Stacking radiators

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? :D
 
Couldn't help but smile at the NAS idea. I've run out of space in my case as a consequence of using too many radiators and have indeed moved them into a nas. Well, an amd dual core system I wasn't using. It's been on 24/7 for a few months now, loads better than having all the data locally as I can listen to music while playing around in the bios of the main computer. I've still got one hard drive in the favourite computer, but it's sitting on the floor of the case :(

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.

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?
 
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.

JonJ678 said:
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.
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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.

JonJ678 said:
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?
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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.
 
Here's how she looks now with the stacked 120.1 rads and the full cover block on the 5850. :)

cimg3940.jpg
 
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.

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. I want to do this shortly, but can't decide whether to water cool my UD5 or move to matx then watercool that.

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 :)
 
JonJ678 said:
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.
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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.

JonJ678 said:
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.
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Sounds like the way forwards. I'll have to consider it when I get around to upgrading.

JonJ678 said:
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 :)
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Aaww shucks. Thanks bud. :o:)
 
Nice work wolvers - is that diveing air hose you are using?
I do miss my CW01 sometimes - but just doesn't have the room for an internal passive build.
And I don't have the skill for a major case rebuild.
Every time I see your case, I keep thinking of sending you one of my spare 'radient' skirting rads.
Would make an excelent replacement side/roof panel (depending on where the case lives normally)
They are all copper lined so no mixied metal issues, and aluminum flat plate so will match the case construction for fixing.
Offer is there if your intrested and brave enough to chop large holes in the lovely silverstone.
 
Do you have a link to the 'radient' skirting rad? I don't remember seeing such a thing. My mind's gone to a finned aluminium plate which has copper tubes running through it, so allowing you to use the case itself as a radiator. If it doesn't cost the earth that's very interesting indeed, especially for a scratch build.

Skirting as in skirting boards? Instead of painted wood people pump hot water through aluminium ones? That's amazing

Oh no, there's loads of people making things like this :(
 
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Hello SoS. Happy new year to you.

I'm as intrigued as Jon as to the nature of a 'radient' skirting rad?
 
I'm seriously thinking about changing my PSU. I had to increase the vcore on the 5850 from 1.15v to 1.175v to get it to pass a run of the unigine bench when going from 900/1100 to 900/1200. It shouldn't affect the memory clock so I wondered if the PSU was struggling to supply enough power to the card when overclocking.

My CPU overclock, that was stable for months at 3.8ghz, has started to become unstable and I've had to drop that back too. After looking at the second rad installation again, it only really sits over some VRMs I think so I can't see how that would have affected it that much. :confused:
 
In that (lovely) setup it would be pointless.
You need somewhere for the radient panel to send the heat (ideally across the room / outside wall)
I guess you could set one up with QC's and mount it into the unit...
Looks ideal for an external system personally - a Res2 could sit behind without issue

And as JonJ said there are a few companies that do this.
Some better that others - the black strip on the 'out of reach' build is one.
That was all aluminum - but I was using the Reservator then so not an issue.

workstation.jpg


Here is a shot of both - you can just see the copper internal and it's single pass construction.
Usually rads work on flow and return to each unit.
But these are single direction as in once-round-the-room (inc under doors)
As radient heating is not affected by ambient temp and increases in effecency with increased water temp
it's has the making of a great passive watercooling rad.
Was doing some testing on these when I got a PA120.3 as an active stop-gap solution.
Little did I know just how good the PA was as an internal semi-passive rad.
Got 6 of these (but only have barbs for 3 as the company when bust before I could get the rest)

Edit: anyone know a machinist :D

threerads.jpg
 
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shadowscotland said:
Looks ideal for an external system personally - a Res2 could sit behind without issue
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It may look like it but there isn't room behind the rack, especially for something passive. I did consider putting a rad underneath it with fans pulling cool, draughty air through but there isn't enough height for 120s.

Ultimately, I like having it all internal. Feels neater.

shadowscotland said:
Edit: anyone know a machinist :D
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Yep. :)
 
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I know what you mean about the 'neater' comment.
Really like the S80B I have now with a PA120.3 in the roof.

Will let you know if I need some help with barbs fabrication - they are quite simple as no threads needed (triple O ring)
 
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