A challenge!

[pHaestus]

From what I've seen, the small id tubing systems are far more likely to all be plumbed in series than in parallel. That "but only 1-2C" argument is the primary bone of contention here knipex. Would you feel the same way if the difference were 5-7C? Depending upon configuration it could well be that drastic.

[bigben2k]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

... Depending upon configuration it could well be that drastic.

Oops... didn't you just volunteer to demonstrate that?

[pHaestus]

I HAVE; look at the difference between 0.5GPM and 2.0 GPM for a few of the wbs on the Pro/Testing graph. Now extrapolate the performance at 0.25GPM...

[bigben2k]

Excellent...

[knipex]

If and I repeat IF it was proven to be 5 to 7 degrees I would have a second look.

BUT in the same breath can you provide me with a high flow setup allowing me to watercool my entire system, look good and fit completely internally in my case ??


FYI

My (current) complete setup is.

Eheim 1048 pump
NexXxos Hp Pro CPU block. (Was a cuplex)
Aqua Computer Twinplex GPU Block
Aqua Computer NB Block
Aqua Drive watercooled harddrive enclosure.
Aqua computer airplex 240 radiator.
Aqua computer Aqua Tube
2 papst FGML fans (@7V)

All in a little over 2 meters of 8mm O/D 6mm I/D tubing.

[greenman100]

replace CPU/GPU blocks with "high flow",
split flow between (CPU) and (GPU/NB/HD)
run 3/8" tubing for CPU, 6mm for GPU/NB/HD
and a Laing D4 pump.

smaller pump, slightly bigger tubing to CPU.

it WILL fit, and it WILL give better temps (assuming the MCW6000 or similar is used)

[knipex]

But how would I balance flow to unsure I get enough through the GPU block loop???

Especially if I have a high flow GPU block..

Now I am the first to admit I know very little about the theory of watercooling. One of the main reasons I started using low flow was it was easy to set up and understand. now Im hooked....

And I still have to be shown that the temp improcement would be worth the spend and effort.

[pHaestus]

knipex:
1) I don't watercool parts that don't benefit from such; no hdd blocks or nb cooling for me. HDDs are cooled by a Panaflo L1A blowing on them and NB is cooled by a 50mm copper hs and very quiet (can't hear it even with ear to mobo) 5V 50mm fan. Perhaps in some cases NB water cooling might help; not for any system I have used.

2) For optimum results, NEVER undervolt or PWM fans. Doing so is a poor noise/airflow tradeoff. Find the noise level or performance level that is acceptable for your application and then use that as spec for your fan. I guarantee you that you can get more airflow at the same noise level by doing so than by undervolting or PWMing a more powerful fan.

3) Without testing the radiator and block, I can't really say too much more. Does the NexXxos Hp Pro have the thinner base (2mm)? If so I will go out on a limb and say it should have a fairly pronounced improvement with increased flow rates and if you can get the final system flow rate in the 3-4LPM range you should be doing a lot better than you are currently (maybe 1LPM max?). Even their thicker bp block should do a good bit better up in the 3-4LPM range. You could get to that flow rate with a swap from that multipass aquacomputer radiator to something like a Black Ice Pro 2 and a switch from 6mm id hose to 10mm (not much worse to route). Pump change may or may not be required.

Why do you think wizd (and alphacool) are bundling a BI Extreme2 style radiator, a higher pressure pump, and larger ID tubing with those NeXXos blocks? Pretty much the exact suggestions I would make to improve performance in your loop? It's not because their target market loves the American way of doing things for sure.

Greenman: There is no evidence that the MCW6000 is a better block than the AlphaCool.

[knipex]

1ltr per minute is a bit low as an estimate (admitadly In my crude test of disconnecting the pipe at the end of the loop and filling a ltr bottle)

As a guestimate I would say closer to 2 than 1 but again this is a guestimate.

Also I have to admit I watercooled for silence. The main reason I have a watercooled HDD is that I have a raptor drive and its noisy. The drive runs too hot to put in a hardrive enclosure without loud fans so a watercooled enclosure was ideal. My northbridge is watercooled as the air flow in my case is poor. The only case fans I have on my rad.

The reason I use undervolted Papst fans is I cannot get a fan even close to being as quiet. If you can point me to one I will even buy you a beer.

You see, the difference between me and most of you guys is that cool enough is cool enough. I dont go for mad overclocks (hell I am running at stock at the moment) and normally I am limited by my board long before temperatures.

I think that that was the problem to start. You are watercooling for extreme overclocking and lowest possible temperaures where I am watercooling for silence. I am not constanly looking for another mhz or to loose another degree. I am running cooler than air and silent. Even if was the same temperatures as aircooling its still silent.

I am however open to ideas and want to learn so here I am.

[AngryAlpaca]

So what if it's hot? If it doesn't affect stability, leave it.

Anything SilenX. I'd send you my address but I don't drink.

If cool enough is cool enough, why do you watercool your HD and NB?

[dutchcedar]

Originally Posted by AngryAlpaca

If cool enough is cool enough, why do you watercool your HD and NB?

From his own post:
Also I have to admit I watercooled for silence. The main reason I have a watercooled HDD is that I have a raptor drive and its noisy. The drive runs too hot to put in a hardrive enclosure without loud fans so a watercooled enclosure was ideal. My northbridge is watercooled as the air flow in my case is poor. The only case fans I have on my rad. :shrug:

[knipex]

Originally Posted by AngryAlpaca

So what if it's hot? If it doesn't affect stability, leave it.

Anything SilenX. I'd send you my address but I don't drink.

If cool enough is cool enough, why do you watercool your HD and NB?

Its not hot. Its cooler than aircooling AND silent. I might be able to get it cooler but its far far from hot..

As for the HD and the NB I allready explained in a post above just above where I said cooler than air and Silent.

Edit.. Damn beaten by Dutch

[greenman100]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

Greenman: There is no evidence that the MCW6000 is a better block than the AlphaCool.

bet you it is

but no evidence, so that is a weak argument

but it'd have to be a pretty dang good block to beat a 6000 at a quarter of the flow

knipex: I do not feel the GPU/NB need great cooling, but I am not running a very good video card anyway. flowrate through each block can be mathematically calculated, at least close to actual, though.

[pHaestus]

If a greater premium is placed on quiet than on performance, that's fine. But why feel the need to state that you're "at the most a degree or two" away from the highest performance solutions available? There's no basis for that really other than wanting to maintain a big e-penis.

I have 2 small kids and live on the Candian Praries. So as I look to replace my Accord Coupe I am quite enamored with the idea of more space and good winter driving performance. That's perfectly reasonable given the location and situation. But it is NOT reasonable to sell me a Subaru as "just a very small bit slower than a Corvette only with a lot more space."

[BillA]

Originally Posted by Les

Which takes me back to radiator these design thoughts.
Relevant?

yes exactly, but its all about the actual implementation

knipex
you're tough, sparing with this bunch
I have no difficulty with your choices, assuming that the principal criterion is noise abatement
- might make some differently, but this is DIY, no ?
so be it

flow balancing is not so difficult if you ignore flow and focus on heat, swap 'em around 'till you figure out what works
no biggie

pH listed 3 parameters; cooling, size, and noise - suggesting that the choice was between any 2
I see 4 factors; cooling, size, noise, and cost
- and their relationship as being: the optimization of any 2 parameters will result in the (relative) impairment of the other 2

nfl

[bigben2k]

Maybe the review of the Innovatek block would settle this argument?

Putting it up the results of it at 0.25 and 0.5 gpm versus... a DangerDen RBX at 1.0 and 1.5 gpm?

There's no data for the Innovatek @ 0.25 gpm, but the results call for a delta T of 13.5 deg C, @ 0.5 gpm.

The DD RBX has a delta T of 11.5@ 1 gpm, and ~10.5 @ 1.5 gpm.


So we're looking at 2.0 to 3.5 degrees difference.


Shall we do the same for another USA block?

[dutchcedar]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

If a greater premium is placed on quiet than on performance, that's fine. But why feel the need to state that you're "at the most a degree or two" away from the highest performance solutions available? There's no basis for that really other than wanting to maintain a big e-penis.

I have 2 small kids and live on the Candian Praries. So as I look to replace my Accord Coupe I am quite enamored with the idea of more space and good winter driving performance. That's perfectly reasonable given the location and situation. But it is NOT reasonable to sell me a Subaru as "just a very small bit slower than a Corvette only with a lot more space."

pH, you confuse me. I have been using water cooling in my duallie rigs and following the product releases and developments for a few years now. I have not seen any evidence that a good "low flow" system will give a rig a hit of more than a few degrees over a good "high flow" system. Yet when someone posts a similar comment you whoop out the e-penis as their only viable reason.

I also see comments here that those few degrees are important. Important to overclocking, to be specific. Okay, I'll buy that. But not all of us are into overclocking... some of us just want great, rock stable rigs that perform well with a difference. If I was into overclocking, you can bet your last nickle that I would be using refrigeration, not water, to cool my rig. Maybe I should whoop out the e-penis and call all the water cooled overclockers out for not being serious enough in their methods?

As an aside, it really depends on which Subaru and which Corvette, doesn't it?

Also, there's a tag of "German" being laid on these "low flow" systems which I think may be a bit unfair. When Corsair sent me one of their first Hydrocools to test, it came from a Delphi factory in Detroit, if I'm remembering correctly. It was a "low flow" system. And aren't those pre-packaged "mount on top of your box" get-ups made here in the States? Their manufacturer's name escapes me, but they have teeny little blocks and ultra whimpy tubing...

[Cathar]

Hmmm, it seems that a contradiction in goals has crept into the argument, with acceptable noise vs acceptable performance. The level of "acceptance" varies from person to person, and depends on one's overclocking goals.

knipex has just stated though that absolute silence is more important to him than cooling performance. In such a scenario absolute performance is always going to take a back-seat purely because one is not "allowed" to fit even moderately powered fans on the radiator, nor use any of the stronger/noisier pumps. Such goals are fine so long as the system is stable and meets ones stated goals, but to claim that it is within 1-2C of a high-end system without any hard evidence is stretching faith more than just a little.

Nothing wrong with wanting adequate silent cooling, but surely one has to admit that it is a different set of goals to a more performance oriented system. Claiming that it is within 1-2C of a more performance focused system without evidence of such seems to me to be more a case of wishful thinking.


P.S. IMO, hard-drives don't need to be cooled with anything more than a low speed Papst 80mm NGL fan, which is what I use in my server case. That fan pushes a pathetic 19CFM or so in free-flow mode, is absoutely silent when in-case, and even when thrashing the disks (Seagate Barracuda's) they barely get warm to the touch. I can assure you that the disk drives are making more noise than the fan. For disk drives that do suffer from heat problems, these are typically noisy things too all by themselves.

[BillA]

the Exos ?
Korea
Corsair ?
Mexico (but designed by Delphi)

but it is the seductive phrase "you don't need a lot of water to cool" that has misled so many

Cathar, you know the routine
acceptable = good enough = stop confusing me with facts, I already have an opinion

[Cathar]

Here is too where I get a little uncomfortable with 1-2C figures.

1-2C at stock CPU speeds is a totally different matter to 1-2C at very highly overclocked levels.

A stock AMD XP-M 2500+ (1833MHz/1.45v) under load is putting out under a third of the heat of the same CPU when it's being run at 2800MHz/2.00v, or even 2900MHz/2.15v.

What I'm saying is that small differences at stock and quiet settings take on a much larger scale of significance when pushing the (computer) system hard. I believe that many people far too easily dismiss the scale of the heat load problem when pushing a system very hard. When you collectively (pump, CPU, GPU, etc) start pushing >150W into a radiator you do notice rather quickly that ultra-low-noise fans just don't cut it any more.

[BillA]

Cathar
I'm sort of concluding that WCing in Europe is driven far more by noise reduction than by performance improvement
- for those for whom such is true, small dia is the way to go (and take the performance hit for the sake of less noise)

as you point out, the C/W concerns are more compelling at 100W than at 50W

[Cathar]

Which brings us back to the original challenge.

Can a waterblock at low-flow rates (~1-1.5LPM), as would be typical of a system coupled with 6-7mm or ¼" ID tubing, and, using with a low-powered quiet pump (<1.5mH2O peak pressure, <10LPM peak flow) provide block-level performance that is within 0.02C/W of a 6+LPM flow rate system, as is typical of a ½" ID system when using a well powered pump (>3.0mH2O peak pressure, >10LPM peak flow rate).

Well, at least that is what I'd like to see proven before I would start to hold any weight in these "engineering vs brute-force" arguments.

Of course I would still stick a strong pump and at least 3/8" ID tubing on the "low flow" system just to remove those artificial limitations and perhaps get back that lost 0.02C/W, but that is just my personal focus.

This is all tangential to my own waterblock work though. I personally sit in the middle of the argument in belief, although I do chase bleeding edge overclocks for fun.

[redleader]

Originally Posted by knipex

Its not hot. Its cooler than aircooling AND silent. I might be able to get it cooler but its far far from hot..

As for the HD and the NB I allready explained in a post above just above where I said cooler than air and Silent.

Edit.. Damn beaten by Dutch

It sounds like you don't care about performance. With that in mind, why are you even here? No one doubts that quiet systems can be made to work, the (largely unrelated) question is how well can a low flow system be made to perform verses higher flow?

All data suggests "not very well". But this is not a concern to you, and only a concern to us because you posted what at best could be called questionable speculation as fact.

[Cathar]

One final thought, regarding noise and radiators, and yes it has been covered before in this thread.

If we do add low-noise (pair of ~26dBA Papst 4412 FGL's) vs moderate noise (pair of ~30dBA Panaflo L1A's) working on a Thermochill 120.2 or equivalent, then the bulk of the battle is already lost at the radiator before we even begin to look at the waterblock performance.

Of course if BillA's proposed radiator ever hits the streets that may change the scenario somewhat, but it won't change that even his proposed radiator would still be significantly better if one is prepared to accept slightly more noise.

Hmmm, what I would give for a ~90% efficient radiator that allowed ~100CFM of air-flow through it using fans that in total added up to less than 20dBA in noise level. Right now that'd only be barely possible using a about a 6 x 12cm fanned heater-core and a stack of under-volted Papst's, and would not be cheap.

[pHaestus]

From Bill's data cited by Les this morning though it seems like the penalty from using the quieter fans is substantially lessened by increasing flow rates through the radiator...