Liquid Cooling

[LA_MERC_Temp]

Does anybody here liquid cool their pcs. I was wondering if its worth the money to invest in a liquid cool system. Does it drop the temperature that much more than adding fans?

If you do liquid cool, what systems are yall using. I've been looking at Koolance. They seem to be pretty good.

[LA_MERC_eX1|eS' ch1|d]

Well if you get a really good water setup you can lower your temps some. But if you get a really badass, aka loud, fan then you can lower your temps pretty much the same. Water is quieter and more l33t then regular heatsink/fan combo. But there is some debate if it's worth the price for only slightly lower temps.

They both have the same problem, they move air and liquid at the same temperature as your house. So unless you are willing to set your thermostat to like 50 you can only get so low temperature wise. In other words, the water starts at case temp, then it runs to your chip which heats it up to like 130 or 140. Now the water goes to the radiator and gets cooled down to whatever your case temp is, if you have a good setup, might be higher then the case temp. Fans do the same thing, it can only get as cool as the temp inside your case.

If you are just doing the processor you can look at around $150ish, maybe a little less. Doing processor and video card add about $50 and that's about as cheap as you can find. For a good setup it's more like $300 for the processor and video card. Or you could just get some good thermal paste, Artic Silver, and a kickass fan for like $50 processor, $30 or so for video card. I've been thinking of getting a water setup but when I see the $200 to $300 extra I figure I could just get better stuff instead of overclocking. But liquid cooling has the l33t effect to me so I *might* eventually do it anyways.

[LA_MERC_Diesel]

Does anybody here liquid cool their pcs. I was wondering if its worth the money to invest in a liquid cool system. Does it drop the temperature that much more than adding fans?

I do not, but yes it can drop the cpu temps quit a bit, but is really only necessary for overclocking cpu's. you have to be realy careful based on the case you have as to which one you can do, and if you can do it.

[LA_MERC_eX1|eS' ch1|d]

You can do it!

You can put the stuff on the outside of the case if you have too. Check out some of the case modding sites for ideas. I've seen reservoirs mounted on the sides and tops of cases. Radiators are usually mounted to the back where a typical fans resides. If you don't have the internal space you can mount it on the outside of the back panel. The pump and hoses are all that should really concern you for space. I've seen Small Form Factor cases with processor, chipset, and video card all water cooled.

Like Diesel said it's mainly for people who are going to overclock their systems. So if you don't plan on overclocking it's probably not worth it.

You could always go prometia for the ultimate in cooling. But you will definately need a big case.

[LA_MERC_eX1|eS' ch1|d]

This is what I'm talking about. First is a bad mofo from Austrailia that I found at www.thebestcasesenario.com. Here is this guy's trademark sidepanel 45 degree angle reservoir. Second is a SFF that Mashie did based on the Doom3 game at www.mashie.org. The pump is partially outside the case and both the reservoir and radiator are totally outside. The radiator is the square thing on the back of the case.(right side of the picture)

[LA_MERC_Temp]

I've got plenty of room in my case. I have a Dell XPS gaming rig. Its the size of a full tower and they also mounted the powersupply on the bottom which is seperated from the inside components of the case which is kinda wierd, but they say its to help with the heat issue. I was looking at this internal one -
http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=28_48&products_id=244

The main reason I've looking for a better cooling solution is for my video card. I have an ATI Radeon 850 XT PE 256mb card. It runs around 50 C idle and around the high 70's low 80's C while playing.

Koolance is the only company that I've seen that has a cooling solution custom to the 850XT.

http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=29_46&products_id=175

My video card's ati control center is capable of overclocking the card. As of now its set to the lowest frequency, but it is capable of running almost 100 mhz higher. Was hoping to cool it off enought to get more performace out of the card without frying it.

I was thinking about cooling the rest of the box while i was at it. So total, I was looking at around $450 for the processor, video, hard drive, ram, and the liquid cooling system.

[LA_MERC_Spark]

I did quite a bit of research into H2O cooling for my new rig. The truth is that aircooling solutions have become a lot more efficient and quiet. The difference in temps just wasnt big enough for the extra expense. Which is hard for me to say when I spent $1500 just on video cards ><. Dangerden is a good place to hunt down information and parts. They make some of the best includig 7800GTX sli blocks. http://www.dangerden.com/news.php Check out some of the post on these forums for temp differences between air and water cooling. http://www.hardocp.com/ You may have to sign up for the forums, but there's some good information. Now you can by an air-conditioned case for just over $200... not sure how well it work though http://www.frozencpu.com/scan/se=Stock%20Cases/se=Nextherm/mp=menu_search.html
http://www.frozencpu.com/cas-319.html

[LA_MERC_eX1|eS' ch1|d]

I wouldn't worry about the hard drive since you can't overclock them, I don't think anyway. WOW! $50 for a RAM block, each. If you plan on overclocking the RAM, which most people do, the block would probably help. But I would want to see some sort of review on it to see if it's worth it. Have you checked out some review sites on this and other setups?

[LA_MERC_Temp]

its a dual ram block. its cools both sides of 2 sticks of adjacent ram.