Radiator Options
 

OK so in the next few weeks I will have a PC70 comming into my possesion, and of course I will be watercooling it :D

Now here is the story, first of all this system will not be a crazy-all out-balls to the wall-uberclocked super rig. This is mainly for the fact that my current CPU is not a good overclocker regardless of voltage, and it is difficult to make a highly overclocked machine as quiet as I am aiming for. Let me state the this rig will be used in close proximity to my turn tables for recording, also it will be used for making music with some sampler/sequencer/synth programs. Making music will be the primary function of this PC (well who am I kidding, pr0n will be important too, but that isn't exactly CPU intensive). The only gamming I will really be doing will be some flying with Combat Flight Simulator 2, and maybe very occasionally some CS or UT. However, this is not intended to be a Uber frame rate fragging machine, rather what I'm looking to build is a reliable, swank, very very quiet rig.

My plans so far are all 80mm fans in the system (4 case and one PSU) will be replaced with 5 80mm Panaflow L1As or perhaps Papst low cfm fans, and all case fans will be at the "low" settings on the Lian Li with a PWM possibly in the future. I will be purchasing 2 40GB Seagate Cuda 4s for HDD silence. The GPU and Northbridge may be in the coolant loop sometime down the road, but currently the Radeon GPU does not need much cooling, and the Northbridge will be replaced with a passive cooler. The radiator fans will need to be either Panaflow L1As or Papst low output fans (one or 2 for static pressure) and I'm afraid undervolted 172mm fans are just a little to loud for me. Now I already have an Eheim 1250 in my current rig, so the pump is taken care of. I also have an original DD MAZE2 which may be replaced down the road but it is OK for the time being. My question lies in Radiator selection.

I will be making a plenium for the radiator which will draw in fresh air from outside the case, and the hot air from the radiator will also be exhausted from the case. Basically the air flow of the radiator will be independant from the case. My model for this is Turbokeu's work on his PC70. I also will be fabricating my own PSU mounting plate to accomidate a 120mm fan instead of the 2 80mm fans. I want the Radiator to be mounted above the PSU in the afor mentioned example. Sadly, this all but eliminates a heatercore as an option as the smallest reasonably priced heatercore just won't fit above the PSU in this fashion, and I am going for maximum swankness with the case and I'm afraid that form follows function in a bad way in heatercores (yeah, they are pretty ugly). I have debated a Black Ice 2 mounted to the top plate of the case with a plenium to a 120mm hole above the PSU and having the hot air exhaust there, but BI2s seem to be in short supply these days.

Basically I am down to the following options for my radiator, Black Ice Xtreme, the upcomming Black Ice Pro, the BI2, the DD Super Cube, or the newer revesion of the Aquacoil with the parallel flow. The supercube is a litle long for my needs and may require too much fan power for low noise, but I have never used one so I do not know, and I am willing to go that route if thats what is suggested. I like the Black Ices, but I am afraid I will get too poor of temps with low cfm fans. The Aquacoil is very attractive looking, but I am also afraid the performance may not be up to par. Anyone who has an opinion on this matter please let me know in the thread as I really can't deciede on this one. Sorry about the long post but I really want to explain my reasoning and thoughts on my future project.

Here are my thoughts:

DD SupaCube
ONE 80GB HDD (this will outperform 2x 40GB) - I like maxtor (very quiet, cheep, fast, you can change the setting for faster / silenter)
undervolt CrOrb for the Northbridge
get rid of that ATI (warp hate ati. ati bad.)

Perhaps I will go with one High capacity HDD, thats a thought. I know some maxtors are using the fluid bearings, so as long as it's as quiet as a Seagate then I will deffiniatly look at them. The ATi is staying for the time being untill the newer $200 GF4s Ti4200s are out and about, but then it will get dropped like a hot rock. Thermaltake can blow me (just a thing I have with them, their stuff stinks IMO) but I apreciate the input on the Northbridge cooler. I would like to get ahold of that nice Zalman Northbridge cooler but no one seems to have it in the US yet. You think I need a high CFM for the Supercube? I don't want it if I am gonna hafta ram 100cfm+ through it for decent temps, if it performs well with low CFM fans then it's a deffininate possibility.

get the BIX, it offers the best performance, so you can run lower cfm fans on it.

stick with the barracuda IV, they are silent, maxtors are audible

For the northbridge, get a dynatron thin fin AL heatsink, they are $17 or something, and can passively cool a celeron 1000, so I'm sure they'll handle your chipset, kdcomp sells them

For the radiator fans, just run 2x 69cfm panaflo's from caseetc, they are damn quiet and move a lot of air

You can get the Zalman's at this link. I've done business there for quite a while, never a problem. Good spot for various bits and pieces like the Zalman and fans.

As far as rads, I would put the vote for using a heater core.

Regarding drives, the fluid bearing Maxtors aren't that bad. Check out the review at Storage Review. But as Brad said, the Cudas definitely define quiet (have Cuda IVs myself).

well definetely get the BI Xtreme...
the lowest price I found on the net is at cooltechnica.com... I'm getting mine from them in march.

for the HDD avoid Maxtor... Western digital has special ones with 8MBs of cache... They're the ultimate... I'm a little short these days because I spent all my cash on my new 1/2" system's watercooling stuff, but 120GB WD with 8mb cache is on my buy list...

yeah the WD 120gb 8mb are the highest performing hdd's, but they cost $$$, and are hot and loud

yeah, the BIX is the way to go. HWLabs is a top notch company when it comes to rads for computers.

--Matt

EMC2, thank you very much the only other place I found this bad boy was in the UK and to ship it to the US would have been about $33 total :( Only $12 on 2coolTek.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my delemma, you all have given me good advise and sound reasoning. I believe I probably will be going with the BIX as I have fears that cubes may be too difficult to cool properly without a high CFM fan.

the super cube is nice but needs high cfm on each side unless you do a slight mod to it:
take the top and bottom plates off and pull air through that way, and close the original fan holes off
i had a super cube and it cooled fine with just a low cfm 92mm on one side. (almost as good as a bix with an equal fan)

the BIX is nice and i am using one now. using only 1 Panoflow H1a powered at around 5v. my idle temp is about 37C and my max is about 42C and the ambient is about 23-34C

the setup for those temps are as follows: BIX > eheim 1250 > duron 850@1000 1.85v > geforce2 stock speed > kt7a-raid chipset > maxtor 7200 rpm 60 gig > res > then back up to the rad

Yep i have a cubic rad too and fans on 7V arent enough for it. I'm going for BI as well.

DigitalChaos: that is an interesting mod to the Supercube, deffiniatly very innovative.

gmat, yeah I used to use an old DD Cube about a year ago and in order to get good temps I had to really push a lot of air through it with a push pull Panaflow H1As. Deffiniatly way too loud for my project.

the mod to the supercub is very easy being that the top and bottom plates are simply attached with screws and nuts.
as for closing up the other sides i just used foil =)
i dont like the design for mounting 120mm fans... because the mount covers the edges of the fins, where most of the air is comming in. a 92mm fans fits perfectly INSIDE the hole, and the metal holds it in place very well with just pressure.

if i still had the rad i would take pics.... but i dont

GO WITH THE BIG OL LEVI IT COOLS DOWN TO 0 degrees C

somebody hit him

:rolleyes:

haha read the other post

doh.. oh yeah. i thought that you STARTED that post. hehe
nm then i was wrong :D :D :p

hmmm..someone took a big old dump on this poor thread...

decco, make sure you polish that entire case. =]

hell yeah I will, I am going for maximum swankness here, I want a chick magnet case (as if that exists)

glue some dildo's to the side of it

thread crap ++

Oh well :shrug: