big external watercooler.

robinlawrie

robinlawrie

robinlawrie

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few years have passed since my last post, but im once again planning a project.

edit: just realised i posted this in the wrong forum.. doh.

anyway...

ive got a fairly interesting custom machine.. its a standard lian li alu case, but with 2 microatx machines crammed inside. they are both overclocked 3930k's with 32gb of ram, connected with 10gb infiniband, and powered by a shared 1500w psu.

one board is used as the main machine (and has a gtx670 gpu) the other is a rendering slave with no gpu.

i use it for my work doing 3d animation.

i always intended to document the build here, but as always, real life got in the way.

anyway im very happy with the result apart from one thing. the noise.

each cpu is cooled with a corsair h80 with push/pull fans ( yes they are in the same case too)

however, with a 4.4ghz overclock, both need to be running on high. and the combined noise of the two coolers (plus gpu when im working) is starting to drive me a bit bonkers (not to mention i have tinnitus to remind me of all my youthful partying, but thats another story)


so, i was thinking about building an external cooler that could handle both 3930k's, and ideally a couple of titan-x'es (my prospective next purchase for gpu rendering)

it would also be nice if the cooler had spare capacity to cool another machine should i choose to add one.

it also has to be as near to silent as possible.

tall order eh?

so my current thinking is a pair of mora 3's with a set of 4 180mm fans sandwiched between them (with a space to remove dead spots) with a nice wooden or metal frame wrapping the sides and top.

also included in the cooler would be reservoir and pumps (2 for redundancy / extra pressure)

i figure that even with say, 3x 6 core oc'ed processors and a couple of titan x'es, 2 mora 3s should be more than sufficient, and definitely the most cost effective compared to other options.

thoughts?

next up, the issues of tube length, loop layout, restriction ,and pump selection.

id like the option to situate the cooler in the room during winter, but during summer ( south of italy) it hits 45 degrees C here, so id like to move the cooler into the nice cool outhouse that backs onto my office space.

this will require a distance of at least 3-4 metres from the workstations to the cooler. all on the same level though.

would a pair of ddc 18w pumps in series be enough in this case? if one dropped out would one limp along till a replacement?

id imagine also, doing the entire loop in series, to avoid issues.. i dont know if this is practical with 2-3 cpu blocks and 2-3 gpu blocks.

i do have the option to run the mora 3-s in parallel. i heard they can be restrictive (although this is debated) so maybe having them in parallel would be good.

phew ok. thats got the general idea out. any thoughts?
 
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Going by what your saying you could easily plumb a loop together to handle all that, however you will need to buy all the bits and design it up yourself because nothing exists on the market standalone that your needs require

You would be suprised what one DDC 18W pump is capable of, speaking from experience because I have one however since your emphasis is on silence I DO NOT recommend one , even connected to a fan controller they are a little on the whiney side unless it's mounted far away from ear shot

What your looking at is either a water chiller or external rad build, you may want to go down the custom radiator route

So based on what you want, your looking at

An external rad, possible custom job
CPU blocks + gpu blocks
tubing
fittings - compression's
reservoir (You only need 1 but add as many as you see fit)
Pump/s , a single or pair of D5 varios or externally mounted DDC 18w's
Fan's
power for said components , maybe extension cables or a 2nd PSU dedicated to pumps/fans if external


Series would be fine , you would want a shut off valve for each system or quick disconnects in case you need to shut the supply off to that system to do work on it

really you can go as simple or complex as you like, if you want to go external it's going to be a fairly big project but you have a couple of options of either a custom radiator set up, coils in an outside water bucket, a radiator array (multiple rads connected together), a water chiller (aka Pond chiller) or internal rads
 
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thanks for the reply. itll have to be external, as mentioned, there is quite a lot crammed into my case already.

i dont mind a big job, i like projects.

i did consider car radiators etc. but once you get into having them modified and cleaned, you may as well get a pair of mora3's plus, i dont want my office to look like part of a garage. (any more than it does already)

i also considered ground loops, and even running a loop down to the 25,000 litre rainwater tank under my house.. however a) it would have to run across the living room floor b) we are probably moving soon, so it has to be portable and c) i dont want to cause anything to grow in our water tank by running warm tubing through it.

the idea of a large, but portable cooler is great cos i can use to to warm the house in winter, but move it to the outbuilding in summer so the machines (and me) dont cook.

thanks for the advice about the pumps.. do you think a pair of D5's is a less noisy option? any other practical alternatives? id imagine the pumps will be housed in a compartment under the cooler, ideally thin mdf, which should quieten them a bit.


any thoughts on the mora3's? very hard to get any opinions from people who have actually used them, or decent benchmarks apart from that one german one.

i did read somewhere they can dissipate about 2kw each, but god knows at what noise level.
 
A pair of D5 (Variable) pumps would be less noisy by far especially when de-coupled correctly , Don't know anyone who has owned Mora3's but I know of people who have used similar to great effect I'd imagine a pair of them would be sufficient for two systems , the only noise you will get from them is the noise of the fans and considering how flipping big they look you'll be able to run your fans at a low RPM coupled with D5 vario's set at setting 2 or 3 your looking at something that's virtually silent.
Although there are other pumps out there that you could have externally that are very powerful but the D5's will do nicely
heres a good thread to read for an outside external system with no radiator as such
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18663727
just in case you think that mihgt be your thing

I found this thread for more info on the Mora3's
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2380437
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1722419
 
thanks for those links, the second one i hadnt seen.

to be honest im a little disappointed by the reported temps in those articles.

i get about 65-70 degrees c on a 3930k at 4.0-4.4 (depending on season!) using a single corsair H80, admittedly with the fans on high.

- id have expected lower temps with a rad more than 9x bigger, even with very slow fans.

having said that the replys in those threads seem to suggest the temps are good, so..

and also, maybe the temps would stay similar even if you added another machine..
 
This is what I have under my desk.
Probably classed as a bit ghetto but it works really well and cost very little.
The rad is a is from an Austin Montego 50cm x 30 cm (cooling area)
Pump is a grundfos 15/50 brass, hot water circulation pump.
Fans are 200mm Bitfenix running at 5v (with added counter balance to eliminate vibration) If the water temp ever reaches 32 degrees then these will switch to 9v (still fairly quiet) and the water temp will fall fairly quickly
The whole system presently cools a 5820K @ 4.5, a gtx970 @ 1500 core and the VRMs on the motherboard. At Idle the water temp is 1.5 degrees above ambient, with an 8hr stress of realbench the water will reach 5~6 degrees above ambient.
This was built for quiet running and reliability about ~10 years ago, the fans were changed ~2 years ago, it is still being used today.
IMG_2226-1280_zpsog09hcy3.jpg
IMG_2227-1280_zps5dpm3dkl.jpg
5820k4.5ghz_zpsjtj8cjkd.jpg
 
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well ive just approximately priced up my setup, using the following major components

dual mora 3 black radiators

dual d5 vario pumps

4x silverstone air penetrator 180mm fans

2x alphacool nexxos xp3 light gpu blocks

koolance quick release connectors

various other fittings

for now ive left off the gpu blocks, as i wont be buying the titan x'es for a while.

holy crap it does add up doesnt it.

total price so far is £597 quid.

im not sure i can justify that even for saving my hearing. i could almost buy another renderbox for that. cripes.
 
sounds kinda like my build

x3 480 gtx black ice gen 2
2 pmp 500 pumps

30 +120mm fans

cpu motherboard and gpu's blocks

2 litres of coolant

one 4 foot custom case 40 kg

look forward to your posts
 
anyone care to comment on the necessity (or not) of providing ventilation to dual D5 pumps?

id imagine they would be, erm.. watercooled? my current design calls for them to be relatively sealed in an mdf box below the radiator housing.

also, my loop design now contains 2x mora 3s, 2x cpu blocks, approx 10 metres loop length, and 12 or so right angle barbs. will later add 2x gpu blocks and possibly another cpu block. all in series. did i also mention its 3/8 tubing?

im steering clear of the larger tubing as i dont want the umbilical connection to be too massive, and if my research is correct it doesnt make much difference anyway.

ive also read that right angle barbs make a very minor difference to restriction in the end.


am i heading for flowrate hell or will those d5s keep things moving ok.
 
quick update to say after a bit more research ive decided to put the mora3's in parallel.
this should reduce the restrictiveness of the loop a bit, increase the overall flowrate a bit (of course the rest of the loop will still be restrictive, and the flowrate through each rad will be a bit lower)

but more importantly, both radiators will be getting hot water. in series the second rad will be getting precooled water, so will be less efficient.

its no problem for me to have y splitters with equal tube length to both rads, symmetrically arranged, so there shouldnt be any flow imbalances.
 
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Avoid all right angle barbs if possible as they kill flow rate, I try not tho have any in my builds.

Ive noticed a growing trend in water cooling, make it look nice rather than performance, ( water cooling will always be a performance thing for me).

water will always take the path of least resistance and once the loop has been running for a while the location of items makes no or little differences

keep going tho
 
if my research has been at all successful, right angle barbs have a fairly minimal effect on flow rate in the end. i saw a discussion where somebody who had some impressive maths skills, calculated that a single flow meter has the same restrictiveness as 6 right angle barbs, and a cpu block was equivalent to 50 right angles.

to be honest im more worried about the length of my tubing. 10 metres of tube is quite a lot.
 
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hm. ive been playing round with martins spreadsheet. its not ideal because very few of my actual components are listed (only the pumps) . also, i see no way to compare series/parallel arrangements.. its surprisingly hard in any case to get an "excellent" flowrate. a rough approximation i did using a thermochill 120.3 (no idea how it compares to 2 mora3 in parallel for flowrate) and 2 apogee gt cpu blocks netted a flowrate of 1.15 gpm with both pumps set on 4. removing all the right angles changed that to 1.35 gpm


if i change the blocks to ek supremes, the flowrate drops to 0.85 gpm

surprisingly poor flowrate considering 2 d5s on setting 4, and no gpu blocks.
 
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