Thermaltake VB5001SNA Tai-Chi SuperMidi Tower - Aluminium (CA-003-TT)

Banny · 17 Jan 2006 at 12:22

A friend of mine is thinking of getting this case with the watercooling.
His system is a Gigabyte Nforce4 ultra\XP4000 that is more than happy with standard cooler at 2.8ghz using 1.6v at about 40-44 load.
He has SLI 6800 GT (gigabyte)
So what VGA blocks to use?
Is the Northbridge worth putting in the loop.
Will this system do the job.
Dont really want mega cooling but quiet\stable at same or more CPU speed and vid cards both at ultra speeds stable.

weescott · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:04

Banny said:
Dont really want mega cooling but quiet\stable at same or more CPU speed and vid cards both at ultra speeds stable.

It should manage fine at stock but it might struggle a bit with overclocking.

Banny said:
So what VGA blocks to use?

Swiftech MCW55

Banny said:
Is the Northbridge worth putting in the loop.

No

mattio1980 · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:43

weescott said:
It should manage fine at stock but it might struggle a bit with overclocking

rubbish iv got this case i have 4 blocks on it

tt block (one that comes with the case )

tt aqu 3 gpu block

alphcool sli north bridge

alphcool mosfet

my system even under load is never never over 30c and around 19-22 idle all i would recomend is change the fans on the rad for some 2000rpm ones,only other option i have done is changed the pump for a 400lph one thats it . runs lovley

weescott · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:48

30c load? I highly doubt it!

What are your ambient temps?

mattio1980 · 17 Jan 2006 at 14:50

the room is i use around 18c it's a conservtory

weescott · 17 Jan 2006 at 15:18

Well done! Your complete system is more efficient than a Storm CPU block! Looks like Cathar knows nothing and ThermalTake are kings of water cooling!

mattio1980 · 17 Jan 2006 at 16:00

the cpu block is prity poo looking for a new one it might be even lower ofter that ?

weescott · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:12

It wont be lower as the temperature readings are wrong.

Add up the wattage for all your component's that are in the loop. Look at the efficiency of all the blocks. Your temp's are more likely to be 50c never mind 30c.

Put it this way...the Swiftech H20 Extreme kit is rated at 12.5c over ambient with 100watt at load. There is no way your rig is better than that!

mattio1980 · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:19

well i use the bios temp and a contol pannel with probe and a inline water temp reader dont think all of these lie?

MikeTimbers · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:19

Listen to weescott, he speaks wisely

Fact is, many software monitoring systems are rank nonsense, either lying or misconfigured out of the box, conveniently telling users what they want to hear. BIOSes are also rubbish, sometimes deliberately under-reporting. I forget which one it was, but I remember one manufacturer releasing a new BIOS for one of their boards that raised the reported temperatures by 10C! When users on forums around the world complained, they released another one which reported the old temps and all the users went back to being happy chappies.

The best block in the world can't do better than keep a 100W cpu 12C above the incoming water temperature. That's an indisputable fact. Anyone who thinks their cpu cooling is better than that should get a reality check.

Alex von Kamm - writer of Motherboard Monitor - used to have a great page on his site telling his users how to calibrate their software by finding out the independent rating of their chosen heatsink and adjusting MBM to give a realistic rating. Sadly he's removed the page

MikeTimbers · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:23

mattio1980 said:
well i use the bios temp and a contol pannel with probe and a inline water temp reader dont think all of these lie?

BIOS lies.

Probe is where on the die? or is it on the IHS? How good is the contact? Have you calibrated the probe and the inline water temp reader against another thermometer?

Really not trying to bust your balls, mate, but try accepting that we might be right. If you test all your components and find everything as you think it is, then at least you know it's accurate. But if any of them are wrong...

Banny · 17 Jan 2006 at 19:09

So it will struggle with overclocking even though CPU runs totaly fine with stock cooler at 2.8ghz even at load with 1.6v through it.
Would the swiftech be better than the Alphacool nexXxoS.
As I say its not my rig, mine is very quiet on air. but he wants some sort of quiet and keep the speed. sounds like a jet at the moment, the gigabyte fans are loud in the GTs

weescott · 17 Jan 2006 at 20:17

It will manage fine cooling the CPU on it's own, it's only when adding the 2 6800GT's and then clocking them as well it may struggle.

Is the Swiftech better than the Nexxos? Storm yes Apogee maybe.

The Swiftech H20 Apex kit would be a better choice...but I would be tempted to change the rad for a PA120.3. Is your friend willing to do some case modding?

Another option would be to ditch the watercooling for some Zalman HSF's. Not quite as quiet as watercooling or as clockable...but they aren't far off and a lot cheaper!

mattio1980 · 17 Jan 2006 at 21:03

MikeTimbers said:
BIOS lies.

Probe is where on the die? or is it on the IHS? How good is the contact? Have you calibrated the probe and the inline water temp reader against another thermometer?

Really not trying to bust your balls, mate, but try accepting that we might be right. If you test all your components and find everything as you think it is, then at least you know it's accurate. But if any of them are wrong...

the probe is inbetween the water block and the IHS the contact is spot on no problems is right in the middle of the core via a small like tab then that runs to the head unit it reads 30.5 c on full load and the bios about 32 c so only 1.5 out not bad ...i have also used 2 diffrent thermoneters a termaltake inline with head up and on that alphcool do TEMP Thermosensor Push/Plugin
both of them are no more than 2 c diffrence in the water temp so i put it in the middle for temp wisebelive or not i did not a first after reading so much on the forums but iv tryed everything to prove myself wrong but it's not bs it's how it runs

Banny · 17 Jan 2006 at 22:16

think he is quite into try watercooling.

Banny · 25 Jan 2006 at 16:04

I would like to bring this up again.
He has bought a decent size case now, with a nice lot of room, so can you spec me some ideas to cool this lot.
Think he wants to go for some nice overclocks now.

weescott · 25 Jan 2006 at 16:18

What is his budget? What case did he go for?