Thermaltake Tai Chi Water Cooled Case electric costs

[optical10]

Hi All

I'm poised to blow some serious cash on a complete new system, but i'm stuck on the cooling system and case.

The Thermaltake Tai Chi Water Cooled Case http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/taichi/vb5001sna/vb5001sna.htm
is in the final two against the:-

Sytrin Nextherm ICS 8200: The Air-Conditioned Mid Tower
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20051025/sytrin_nextherm_ics_8200-07.html

However having read the above tom's hardware on the Sytrin Nextherm ICS 8200: The Air-Conditioned Mid Tower which had a section "High Electricity Bill Guaranteed" obviously lead to the question [which I couldn't fit in the subject line] is:-

Can you give me an idea of the electricity running costs [in watts] of running a water cooled system against running a standard heat sinked CPU system?

I'm taking it as read that I don't need to compare the horenderious 25 watts offline mode [even without motherboard, drives + CPU not installed!!] power draw of the Sytrin Nextherm ICS 8200: The Air-Conditioned Mid Tower due to the power-hungry Air-Conditioned Peltier cooling system.

Any other recommendations, tips etc from your experiences with water cooling in general like wattage for PSU for W/C systems with AMD X2 CPU's and SLI graphics cards configs much appreciated.

Thankz in advance

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

both are royaly retarded and costly.... just get a good ol' stacker or a nice lian li v2000 and save the cash to get yourself a WAY nicer water cooling system...

 

[optical10]

Thankz for your recommendations, now I’m going to drop the “retarded” 85 L/h Thermaltake Tai Chi Water Cooling kit but keep the sublime Tai Chi and replace it with one of the following kits:-

1= Swiftech H2O-120-FK
2= Corsair Cool

The Corsair Cool is cheaper but doesn’t have the 350 Swiftech pump neatly in the 51/4” reservoir but the Corsair Cool kit is made by Swiftech.

http://www.swiftnets.com/ [for picture]

According to Custom PC reviews both Kits “can move a large quantity of coolant (92.4gph). It has a maximum head of 13ft, so it has enough power to cope with even the largest full-tower cases.”

They are both “supplied with a 120mm fan, it has a universal mounting system that's also compatible with 60mm, 80mm and 92mm fan mounts. This means that, other than the Corsair, the Swiftech is the only high-performance water-cooling kit compatible with older cases that don't have a 120mm fan mount.”

The Swiftech H2O-120-FK “compatible with Athlon 64 CPUs and cooled our overclocked and overvolted Athlon 64 FX-55 to 18 below the reference AMD HSF. Only the much bulkier and noisier Koolance Exos and Exos-2 systems, and the triple 120mm-fan radiator Asetek kit, provided cooler temperatures.”
The Corsair Cool attached to Custom PC’s “new thermal test rig, which we also used in this month's HSF Labs test, the Cool cooled the overclocked and overvolted Athlon 64 FX-55 to 14 lower than the reference AMD HSF when idle, and 25 lower with the CPU working flat out. That's a good 6 lower than the incredibly loud Scythe Kamakiri HSF, which is the best HSF we've seen so far, and the Cool was much quieter too.”
So what do you think, please advice I’m itching to get building!

Cheerz

 

[RichPLS]

I would go for the Thermaltake Tai Chi Water Cooled Case as it looks awesome and the watercooling kit included with it reviews are excellent!
I see it runs a bit above $400 but you get one complete neat well built package designed for performance and longevity, not to mention a showpiece!
I had not realized that case kits had come along so far, thanks for reminding me.
I am not impressed with the first review I read on the Sytrin case, maybe next generation or two will be the bomb, but it just is to clunky for me and not enough cooling for the energy usage/price.

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

for a performance kit(i usually say stay away from kits.. but this one is an exception) swfitech h20-something "EXTREME DUTY" the one w/ storm, d5 and a bip2 like radiator... thats just about the best kit out there

 

[optical10]

Thankz for your replies so far, it’s been a great help. but guyz’ n’ galz - stop the press!! I'm in love :tongue: with this "Battlestar Galactica - zilon" beauty, so bye bye to the poorly finished expensive Thermaltake Tai Chi Case [the queen is dead, long live the queen] [http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=5&artpage=1493&articID=376].

But sorry I still need your help on a alternative cooling system as it’s now between the Swiftech H2O-120-FK water cooling kit [http://www.pcpro.co.uk/custompc/labs/75148/swiftechh2o120fk.html?searchString=swiftech+h2o+120+fk+swiftech+h2o+120+fk ] and the Scythe SCNJ-1000 Ninja heatsink [http://www.silentpcreview.com/article251-page5.html], water vs. air cooling in the NZXT Lexa Tower Case with 4 silent fans.

My needs are thermal rather than silence. Running costs [watts per hour] is the most important factor as you know with my rejection of the Sytrin Nextherm ICS 8200: The Air-Conditioned Mid Tower I mentioned in the first post.

So on to my kit, as a reminder these are the new components:-

NZXT Lexa Classic Series case, Atx, 500 w PSU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4400+ S939
2 x BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB [SLI Config] [Lifetime guarantee]
Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI
CREATIVE Sound Card Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX [?]
OCZ 1GB (2 x 512MB) SDRAM (PC 3200) Dual Channel Platinum Lifetime Warranty
Akasa AK-P650FF BK 650 watt PSU

These are my older components:-

Western Dig 36 GB Raptor System SATA H/D 5 year Warranty
Western Dig 120 GB Data SATA H/D 3 year Warranty

Hope I haven’t missed anything, if I have please advice.

Thankz in advance!

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

that swiftech kit looks pretty nice, strong pump, good performing block, but they kind of skimmed on the raidator. since you are looking into dual core, which has a higher thermal dump, you are better off with teh "extreme duty" kit i showed you, or upgrading that radiator.


and skimming over your new specs, they looks incredibility awesome, cept you might want to get a better psu. go for a seasonic s12 600w or a pc power & cooling 510w. since u have such a high end system, you DON'T want to screw everythign up with a weak psu

 

[fariss]

If your Audigy is the Platinum version (front panel w/ knobs) you might want to check for clearance with the front case door on the Lexa case.

 

[Teon]

Im also very interested in getting this Tai-Chi case im not worried about the price or energy costs i just want to know about the performance..

i have never built a water cooled a PC and im a bit lost, so i would like to start with a prebuilt system before i do something wrong and it ends up costing me More.

From what im seeing on this Tai-Chi case compared to other Custom sytems are the diameter of the pipes going to the processor, am i correct in saying that.. the more water the cooler it will run and if so how much cooler?

& something else that im puzzled with is how do you cool the GPU as well
i have seen setups where it is Radiator--->--CPU--->---Gpu--->--Radiator
wouldnt the liquid comming off the Cpu be warm? how optimally would i perform cooling both?

-Thanks
-Water Coolong Newb =/

 

[RichPLS]

From what I have read in reviews, that is an excellent design and very good cooler system, you should have no problems with harware or cooling... 8)