water cooling

[bignig69]

Hey,
I'm new to the whole water cooling business, but definitely not overclocking as I have been doing it for years. I've heard good things about Swiftech and Innovatek, but need help deciding which performs better. Money is not an issue, and neither is ease of installation. Simply, I just want to know which performs better than the other. I'm looking at the new Swiftech 8600 series kit and the most recent Innovatek with their Eheim pump. Let me know. Thanks.

 

[wschuerm]

hi, I'm looking for a watercooling myself at the moment. Kits aren't all that great imo. The asetek does perform ok but i sent those guys a couple of mails and they never answered so i won't be doing business with them. As I live in Europe I've mainly been looking at products on European websites. In this case look at www.watercooling.de (available in english but I don't know if they ship to the US. Innovatek is quite helpful on the other hand, if you know german their forum is great for WC questions and Innovatek moderators answers yours questions every day (multiple times). If you live in the US visit the dangerden website. I think they are about the best what is on offer in custom watercooling.

In what I've read so far I concluded that radiator wise the only real way to go if you want absolute best performance is the Black Ice extreme II (www.hwlabs.com). That is of course if your not planning on using multiple radiators or something like that. This in conjunction with the latest switech waterblocks should be great, or innovatek XX-flow and one of their graphics coolers... it depnds on what you want to cool (XX-flow has the best performance in innovatek CPU cooling blocks. Pumpwise, if you use 10/8 tubes (mm) a eheim 1046 or hydor L20 should be ok, if you're going for the dangerden stuff, the higher the flow rate the better (eheim 1050 or 1048 or hydor L30). The Innovatek pump is something special its flowrate is the same as the eheim 1048 but somehow its better adapted to system resistance coused by waterblocks etc (they build it in conjunction with eheim, the pump is to expensive in my opinion however)




SL6EF OC's GOOD

 

[jammydodger]

It might be best for you to assemble your own kit. I would go for the Eheim pump over the hydor one, apparently it is quieter and looks more sturdy.
The asetek Antartica water block looks very nice and a dual radiator with pabst fans is prob a good bet. If you live in the UK check out <A HREF="http://www.over-clock.co.uk" target="_new">http://www.over-clock.co.uk</A>

P4c 2.6@3.25
512Mb PC4000
2x120Gb 7200.7 in RAID0
Waterchill KT12-L30
Abit AI7
Radeon 9800Pro

 

[wschuerm]

looks more sturdy???????? hmmm, not having worked with either of them i can't really tell but the asetek set comes with a hydor so it won't exacly be a bad pump...

Pabst fans are only of real interest if you want the thing to be quiet if you want max performance than there are fans that produce a gigher airflow and thus better performance.

SL6EF OC's GOOD

 

[jammydodger]

Yeh if you want great cooling get beefier fans, I personnally like quiet. Im using the hydor L30 and it seems a bit cheap, works fine though. It is supposed to be louder than the eheim pump, but since this isnt a concern for you I would go with the hydor pump and save a few quid.

P4c 2.6@3.25
512Mb PC4000
2x120Gb 7200.7 in RAID0
Waterchill KT12-L30
Abit AI7
Radeon 9800Pro

 

[wschuerm]

this is what I'm getting in a couple of days (depending on delivery speed).

InnovaGraph-O-Matic Rev 2 Transparent (GPU)
InnovaSpezial Tubing - transparent adaptor 1/4" straight for 8x1 tubing (same as GPU and CPU block but for the radiator)
innovatek XX-flow - transparent (CPU)
Black ICE-Xtreme II
Hydor Pro-V
IC Plex 120 reservoir (only 125 ml but with easy tube connectors same as the rest of the system)
innovaProtect corrosionprotection
Titan fans 120x120x25

If anyone has any idea on where to put the radiator please let me know, I was thinking of putting it insode my case but I might get better temps when I put it outside of my case (= Themaltake Xaser III) that case has 7 fans (2 front, 2 sidepanel 2 exhaust back and one exhaust top plus 3 fans in the PSU. So I gues there's plenty of fresh air moving in the case... still, I think my setup will probably be one of the noisiest watercoolingsetups inexistance

I'll be cooling (and overclocking) a PIV 2.4 (533 FSB) and a Sapphire radeon 9800 pro 128 mb.

SL6EF OC's GOOD

 

[wschuerm]

aint that the truth, the webshop I bought it from states that the radiator has 1/4" fittings so I guess I'll be ok. ( http://www.watercooling.de/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=513 ) I think they have it specially fitted or something. The fact that its 1/4" and not 1/2" shouldn't hamper perfomance either because all cannections use 1/4" fittings in the components I ordered. Now I just need better ram, my Corsair XMS ddr400 was already maxed out at 160fsb and (hopefully) I'll be able to go just a bit further with watercooling. BTW whats that radeon thing you do, I've got a Spphire 9800pro 128 mb I never really oc'd it because it just got hot (to the touch) when heavily operated. Do u actually get 475mhz on your card? How about your memory, I've read somewhere that the radeon 9800pro isn't really held back by gpu overclocking potential but by the ram which doesn't go high enough to be able to feed the faster pace of the GPU with enough bandwidth.

SL6EF OC's GOOD

 

[wschuerm]

well I got my stuff 2 days ago and the BIX II has two fttings for 1/4" screws, the hydor uses broader adaptor screws to make the 1/4" fit (so yes the hydor is 1/2" from what i can tell, but again I have a BIX II with 1/4" fittings I chose the shop I did especially for this. I think it is refitted by atotech or it is done for them, to make it fit for their coooling solution.

My temps are great btw, 35 idle 45 load (2.4 @ 2.88) or 41 idle 51 load 2.4@3.06 and vcore 1.625) I say great because have have the radiator inside my case wirhout any cutouts or anything just in front of the HDD bay (Xaser III) (ambient room temp is about 20c but inside the case i gets to 30c so thas what the rad has to use

SL6EF OC's GOOD

 

[jammydodger]

30Idle 42Load 2.6c @ 3.25Ghz with Asetek water cooling kit.

P4c 2.6@3.25
512Mb PC4000
2x120Gb 7200.7 in RAID0
Waterchill KT12-L30
Abit AI7
Radeon 9800Pro

 

[jammydodger]

Lol, I was pretty drunk when I wrote that and cant resist an opportunity to show off when Im drunk. Didnt mean to gert all cocky.

P4c 2.6@3.25
512Mb PC4000
2x120Gb 7200.7 in RAID0
Waterchill KT12-L30
Abit AI7
Radeon 9800Pro

 

[wschuerm]

well from what I've read about watercooling there's two ways you can go 1 is high flow rate and 1/2" tubing, the other is lower flow rate and a bit more effient water blocks, this is my first experiment with watercooling and i'm happy about the results, the waterblock I got is supposed to be pretty good, (tomshardware has a test if an innovatek kit (old one though) with the innovacool rev 3 water block and the one i got should outperform this one so...) BTW since my BIX II has 1/4" fittings theres pretty much no point in swithching since flow will be restcicted at the fittings

As for temps I don't need 30c temps i just need lower temps for higher overclocking, since my board is still an asus P4PE and the cpu a 2.4b (533fsb) i'm somewhat limited, btw 3ghz is as far as i've tried mybe I'll try to go further I've still got some headroom tempwise and my vcore should be safe up to 1.7v problem is that asus board I use overvolts a bit so when I select 1.65 for example it'll use 1.675 or somthing and from what I know a vcore of 1.75 is about critical for a northwood rev b (they die)

As for my VGA waterblock, I killed it during installation, tightened the screws to hard and then iI heard a crack first I thought bye bye radeon 9800 but when I checked out the die and card they were fine, when in specting the waterblock I saw that the plastic top was cracked (not taking any chnces here and geting a new one) I probably got damaged during transport or something because the box was pretty beat up :-(

SL6EF OC's GOOD

 

[wschuerm]

That's what I mean this test reviews the rev 4 innovacool and the X-flow the XX-flow is supposed to be better.

<A HREF="http:// http://www.liquidluxx.de/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=19&t=000006&p=18 " target="_new">http:// http://www.liquidluxx.de/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=19&t=000006&p=18 </A>

If you know german you can read the article if not just look at the graphs, first graph gives temp difference with room and second one a price comparison



SL6EF OC's GOOD

 

[wschuerm]

at least my block is about the least crappy one according to the review


SL6EF OC's GOOD