Water Cooled Rig upgrade - advice sought...

[P5ym0n]

Hi all.
I've been a member here for a looong time but only posted very recently. So hello everyone, nice to actually start participating in this cool community :)

Anyway, I'm upgrading from the kit in my sig to a Coolmaster HAF X (when it's finally released here in the UK) case, a single GTX 480 (as opposed to the dual GTX 280's I currently have). I'd really like to go back to a single loop so my new pump choice is a Laing D5 / MCP655 Vario 12V Pump with EK X-TOP.
I'm also planning to change the CPU block from the current D-Tek Fusion Mark 2 (which I had to grind down the mounts to fit the i7 from a Q6600 in my previous rig) to a Koolance CPU-360 CPU Rev1.1.
Tubing will also change from my current 8/10 mm (ID/OD) to 10/13 (or 3/8" ID 1/2" OD to be American friendly :) )
I've already ordered an Aquacomputer GTX480 block for the new GPU.
Now as mentioned, going back to a single loop (only GPU and CPU water cooled) my intention is to go for a 140.3 rad (ThermoChill PA140.3) which *should* fit nicely at the top of the case leaving room elsewhere (for my 6 hard drives, DVD and bay res) to keeo everything nice and tidy.
However my slight concern is whether this will provide sufficient cooling for the CPU and GPU. CPU is OC'd slightly at around ~3 GHz but some headroom there would be nice. It would also be my plan to OC the gfx card (not sure by how much).
So my big question is do you guys think the new rad will be sufficient?
Many thanks in advance for your insight.
Cheers.

[Church]

Why buy another pump? Your ddc should work just fine? As for rad @ mentioned overclock imho 140x3 rad should be enough. Good 140mm fan choice is worse though. i7 really starts to dump big lump of heat @ 4.2+ with voltage 1.4+V, 3GHz o/c at probably stock or even lover voltage should be only ~ 130W.

[P5ym0n]

Hi Churchy.
Thanks for the reply.
Main reason for pump change is increased flow rate from the ddc. Although the ddc will probably be fine to be honest, so that'll save £100 straight off :)
Fan choice seems really tricky at the moment for 140mm, especially so for noise v cfm. Most I've seen have been under or around 60 cfm, which isn't great, however they are also sub 30dBA. The only ones I could find that offer a decent air volume are the Yate Loon D14SH-12 which are not the quietest at a quoted 48.5 dB. However at 2800 RPM they are quoted to push 140 CFM which would be ideal. Think I'll stick them on my fan controller and have a tinker anyway.
People seem to be going way way way over the top with rads and fans which has cast doubt in my mind about sticking with one 140.3 for GPU and CPU :)

[Church]

I doubt you'll get more then 10-20% flow, and i'm guessing it's definitely not worth £100 :)
Yate Loons should be ok, except they have sleave bearing = short life in horizontal placement. I choosed noiseblocker's PK-3, they probably might push less air through something restrictive like rads then yates and are overpriced as hell, but have hidrodynamic bearing. I'm guessing that both of these mentioned will be silent only upto 1100 rpm, so no need to hunt for mega max rpms .. (and usual rant #n+1, oh why, oh why there are no scythe gentle typhoons 140mm :) )
MOAR RADS is nice thing, and this forum is called _Xtreme_ systems :), more rads = same cooling at lower rpms (=silence), nothing wrong with going that route :)

[Waterlogged]

I doubt you'll get more then 10-20% flow, and i'm guessing it's definitely not worth £100 :)
Yate Loons should be ok, except they have sleave bearing = short life in horizontal placement. I choosed noiseblocker's PK-3, they probably might push less air through something restrictive like rads then yates and are overpriced as hell, but have hidrodynamic bearing. I'm guessing that both of these mentioned will be silent only upto 1100 rpm, so no need to hunt for mega max rpms .. (and usual rant #n+1, oh why, oh why there are no scythe gentle typhoons 140mm :) )
MOAR RADS is nice thing, and this forum is called _Xtreme_ systems :), more rads = same cooling at lower rpms (=silence), nothing wrong with going that route :)

The hype sheet (http://www.noiseblocker.de/en/documents/Datasheet_BSP_PK1_2_3.pdf) says the PK-3 bearing is "NB-NanoSLI", yet I can find no actual description of what that means construction wise. For all we know, it could be an oil impregnated brass/bronze/nylon sleeve bearing. :shrug:

[Church]

Waterlogged: in other forum i've heard that nanosli = kind of hidrodynamic bearings, it was about 120mm multiframes with similar hype sheet/bearing :)
EDIT
Crap. Or maybe not. Overhyped triebwerks also have NB-Nanosli, and in some of urls googled up for triebwerks sleeve bearing is mentioned :/
Gonna dig some more ..
Hmm. If it's 'Sleeve' even of tfc's site, then probably it is. I doubt they would have let chance to brag about something by.

[Waterlogged]

Waterlogged: in other forum i've heard that nanosli = kind of hidrodynamic bearings, it was about 120mm multiframes with similar hype sheet/bearing :)
EDIT
Crap. Or maybe not. Overhyped triebwerks also have NB-Nanosli, and in some of urls googled up for triebwerks sleeve bearing is mentioned :/
Gonna dig some more ..
Hmm. If it's 'Sleeve' even of tfc's site, then probably it is. I doubt they would have let chance to brag about something by.

Usually, when a company develops some kind of cool sounding technology, they put a little extra effort into explaining how it works (usually with cutaway diagrams) and why it's better. All I see in this case is a fancy name (and the fact that it's ®), which again, "usually" points to the fact that all they really developed was a cool sounding name.

It's all about marketing, if you can confuse ppl enough with a bunch of cool sounding features on your product and toss out some reasons why it's better than X or Z brands, then they'll buy yours over theirs. Just look at the Gelid Wing fans with their "Nanoflux bearing".:stick::spill:

[Church]

Waterlogged: Count me as marketing victim then. I bought big bunch of PK3s :(. Yates would be so much cheaper :/. Damn, i SHOULD have searched/googled longer first time and trust (probably guessed) answers on forum less before pulling trigger on order. And damn, are there really no proven/tested good silent 140mm with ball/hidrodynamic bearings at all? San Ace/Deltas are not my piece of bread. Afterall, 140mm rads are becoming more and more common these days, and top panel is one of most common rad mount places :/
Well, i'm shure PK3 won't be bad, but i overpayed and i doubt they will work for planned 3 years in horizontal position :/

[Waterlogged]

Waterlogged: Count me as marketing victim then. I bought big bunch of PK3s :(. Yates would be so much cheaper :/. Damn, i SHOULD have searched/googled longer first time and trust (probably guessed) answers on forum less before pulling trigger on order. And damn, are there really no proven/tested good silent 140mm with ball/hidrodynamic bearings at all? San Ace/Deltas are not my piece of bread. Afterall, 140mm rads are becoming more and more common these days, and top panel is one of most common rad mount places :/
Well, i'm shure PK3 won't be bad, but i overpayed and i doubt they will work for planned 3 years in horizontal position :/

Don't feel bad, I was too when I got my GTS120. As for fans, it took almost 6 years to get decent (good static pressure and noise level) 120mm fans (YL's) and another 4 or so for the GT's to show up. We've already had 140 YL's for a while now but that's about it for fans from a manu with a solid history. Now that case manu's are starting to increase the amount of cases with 140mm fans by leaps and bounds, it should be too long before the selection of fans increase as well. . .though, it still may be another year or more before we see something similar in performance to the GT's in the 140mm size. :(

[P5ym0n]

Hmm good point about the sleeve bearing with horizontal mount I hadn't considered even looking into that (suppliers websites should really list that as well).
I'm wondering now whether the 2 x 200 mm at the top of the case could be used, especially if changed to something like the NZXT 200MM 11 Blade Rifle Bearing Fan 166CFM FN-200. Shrouding and mounting the rad may prove more troublesome that it's worth though.

[Church]

P5ym0n: You can simply get then Yate Loon D14 fans. Should be best choice even if they still are sleeve bearing as they are not just good noise/pressure/flow wise, they also are among the cheapest ones - so even if greese flows out of bearing or gets dust in it after year of use and fan starts to get noisy, you can easily change fan for 1/2 or 1/3 of price of more overhyped fans :). My PK3s probably are similar, but simply cost 3 times more then yates :(.
As for 200mm fans .. dunno situation/never used such, but i'm guessing that it's just like with 140mm fans but even worse - afterall, the less used/sold/manufactured ware, the less time to polish it/broaden choice/introduce competition. And type of bearing it's not the only thing you should check in fans, and sometimes not the main one by far. Imho parameters like flow&pressure vs noise are more important alongside price. Bearing type issue was brought out only because it's obseved, that in horizontal placement sleeve bearing fans have much shorter life then ball of hidrodynamic ones because of greeze collecting dust/drying out/flowing out of bearing much faster in that position. Otherwise there are lot of very good sleeve bearing fans performance&noise wise.

[P5ym0n]

Ok, yup will stick with the YL D14's.
Many thanks for the advice.
Damn looks like I need to wait a while for the Coolmaster HAF X to get released :(

[Church]

P5ym0n: you can always make running sys in gheto way by simply placing connected components on top of the table while waiting for new case to be sold :), it will probably gather a bit of dust though during those months, but it's easier to clean such disassembled sys :)

[Waterlogged]

There should be a disclaimer when doling out warnings on horizontally mounted sleeve bearing fans. When mounting sleeve bearing fan horizontally, there are 2 ways to mount them, blowing air into the case and blow air out of the case. The problem with these fans is when the fan hub is allowed to hang down. This would mean that when the fans are mounted in the top, they are blowing air out. . .and blowing air into the case when mounted in the bottom. When they are reversed in their respective mounting positions, the life span, while still shorter than MTBF, is increased.