Reverse flow, same temps?

[Jason_The_Angry]

greetings all. i'm looking for some professional opinions, thought this would be the place. down to business... i installed a danger den maze 4 cooling kit on my 2500 OCd to 2.08 ghz on a Asus A7N8X deluxe. the setup uses 1/2" tubing, a BIE radiator, res, L30 pump and a single antec 120mm fan with shroud. now then, since i have a full tower case, there was a bit of extra space in the top. i mounted the rad and res to the ceiling of the case, cutting holes for the the fan and res cap. my flow chain is as follows. pump out > rad > res > waterblock > pump in

my temps are as follows:

ambient: 20 C
MB: 21 C
proc idle: 31-32 C
proc load: 33-34 C

all temps measured with latest version of Asus probe. (i know, already inaccurate) in any case, i know that according to some, it is best to have the flow chain reversed from what i have so that the pump outlet is forcing water to the block. my question is, do my temps seem reasonable, and would you expect to see drastic increases in performance if i changed my flow direction? thanks for your time...

[Zogthetroll]

well, conventional wisdom is that its best to have the res before the pump inlet, as having a lot of restriction at the inlet is a bad thing. causes cavitation (makes the pump noisy, inefficient, and adds air bubbles). as far as whether its better to have the block or the rad after the pump outlet is kind of a toss-up. whole threads have been devoted to that debate. so do whatever works best and gives you the easiest routing.
*edit* oh yeah, welcome to procooling.

[Jason_The_Angry]

i had done some reading on the subject before installation. however, just the way i arranged the components in the case sort of forced me down the path. so far, i have no real problems. in fact having the res at the top of the case helps to bleed all the air out. i also believe that gravity works in my favor, helping to feed the water into the block, then to the pump. i think in a few days, i might try reversing the inlet/outlet and see of my temps drop. i just hate to toy with the system when it's been working well, and leak free *knock on wood* then again, i can never, ever, leave well enough alone. so it either succeeds magnificently, or fails miserably. thanks

[Jabo]

Way to go mate, if you consider falling down climb the highest of trees
You pump puts negligible amounts of het into cooling loop and therefore it'd be beneficial to connect pump's outlet directly wiht block's inlet.
Aftr each 'ware piece there's a pressure drop - that's why CPU should be pump's first customer imho
Welcome o ProCooling!

[Zogthetroll]

ok, to clarify, I wasn't suggesting connecting the res directly to the pump's inlet, although that is a good way of lowering the restrictiveness of the loop. the top of case location is good. if you haven't already, check out pH's article on making a more effective cooling loop in the procooling articles section. that expains the science behind some of the stuff.

@ jabo - pressure drop doesn't matter like you're thinking it does. it will be important to figure the overall pressure drop since that will determine the overall flow rate through the loop, but its not important to determining where to place say the block vs. the rad, since the flow rate is the same through the entire loop regardless of the restrictiveness of the individual parts. does that make sense? hmmm, guess i kinda contradicted my earlier post, ah screw it, do whatever gets you the best temps.

[Jason_The_Angry]

i read pH's article, but i think i just skimmed enough to get some pointers. perhaps i'll read it again. i 've got some reference materials here in my mass and heat transfer book by A.F. Mills that i'll check out and try to get some answers nailed down. thanks again

[Jason_The_Angry]

well, i reversed the pump flow today, let it idle for 1hr. same temperature. then i did a bit of rainbow six raven shield, same load temp. so then, i would assume, that for my setup, flow direction has nothing to do with cooling effectiveness. any comments?