Too much for one loop?

Adrianr · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:21

Two loops sounds like an almighty hassle for my first dabble in watercooling, though likewise I don't want to install something simple that will just need upgrading in a week.

Now I plan to cool my Cpu, northbridge/southbridge, gpu and most likely mosfets (doing away with the motherboard heatsink assembly all together)... Is this too much to ask from a mcp655 and a pa120.3?

CPU block would be an Apogee GTZ, Northbridge/southbridge would be taken care of by a singular 790i block from aqua computing. GPU I'm not entirely sure about but the system will be SLI again at some point so that's another GPU the pump/rad has to deal with...

Is it possible whilst still retaining good performance? Or am I asking a little much?

konam4 · 20 Oct 2008 at 12:41

You might aswell buy a high end graphics air cooler and then that loop would do the CPU, NB, SB and mosfets pretty well i recon. You might want 6 fans on the rad instead of 3 though as the chips all get very warm.

The GPU would be the deciding factor though.

pjansell · 20 Oct 2008 at 14:32

A pa120.3 would handle that, i'd even chuck the graphics card on with that lot and seen how you get on. You'd be surprised what the thermochills can handle especially with some decent fans, they work better (more efficient) under load.

If you're not happy then split the loop and separate the cpu from the gpu.

pastymuncher · 20 Oct 2008 at 14:59

The SB does'nt get warm enough to require watercooling. I took the heatpipe contraption off my board and stuck a passive Zalman NB heatsink on the SB. The NB has a XSPC Delta on it and the Mosfets have a part of the original cooler on them. Never needed anything else. I have the CPU, NB and GPU all in one loop. No need to watercool anything else and it will just add extra restriction to the loop.

Bubo · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:05

Google "eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite v2.5" and put your mobo, cpu, gpu in to see what power the rad has to disipate. (I.e. only select the components which are in the loop, not extra things like ram, hd etc)

Google "martins flowrate estimator" and download it. Use this to work out the expected flowrate of your loop in litres per minute.

Post back with the power to be disipated and the flow rate and I'll tell you if a single 120.3 is likely to be up to the job and what sort of cfm fans it is going to need.

Greebo · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:45

I have an overclocked q6600 and a 4870 cooled on a single loop with a swiftech double rad.

Gpu temps max at 37C and the cpu at 3.8Ghz maxes at 62C priming. Okay not the best but more than adequate.

Suggest you will need the 2nd loop when you go SLI though. For now you will be fine as your rad is bigger and better than mine.

Just for reference I have 4 fans on my double rad.

Adrianr · 20 Oct 2008 at 16:56

pastymuncher said:
The SB does'nt get warm enough to require watercooling. I took the heatpipe contraption off my board and stuck a passive Zalman NB heatsink on the SB. The NB has a XSPC Delta on it and the Mosfets have a part of the original cooler on them. Never needed anything else. I have the CPU, NB and GPU all in one loop. No need to watercool anything else and it will just add extra restriction to the loop.

On the 790i board I'm using there is no chance of seperately cooling the SB, as a dual slot card already covers quite a lot of it. If your going to watercool one you may aswell watercool both. At least ide only have to plug in one more component to do both anyway.

My eventual aim is to remove pretty much all fans bar the rad + psu. Noise is far more important than all out performance.