big external watercooler.

Just to give you an idea of the cooling capabilities of the MO-RA3 I have the following setup -

XSPC Res / Pump (v4, 750l/ph - so by no means high end) cooling a i7 4770k (O/C to 4.2) and a 295x2 (mild O/C). I'm using 9 x silverstone SST-DQ121 fans all running on minimum RPM via a NZXT Sentry Mix 2 fan controller (3 fans per channel). Case fans are a 200mm intake and two 140mm exhaust (Entho Luxe standard fans).

Under load I have the following temperatures -

Ambient 21c
Cooled water (out of the MO-RA) 30c
295x2 ~50c
i7 4770k ~50c

I can nudge up the fans to keep things cooler and probably will have to do so with the weather changing. I will say the Silverstone fans are noticeably more noisy than the gentle typhoons they replaced.
 
so i pulled the trigger. in a week or two i should recieve:

2x mora3
4x 180mm silverstone ap181's
2x ek supremacy blocks
2x d5 vario pumps
tube res (phobya iirc)
koolance qdc's
all the fittings.

total bill is eye watering, but id imagine this will be the last cooling system i ever need, even if i get my 2x titan x'es and another workstation on the loop (although a possible pump upgrade might be needed at some point.)

the case is being fabricated from 10mm mdf. it will be 60 cm tall, 45 cm wide and have a mora sticking out of each side with the fans sandwiched in between ( with 30mm of space between fans and each rad to reduce dead spots) all fittings/rads/res are black, the case i think will be white, as will the umbilical (3.5 metres, 2x 3/8 tube and a power cable with a pair of quick disconnects on the end) im looking for a nice way to braid the umbilical together whilst maintaining flexibility. im thinking a fabric sleeve or braided string.

total weight will be somewhere around 25 kg i estimate.
 
Let me get this straight, your sucking cold air from the outside, warming it over a radiator and then blowing it over the 2nd rad? That will drastically reduce the efficiency of the 2nd rad to the point it is basically doing nothing

You want two sets of fans and seperate "in" paths for each

Edit;
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?220874-More-Radiator-Sandwich-testing

Stacked rads actually perform worse than a single rad
 
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hi i have an external loop which performs excellent on my 2x 980 core 210 memory 330 30c ambient 45-50 in game im using a 420 monsta in push pull mounted upright on desk with d5 tube/red 400mm running 6 aerocool dead silent at 25% off mb header pump at 1800 rpm. best thing i ever done as i get plenty of room in case and dedicate the internal just for cpu. 4.3v 24.7 water temp 23c cpu 29c stress test 60c max.
 
hmm. i wish id seen that stacked radiator thread before. anyway, the design isnt fixed (although a setup with 2 mora 3's non-stacked is gonna be pretty non-portable, and require another 4 fans)

i will do some testing when the bits arrive.. bear in mind that a) from an airflow point of view the mora 3s are much lower restriction than the ones in that test, and b) the fans more powerful, also c) ill be running my rads in parallel. so maybe the result will be a little different. we will see.


also it will likely be quite difficult to even notice a difference in my initial setup, since the rads are so oversized for the job. once i get a couple of titan-x'es and another entire workstation on the loop, we might see some issues more clearly. in the end though, it would be a shame to be wasting a mora3.
 
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hmph ive just read another thread that says the worst thing you can do with stacked radiators, is run them in parallel. just a single guys opinion/experience, but since for flowrate reasons, i really wanna run these in parallel, the stacked design is looking less and less appealing, even if it is the only practical way to fit the damn things in a box.
 
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ok so pending the possibility of changing my order, its possible i could buy 2 or 3 560mm rads for the same price as 2x mora 3's but they would be at the cheaper end of the spectrum, and ideally available from aquatuning, since i have a big order coming from them.

probably wouldnt have as much cooling potential as 2x mora 3's but they would be easier to case up without sandwiching (case would be taller and thinner)

with the mora3's if i want them non-sandwiched, they have to be side-by-side (one above the other is no good for parallel connection) and side by side is one ugly shaped box.

the alphacool nexxos st30 560mm is only 88 euros. but i cant find any reviews anywhere.

seems to be a slim one
 
am i right in assuming that if i have the rads one above the other, iwill have issues balancing the flow in parallel? any way i can mitigate this easily? id definitely prefer a taller box than a wider one.

i could have the inlets at the top of the bottom one, and the bottom of the top one, so the inlets and outlets would be at approximately teh same height, but in the end the water in the top radiator ends up having to go higher than the water in the bottom one. gravity says the water will favour the bottom radiator.
 
Hi, l using one Phobya 560[60mm thick] 4x140mm fans 1000rpm just the CPU-4930K:4.4GHz at 100% load 64'c to 71'c a cross the cores room ambient 22'c and won't get any higher unless room ambient goes up.

In normal room ambient 22'c use say gaming BF4 CPU-4930K:4.4GHz 59'C to 66'c GPU's SLi 670:48
 
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ok so in that case id say i want more than 2x 560 rads. those temps are higher than id expect. considering i want to have the ability to cool 3x 6 core oc'ed cpus and 2 oc'ed titan x'es quietly. looks like the dual mora3's will win on cost if nothing else.

is your setup almost silent? 1000 rpm is also a bit higher than id wanted.
 
robinlawrie said:
ok so in that case id say i want more than 2x 560 rads. those temps are higher than id expect. considering i want to have the ability to cool 3x 6 core oc'ed cpus and 2 oc'ed titan x'es quietly. looks like the dual mora3's will win on cost if nothing else.

is your setup almost silent? 1000 rpm is also a bit higher than id wanted.
Click to expand...

Myset up is almost silent.

Prolimatech Blue Vortex Blue Wings 4x140mm 18dba fans £12 each.

On my sons rad a 420 3x140mm fans using cheap £7 each Zaward 900rpm 14dba fans. The temps are about the same when using 3x140 Prolimatech fans.

Also my fans are set to pull not push the air through the rad less noise.

On the Big Phobya rads they have a fan grill which lets you use 4x180mm fans instead of 120mm fans.
 
thanks for the link, i saw it before (i think ive read every word ever written online about the mora3)..

anyway, ive come up with a new design. its not a sandwich setup this time. takes up a bit more space but its not too bad.. basically if i put the mora3's side by side, then rotate one 90 degrees, they form 2 sides of a triangle. the third side of the triangle just happens to be exactly the right size for 6x 180mm fans.

so i build a triangular box, stick the radiators on 2 sides and 6 fans on the third side.

it should fit reasoinably well in the corner of the room, and is more compact than just side by side. plus i automatically deal with fan dead spots, and only need to buy 6 fans instead of 8.


to be honest im thinking to have the 2 central fans on low continually, and the other 4 fans come on if the temp gets too high. i think with so much rad, 2 slow fans will keep my temps rock bottom until i do some hardcore rendering.

a happy side effect of the larger internal space is ive removed the need for all the right angle barbs and i dont have any more really tight radiuses to deal with either.
 
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Sounds like you've cracked the design issues already. Otherwise I was going to suggest a sandwich but with air input pushed in the middle and then out through the two moras via some pull fans.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I considered spacing the sandwiched rads apart with a surround of fans pushing air into the gap between, but I didn't feel the idea of making the air turn thru 90 degrees to exit the rads was optimal. I guess having fans on the outside of the rads sucking air from the space in between could help, but I'm trying to avoid exposed fans and the likely increased noise. My current design isn't the most compact or pretty, but it should be a good compromise between effectiveness, size, cost and noise level..
 
Heres a thought for those that think outside the box, if you put your radiator excluding any fans in a supply of cold water it does a great job of cooling. ive tried it in the sink with the cold tap slowly running , not practical BUT coolent temps went down to ambient or even lower, ok a waste of water as well , maybe a cold water fish tank cooler could be used? You will get a near silent pc with just the pumps making any noise
 
May as well not bother with the radiator in this case. Just replace it with a big (massive) reservoir..


i have a 25,000 litre water tank under the house that probably counts as "massive" a few loops of copper tube dropped in there would be a great silent solution. but we will likely move soon.. i want something portable.


plus id imagine a warm tube in the water would make things grow in the tank.
 
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ok so im slowly getting there with my project, damn monster is built, just needs filling with water, and the mods to my pc's doing so they can connect to it.

i will of course be posting some pics of the big ugly thing.

im having major issues filling it though. the loop goes res-pump1-pump2-out to umbilical-pc waterblocks-back through umbilical- y splitter- 2 rads - y combiner-res.

res is directly above the two pumps, and the base of the res is at the same height as the base of the rads. the tops of the rads *are* a bit higher than the top of the res, but i didnt think this was a major issue.

ive done a temporary loop on the end of the umbilical so i can fill the thing and see if it works ( i have qdc's so i can leave it filled until my pcs are ready)


i put water in the res, and it fills up.. a bit of glug-glug as some drains down, but not much.

switch on, pumps go whirrrrrr, and swhoosh, a bit of water drains from the res, but then.. nothing. the pumps continue doing their thing, i can see there is a bit of water, but mostly air in the various transparent sections of pipe i have.. damn thing refuses to pump the water from the res into the rest of the system.

water is sitting there.. above the pumps.. waiting to be sucked away... not happening. any suggestions? ive tried settings upto 5 on both pumps and ive looked for obvious pipe kinks, but i dont see any. ive tried blowing into the top of the res to force water down into the pumps.. water level goes down, then swooshes back up when i stop blowing. ive tried opening the loop at the end of the umbilical, holding it high up and adding water there via a funnel.. water sits in funnel unless i suck on the other end of the tube.

one side note.. if i blow down one end of the tube.. its damn hard to blow.. like blowing up a really tough balloon.. i dunno if this is due to the weight of the water already in the system ( ive added a litre or so by now) the flow resistance, or a blockage somewhere.
 
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ok solved it. problem was firstly an enormous loop and difficulty getting the air out of the pumps.. i naively thought that if the res was above the pump, the pump would automatically fill with water and empty of air. but actually water was flowing straight through the pump and out into the umbilical, never actually filling the pump high enough to get it sucking.

i coiled the umbilical up and raised it above everything. i also made a long tube and connected it to the fill port of the res, so i could fill the thing up to 1m above the rads.

after much gurgling and shaking, suddenly it went sluuuurp and started pumping. i had to be quick to get water in before the res drained.


next problem was the y splitter to two rads. only way i could really clear the air from the rads was to pinch the pipe leading to one, causing a doubling of flow though the other. that had a drastic effect and emptied the res 2 more times. i repeated the process with the other rad, with the same result.

ive now got almost 4 litres of water in there, the pumps are quiet, and i -think- its full.

unfortunately due to my design, the radiators cannot be tipped horizontal (they are vertical with the ports at the bottom, not ideal) without disconnecting the hoses first. i certainly dont imagine tipping the whole thing over, its huge and very heavy. hm.. maybe ill try.
 
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