Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Out of curiosity

Last response: in Overclocking
Share

has anyone ever hooked their WC loops up to a domestic radiator? they are about the same price as your average WC rad and allot bigger, just with no fans, to me it kind of makes sense to recycle the waste heat and surely modern domestic radiators would be efficient enough for this purpose, though i imagine you wolud need a fairly powerful pump at either side of the rad.

More about : curiosity

Register or log in to remove
Overclocking Expert

Interesting proposition, I'm not sure that anyones tried it,
domestic rads are quite thick so it would be difficult to get the heat out of them,
it would basically be a passive loop and I'm not convinced it would work effectively,
unless you mounted it horizontally and laid it in ice :p 
Moto
Overclocking Authority

Since this is a a thinking outside the box situation anyway, I imagine it could be cooled with a household box fan, set on high. Probably too noisy for most people though, lol.
Related ressources
Ask the community
Overclocking Expert

They are designed to emanate heat but you want a radiator that is able to be actively cooled by fans for example, you would need a hell of a fan to cool the radiators metal enough to cool the water inside,
@Recon, he means a house radiator like we have on walls,
not car rads, which are a suitable alternative, although again with the massive fans hehe
@Dj, yup too much noise and not effective enough
Moto

Built a custom WC system a few years ago and I found that certain transmission coolers will fit 3 120 mm fans perfectly with a little mod and are about 1/3 the price and cool exceptionally well. Youre welcome for that.
Overclocking Authority

Yeah, if you're talking about a household heating radiator, there's no fan (even industrial) that will cool that, since the metal's too thick and it's not meant for cooling anyway. vrumor put you on the right track though. Although I DO think a full size car type radiator would work, but you would need a high flow pump for it to work properly, and a huge fan to cool it.

yeah voodooking, however it did occur to me as i was washing the pots just now that they are designed to store and release the heat slowly which of course would mean the cooling potential would be vastly reduced over time as the ambient air temp would increase and ultimately render the system ineffective.

fair point you make moto, though that doesn't seem to inhibit their use in household systems.
Overclocking Expert

Watercooling and the word cheap should only be in the same sentence when separated by a negatory, as in 'Watercooling ISN'T cheap' :p 
I believe he got six of them reasonably cheap though
Moto

i think my curiosity on this matter has been satisfied, however i have one last question on modding, has anyone ever modded one of those sealed loops for different tubing/bigger rad, i had a look the other day and only found one thread on the matter however the discussion derailed only a few posts after the OP

ok truth be told most of the awesome builds that you see in the gallery they started from somewhere and most started with a kit of some sort but the reason most of us advocate for a custom build is because where trying to save you in the long run from buying something that will be dismantled and thrown away. let me explain this in a another way I like to build cars and my last project was a Nissan 240 sx after the warranty went out I started look at ways to make it better, stronger, faster, and more exciting. so I beefed up the shocks rebuilt the motor, rear-end, and transmission, the total on this was $12,000, cheaper than a new car, but more than I had to spend to do this. if I had bought the R edition I would have been able to achieve the same results for about $7000 if I had only considered who I am at the time when I bought it, true the R edition would have cost about $4000 more, but would have saved me a lot of work in the process. but I do have a car now that can squall the tires at 60 mph if you floor it. my girl friend drove it through a wall one day, and blamed me for causing the accident, said that my upgrades caused her to be unable to control the car. although when I arrived on the seen her friends were gone, and it was obvious that she had been drag racing the car. she never paid for the damage, but she also does not drive it any more either. man chicks can cost, a lot. but back to water cooling I bought a swiftech Qpower startup system. the start up was $600 just for the processor, but it was easy to upgrade and I did not half to throw anything away. so if you spend a little extra now, it will save you in the long run. maybe I should apply this type of consideration to women, if I get a higher class of woman now, she won't cost me so much latter? :lol: 
Overclocking Expert

I wouldn't recommenc either of those kits, in fact I would actively steer you away from them,
if budget is an issue, wait until its not, then build a good loop later on,
Moto

i dont want air cooling because i dont like the idea of fixing something as huge as the d-14 to my MOBO, but when i can only allocate ~£300 for the case and cooling my options are limited, especially when im looking at lian li cases
Overclocking Expert

Again with a big fat NO! :p 
Seriously these allinone kits (unless from Xspc or swiftech) are a waste of your hardearned and will probably sour you on the whole W/c experience, you have some serious hardware to cool, you absolutely cannot F%&k yourself over by putting a crap cooling system in there,
if you can get the RX360 kit I'd be happier and you can add a smaller 240 rad (Ex should be fine if you can't find somewhere for an RX 240), in there as well to cope with the gfx output
but please please do not buy any kit other thanXspc or swiftech's,
read through the sticky and you'll see a little more of the methodology involved
Moto

well if you upgrade all the fittings, and get larger/better tubing, and add a fill/flush system. I can show you how to do that, total for the upgrades about $150, but would make a pretty decent starter system, should last about 3 years, before you will need to replace the pump.

atm i only want to WC my CPU, and if i upgrade the rad it will be to a 280mm not a 240 or a 360, i just want something to get started, if it fails then i go back to stock until i can upgrade a little later which is what i intend to do anyway as none of them are entirely adequate for my needs, as such i think ill go with the magicool kit and some de-ionized water
Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Overclocking categories
!