Some advice to wc noobie please: Innovatek Convekt-o-mAtic Passive Radiator questions

[nanyangview]

Hello everyone, this is my first post and I am a total noob. So please forgive for any stupidity

Anyways, seeing the vast number of experts here in the WC arena, I believe I have come to the right place for advice. I am setting up a A64 3400 system and planning to watercool it using passive radiators. I hate noisy computers so everything in my new rig are chosen to be as noise - free as possible.

THe zalman reserator is too weak for overclocking so I am shopping for alternatives. What caught my eye is the InnovaKonvekt-o-Matic MAXI which is rated to dissipate approximately 125 watts of heat. (http://www.highspeedpc.com/Merchant2...=InnovaKonvect)
Now if i buy two of those Rads and daisy chain them together, it will dissipate about 250Watts of heat approximately. Will that be enough for overlocking w/o running into major heat issue?

Advice and recommendation are welcomed.

[AngryAlpaca]

125W at what temperature change? I highly doubt this will offer anything over the reserator, although it costs a lot more. What's your sound limit? Most people won't mind (indeed, a lot want) a low level of noise, and that will get you decent performance.

[bigben2k]

How this stuff sells is beyond me: obviously I don't have a full grasp of the extremes to which people will fall prey. (sold out?!?)

Seems to me that if you were able to fit a heatercore at the top of the case (cutting open the case top), you'd have better performance, since the hot air doesn't "trip" over itself. 8 inches wide, 15 inches long (oops, I mean, 20 cm wide and 38 cm long ).

Yeah, be wary of Watts: it's incomplete info.

[nanyangview]

thanks for the reply guys.
That is the exact question. On the website it says the Maxi outperformed the dual fanned inno radiator which is very skeptical. I searched long and hard for some reviews of the konvekt-o-matic and i can't find any english reviews.

Here is one review that I found so far in german, maybe you guys can help me decipher the result since pictures are universal :
http://www.pctweaks.de/index.php?i=b...226&inhaltid=0

[bobkoure]

The thing to remember about any kind of radiator is that the heat exchange is proportional to the difference in temperature between the radiator and the air that you are "dumping" the heat to. Note how Innovatek mentions that the "maxi" only moves a third more heat even though it's got twice the size - that's because, once some of the heat is dumped, the difference in temperatures between coolant and air is less.
I've been unable to find this info (A.K.A. "temp differential") on either of the konvect-o-matics, so have no idea whether these ratings are "legit" (IMHO coolant temps 5C or less over ambient air temps) or a "cheat" (like BlackIce - coolant temps 40C over room air).
Perhaps highspeedpc can come up with numbers for you (in my experience, very good folks, BTW).
The konvect-o-matics have a lot more surface area than the reserators and may indeed work for you - I just can't tell.

With all that said, you do realize that you can get very quiet cooling using a radiator and a fan? I've set up fan/radiator systems that are under ~15dB (very approximate dB - using my hearing threshhold as a measuring device, low ambient noise - late night residential, out in the country). Note that 15dB is still too loud to go into a recording studio - at least on the same side of the glass as the microphones - not a problem on the control side.

It looks as though the A64-3200+ (up through 3700 actually) has a max draw of 57.8A. Multiply that by the volts you are using to overclock to get the amount of heat you are trying to move - which doesn't seem to be way more than the XPs. However the A64s all have a max temp rating of 70C (as opposed to the XPs 90C) which probably means that you will have to keep this chip cooler than an XP in order to get a successful overclock. IMHO this does not bode well for silent cooling.
Have you already set this system up with air cooling? Do you really need an A64 and absolute silence? If so, you might think about setting the system up out of earshot and using a cheap/quiet laptop as a remote terminal device.
If you have not already set the system up, I'd suggest looking at the XP-mobile chips/motherboards. IMHO, there's a better cost/performance ratio, you draw a lot less power, even 'way overclocked, so your chances of a silent overclock go up - and IMHO 64 bits isn't going to buy you lots until you're using a 64bit OS (or are you on Linux? or a use-64-in-W32-app like Oracle/Autocad). (BTW, I'm a Windows driver writer - save your pity - just bringing it up as I'm making statements about 64 vs 32)

All my opinion, of course - worth exactly what you paid me for it

[bobkoure]

Counterpoint to my opinions on A64 and silence
Athlon 64 for Quiet Power
See? I told you what my opinions were worth...

[nanyangview]

hey bobkoure, thanks for the reply. The thing is I already have a AMD64 3400 CPU on hand since i've won it a a while back. I want passive cooling to reduce the dust/noise problem associated with fans. I may also add another HD cooler to cool my 15.3K Cheetah SCSI drive which leads to a total of 2 heatsource.

Now the passive rads maybe too weak for OCing so if I get the dual fan Inno Radiator, do i have to place it inside or outside the case? I've heard that 102 MM fans are super noisy even at low RPM. Any other suggestions?

[bobkoure]

Try Panaflo L1A fans at 5V. Even the M1As at 5V are pretty quiet.
Before you buy a for-PC radiator, so a search here for "heater core" and read up on the pros and cons between those and the for-PC rads.
You may find that the Innovatek rads exactly fit your needs, but I'd suggest learning about the alternatives before you spend $$$.
While I'm at it, I've had very good luck with the HPPS pump (Innovatek/Eheim 12V - quieter than Eheim 1046). If you go with a heater core you might think about spending some of the $$ you save on one of these. When looking at pumps on line, beware the word "quiet" - look for "dB" instead as some folks consider 30dB to be "quiet" - and, from your questions, I'm pretty sure you don't...

[bobkoure]

PS, I just tried reading the review you posted a link to.
It does not mention the room temp, nor does it mention fan speeds on the "Aktiv" radiator, so, IMHO, about the only data you can bring away is that, using an XP1800+ at 1.65V, the Maxi keeps coolant 10C warmer than an unknown radiator/fan combo and at 1.85, the Maxi gets 2.5C warmer (and the active radiator is unchanged).
If room temp was the somewhat-typical 20 to 22C, then these temps were somewhere between 15.5C and 20C over ambient.
Again, they don't mention, but given the overclock, the processor was probably the Thoroughbred 1800+, so 51W max - only they didn't mention whether they were running the CPU at 100%, so they were getting these temps with some heat source somewhere between 35W and 65W.
They did provide some pretty bar graphs to look at, though...
And for all I know, it's a literary masterpiece (hard to tell once Systran gets through with it - don't speak German myself...)

[nanyangview]

Yeah the reviews are not very helpful at all. The other radiator they used in comparison to the Inno's is similar to dual 102MM Inno rads.

So what is a heater core? I searched around on the forums and it seems to be like a radiator from the car. If I use that, will I get acceptable temperatures w/o a fan?

[Tempus]

There is silent cooling and then there is quiet cooling.

If you have a 15k scsi drive then you already have noise. If you keep the fan noise around/below the drive noise then you have as quiet as rig as you would with a passive system.

You can always get a few big fans and run them below 12Vs for extra quiet loving.

-------------

How big of an overclock are you looking for and how often will you be putting a big load on the cpu?

[bobkoure]

Originally Posted by Tempus

If you keep the fan noise around/below the drive noise then you have as quiet as rig as you would with a passive system.

From what little I know about acoustics, you'd need to keep a second noise source somewhere between 2 and 3dB quieter than your current "noise floor" for it to not add to the perceived noise level.
A quiet 7200 RPM drive (not SCSI) is going to be around 20 or 22dB, so yeah, you can add fans up to, say, 18dB and not increase perceived noise. The problem is that most axial fans, when slowed to the point of generating 18dB don't generate much pressure - and you need some to move air through a radiator.

[bobkoure]

Originally Posted by nanyangview

So what is a heater core?

Where to start...?
It's a mini-radiator used in cars/trucks to dump coolant heat into the air coming into the passenger cabin.
If you've turned on the heat in your car, you've used a heater core
They come in a bunch of different sizes and shapes - and, in what seems to be an attempt folks new to watercooling, their listed sizes are the finned area only - there are tanks on the top/bottom that add about an inch total.
They're more inconvenient to mount than a for-PC-radiator, although, if you pick a 6x6 (or thereabouts) heater core and a coolingworks shroud, it becomes very easy. The easiest way to get a core of this size is from dtek-custom. They also sell a shroud, but, IMO it does not have a deep enough "plenum" and should be passed by for the coolingworks one.
I think there's a "sticky" in this forum about heater core selection. Worth a read...

Neither a heater core nor a for-PC-radiator will cool very well without forced air. The fins are too close together.

[redleader]

Heatercores are smaller radiators used in cars. They're very low restriction and have thousands upon thousands of tiny copper strands stretched between each tube giving them massive amounts of surface area.

Generally they need fans, however very low speed fans generate very good results. Mine is cool to the touch with a pair of 7v L1A 120mm fans. If you don't mind a few degrees higher, 5v would probably give you very quiet and still low coolant temps.

[nanyangview]

thanks again for the great help!
now i found another review for the Maxi Radiator:
http://www.thegoom.com/artikel/artikel.pl?artikel=118

it is able to cool a XP2400 CPU Oced to 2.4 Ghz giving out 110 Watts of heat.
I think that review is more thorough than the first one. Any opinions?

[gone_fishin]

Off topic slightly, is it just me or does that site (Innova) need smashed watermelon and a big ole wooden mallet?

[bobkoure]

All issues of not having the ambient temp listed here either aside, and ignoring the "Sockel" and "Diode" readings (both wildly inaccurate, although, if they'd left the rest of the system undisturbed - meaning same pump, tubing, waterblock, motherboard, CPU and the waterblock was not dismounted/remounted, I'd take those numbers to mean the maxi was approximately the same as a BIP with a 6V fan - of unknown properties)

I'm puzzled by the case temps. Case is cooler with Maxi? Hmmm..., well maybe - so long as here are other fans exhausting the case.
This would indicate that the BIP is on an inlet (they didn't mention this either). So... why is the case warmer with a 12V fan on an inlet than a 6V one? If they were exhausting the system with a fan of approximately the same characteristics of the inlet one at 12V that would explain it - but means the system is not quiet.

Any idea what they mean by "Differenz"?



On the other hand, I've a little experience with BIPs and their numbers match my experience (going from an almost-silent at at 5V to full-on at 12V only makes a couple of degrees difference). I wouldn't try to overclock anything cooled with it, though.

And finally
AMD AthlonXP 2500+ @ 2,4GHz (209x11,5) 110 Watts of heat emission
110 Watts? The non-mobile (so higher power) 2500+ XPs are rated by AMD at a Max amperage of 41.4A (note this is for motherboard designers, so the actual max amps is less). To get to 110W, they'd need to be supplying 2.66V. Ya think?
I think they've got the hacked "uber" BIOS on that board, which allows you to twiddle the CPU voltage to your heart's content - but that setting is hidden from the "stock" BIOS because it doesn't do anything (there are other great reasons to use the Uber BIOS, but CPU voltage is not one of 'em).
There's also no mention of what they're doing to run the CPU at 100%. Do you think they actually are running the CPU at 100%? If not (and my guess on the voltage is right), they're actually cooling more like ~55W (or less).
FWIW, 55W also puts their BIP numbers into the ballpark I'd expect.

OK, that was fun your turn to dissect the next one!

[Butcher]

A 15.3K cheetah runs at about 32dB idle btw - high speed scsi drives are available below 30dB that I've been able to find.

bob, as volts go up amps also tend to rise for CPUs, you'll often find overclocked CPUs exceed the maximum ratings for current draw specified by AMD. I estimate that for 110W at 2400MHz you'd be looking at 1.95V, which is quite reasonable. Roughly speaking this gives a current draw of 56A (this is only an estimate is the power formula is not exact and CPUs are not ohmic devices).

The general cpu power draw estimation formula is:
Poc = Pstock * (foc / fstock) * (Voc / Vstock)^2

[nanyangview]

the cheetah 15.3K is actually a very quiet drive, matching the sound level of my maxtor 7200 RPM drives using fluid bearing motors. It was a pleasant suprise when I bought it.

anywayz, i think the reason why case temp are lower with the convection radiator is because the rad is placed outside the case, compared to those regular rads placed inside the case, which will add to the overall case temp increase. I know hthe AMD 64 3400+ is rated at 89 Watt max under full load, seeing that the Inno Rad can cool a heavily OCed AMD XP 2400, which is much hotter than the A64, does it still make the radiators a good buy?

I am using a Lian-Li PC 6085 Case btw and I am getting the MSI NEO Nforce 3 250Gb mobo for my athlon.

[Butcher]

32dB isn't that quiet. I have a 32dB rated SCSI drive and it's a lot louder than my SATA disks (rated 22dB). Either you have the worlds quietest scsi drive or you have a relatively noisy fluid bearing drive.

Seagate sound output reference: http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/data...eetah15k.3.pdf