Hi,
I recently had to upgrade my motherboard, having gone quad-core, and choosing the budget option (P5N-D) I ended up with a motherboard that doesn't fit any current NB waterblock known to man and also has an annoying squeal when it gets hot.
So, I'm in the market for an upgrade, have resigned myself to replacing my newish DDR2 memory with DDR3, need to be SLI friendly, and most of all I want a board which watercools well, but doesn't require acres of tubing leading to separate mosfet waterblocks, i.e. I only want the pump, res, rad, VGA, CPU and NB in the watercooling circuit.
Enter the the Asus Striker II Extreme nForce 790i, with built-in NB waterblock that connects to the SB and MOSFET heatsinks via a heatpipe. My enemy is noise as much as it is heat, hence the interest in watercooling and if I can get away with just a light breeze and silent fans then I am happy. For this the board looks ideal....
So the question is; just how well will this board do the cooling of those components with only a little noise from fans and a good bit of overclocking? Is the NB waterblock connected by heatpipes to the SB and MOSFETS actually as effective in pulling heat away from those components? Maybe not as effective as a direct fan blowing over the heatsinks would be, but does it even come close? My entire system is currently undermined by the fact I need a screamer fan on top of my NB heatsink so I don't want to repeat the experience.
I would guess the NB itself would stay cool due to the water, but I have no experience with heatpipe arrangements and to me they just look inneffective. I don't want to purchase this, under the assumption that water flowing through the NB will be sufficient to cool the entire heatsink arrangement, with only a light breeze going through from the case fans (1 120mm Yate Loon spinning at about 700rpm, front and rear).
Are heatpipes really that effective? Even with such a small NB waterblock? Should I even really be concerned about anything more than passive heatsinks on the MOSFETS, SB and power regs?
Any experiences or viewpoints would be welcome.
I recently had to upgrade my motherboard, having gone quad-core, and choosing the budget option (P5N-D) I ended up with a motherboard that doesn't fit any current NB waterblock known to man and also has an annoying squeal when it gets hot.
So, I'm in the market for an upgrade, have resigned myself to replacing my newish DDR2 memory with DDR3, need to be SLI friendly, and most of all I want a board which watercools well, but doesn't require acres of tubing leading to separate mosfet waterblocks, i.e. I only want the pump, res, rad, VGA, CPU and NB in the watercooling circuit.
Enter the the Asus Striker II Extreme nForce 790i, with built-in NB waterblock that connects to the SB and MOSFET heatsinks via a heatpipe. My enemy is noise as much as it is heat, hence the interest in watercooling and if I can get away with just a light breeze and silent fans then I am happy. For this the board looks ideal....
So the question is; just how well will this board do the cooling of those components with only a little noise from fans and a good bit of overclocking? Is the NB waterblock connected by heatpipes to the SB and MOSFETS actually as effective in pulling heat away from those components? Maybe not as effective as a direct fan blowing over the heatsinks would be, but does it even come close? My entire system is currently undermined by the fact I need a screamer fan on top of my NB heatsink so I don't want to repeat the experience.
I would guess the NB itself would stay cool due to the water, but I have no experience with heatpipe arrangements and to me they just look inneffective. I don't want to purchase this, under the assumption that water flowing through the NB will be sufficient to cool the entire heatsink arrangement, with only a light breeze going through from the case fans (1 120mm Yate Loon spinning at about 700rpm, front and rear).
Are heatpipes really that effective? Even with such a small NB waterblock? Should I even really be concerned about anything more than passive heatsinks on the MOSFETS, SB and power regs?
Any experiences or viewpoints would be welcome.