Sell Or Keep

[RAYTTK]

HI, I have just sold my 480 Black Ice rad and 4 x 1850 Gentle Typoons, I have made enough money to buy the Phobya Xtreme NOVA 1080 Radiator. I need advise on two things
1) Any 180mm fan recommendations as I intend to use 4 on the new rad,

2) I have an Original Thermochill PA120.3 which I cant decide whether to sell. How much is it worth Today? I cant find any for sale to compare. should I keep it because a) Its Awsome, b)one day they will be very rare?

[PiLsY]

1) Silverstone air penetrators are very good, check them out. Other than that everything else I know of is rather mediocre at 180mm. Lots are 120mm motors with bigger blades - avoid these at all costs. You can tell them by the small hub (or motor if clear).

2) Part a) yes, but then why did you sell the BIX480 and AP15s if you want awesome, part b) no, there's too many out there for it to ever be worth much more than standard second hand value. Worth £40 to £70 depending on condition.

Just opinions but hope thats of help :).

[RAYTTK]

Cheers Pilsy, I have tried and liked an Air penetrator 120mm I used it on my hard drive rack, Not sure how they are on a rad tho.
Sold the Black ice because my PC is in the living room and the fans needed to be quite high to get the best from it.

[PiLsY]

If it wasnt for the cost id say go for 9 x AP12s or AP13s. It still may be worth considering 9 x yate loon low speeds though. Works out around £40-£45, cheaper than 4 x 180mm and I would say just as good if not better. Arctic cooling do a great low rpm 120mm fan with a connector for daisy chaining banks of fans. That would clean up your wiring and probably still run cheaper than the 180mm option.

[Waterlogged]

Was the Black Ice a GTX or SR1? If it was the GTX, I don't blame you and maybe you should try the SR1 instead.

Uuggh!, the Nova 1080 was a bad design when it was sold by Magicool and is still a bad design now that Phobya is selling it. It starts out with a 10 tube (likely 2 row) wide inlet, then reduces tube count to 5 for the second and third passes and then goes back to 10 tubes. Had it had an equal number of tubes per each pass, I likely wouldn't be so critical of it but, as it stands now, I'd have to say that it adds a reasonable amount of unnecessary restriction.

[RAYTTK]

Black Ice was a GTX very tight dense fins, It did look superb though as it had been chromed.
Im not so tech savi with the Nove extreme as you are but about 6 months back I sold my old PC to a friend, Classified with EK FB block, 950@4.2 with EK supreme, and he added 2 x GTX580 with EK blocks and used the Phobya nova, Now granted I have 480's which put a bit more heat into the loop than the 580's do but his temps where 12-15 degrees cooler than when I had it set up with the rads in my sig. Plus I like the cleanliness of the nova 1080. What Rads are you using ATM Waterlogged?

[Waterlogged]

Black Ice was a GTX very tight dense fins, It did look superb though as it had been chromed.
Im not so tech savi with the Nove extreme as you are but about 6 months back I sold my old PC to a friend, Classified with EK FB block, 950@4.2 with EK supreme, and he added 2 x GTX580 with EK blocks and used the Phobya nova, Now granted I have 480's which put a bit more heat into the loop than the 580's do but his temps where 12-15 degrees cooler than when I had it set up with the rads in my sig. Plus I like the cleanliness of the nova 1080. What Rads are you using ATM Waterlogged?

The only rads I currently get are Swiftech MCR's (unless they're 140's). My current count of rads is 15-16 which when broken down looks like this

mcr120 x 3-4 (I'm pretty sure I have 4 but can't seem to find 1 ATM:shrug:)
mcr220 x 2
mcr220 stacker x 2
old school PA120 x 1
old school PA240 x 1
Black Ice Pro 120 x 1
Black Ice Xtreme crossflow(not GTX) 120 x 1
Black Ice Xtreme crossflow (not GTX) 240 x 1
Black Ice GTS 120 x 1 (biggest water cooling product purchase regret I have)
XSPC RX120 x 1
Magicool slim profile 140 x 1


I have a lot of smaller rads because most of my builds until late have been mATX in mATX cases. As of late, more of my builds are mini-ITX so I still need the smaller rads.

The reason your friends temps dropped is because the Nova has the surface area of 3 regular 320 rads and he had less heat and likely was also running the fans at a different RPM. If all thing were equal (heat producing hardware, fans, loop minus the rad of course) 3 rads would very likely produce better numbers with less restriction in the loop...and with the right external mounting system could look just as "clean" as the Nova 1080 or MO-RA.

[RAYTTK]

Ok I went with the Nova and 9 x GT AP15's, I have the fans on a controller operating at half speed so they are near silent, My temps are great even after an hour of prime95 they are only hitting 68-71c. All in all a great weekend New X79 build finished and I got lucky with my 3930K 4.8 with nothing but a cpu voltage boost, I love X79 when multi-tasking I now have more time for gaming , I have the Thermochill PA120-3 on Ebay UK right now

[AVulgarPicture]

i dont know why you'd sell the GTX but then keep the thermochill, theres no reason you cant run the fans at a lower speed.
bigger is always better.

[aerial]

Get cheapeast phobya 180mm fans, they are quietest (quieter than all silverstone 180). Performance of this rad is enough to make such trade (you don't need best airflow fans out there, also phobyas are cheap).

These fans at min rpm, are entirely different level of comfort, compared to GT1850, which are great fans, but they are not quiet category in my opinion.

[RAYTTK]

i dont know why you'd sell the GTX but then keep the thermochill, I was thinking of keeping the thermochill because it has so much history and I thought it might be worth a few Quid one day :)


Get cheapeast phobya 180mm fans, they are quietest (quieter than all silverstone 180). Performance of this rad is enough to make such trade (you don't need best airflow fans out there, also phobyas are cheap).

These fans at min rpm, are entirely different level of comfort, compared to GT1850, which are great fans, but they are not quiet category in my opinion.
I totally agree, But I already had 7 GT15's,
I wanted to get the 4 x 180mm set up But Watercooling UK wanted another £23 for the 180 fan mount :( + what another £30-60 for fans
Because I have bought X79 at the same time, I have to make do for a while. In defence of the GT's though I have them through my sunbeam rheobus and they are very quiet, but I think jeez these fans are so wasted on this set up

[AVulgarPicture]

unfortunately thermochills arent exactly rare, i mean, id pay good money for it, because i prefer a thermochill, but not everyone else would.