Doing H20 right the first time

[coldforge_lovin]

I am getting a Coldforge AA-15 AL case. Check out Cool Cases over in HardOCP if you don't know what that is.

I am looking to do watercooling for my next system (Thunderbird 1.333 C overclocked, Geforce 3 or something, 3ware IDE-RAID, Santa Cruz on an Abit KT7-A.) Noise is a big issue otherwise I'd save a ton of money and use big air cooling.

I'd like to cool the processor, the GPU and the Northbridge. I have a tentitive budget for cooling (not including extra PSU) of $450, although I don't want to throw money away... <smiles>

I've searched for and read a lot of 'solutions' some high end, some low end, and they've given me some pointers- like a peltier seeming essential, but then i'm thinking do I need two loops?

I am a novice to all of this, and although I'm OK mechanically minded, I'm not McGyver either...

If this were your 'ideal' setup, considering the budget, noise, difficulty, and the space constraints, (WTX case, so not completely crap,) what would you do if this were your project?

BTW... I want it to look really nice too.. <winks>

[p[ara]d0x]

Heh, well the ColdForge is so big you could have just about any setup you want w/o worring about space and looks. My ideal system has only one loop, but that loop runs through two reservoirs/chillers, two pumps, and three radiators and cools CPU, vid card, and chipset. There's also a radiator that blows air through cold water to lower the ambient temperature. Check my site sometime in the sometime after this week for a diagram :)

[coldforge_lovin]

Sounds pretty good. Do multiple reserviors do better than one large one? I know that you generally can't do two radiators with one pump. You're saying that two pumps will handle 3 rads tho?

Also, whats the deal with the rad blowing air through the water? How the hell does that work.


Incidentally, I've also being toying with the idea of a Vapochill in a Coldforge, but that has 3 issues.

1) Cost... expensive but not prohibitive. The energy costs for the Vapochill will be lower than a peltiered system. (or so I've been led to believe)
2) Fit. While size shouldn't be an issue, getting the hose to fit will be. I don't want to be spending $330 on a case, and $650 on a cooling solution, tossing the excess case, and it not being able to do the job.
3) Scalability. When the dual procs come out, i'm going to want to cool them. Dual Vapochills are going to be a) expensive, and b) a guaranteed pain in the ass to modify the case for. Still it might be more sensible than a dual 172W pelt rig.

So... i'm going to be asking a lot of people a whole bunch of questions, and maybe pay someone who has the time, experience and decent tools to modify the case.

I'm [H]ard, but not that [H]ard... <grins>

[p[ara]d0x]

Well the two reservoirs are in two differen't parts of the loop. The chilled water from one reservoir runs through the cpu loop and then into the second reservervoir where it is radiated and chilled then goes to the cold radiator, video, and chipset blocks, then back into the first reservoir again.

The cold radiator is a low effiency radiator (im thinking of one of the "tower" radiators from OCWC) with a fan blowing through it, so it radiates cold air instead of hot air. I just worded the phrase wrong before, no air actually blowing through water.

Can't help ya with the VapoChill, I'm staying away from that kind of stuff, heh. Prob the best way would either go with an mineral oil submersion system, theres something somewhere on [H]ardOCP on that. Vapochills are expensive and not as fun as peltier/watercooling.

Good luck

[JLeufkens]

Actually, being an owner of two VapoChills I can assure you they are just as fun as watercooling and such. They are fun to play with and quite difficult to assemble (the 'coffins').

-Tom www.leufken.com (http://www.leufken.com) www.waterchill.com (http://www.waterchill.com)

[UnaClocker]

I'd sure have fun with a Vapochill.. :)

[p[ara]d0x]

I suppose it would be fun, heh, but you had better be having fun with it after dropping that kind of cash on 'em :)