How much would you spend, on test your waterblock?

[bigben2k]

Following this thread, here's your chance to vote!

The question is:
As a DIY (Do It Yourself) block maker, probably working from home, and making a block for yourself, how much money would you be willing to spend, to get some idea of how well your block is performing?

Keep in mind that various amounts of money will give various degrees of accuracy.

[edit] renamed, for clarification.
[edit] sp

[GTA]

I'm planning on spending about £100 making a CPU die simulator.

Hoping that it will help with block testing, even if it only gives me an easy way to measure temperature more accuratly, and lets me swap between blocks, and remount, quicker and easier.

I won't be measuring flowrate, or pressure. The kit to do this properly is way out of my price range.

[Joe]

I voted 100+ since I have before and any future testing setup that would be built would cost 500 - 1000$ for me.. The 300$ total I paid for my "Crucible" setup ( thermometer, Hydrothruster, Swissflow Flowmeter, tubing, quick disconnects, etc...) was all well worth it, I still have it all in a box I didnt unpack since I moved last year. I figure if I get into testing again, it will be something much more serious and much more reproduceable than what I did before. ( whats funny is that I bought and used that setup almost 2 years ago, while many people still havent even gotten to that level of testing...)

[bigben2k]

Please keep in mind who the question was meant for: the home/DIY block maker.

If you're a commercial block maker, your opinion may be swayed.

If you're a site owner, and have already made an investment that way, for the site, then you're not a home/DIY blockmaker now, are you?

[jaydee]

Voted $100+. I don't spend the time, money, and energy making a performace block just to be unaware how good it really is. I already have over $300 just in my REV. designs (and that's with free use of equipment!). I already have over $300 in my testing equipment and will drop another $600+ in it before I have my first completed test bed. Drop in the bucket in the long run. I plan on making several other blocks in the future and will probably have $1,000's invested in them. $1,000 for testing will be well worth it.

Of course this is from someone who bought a CNC mill pretty much just to make blocks with the excuse I would use it for "other" things. Which is actually true. Working on mold for fishing lures to.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

I am willing to drop 100+ for testing the performance of any upgrades I do.

[bigben2k]

I voted 50-75, because I was willing to send Radius to Bill, for testing.

[pHaestus]

so many people dropping $100+? I need to develop a product to sell...

[Joe]

besides j00 ass?

errr.. hehe

[bigben2k]

Poll extended:

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showth...hreadid=204075

http://www.amdforums.com/showthread....hreadid=232854

[winewood]

Joe,

If your willing to sell that equipment, I would work something out with you. I'm too lazy to shop, and I know you have everything together. Allthough I would only pay $50 max for a test, I would pay more for the testing equipment that allows multiple runs.

[Blackeagle]

I voted at Amdmb Ben.

Will also be interesting to see the differant out comes at differant sites to your polling Ben.

[jaydee]

Unfortunatly these polls are not going to be very inofrmative. Most people don't have a clue what it takes to test with any type of equipment let alone proper equipment. But anyway...

So with the conclusion of these polls, then what?

Are we going to try and do a "best we can" article with the alotted amount or what?

[Zymrgy]

I went for the $26~$50 mark myself. I figure that with a properly set up test bed, 1-2 hours should be all that it takes to get some good results...but then I have never tested, so what do I know? I am very curious as to how my block is going to perform & have even considered giving a couple of the away to users who already have a different make/design so they can compare & give me their impressions. BTW...off topic....but the "X-BLOCK" is starting to take shape...more to come on that later.

[jaydee]

Originally posted by Zymrgy
I went for the $26~$50 mark myself. I figure that with a properly set up test bed, 1-2 hours should be all that it takes to get some good results...but then I have never tested, so what do I know? I am very curious as to how my block is going to perform & have even considered giving a couple of the away to users who already have a different make/design so they can compare & give me their impressions. BTW...off topic....but the "X-BLOCK" is starting to take shape...more to come on that later.

1-2hrs? Well I was planning on testing my blocks 5 days each. 1 day for each remount

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by jaydee116
Unfortunatly these polls are not going to be very inofrmative. Most people don't have a clue what it takes to test with any type of equipment let alone proper equipment. But anyway...

So with the conclusion of these polls, then what?

Are we going to try and do a "best we can" article with the alotted amount or what?

A fair question.

I think what's going to happen, maybe I'm just hopeful, is that we'll come up with a method and list of tools for DIY'ers to do relative testing, by themselves.

As things stand right now, the DIY'er has... absolutely nothing.

[jaydee]

Originally posted by bigben2k
A fair question.

I think what's going to happen, maybe I'm just hopeful, is that we'll come up with a method and list of tools for DIY'ers to do relative testing, by themselves.

As things stand right now, the DIY'er has... absolutely nothing.

It is a good idea, but if it is going to be in an article form it needs to be very detailed. Each type of measurement needs to be listed and an explaination why it is important. Hell, just that alone would be a good article! Then from there you can go into detail how to take those measurements and with what equipment from bottom of the line to a higher level.

My head is so twisted right now on this subject I don't know what to think anymore. Starting to question why I even bother making water blocks....

[bigben2k]

I don't think I'll have any problems putting it together, but I'll run it by you first, ok?

Don't give up on making waterblocks: look at what you've done so far! You're right up on the edge of the latest designs.

[Can O' Beans]

Like I said on oc-forums:

1 to 25 (US dollar)
26 to 50

I'd be interested in how it compares to other blocks, but I can see it's giving me decent temps so it's not too important to me.

That reminds me, I gotta take some pics & post them up.

[pHaestus]

If we can find someone who does an adequate job of testing waterblocks for 1-25 dollars, then I am probably going to ebay all of my gear and just send blocks to them for testing

[bigben2k]

I'm pretty sure that that's not going to happen. Besides, this would be a cost that repeats itself for each variation.

In this poll, I'm just aiming to get something that the user can put together and use, to establish clearly that his block variation is actually performing better. A One-time cost.

After that, if they want a full battery of tests, they can send it to whoever is offering testing, for actual temp and C/W ratings.

[bigben2k]

Putting aside a couple of votes from manufacturers and site owners...

It looks like the 26-50 price range is a winner, although not by any large margin, and mostly on average. That seems reasonable, given the rest of the expense associated with actually making the block.

Can we work with that?

[jaydee]

Originally posted by bigben2k
Putting aside a couple of votes from manufacturers and site owners...

It looks like the 26-50 price range is a winner, although not by any large margin, and mostly on average. That seems reasonable, given the rest of the expense associated with actually making the block.

Can we work with that?

Make a list of each measurment that needs to be taken and put together a list of tools needed to take those measurements.

GPH/Pressure drop? Not sure why pressure drop and GPH's really matter for a DIY block that probably already has the components pre-selected. GPH is going to be set by those components. Unless the block maker actually thought about making a design to utilize those spacific components (in which he would have already came up with GPH's and pressure drops) then whats the point of it? Not like he is going to to run the pump slower than full speed eh? being the block is not cross comparable to anything who cares!

Water temp? Would be useless to measure inlet and outlet temps with cheap probes because those temps are lower than most accuracy level offsets, so cross that off.

Air temps? You might have enough to buy a cheap probe after buying a decent CPU probe.

CPU temp? Only thing to do is epoxy a probe to the bottom of the CPU and cut a little channel in the socket for the wire. For $50 you should be able to come up with a decent enough probe to be somewhat usefull.

:shrug:

[bigben2k]

Hum... yeah, sounds possible, but cutting the socket is definitely out: we'd need either a workaround, or another solution alltogether.

Why can't we use an alcohol thermometer, to measure the room temp, and the water temp, assuming that we can find one that's readily available, and relatively accurate?

[jaydee]

Originally posted by bigben2k
Hum... yeah, sounds possible, but cutting the socket is definitely out: we'd need either a workaround, or another solution alltogether.

Let us know when you figure that one out.

Why can't we use an alcohol thermometer, to measure the room temp, and the water temp, assuming that we can find one that's readily available, and relatively accurate?

You can use what ever you want that fits in the $50 budget as long as it has somewhat of a respectible accuracy. Accuracy comes at a price though.