by G H Z
Hey Krag, what were you able to do on the core prior to the Swifty TEC? I been thinkin of one of these for my 9500, and want some idea's how many mhz I stand to gain.

Thnx man,

G H Z

My stock core oc was 420mhz...my pelt oc is 466mhz...thats a 46mhz gain on the core. I might get more if I fiddle around with my cooling loop and make it more efficient. If I don't use my vid card for anything like gaming then my idle temp is 15 c (it dropped 1c after tightening it all the way). But if I play a game it will go up to 28c max and when I stop and let my rig idle it will go as low as 20c and hover there for the rest of the day. This tells me that my loop isn't as efficient as it could be. i think I might clip the little temp diode off of the 120mm fan. But I don't want to restructure my tubing yet cause I have taken apart my rig about 4 times this last week due to new mobo (max 3) and new cpu (3.0c) and my rig is a Vapo PE so it kinda pain to take stuff out and put it back. So I will wait for a while for any major stuff. I got a smokin deal on a brand new Meanwell 320-12 PSU....HEH! how's $80 shipped sound? The guy has one more left and I bet I couyld get it for the same price too. I am thinking I might use the Meanwell for a 172w tec on my card later on....maybe when I get the R420 the first of next year.

[zippyc]

You said "I think I can get more out of it but the little nylon nuts are stripping out on the mcw50-t..."


You are absolutely correct, clamping pressures are essential for good cooling, and will have the greatest of all effect on your cooling perfirmance.

I use stainless steel hardware and lock washers, hand tightening then give 1/2 to 1 turn with a tiny pair of pliers. If the mouting seems firm, I'm done.


I use considerably more clamping force if I am mating peltiers themselves (I'm assuming the 50T has a cold plate so you use the lighter clamping pressures needed to mount it to the GPU itself, follow their mounting insructions and you should be fine.)


and...

I know Oppainter helped the crew over there develop the right pelt. clamping methods for the pelts in the 50T.

Final thought...use arctic ceramique....the greatest thing since sliced bread IMHO. ((Clean, best cooling, did I mention clean??? And the best cooling???)) ;-)

[Jabo]

I am a proud owner of Sapphire R9500 np soft modded to 9700np with drv improvements to allegedly lifting performance to 9800np levels (chap calling himself wizzard did this drv modding, for some reason his web site is gone now...).
I use swiffy's MCW50-T baby.
I am able to clock the core from stock 275 to the highest allowd by Rage3D tweak proggie of 375Mhz! (a tad above 5000 3DMark2k3 points).
I want to change 80watt module to 126 one in future and do volt modding to mem and gpu vcore.

Anyone ever did change tec modules on swiftech's units?

[Nohto]

Yes, I put a 172w tec in mine. It doesn't handle the heat put out by the tec. The waterblock is at it's limit. Don't recommend putting a larger tec in it.

[zippyc]

What voltage did you use for the 172?

And what is that particular tec's voltage limit?

Thanks.

[Nohto]

It is a 24v tec and I ran it a 24v first and then I found that it worked better at around 16v. I ended up using the cold plate off of the MCW50-T with the 172w tec and a Z-4 waterblock. The improvement was substantial, but I ran into condensation issues since I am running my coolant at -14c with a 500 GPH pump and I am using 1/2" lines and the Z-4 uses 1/2" Id fittings.

[zippyc]

Sounds like the z4 might be a way for me to start then. I can insulate, but do you have a pic of what you used to get clamping pressures between the two? I think I can order the cold plate seperately from swifty if need be, or that is perhaps something I can get used too...