One review down, another million to go

[pHaestus]

I sent Joe my Swiftech MCX462-V review and it should be posted tomorrow or Saturday. I think it has some info of interest to everyone related to fan choice and fan controllers as well as some good data on the heatsink itself.

So I have finally bitten the bullet and started waterblock testing. I set up the loop tonight with the Swiftech MC5000-A and will run the first replicate for that block tomorrow. My digital pressure gauge is on the fritz so there may be a lack of pressure drop data until I can get a replacement.

Since I have publicly said that I will test waterblocks, I have been offered many blocks to test. I will be testing the following waterblocks to begin: Dangerden Maze3,4, RBX, Swiftech MC5000-A, MCW462-UH, Little River Whitewater and Cascade, DTek Customs Whitewater, and I have some "oldies but goodies" in my closet I will test out too.

I expect that along with the new pressure drop setup that many other things will change in the testbed over the next year or so. So bear with me as equipment gets upgraded and comparative test tables and reviews are revised.

[pHaestus]

I ran some quick tests last night on the Swiftech MC5000-A, and will hopefully repeat a full test run tonight after a dinner party.

Initial results look quite promising for estimating W from water temp rise across the wb; initial test methods look pretty reasonable. MANY products coming in for review over the next week; you guys will have to be patient especially if the test setup changes as I think it will in next two weeks. I'll post results here as they are collected and keep everyone posted though.

Joe's drinking beer all weekend so it'll prolly be Monday for the MCX462-V review to be posted.

[g.l.amour]

thank you for all the effort, it might be a constant flame war but i for one look forward to having another player on the block. as BE stated it, if we can start counting the bench testers on more than one hand then we can forget about all the bias differences and start comparing WB's a little more like we can do with air coolers.

[t00lb0x]

It'll take dedication but it'll provide a good base for us to start. Keep up the good work.

[Joe]

Yeh sorry, there was an unexpected outbreak of beer drinking this thanksgiving weekend. Didnt know so many people were coming into town... and of course theres only one thing you can do about something like that!!!

[pHaestus]

so how did the reserves of the triple fare?

[Joe]

we tested beers from breweries and such... and as we all know the tripple isnt brewed, its mined I think

the Tripple hasnt been hit till tonight for this weekend.

[pHaestus]

you need to stay stocked up on the triple for when I return to Madison

[Joe]

I am making sure its a "break glass to get drunk NOW" kinda implement here.

[decodeddiesel]

beer

[g.l.amour]

if u like tripples you got to come to belgium someday joe

[prb123]

I want to drink tripples in Belgium.

[BillA]

give me a clue
googling I get this for tripples

you guys drinking or slipping ?

[pHaestus]

Belgian Abbey triple is the style of beer. A local brewery in Madision WI (New Glarus) concocted a particularly good abbey triple as their signature small batch beer for the fall. Joe and I toured the brewery and got a six pack a month ago and now Joe bought an entire case of it the other day. 9-10%alcohol and surprisingly smooth and tasty.

[BillA]

ah, 'nother day - 'nother lesson

prosit

[satanicoo]

That link must be the finding of the year.

[pHaestus]

Some test results!

I ran a test with the MC5000-A waterblock today in the hopes of getting an estimate of "W" from CPU. By measuring the waterblock inlet and outlet temperature and flow rate, you can solve for W using the equation:

W = (lpm * 4186 * deltaT)/60

(from Bill's thermochill radiator reviews

So one should be able to get a decent average of CPU wattage by running tests over a range of flow rates. Here's the data:

http://www.procooling.com/users/phae...un1numbers.jpg

Oops W isn't all that constant! I know why though. My wb outlet water probe is about 2' from the wb outlet at the moment and I think at low flow rates that this resulted in delta Ts being erroneously low. At very high flow rates the resolution of my Digitecs is not sufficient and I'd really need 0.001C to get accurate W estimates (a difference of 0.01C in deltaT adjusts W by 9W at 2.25GPM). Between 1.25 and 2 GPM though the W estimate seems reasonably constant and reasonably valid. I'll replumb the wb in and out probes tomorrow to see if I can't improve low end W estimates.

Once I had the W estimate of 81.53W at 2200Mhz 1.81V, I could generate a C/W vs flow rate graph for the wb:

http://www.procooling.com/~phaestus/mc5000a-run1.jpg

This also looks pretty reasonable compared to Bill's MC5002 curve; somewhat lower C/W but that's not too unexpected since I have secondary heat losses in my PC that aren't in Bill's tests.

I can also reanalyze the MCX462-V data with the 81.5W value:

http://www.procooling.com/~phaestus/cwmcx462v.jpg

And there you have my day's efforts.

//edit typos

[jaydee]

looking good!

[BillA]

ditto

[pHaestus]

I'll replumb and retest tonight; not satisfied with the wb in and out probe positioning.

Someone bid the chiller I am eyeing up to $100 overnight; you'd think that eventually I'd catch a break on this sort of thing...

[Les]

Originally posted by jaydee116
looking good!

Originally posted by unregistered
ditto

Hope "you two" have done number check.
I am still absorbing with Incoherent:s data.
Will post thoughts when sober(3 days).

[BillA]

nooo
we're just the rah rah team

seriously, I just looked at the "C/W" curves,
will take a body of data to understand 'whats up'

not cking Incoherent's data as it is of lesser interest - other than to observe the progression of the data collection and evaluation

[pHaestus]

Well if you find that data less interesting than this Bill then that lowers his "interested party" count to what? 4? I personally find that discussion much MORE interesting than a C/W curve. I've never been accused of being mainstream in interests though.

[BillA]

not quite what I meant,
I'm very much an interested party - just not chasing the math

[jaydee]

Originally posted by unregistered
nooo
we're just the rah rah team

That's about it. I don't have the time to be making this post let alone checking his work. Just glad he is getting something going! Bah, back to work...