?? 4 BillA
 

I really like all I've read regarding the Swiftech MCX159 NB cooler. It's as good or better than any other on the market, at half the noise.

When testing the 159 do you see any advantage at all to a water block compared to the 159? I know there are varibles galore in this question. A set up with CPU, GPU & NB in a single loop with a Chevette core and MCP600 for example. Would the water block have any advantage at all over the 159?

I also see the 159 is now sold bare. Do you have any test data regarding it's performance with much higher cfm fans?

Thanks Bill,

am running to catch a plane, . . . . .
air vs. H2O on chipset; lower temps w/water -> but no difference in OC stability
more air on the MCX159 ? why, it does no better
bear in mind, we are dealing with ~10W here

Ofcourse it depends on your hardware tho;)

Thanks Bill, I'll save the flow rate for CPU/GPU.

I asked regarding the larger output fans as it was the only reason I could think of for selling it without the design fan. From what I'd read in "The Dude" review at Xtreme, I wondered if the largest gains of a bigger fan would be in noise, but the fact it was being offered without a fan made me wonder.

Hey Black how much noise would the swifty add. And I mean for a discerning ear, quiet was the whole reason I went wawa to begin with.

What I discovered with my h'ware was that NB cooling effects directly CPU temps. Bare in mind my rig is a museum piece now (and it pump s MUCH more than 10 watts through NB) :)
Peeps tend to forget that MoBos are very good heat conductors (lotsa copper there) and if you i.e. supercool your NB (even if it does not need it that much) nearby elements temps are going to be effected in positive way (lower temps). That's why I am going to slap 130 watter TEC on my NB soon :)

You say that you will get lower temperatures with watercooling. What is the typical thermal resistance of a heatsink versus the typical resistance of a NB waterblock? It seems that with ~160W (CPU + GPU, approximate figure) on the loop already (Using a thermal resistance of 0.04C/W for the rad), you'd get water temperatures of around 6.4C above ambient. So, your NB could never fall below that. I'm going to assume that case temperatures are 2C above the temperature going into the radiator. Thus, a NB heatsink could have a thermal resistance of 0.44C/W (using 10W,) and still have lower temperatures than watercooling... Does the low airflow on a NB cooler cause a higher thermal resistance than that?

If you order the 159 with it's normal stock fan it only gives 18 dba, which is less than most quiet rooms have for a background noise floor. So I see little reason not to use the 159 for the NB and keep a higher flow on the CPU & GPU chips.

And I wasn't BSing when I said it equals or beats all others, even at low noise. The only one tests show matching it is the Micro Cool NB cooler, but at double the noise level.