Water Block for dfi expert chipset and/or pmw??

torrentthief · 19 May 2006 at 21:02

right guys, ive got a dfi expert and my opteron 170 gives me 47c chipset temps under load in nvidia monitor when ive overclocked my cpu to 2.4ghz (300*8), i can get much higher overclock without it being unstable, even though cpu is just 44c under load.

im thinking about watercooling, is there enough room on the dfi expert to have water blocks for chipset?

thanks.

ichabod crane · 19 May 2006 at 22:11

torrentthief said:
right guys, ive got a dfi expert and my opteron 170 gives me 47c chipset temps under load in nvidia monitor when ive overclocked my cpu to 2.4ghz (300*8), i can get much higher overclock without it being unstable, even though cpu is just 44c under load.

im thinking about watercooling, is there enough room on the dfi expert to have water blocks for chipset?

thanks.

Plenty of the, the older DFi boards have a card over the PWM but alphacool do a block that will slip underneath its restictive but does the job. The expert is similar in layout to the Asus boards and has the PWM between the cards so you should be able to apply a normal A8N waterblock. I know Danger Den do 3 different versions for the A8N cos each board has the mounting holes a few mill different so u may have to research

Minstadave · 20 May 2006 at 00:11

ichabod crane said:
Plenty of the, the older DFi boards have a card over the PWM but alphacool do a block that will slip underneath its restictive but does the job. The expert is similar in layout to the Asus boards and has the PWM between the cards so you should be able to apply a normal A8N waterblock. I know Danger Den do 3 different versions for the A8N cos each board has the mounting holes a few mill different so u may have to research

You're getting confused between PWM and the chipset.

The chipset is under the silver heatsink and fan, which is well situated on the DFI Expert so that you can watercool it relatively easily.

The PWM is the power circuitry situated to the left right of the CPU socket, the three silver heatsinks in a straight line, these are cooling the MOSFETs and aren't really worth watercooling, they're more than capable of withstandigng up to 100 degrees.

To be honest I doubt whether chipset watercooling will bring you any benefits either, you'd be better removing the stock heatsink and replacing the thermal interface pad with AS5, or using an uprated cooler like the Vantec Iceberq 4 or a Zalman NB-47 if it'll fit under your graphics card.

torrentthief · 20 May 2006 at 00:17

you think i should remove the small fan thats on the chipset and use a zalman or something?

ive got an xp-90 cooler and an akasa 90mm fan, just incase you thought i was using stock amd crappy cooler. let me know. if you could give me a ocuk product code too for the coolers/heatsinks that would be great. i dont wanna have to pay £150 for watercooling, i reckon cpu will go to 2.6ghz with temps under 50c, just chipset temp is a bit too high.

thanks again

!

lay-z-boy · 20 May 2006 at 05:39

adding an mch waterblock adds uncessesary heat, is restrictive and adds more woe to tube leakage (more connections to make).
Either get the zalman thing or the swiftech one, would advise the swiffy one as its less fiddley and will cool better due to the fan.
But on mine, i have the zalman, it gets damm hot under load (55+) but it doesnt limit your oc'
As for the pwm's, they are soldered to the mobo, so a fan is a good bet.

Dont assume your chip will do x-ghz under water as it wont, get either a freezer 64 pro/ thermaltake big typhoon or noctua nh12, the best air has to offer, the xp-90 is rather weak in comparison.
remember most reasons for water today is for silence, its not realy worth it.

Jimbo Mahoney · 20 May 2006 at 08:55

I'm using a custom Northbridge WB that adds nothing to the resistance of the loop, and I de-soldered the sinks from the mosfets and strapped a 'heattrap' mosfet cooler to them using cable ties

Can't say whether or not it helps overclocking though, since they've been on the board since day one...

ichabod crane · 20 May 2006 at 09:15

Minstadave said:
You're getting confused between PWM and the chipset.

The chipset is under the silver heatsink and fan, which is well situated on the DFI Expert so that you can watercool it relatively easily.

The PWM is the power circuitry situated to the left right of the CPU socket, the three silver heatsinks in a straight line, these are cooling the MOSFETs and aren't really worth watercooling, they're more than capable of withstandigng up to 100 degrees.

To be honest I doubt whether chipset watercooling will bring you any benefits either, you'd be better removing the stock heatsink and replacing the thermal interface pad with AS5, or using an uprated cooler like the Vantec Iceberq 4 or a Zalman NB-47 if it'll fit under your graphics card.

Ah sorry see on my motherboard, the temp monitor has CPU, SYSTEM and PWM and the PWM being the hottest i always thourght it was the chipset and the fact there is no chipset monitor on it... but if he wants to cool the mosfets its pointless.

torrentthief · 20 May 2006 at 14:43

changing my cpu cooler will make very little difference. please can i have a product code for the heatsink/fan things for my chipset.

thanks.