Advice for a WC Newbie!

[mattlovell]

Evening all,

Am new to the forums, so first and foremost, greetings!

I apologise for any noob questions I ask as I'm a total newcomer to water cooling.

Upgraded majority of my components over the last week, including getting hold of a Corsair H70 from a mate to cool my i5 2500k.

After many cups of tea and much swearing I've managed to get it installed into my NZXT Phantom in a set-up I'm happy with, basically mounting the rad onto the rear exhaust fan and then mounting one of the H70 fans on top of the rad again to blow air through it onto the original fan! Is this the push/pull system I have seen mentioned?

So far, OC'ed the 2500k to 4.4ghz turbo and it sits at around 50-53 degrees under Prime 95. I'm chuffed to say the least, but slightly worried I've done something noobish and that I'm not actually stressing the i5 like I should to test it!

Can post screenies and/or photos of my set-up, but basically would like some advice on:

1. Best fan setup in the case (H70 as intake or exhaust, plus any fan upgrades that might help performance)
2. Best way to ensure 100% stress on the i5. I'm currently running prime95, monitoring load with coretemp and monitoring processor speed using Intel's "Turbo Boost Technology Monitor 2.0".

Also, worth noting I've probably only really run prime for around half an hour and, considering the H70 is blowing case air onto the rad, I'm a bit worried that once I load my 560ti and it starts kicking heat out that might affect temps too.

Full specs are:
Asrock P67 Extreme4 Gen3
i5 2500k @ 4.4 (H70)
8GB Mushkin DDR3 @ 1600
600W brand-so-boring-cant-even-be-bothered-to-remember-the-name PSU.
250GB SATA HDD
60GB OCZ Solid3 SSD
NZXT Phantom V2 case with stock fans.

 

[BluSky]

Push-Pull is as you have imagined, a fan on one side of the radiator blowing air through it, and a fan on the other side of the radiator pulling out of it. Or in even simpler terms, two fans on one radiator both blowing in the same direction.

I believe the H70 recommends you to use the fan as an exhaust

To test stability properly, you really should be running orthos / prime / OCCT overnight or at least for 6 to 8 hours during the day. 24 hours is the ideal test but not strictly neccessary.

You are better off using the 'large' settings if you are error checking. They dont produce as much heat but they are much better at finding errors

Edit: Also if you are looking for alternative fans to the stock H70 ones then the best you could go for are probably either scythe gentle typhoon 1850's or akasa vipers. Both sold by OCUK, and both well reputed as watercooling radiator fans. See below for links:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-059-AK - viper
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-030-SY - typhoon

 

[mattlovell]

Thanks for the speedy reply.

**Just as an update to my previous post, temps actually seem to hover around 56-59, bit higher than before, maybe I just caught it during a nice gust of wind going through the room =D

Cheers for those links, was thinking of getting hold of a 140mm fan for the front of the case as an intake anyway so might get some of those while I'm at it.

 

[s7cn]

Evening all,

Am new to the forums, so first and foremost, greetings!

I apologise for any noob questions I ask as I'm a total newcomer to water cooling.

Upgraded majority of my components over the last week, including getting hold of a Corsair H70 from a mate to cool my i5 2500k.

After many cups of tea and much swearing I've managed to get it installed into my NZXT Phantom in a set-up I'm happy with, basically mounting the rad onto the rear exhaust fan and then mounting one of the H70 fans on top of the rad again to blow air through it onto the original fan! Is this the push/pull system I have seen mentioned?

So far, OC'ed the 2500k to 4.4ghz turbo and it sits at around 50-53 degrees under Prime 95. I'm chuffed to say the least, but slightly worried I've done something noobish and that I'm not actually stressing the i5 like I should to test it!

Can post screenies and/or photos of my set-up, but basically would like some advice on:

1. Best fan setup in the case (H70 as intake or exhaust, plus any fan upgrades that might help performance)
2. Best way to ensure 100% stress on the i5. I'm currently running prime95, monitoring load with coretemp and monitoring processor speed using Intel's "Turbo Boost Technology Monitor 2.0".

Also, worth noting I've probably only really run prime for around half an hour and, considering the H70 is blowing case air onto the rad, I'm a bit worried that once I load my 560ti and it starts kicking heat out that might affect temps too.

Full specs are:
Asrock P67 Extreme4 Gen3
i5 2500k @ 4.4 (H70)
8GB Mushkin DDR3 @ 1600
600W brand-so-boring-cant-even-be-bothered-to-remember-the-name PSU.
250GB SATA HDD
60GB OCZ Solid3 SSD
NZXT Phantom V2 case with stock fans.

Personally, I'd run the h70 as an exhaust as this helps to improve case airflow, granted it might run a couple of degrees warmer due to the gpu exhausting heat into the case it shouldn't be a huge difference as water is more thermally conductive than air.

As for stressing your CPU, Prime95 does a good job, but if you're looking for the highest burn, then I'd suggest OCCT Linpack or IntelBurnTest - both result in more stress on your CPU than prime95 in place large FFTs.

Try running IBT for about an hour then see what your load temps are.

As for suggested fan upgrades, I would recommend one or two of the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850rpm or the XSPC Xinruilian 1650 in push/pull or one in push to maximise your cooling capability; both fans perform similar, but the Xinruilian costs twice as less although it is slightly louder (1 dba).

 

[mattlovell]

Thanks s7cn, think I will go for some typhoons next pay day.

One thing I have noticed, one of my cores seems to be higher temp than all the others e.g. core 2 @ 39 whilst the rest hover around 29-32.

I have to admit I didn't reapply thermal paste when I changed to the H70 so was just left with a residue from the stock 2500 Heatsink. Going to reapply thermal paste tomorrow as I can't be arsed now but could this be causing the problem or is it normal with these chips to have a large temp range across cores?

 

[s7cn]

Thanks s7cn, think I will go for some typhoons next pay day.

One thing I have noticed, one of my cores seems to be higher temp than all the others e.g. core 2 @ 39 whilst the rest hover around 29-32.

I have to admit I didn't reapply thermal paste when I changed to the H70 so was just left with a residue from the stock 2500 Heatsink. Going to reapply thermal paste tomorrow as I can't be arsed now but could this be causing the problem or is it normal with these chips to have a large temp range across cores?

Sorry for the late reply, didn't see that this thread had a new post. Whilst excess residue could cause uneven temps, CPUs naturally have variation of temps across cores. Some can vary up to 10 degrees difference from coolest to hottest core in extreme cases. This usually occurs because of an uneven stock heatspreader on the CPU.

Reapply the thermal paste in a correct manner and ensure the cooler is mounted properly and the variance should be minimised.