Massive wall mounted radiator array for near silent use?

Frank Jeagar · 13 Dec 2015 at 17:19

I had an idea for a new build where the PC is watercooled, but tubes run from the PC to a wall mounted radiator array that is something like 4x480mm radiators covered in fans doing 500-700rpm or so.

The idea is largely for something interesting rather than being especially effective.

I imagine I'd need at least 2 d5 pumps to pull this off, I was also thinking of quick disconnects so I can take the PC away for maintenance easily.

The real questions are would fans doing about 500rpm on that sort of array cool a CPU and 1 or 2 GPUs all overclocked? Would I need less radiator? Is it just an awful idea?

Anyone heard of something like this being attempted?

Thanks for any contributions guys!

theaterix · 13 Dec 2015 at 18:16

Have a look at LinusTechTips Whole room watercooling, its really good, just to watch someone doing something so... Strange... It worked, but not really on that scale, it was more short term wow than long term performance...
Dont make silly mistakes like they did and you should be okay, things such as not cleaning stuff out properly, using certain metals, not using certain metals etc.
I think it would work really nicely, although 4x480 may be overkill

Frank Jeagar · 13 Dec 2015 at 18:41

theaterix said:
Have a look at LinusTechTips Whole room watercooling, its really good, just to watch someone doing something so... Strange... It worked, but not really on that scale, it was more short term wow than long term performance...

I think it would work really nicely, although 4x480 may be overkill

I thought 4x480 might be a bit much, but different to other external setups including the whole room water cooling by LinusTechTips was that I want the fans really slow so that I can barely hear them.

GoogalyMoogaly · 13 Dec 2015 at 19:00

Didn't Kaapstad once have a system that used 2 x 1080 rads (3 x 3, 120mm fans)?
Might have been cooling 4 Titans and a CPU though.

I've considered it in the past, but always thought powering the fans would be the tricky part.

jellybeard999 · 13 Dec 2015 at 20:45

This idea has been around years, people used to use eg central heating radiators, car radiators etc.

This thread may be of interest - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1579994

Rroff · 13 Dec 2015 at 20:55

Seems a bit overkill to me unless you are doing it for the novelty factor or trying to attain a huge overclock and passive cooling at the same time.

When I pulled the 1250 out of my system in an irrational moment of being fed up with it I stuck in a Zalman FX70 I happened to have lying around - with a couple of 140mm fans on low speed it stays in the low 30Cs for general desktop use - 40C max and rarely gets to 60C in gaming with a moderate overclock - it will stay under 70C completely passive in all but extreme torture tests with lots of volts (still has case fans running - but you are asking for problems without some airflow through the case to cool mosfets, etc.).

BluD · 13 Dec 2015 at 20:57

a lot of people are already using 2 or 3 rads in their system when they would only really need one, they do it so they can have fans on tickover. If ya head over to skineelabs theres loads of charts showing a range of rads and how much heat they can remove at what fan speed. So it might say a 360 EK rad removes 300w at 600rpm or 900w at 2800rpm with a 10 degree delta. Or if you went for an insane amount of rads like your thinking of you might ony have a 5 degrees delta for example.

You should be able to roughly work out how much heat you will need to remove, and how much delta you will get at 600rpm although i cant imagine it will be very high unless ya start going for quad sli/fire.

I would be a nice way of heating your room up in winter though, its getting a bit chilly, time for some firestrike

Silent_Scone · 13 Dec 2015 at 21:09

Just get a 1080mm Nova and be done with it. They have feet. Doesn't have to be wall mounted. That restricts air flow anyway.

Frank Jeagar · 13 Dec 2015 at 21:37

GoogalyMoogaly said:
I've considered it in the past, but always thought powering the fans would be the tricky part.

I was thinking splitters running to a molex using resistors to control their speed.

Frank Jeagar · 13 Dec 2015 at 21:38

jellybeard999 said:
This idea has been around years, people used to use eg central heating radiators, car radiators etc.

This thread may be of interest - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1579994

This is interesting, thanks for the post! A car radiator sounds like an effective solution that would also be cheaper

Frank Jeagar · 13 Dec 2015 at 21:41

Silent_Scone said:
Just get a 1080mm Nova and be done with it. They have feet. Doesn't have to be wall mounted. That restricts air flow anyway.

This would largely be for novelty/looks, so I would really prefer to wall mount it.

Randall8686 · 13 Dec 2015 at 22:23

I personally run 1 X 360 and 1 X 140 in a loop to cool a 980 & 4690k, I can run my fans at 700 rpm (near silent) and get a water temp of 44c after a lot of gaming. Turning the speeds up brings the temps down to 35c but tbh im happy with the silence, 2 X480 would be enough. Especially if mounted outside the case. mounting the rad outside of the case makes a very big difference. the lack of grills to slow air flow and warm case air will drop temps quite quickly

P4Clock · 15 Dec 2015 at 14:52

i had this rad mounted to the bottom of my desk and the fans never came on

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-coolstream-we-540-wc-663-ek.html

Frank Jeagar · 15 Dec 2015 at 21:55

P4Clock said:
i had this rad mounted to the bottom of my desk and the fans never came on

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-coolstream-we-540-wc-663-ek.html

What CPU were you using?

OLDPHART · 16 Dec 2015 at 06:35

A few members just use one large external radiator, me included Phobya (L x W x H): 620x145x60mm using 4x140mm 1000rpm fans cooling a 4930k+980Ti.

Using a external rad is easier to maintain, cheaper and far easier to set up.