Stacking radiators

[wolvers]

Anyone ever stacked rads and if so did it work ok?

By this I mean one rad on top of another with a fan in between, and probably a fan on one side too.

I want to add another rad to my loop and I think it's the only place that I can fit one in my case.

Thanks

 

[wolvers]

Brilliant info, thanks Jon. Have you just got one fan in the middle with a spacer either side of it?

I'm glad you touched on the fin density as that was going to be my next question. The rad that I have already is a TFCxchanger the same as the one you have there. I was wondering if there is a 25-30mm rad that has low density fins? I seem to remember a Swiftech one I used to have was like that.

I'll probably only have room for a rad, no spacers or anything. Should still be better than one rad, which is the important thing.

Edit; thinking of the XSPC RS120. Looks in the pictures like the fins aren't too dense.

 

[wolvers]

Forgot to ask what the 38mm fan is?

 

[wolvers]

The RX120 is much better is you have room for the extra width (designed for lower airflow).

Possibly but I'd have to check. I suppose I'd get another TFCxchanger though if I was to put a double depth one in.

Can you use a PA160? (great rads)

Definitely not. Way too big!

Edit: MagiCool SLIM SINGLE 140 MC Radiator - might be worth a look - low profile / low airflow design (or so they say)

Pretty sure that would be too big. Worth a check though me thinks.

Thanks for the suggestions. Any recommendations on a fan? I've got a noctua on the TFC at the mo but I doubt that would be much use sandwiched between two rads. I like the sound of a 38mm deep one, has to be quiet though.

 

[wolvers]

I have an RS240 here, and the fins are quite dense when compared to thicker rads like the Thermochill PA series, or XSPC RX rads..

OK, thanks. I'll have see if I can get a thicker rad in then and it'll mean that I'll almost certainly have to stick with a standard depth fan.

It's always going to be a compromise with my case but I'm sure that adding any rad will be an improvement.

 

[wolvers]

Not sure a noctua is the best fan for a rad (especially stacked)
gentle typhoon's seam to be rated very highly

I didn't think the noctua was the best for a rad. Just reading up on the madshrimps test and the gentle typhoon is recommended.

 

[wolvers]

@OP What sort of space do you have to work with, and how much do you care about noise?

I reckon I've got about 50mm between the fan and where the hoses come out of the cpu block. I need to measure up properly at the weekend though and I'll post some pics with dimensions on.

Noise is very important as it's an HTPC so must be fairly quiet. I'm not looking for the levels of silence that SS goes for though!

I can't help but think that having a fan sandwiched between two rads will smother some of the noise from it meaning that I could run a slightly faster one, like 1200-1400rpm, and it still be pretty quiet.

wolvers is this to fit in that very nice silverstone of yours?

Yep.

 

[wolvers]

Ahh it's that one. Brilliant build, have read through it carefully before.

Very kind of you, thanks. I'll be updating the thread soon as I've got a new mobo (trying to get 4ghz from my Q9550!), Intel SSD, Win7 and hopefully the cooling improvements (which will also include a full cover EK block for my 5850).

You might be pleasantly surprised by the space available, I could fit a 25mm fan and a 60mm radiator inside my case in that position, and just barely clear the ek supreme mounting bolts. It's a bigger case but socket location is relatively fixed so I think you'll be alright.

Sounds promising then. I'd certainly like a 55-60mm deep rad.

Can't say a Noctua would have been my choice either but they seem to be much loved. Probably not worth swapping it out.

I think I had it left over from a previous build so I'm happy to get a 1450rpm gentle typhoon to try out.

A bit confused by the case. Are there holes at the front that I'm missing? It looks like the intake is the square holes over the pci slots in which case I can't see why the hard drives aren't cooking. If there is front vents, then you may find putting a piece of tape over the holes in the back panel improve temperatures, it'll force more of the air out through the radiator.

Yeah, there's a 92mm fan on each side at the front under the HDD cages. The left hand one has no HDDs but a 92mm rad instead.

That's a good idea to block that vent at the back, it should stop the exhausted airflow from returning back into the case. I can't believe I never spotted that. Sometimes it's hard to though when it's right under your nose!! That's why I like to take the time to do a build thread here so that I can get other peep's input.

I'm looking closely for a way to fit a radiator over the psu, but it doesn't look practical and when I suggested this a while back it was considered a daft idea. I did want to mount it over the exhaust rather than over the intake of the psu though.

I like that idea, it would reduce the need for another fan for the rad. You'd have to put it on the intake side though IMO or the air going through the rad would be much warmer when the psu is fully loaded.

Have you thought about an external passive rad?

I had an external/remote rad briefly with my previous build but it doesn't really fit in well with my AV rack. That's why I got the new case, so that I could keep all of the kit integral with the case.

It did work really well though as you're guaranteed ambient temp air going through the rad. A friend on another forum has a PA120.3 and a reserator XT, remotely from his watercooled HTPC and it cools a 4ghz i7 and 4870X2 very nicely indeed.

 

[wolvers]

Well I've ordered an RX120 as the xchanger is 75mm deep, which I think is pushing it, and I trust JonJ's instinct that a 60mm deep rad will fit OK!

 

[wolvers]

Funny, my feser xchanger is definitely 60mm thick. Just measured to check.

I think they've spaced the fan mountings away from the core.

 

[wolvers]

I wonder if they changed their design at some point.

Yeah, that's what I meant. I think they have as I found one site listing them as 'new 15mm spacing'. Everywhere has them as 75mm deep too, including their own site.

 

[wolvers]

Just makes them the same as the Thermochill rads too.

 

[wolvers]

Thermochill rads are only 60mm.

You're right they are. I assumed they'd be deeper as they are now listed as having 15mm spacing. So they've just made the core smaller, that seems a bit stupid!

I can find sod all about this online, test date or otherwise. I'm inclined to feel that any shroud is better than none, but the 60mm with a 25mm shroud either side will be better than the 75mm one. If however the core is thicker, that's very exciting.

Feser's website is definitely not netbook friendly though.

No, it's just extra fan spacing.

 

[wolvers]

Well I made a bit of a **** up of the order for the rad. I added a fanmate to it but failed to notice that they weren't in stock so OcUK never sent out the order and I didn't get it in time for the weekend.

They've removed the fanmate and it's now on it's way so hopefully I'll get it installed tomorrow night, which works out well as Mrs Wolvers will be out! Looking at it yesterday, I'm fairly confident that the rad will fit though.

I will be stuck with the Noctua for now though as the fanmate was so that I could use a faster fan that I have and tune it to minimize noise with maximum flow. Nevermind, that's for another day then.

 

[wolvers]

The rad has arrived and it looks like it will fit. I just need to change the ports around on the GPU block and it should slot in that gap nicely.

The core is identical to the Xchanger with the same number of rows and fin density.

I'm going to give it an over night clean with vinegar and then strip the loop to install it later in the week.

 

[wolvers]

not over night! - 2hours and a good shake is more than enough.
the newer flux not like the old stuff - a simple flush with hot water is usually enough

Haha, yeah. I remember now, when I did the last ones, that they were pretty clean to start with. Not like the rads used to be. I drained it this morning and it came out pretty clean, but with a fair bit of crud in the bottom so it's still worth doing IMO.

Wolvers, sorry if it has alreay been mentioned in this thread, but what tubing is that you are using?

It's Swiftech Norprene 3/8 that comes with their kits. I use it as it's very thin walled and can do tighter bends without kinking which makes it more suitable to smaller cases. It's more expensive though and only comes in one length.

 

[wolvers]

Apologies for not posting any completed pics of the stacked rads. Mrs W had lent the camera to someone when I did it. I'll try and take some at the weekend.

The results were pretty positive. Although the core temps only went down about 5-7C, which I was still pretty happy with, they are more stable and don't creep up when gaming for ages like they did before.

There's a down side though . My overclock became unstable after sustained gaming and, after lots of testing, I found that dropping to 3.4ghz was the only way to make it stable. My theory is that the chipset is getting hot now with the extra rad is sitting over the top of it and killing the airflow over it, which was probably minimal anyway.

Also, the full cover block for the 5850 is nowhere near as good as the core only one was and it's now dumping more heat into the loop, from the RAM and VDDCs. This means that I haven't bothered to overclock it yet, which is a shame.

So..........my next thing is that I would like to relocate my HDDs to a NAS, I would like to fully network all of my video etc properly anyway, so that I can put another 92mm rad on the opposite side to the current one. Then the loop would be pump>92rad>92rad>GPU>120rad>120rad>CPU>res. What do you lot think? I was thinking that I could then add chipset cooling too if I wanted, maybe inbetween the two 120rads?

 

[wolvers]

Thanks Jon, a good insight as always.

Yep, the NAS is a definite go as soon as funds are sorted. A Synology DS209 will do what I want.

The full cover block should be loads better, as now you don't need airflow over the graphics card, but yeah loop temps will go up as a result. Do you mean the gpu core temps have gone up since you changed block? If so I wonder if remounting would help.

The core temp of the 5850 is definitely worse than it was with the core only block which, from what I've read, is to be expected with full cover blocks. It's still OK though, 46C max which is fine. It's the VDDC cooling that's not what I was hoping for and that's really important when trying for high clocks on the 5850. 60C+ at stock volts is fine but for 1ghz core I need around 1.25v which will push the VDDC temps up to 100C+. Greebo confirmed this happens with his 5850 and the same block. I think EK have underestimated the importance of keeping the VDDCs cool on these cards as well as the amount of cooling they need. I probably should check the contact on the VDDCs thought just to be sure.

I think the more radiators the better. Always. But then, I imagine you could have predicted this. How are you planning on water cooling the chipset?

Ha, yeah. I know that it would be better, I've already proved that to myself with the second 120mm rad. It was more about chipset cooling as I have no experience with that. TBH, I don't think that my P5K-E is worth sticking blocks on. I was thinking ahead really as I have my eye on switching to P55/i7 at some point, although there doesn't seem to be many people water cooling them maybe because the memory controller is on the CPU.

 

[wolvers]

Here's how she looks now with the stacked 120.1 rads and the full cover block on the 5850.

 

[wolvers]

Ah, I follow regarding the gpu. That's a real shame, is it clocking higher than when the VDDCs had heatsinks on? Feel bad for you, poor show by ek it seems.

I'm just trying to find out how high it will clock like this. I discovered today that the VDDCs get much hotter in Furmark when running without MSAA for some reason. Add some MSAA and they're 20C cooler. It must be some kind of bug in the code for Furmark.

As long as they stay under 80C in games when running at 1.25v I could probably get 1ghz. Still not the 45C that I was seeing with a heatsink and slow fan though.

Watercooling the x58 seems to be useful in low airflow conditions. I have a fan aimed at the heatsink, if I remove it stability is absent. It seems to be the mosfets that run properly hot, but if cooling mosfets, why not the chipset as well.

Sounds like the way forwards. I'll have to consider it when I get around to upgrading.

That's an excellent photo, I'm quite jealous of your computer. Whenever I see it I want to move to a htpc style case. You've done the 120mm radiators very neatly, congratulations

Aaww shucks. Thanks bud.