Watercooling and Ocing

[Firelord-OCHW]

Everyone here that watercools can you persaude me to why I should watercool and also what the down sides are :)

Can i expect higher clocks with water compared to air??

Was considering the Wet And Chilly Chips kit

http://www.water-cooling.com/reviews/WACC/WholeKit.jpg

Seen a couple of rave reviews and their forums is also great wealth of info :)

Well can I be persauded??

(The kit costs ~£150 inc VAT in the UK where i live..)

Anything I should look for??

I would be a complete n00b!!!

[mrnuke]

I was in your position about 6 monthes ago, and now i have lots of h2o know how. First of all, i would make the water loop myself. All you would need is the tubing,a danner mag 3(or any other decent pump, the block(s) and a radiator. A good place to find good blocks and radiators is www.dtekcustoms.com they are some high performace radiators and some of the best blocks arround for not too bad of a price. If you need help putting this together, either pm me, or i know many people on this fourm wouldn't mind helping you either.

[Firelord-OCHW]

I was going for this kit mainly because the guy who does the kits lives bout 20mins down the road from me :D

Plus I transport my case too and from uni so mthe all in one res-pump makes sense to me :)

Was considering the Asetek kit as well :)

Both kits would allow me to add a GFx and NB block easily as well unlike say a Corsair :)

[water_cooler 20]

if u want a res that can go moble u might want to take a look at this one
http://dangerden.com/mall/Misc_Hardware/reservoirs.asp
2nd on the list

[Firelord-OCHW]

I have seen that Typhoon Bay res before great idea :)

I haven't seen the double bay though, thats great :) i've seen on the WACC (http://www.wetandchillychips.co.uk) site that you can easily convert PC60 to hold the res and rad, thats one of my reasons behind it :)

[CrashOv3r1De]

I am no water cooling guru but I do have some advice for you.

DO NOT BUY A KIT. IMHO kits s*ck. What it comes down to is that mainly all kits do not use premium parts and are overpriced. For the same amount of money or even for less you can build you own water cooling system which will give you anywhere from 5-10C lower temps. Here are some suggestions

white water waterblock
d-tek pro rad w/ 120mm fan (chevette heater core)
pump any of theme ehiem 1250/hydor l30 or if you want to spend more money you can get yourself a awesome via pump w/ 500GPH for like $80~120.
tubbing, t-fittings, any resovir, hose clamps
swiftech gpu cooler

some goods sites are
dtekcustoms.com
dangerden.com

also there is a site called coolintecnica or something like that i cant spell it so im sorry

[Firelord-OCHW]

Are there any uk watercoolers here??

Thanks for the advice bud :) btw what a buff bird as avatar!! Cor blimey you would ;) :smileysex

[Firelord-OCHW]

Review @ Viper Lair (http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/case_cool/other/water/wetchill/rev2/index.shtml) of the kit :)

[mrnuke]

those are such small fittings :( you need to go with at 1/2" for some good water cooling. like crash said, you will get 5-10C maybe even more from a DIY water loop. To make it moble, you don't need a res, all you need is a T fitting and bout 7" of tubing and a funnel to put the water in. Thats what i use, and i'm going to mount my pump and radiator inside my case. Right now its guts are hanging out, but i do get nice performace :)

[bigZ]

1/2" id is not 100% necessary, there are some good blocks coming out on the 3/8" id, such as the NexXxoS HP Socket A, which uses the jet style nozzle which you find on the cascade.

I personally think that 3/8" id looks nicer too, it's not as clumsy, I've managed fairly decent overclocks with my aquacomputer based setup.

At the moment I've got a Cuplex Evo 1.1 CPU block, Twinplex GPU block, Airplex Evo 240 Radiator with 2 120mm Papst 4412FGL's (28db at 12v, very quiet) an Eheim 1046 pump and an Aquatube res. I'm looking at adding the Twinplex NB block into the loop, and changing the Cuplex Evo 1.1 for a NexXxoS HP.

A great place to buy in the UK is www.wizarddesigns.co.uk (top notch guy), he's having a site overhaul at the moment, but he'll be interested in your enquiry no doubt. If you're after 1/2" id, I'd probably head off with dangerden, www.coolercases.co.uk is a good 1/2" id stockist in the UK. :)

Hope this helps

[STEvil]

It isnt the fittings that matter so much as whats inside the block anyways..

[b|gf|sh]

If your gonna get a kit (maybe best idea if you've not read up about watercooling ;) ) have a look about Over-Clock (http://store.over-clock.com/) and PCLincs (http://www.pclincs.co.uk/) for decent wc gear.
A DangerDen kit might be better as the components are a bit more upgradable for the future ;)

[drunkenmaster]

dangerden are very good, and if you check out www.dangerden.com even though its US based, its fairly cheap, i got an ath 64 maze 4 and the heavy ass gfx block, plus a couple £5 mounting sets for other block si have for £70 i think, cheaper than UK by 10 or so, though jsut got a £17 tax bill from fed ex, so similar overall price, but it was quick, and uk didn't have the ath 64 block yet. IE its a cheap place to buy all your gear in one place from, ,del is extremely good considering US base, the fed ex econo(what i used) took about 7 days total to come, inc there 3 day processing before sending. \o/

The wet and chilly guys, you mean the original maker is 20 mins away? or overclock.co.uk is 20 mins away, cos they are only place i've seen that sell it(round the corner from me too).

For ultimate cooling at the moment thats looking like either cascade, lrww or maybe the new rbx form dangerden when thats out. THen if buying most from UK, main choice is ehiem for pump 1250 is best bet overall (IMHO) i think most go for the slightly smaller one, errm, a thermochill rad seems to be the choice in the UK, can get the rad from pclincs. Errm, rest is kinda up to you, good idea to check pclincs site, dangerden, www.tekheads.co.uk (click on extreme cooling link top left).

I have to say though i want to try a cascade, i love dangerden gear, looks good, never had a problem and sooo many people have brought maze blocks throughout last 2 years that they feel very trustworthy when it comes to reliability.

PS, if you hadn't noticed, i agree with everyone in saying buy your own kit. A kit sounds easier, but you have to put everything together yourself still, cut the tubing, make sure it doesn't leak, test it, install it, thats all you gotta do with a self built kit. Reviews seem to try to highlight how easy it is to install everything, i don't agree at all, the only thing is not having to make a choice between diff gear and making sure it fits, to do that you choose everything with 3/8 or 1/2 fittings.

The only diff is the exos or hydrocool which need slightly less messing with, but overall they don't rate highly compared to a proper watercooling kit.

[drunkenmaster]

OPpps, i was supposed to persuade you, so far with 10-15 diff systems, i've never not been able to overclock further when i've switched to watercooling. Sometimes not tooooo much more, but most of the time a couple hundred mhz. Mainly as with watercooling upping voltage is much easier, when the heat really increases very high a normal heatsink will start to get overwhelmed, but a waterblock will barely register it.High heat loads are where waterblocks rule.

Then its fairly easy to set up a very very quite system, with the added benefit of removing a lotta of heat from directly heating up the case so case temps drop, then you can take out fans, turn them down to lower noise levels as not so much air flow is needed, tis all good \o/

[Firelord-OCHW]

Originally posted by drunkenmaster
OPpps, i was supposed to persuade you, so far with 10-15 diff systems, i've never not been able to overclock further when i've switched to watercooling. Sometimes not tooooo much more, but most of the time a couple hundred mhz. Mainly as with watercooling upping voltage is much easier, when the heat really increases very high a normal heatsink will start to get overwhelmed, but a waterblock will barely register it.High heat loads are where waterblocks rule.

Thats mainly why I want to go watercooling as I notice a 0.1v increase Vcore on water may go up 1~2c as an aircooler goes up by 8~10c!!!

The guy who makes the kits lives in boreham essex and I live in Brentwood essex so its like 20mins away with proverbial hits the fan :p

Could I get components for similar price to the WACC kit??

[naughty_guy]

i would say the biggest benefit of watercooling for me is to have a high overclock but maintaining a low noise environment.

[drunkenmaster]

well , best thing is too look at the sites i mentioned a have a look at prices.

You#'ll need tubing, maybe 15 feet (probo less but incase of mistakes or whatever),
waterblock,
radiator,
fan for rad,
damned, when i think of stuff i tend to forget one thing or another. Not sure if theres anything else off the top of my head, some tubing clips, thats about it, oh and pump. By general prices in the UK £40 ish for a waterblock, £50 for a rad, £35 for a pump, £15 for tubing, £2 for clips, either £7 for an evercool which is what i get (120mm evercools from overclock.co.uk ) or say £15-20 for a panaflo or something like that. So similar prices overall, but you should be able to get quite a bit more performance for your money, and should generally find it easier to fit in new parts in teh future, gfx, nb, or new cpu block. new rad's and so on.

[Craig]

I'm going to add to the string of people saying not to buy a kit.

Buy a good heater core and make a shroud for it yourself to mount the fans to and to save a few bucks. Shrouds are easy to make from both metal or plexi, and don't take a lot of tools or a high skill level, last it doesn't take a whole lot of time.

I'd suggest a stronger pump than most have indicated so far. I'm not sure about ease of finding the Swiftech 600 in Uk. but it's a very good, high head pump. For blocks I'd suggest the Cascade or WW for the CPU and the new Silverprop for the GPU. I wouldn't suggest more than those two blocks for a starting point. While the north bridge can indeed profit from watercooling, it will make line routing more cramped, and the NB cooled with a good air cooler like the Swiftech NB cooler will do about as well as it would on water. Also a third block in series starts getting pretty restrictive and lowers your flow rate to much.

I'd suggest good high pressure 120mm fan(s) for the rad of 100+cfm, and hook up the fan to a reo bus. You can get a really quiet system that way when you are not working the system very hard, yet still have maximum cooling when you need it under full load.

Best of luck.

[Firelord-OCHW]

Ok so as cheeky as this may be could someone list exactly what i'd need please :p: :toast:

I was thinking bay res from typhoon??

What pump etc would I need??

Could I mount the rad to an 80mm exhaust fan on a PC60 and use it in a push pull arrangement??

Cheers guys :)

[Firelord-OCHW]

Ok what would I need??

This is the part that makes me nervous as I haven't a scooby!!!

I was thinking of: -

CPU Waterblock: Maze 4
Radiator: Black ICE Xtreme
Reservoir: Danger Den
Water Pump: Eheim 1048 (240v AC Only)
Radiator Fan: Sunon 120mm Fan
Hose: 1/2" ID x 2 Metres
Hose Clips: 8x Plastic
Water Additives: Water Wetter & UV Dye

(This is a kit from Chill-Tek (http://www.chill-tek.com) and is £190inc VAT which I think i'd stretch to :) The only thing i'd change is possibly have the res as

http://www.chill-tek.com/products/images/reservoirs/quad-bay-reservoir.jpg

Typhoon Quad 5.25" Bay Reservoir

¼" Laser cut cast Acrylic material, water-tight seals and pressure-leak tested. All neccessary parts included for simple installation and filling. Centre divider to eliminate air bubbles from system.

This would make the system neater I think :) and make filling and emptying easier :) also i'd prefer a fixed res :)

[Ravage]

Hi Firelord.

I've got the Chill-Tek Maze 4 CPU/GFX Watercooling Kit (http://www.chill-tek.com/products/watercooling-kits.html) and am getting good temps on my Athlon XP 2400 and Radeon 9700 Pro. If you email or phone 'em they will swap bits in the kit for you. I asked for a Eheim 1048 instead of the 1250 (it's a bit smaller so better for my small case) and they adjusted the price for me.

[Firelord-OCHW]

What are they like to buy from??

I was considering this kit or the Over-Clock kit with similar specs :)

[Ravage]

I have only ever placed 3 orders with them so far but all have turned up on time and really well packed. What made me go with them was a friend that recommended Chill-Tek. The Chill-Tek kits are just all the Danger Den parts you need into one bundle - it's same as what the other stores do.

[Firelord-OCHW]

Ok I think I have made my mind up then :)

[Ravage]

Good, remember to post your pics and temps. I wanna see if you can beat mine....heheh. Glad to be of help mate.

[Firelord-OCHW]

I will do mate thanks :)

Haven't ordered yet but I have made my decisions and have even tidied my case in prep for it :D

http://nquick.port5.com/images/pc/prep_for_wc/insidecase_small.JPG

http://nquick.port5.com/images/pc/prep_for_wc/inside_up_small.JPG
Rad is going up here!!!

[Firelord-OCHW]

Should I get a Black Ice eXtreme or a ThermoChill 120.1??

I have heard the TC120.1 is the best one to go for :)