A slow flow rate through the rad is beneficial the same way a high flow rate through the block is beneficial. In the block, you want the newly heated water OUT of the block as soon as possible so that new COLD water can absorb the fresh heat. In a rad, the opposite is desired. You want the warm water in the rad as LONG as possible to disperse as much heat from the fluid to the rad as possible. I don't know how to REALLY make that simple to understand, but that touches on the idea. Trust me, it is correct.
As far as the reason that I redesigned the flow like I did, I wanted to ensure that no water that is freshly heated from the block gets immediately recirculated back to the block. That will make a keychain very quickly. The only way to prevent that is to have a rad inline with the block before the res. Now, this rad needn't be a huge heater core or nothing, but SOME cooling is absolutely required to prevent this scenario.
The reason I chose a super-sized radiator for the secondary cooling loop is twofold: 1) I wanted to maximise heat transfer out of the water by allowing it the maximum amount of time in the radiator, and 2) prevent Athlonnerd from having to hook up fans to the thing. With a large core like that, heat transfer to the surrounding air can be achieved if it is just exposed to the outside air ... no forced airflow is required. It'll just give you a quieter box with maximum results. Feasably, with that setup, al you would need is a couple low CFM fans in your case circulating air, and t would be nearly silent (especially with a setup like Antec has with the fan/temp controls). You can get away with running a much smaller radiator, if you don't mind running fans through it. In the modified design idea I proposed, the second loop will serve as nothing more than a secondary water cooler, further dropping coolant temperature.
But as far as completely isolating your rad from your water block loop, it is a fool's errand. You will run a severe risk of damaging your processor. In the modified design with the large core, you could potentially run multiple blocks in parallel through the high-flow pump and still see outstanding results.
My .02
|