Water Cooling Challenge

XCougar

XCougar

XCougar

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22 Jul 2007
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139
Hi guys,

A bit of a challenge.

Ive never used water cooling before and want to start, so my knowledge isnt too good.

The thing is I have a custom build gaming pc and a old NEC pc I use as a server.

Is it possible to set up a water cooling rig to cool 2 pcs?

It would need to cool a intel 775 dual core 2160 cpu, hd 2600 xt graphics card, the other server uses a amd athlon 2600.

Im not sure if I can even water cool my graphics card?

Any help will be appreciated.


Thanks,

Tom,
 
Sounds like an awful amount of ball-ache to WC some quite old kit! However I don't mean to discourage you from doing so! However it probably wouldn't be worth it unless you were going to do some sort of project that looks amazing.

If it was up to me, i'd make an external radbox out of aluminium, with 2x 360 radiators, 2 res's, 2 pumps, and run the tubing to each rig with the radbox sat in the middle.. All you really need is to cut holes in each PC to run the tubing into and out of the case. It could look quite cool if both rigs were in the same make and model of case, with a similar themed radbox - or cutdown modded version of the same case in the middle, acting as the radbox.
 
Oh ok, well im only a water cooling newb, so maybe a bit much for me to take on, lol.

Ive looked on overclockers water cooling section and I cant see a VGA block to fit my graphics card? Is it just not possible?

Erm well I want to try water cooling, cause I like to have a play with unknown things, lol, plus my pc seems to overheat (mainly the graphics card), will water cooling be quieter?

Thanks again,


Tom,
 
probably going to need to go to a site specialising in wc stuff to get what u need. something like a maze5 gpu would probably work on your gpu, putting ramsinks on the voltage regs/mem chips (if it even needs them).
 
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No point trying to rig one system to cool both pcs if you ask me. Unless they are both never going to be moved again it will probably all end in tears. I would question whether you need to be water cooling the server in the first place. I would fully explore quiet air cooling or even underclock it and run it passive. However a simple T line, cpu only, 120.1 loop would be all you need if you did want to water cool the server. Your other pc I would look at a more dedicated custom system with performance and/or silence in mind.
 
Ok yea 1 other thing I didnt mention, my main pc is creaking at the seems because ive clocked it right up, although I cant get my cpu any further (2.8) and I should be able to according to others.

I dont see how water cooling is any better then air cooling to be honest.
I mean the radiators are cooled by fans anyway so doesnt that defeat the point? =S

Thanks,

Tom
 
Water-cooling radiators can be much bigger than heatsinks. So the fans can be larger and/or quieter.

Water-cooling that 2160 will cost you more than just buying a faster chip.
 
For the price of the watercooling set up you're talking about, you could upgrade yourself to a nice rig by even today's standards.

Lets say the watercooling costs you circa £200, which seems to be a figure i keep coming back to when speccing up just 1 pc, let alone 2. For that you could get yourself a IP35 Pro XE and a 9800GTX. Probably with change. If you go second hand, you could boost that even further.

I think that would give you a much higher performance increase than worrying about watercooling what is, without trying to sound too unfair, not a machine that will benefit greatly from watercooling.

As for the server, if you're worried about temps, cut some holes with a dremel and add some fans. At worst, grab a Coolermaster Elite 330 for £25 or even better, an Antec 300 for £43 and fear no longer.
 
XCougar said:
I dont see how water cooling is any better then air cooling to be honest.
I mean the radiators are cooled by fans anyway so doesnt that defeat the point?
Click to expand...

Its ok to be a novice and ask questions and all, but come on, do a little bit of research about the subject? Only get into water cooling if you can afford it would be my sage advice. As Dampcat says, if all you are concerned with is having a faster pc, then just upgrade your pc for the same money you would have to invest in water cooling to increase the clocks on your existing out of date gear.
 
A worthwhile w/c setup is going to cost you £150-200....personally I'd sell the kit you've got, and you could get a new CPU/mobo/graphics card.
 
Bubo said:
Its ok to be a novice and ask questions and all, but come on, do a little bit of research about the subject? Only get into water cooling if you can afford it would be my sage advice. As Dampcat says, if all you are concerned with is having a faster pc, then just upgrade your pc for the same money you would have to invest in water cooling to increase the clocks on your existing out of date gear.
Click to expand...

Well yea I do try and learn on by own cause I hate getting abuse cause people think im too lazy to do it myself. Ive been looking at water cooling for about 6 months now, cant work it out so I ask.
Same as overclocking, I can do it, but dont really understand it cause I got fed up being flamed by people cause I didnt understand. =|

Anyway, thanks for your help guys, I think I might try a cheap water cooling solution just to have a go at it (on limited budget anyway).
 
Not worth it. Upgrade to something worth spending all that money one. And cheap watercooling is cheap for a reason. Just get some decent air cooling and fans.
 
Oh ok, well I was only looking at the thermaltake big water cooler that OC sells for £60.

Still not worth it then?

Not to go off subject but what would you recomment upgrading my cpu to? Cause my little e2140 I think is quite good, seeing as its meant to be 1.6ghz and is now at 2.9ghz. lol


Thanks

Tom,
 
Hi dude.

Cheap water-cooling is not really a worthwhile expense. You wont see any increase in performance and the kits wont really be "getting you into watercooling" either. In some cases, some websites have found quite sinister decreases in performance over that over the Freezer Pro 7, the TRUE, and other high end Air cooling options, when using cheap watercooling kits.

Watercooling is really something you want to do from scratch, making a custom rig. of course there are some semi-competent kits out there, but you'll get way more satisfaction, knowledge and performance from a custom rig. At the same time, this isn't a cheap hobby, and you'll be spending between £150 - £200 getting yourself running under water.

For that money, then, i woudl recommend you upgrade. Your CPU will be fine as is for a while, the e2140 is not a bad chip at all and will clock to 3.0 easily. I would be tempted to upgrade around it, and then come back to that at a later date. Your GFX could benefit from an upgrade, and it might be an idea to grab a motherboard whilst the prices are so reasonable. OCUK are selling the IP35 Pro XE for soemthing silly at the moment (£65?), and it's arguably one of the best clocking boards to date, even if it's beggining to age now. Other than that, you could grab a nice 9800GTX or 4870 and be within budget, allowing a huge performance increase in games over what you're running currently.

If you're set on the cpu though, you could pick up a Q6600 second hand for around £100 - £130 for the better examples, and the E8400 dual core for around £110 also.

Not try to put you off watercooling, but it's in my experience that it's not something you want to do half-heartedly. And it aint cheap ;)
 
Ok yea thanks, I will take your advice and avoid watercooling for the time being atleast.

Would it be a good idea to buy a better board then? I mean what will I gain (seeing as im already at 3.ghz with my current setup)?

Also I was told abit boards are prone to problems and are a bit unreliable?
My board seems to be ok but I have had some issues with it in the past, is what I was told true?

I think as regards the cpu, when I do upgrade I think ill stay with duals rather then quads, as (for the time bieng) they seem to be better with games (as more support duals rather then quads).

Thanks
 
Well i'm not sure what board you have now, since you haven't mentioned it anywhere, so i was just stabbing in the dark in that area.

As for what mobo's offer, well, some have a lot more clocking reach than others. Different CPU's and and GFX cards require varying amounts of Juice to push their limits. Some boards are better suited to this than others. Also, a massive factor in overclocking is the BIOS which can be restrictive on some boards and awesomely open on others. The reason i mention the IP35 Pro is because it's a proven board with a whole range of CPUs, and it's just so cheap at the moment. It might come is useful when you do decide to upgrade the CPU or GFX, you see. Dependign on what you have now, of course.

Feel free to gather different opinions in the motherboard forum from people who know a lot more than i do redgarding specific set ups. I can throw around general advice but when it comes to actual figures and voltages there are more useful people here :)

As for Abit being unreliable, i'm unaware of such a reputation. I think with all boards there's a certain element of things not quite working right. My Asus P5N32-E SLi was replaced twice before i got one that did what i needed ;) Having said that, ive only used the one Abit board, and whilst it was fine, doesnt exactly qualify me as the voice of reason.

To be honest, you'd be best off making a thread asking "what's the best way to spend £200 on my PC" and listing your components that you have now. You should get some pretty useful responses. Up to you which forum you choose though. General Hardware has a pretty high flow of traffic :)
 
Sorry I forgot to mention I have a Abit ip35-e, thats the economic (aka cheap, lol) version, but it still overclocks good (IMO) it just has less sata ports and not as good cooling I think.

Thanks
 
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