Watercooling Advice Please

EviLNygma

EviLNygma

EviLNygma

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10 Aug 2006
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I currently have a setup with a Q8400 2.6ghz processor (running at 3.2ghz) using a Corsair H50 cooler.

My fairly quiet ATI HD5770 card died on me a bit ago and I got a good deal on an EVGA 460GTX SC card... all the reviews were saying how quiet this card is... unfortunately my wife does not think so... and to be honest with the nVidia card in my pc now sounds like a vacuum cleaner.

After weeks/months of my wife telling me to turn my pc off because of the noise I'm wanting to change the H50 on the processor and stock cooling on the graphic card for a full processor/gpu water cooling system.

I'm a novice with water cooling systems but fairly decent at building systems so I'm willing for a bit of fiddly work if necessary.

I'm not bothered about overclocking anything... at the moment the doesn't raise its head over 40 degrees even under full load...

I'm looking at a budget of about £250inc vat if anyone can give any advice on either a decent kit or a selection of good components to go for.

Thanks in advance...


(a happy missus = easier life)
 
Ok, well first, what case do you have? And would you be, able to fit an aftermarket cooler on the card ? Allso, 40 degrees and sounding like a hover isnt right, even for Fermi. Looking into that could be cheaper than watercooling..

Also i allways recomend reading up on watercooling bits before venturing or asking as you have for a spec, as it can lead to a feeling of overconfidence and bad things can happen if you make a mistake.


But.. anyway, if you still want to continue with a watercooling spec, you could try this as a rough estimate(<cant stress that enough).

You will need these things;

GPU Block - EK 460 GTX Nickel Acetal FC = £66.37
CPU Block - EK Supreme LT = £30.62
Pump -EK-MCP 4.0 =£37.78
Res - EK-Reservoir Combo DCP 4.0 = £26
Rad - EK CoolStream Radiator XT 360= £49.99
Fittings - Whatever size = £25 For 6-8 comp fittings £10 For 6 Barbs
(Compresion fittings are much more expensive. Barbs are considerably cheaper but i havnt used them so cant say how easy they are to fit) For comp fittings (3/8" - 5/8") 16/10mm would be my choice. For barbs (3/8") 10mm seems the standard. I allso didnt take into account any 30 or 90 degree fittings.
Fans - 3xYate Loon D12SL-12 £4.39 = £14
Tubing -Any size to fit your fittings XSPC would be my choice = £5-7for about 2-3 meters coloured tubing
Fluid - 1 Ltr Mayhems Ultra Pure H20 = £4.08

Total = £261'ish

Thats about as low as i would go (price wise), and even then im not sure how quiet that pump is and it could end up as a slightly different noise coming from your case.

All of that can only apply if your case can fit the, Rad, Pump and Tubing. Hope that helps :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the informative reply Nico_Joey

To answer a few of the questions/statements you have put..

I have a coolermaster gladiator 600 case which I bought specifically for the H50 watercooler so that the rad could fit on the back panel.. which it does and works really well.

There is plenty of room inside. Even more when I junk the old Soundblaster Audigy 64 platinum card out (as it now seems like 50% of the time its no longer detected) and use the on board one... shame as its still a better card than the on board.

When I said 40 degrees... I meant the processor. Overclocked from 2.6 to 3.2 the processor does not go over 40 degrees. The processor has the H50 watercooler on it already which is really really quiet.

The "hoover" I mentioned is the graphic card. To be perfectly honest with you I absolutely abhor messing with overclocking on graphics cards because I can't afford to be without a pc if it burns out... I have spare processors/fans/memory... just not a spare decent graphic card. So the GTX460 is on stock settings.

I know there is a setting to alter the fan speed somewhere but not sure about temperature vs air cooling.

Not sure if I'm getting close to the limit with watercooling with my PSU. Its a decent (I think a Corsair) modular 650 watt one I have had for a while.
(my signature is updated now with my current specs).

It seems a shame that manufacturers haven't latched on to the pre built sealed unit graphic coolers as they have with the processor ones... they all seem to be major kits.
Im sure a higher spec PSU would run a 2nd watercooling device for a graphic card easily.

As the gladiator 600 case only has room on the back panel for 1x rad... I assumed I would have to get rid of my existing H50 cooler... and replace with a new cooling system.. with Rad, reservoir, pump, tubing, GPU block and CPU block..

If your advice is to just look into alternative cooling for the graphic card I will have a nosey at it (start my days off today so I got plenty of time to explore options). If I can get the noise level down and keep the missus happy.. then I'll forget the water cooling option for now..
I hear Zalman do good quiet air cooling stuff... but is it up to spec for a GTX460SC??

Ive had a look through the equipment you've mentioned and it all seems pretty good (decent reviews) and the XT360 rad seems to be quite popular and seems to cool I7's so I doubt mine will be pose any problem at all.

I'd be quite happy to put the processor back on stock settings if the GPU heat causes the temp to rise.

When actually building the system... is it a standard loop?
From pump to reservior to rad to CPU block to GPU block and back to pump??
 
Just use distilled water £4:5ltres + silver coil £4 will last you for quite a while.

Rad > Res > Pump > CPU > GPU > Rad
 
A 240mm EK rad should do you and compression fittings can be had pretty cheap if you look around.
I'm running an EK Supreme LT and a 6950 Full Cover block on mine and it's fine. Temps go reasonably high on load but once you add a couple of decent fans it'll be fine. If you're not looking to overclock you might be able to get away with a generic GPU cooler (not a full cover) which will save a lot but you'll have to look into that as I'm not overly sure what the RAM and VRAM needs cooling wise.
 
Nico_Joey said:
Ok, well first, what case do you have? And would you be, able to fit an aftermarket cooler on the card ? Allso, 40 degrees and sounding like a hover isnt right, even for Fermi. Looking into that could be cheaper than watercooling..

Also i allways recomend reading up on watercooling bits before venturing or asking as you have for a spec, as it can lead to a feeling of overconfidence and bad things can happen if you make a mistake.


But.. anyway, if you still want to continue with a watercooling spec, you could try this as a rough estimate(<cant stress that enough).

You will need these things;

GPU Block - EK 460 GTX Nickel Acetal FC = £66.37
CPU Block - EK Supreme LT = £30.62
Pump -EK-MCP 4.0 =£37.78
Res - EK-Reservoir Combo DCP 2.2 = £22.45
Rad - EK CoolStream Radiator XT 360= £49.99
Fittings - Whatever size = £25 For 6-8 comp fittings £10 For 6 Barbs
(Compresion fittings are much more expensive. Barbs are considerably cheaper but i havnt used them so cant say how easy they are to fit) For comp fittings (3/8" - 5/8") 16/10mm would be my choice. For barbs (3/8") 10mm seems the standard. I allso didnt take into account any 30 or 90 degree fittings.
Fans - 3xYate Loon D12SL-12 £4.39 = £14
Tubing -Any size to fit your fittings XSPC would be my choice = £5-7for about 2-3 meters coloured tubing
Fluid - 1 Ltr Mayhems Ultra Pure H20 = £4.08

Total = £257'ish

Thats about as low as i would go (price wise), and even then im not sure how quiet that pump is and it could end up as a slightly different noise coming from your case.

All of that can only apply if your case can fit the, Rad, Pump and Tubing. Hope that helps :)
Click to expand...



Only thing wrong is that reservoir will not fit the EK-MCP 4.0 you need the following reservoir EK Reservoir Combo DCP 4.0.
 
Don't buy anything until you have found out what's going on with your 460. Mine is extremely quiet and runs very cool so if yours is loud and hot there is a problem.

Download EVGA Precision and see what the fan speed is and the gpu temp. Set the fan speed to auto and it should run at around 30% which is inaudible. If it's running at any more than that, check the temps and see what they are.

Although I am a water-cooling advocate, using it to quieten a gpu is a very expensive option.
 
EviLNygma said:
Thanks for the informative reply Nico_Joey
Click to expand...

Np, with the extra imformation you have given (can't afford to be without the pc, if it all goes wrong), i would highly recomend an air cooled soloution. If your case is the coolermaster gladiator 600, then going by pictures it has two side mounts for 120mm fans. If that is the case then air cooling should be a much easier and more immediate solution to your problem. Allso i belive your evga card (if it is registered with evga online) has a warrenty that allows the use of third part cooling (waterblocks and gpu coolers) which is nice :)

Air cooling spec.

H50 - Clean it out, if it has accumulated dust. Re-fit it to make sure the fan is pushing air out of the case (rear of your case)
Akasa Apache Super Silent 120mmx4 = £41 - You could grab 1-4 of these fans(they make great all round fans so can re-use them in the future for rad fans), one to fit to the H50 and two for the side vents and one for the top mount.
Thermalright Shaman Graphics Card Cooler= £49.99 Looks to be a very neat gpu cooling solution for your 460. A 140mm fan cools the gpu chip and should cover the rest of the card with good airflow whilst being super silent. I allso highly recomend thermalright products, very good bits of kit. A nice review can be found here Thermalright-Shaman

Total = £92

This is optional, but somthing i think every tower should have, is a fan controller. Currently Ocuk have thisScythe Kaze Server £42.89 in stock, which is a nice controller with included temperature sensors. It would allow much more control of the noise/airflow from any fan in your case.


You have fitted the H50 fine (as the temps are good) so fitting the Thermalright cooler shouldnt be too much of a stretch. Just make sure you have a program running to monitor temps as soon as your start up the card, after installing the new cooler, just to make sure it has 100% contact.

Experiment with the side fans orientation, both exhaust, one exhaust one intake. I would personaly use the bottom as an intake and the top as exhaust that way your gpu cooler gets some direct airflow and you have three different axies of exhaust side/rear/top. If you used this air cooled solution, and made sure to do abit of cable management in your case, it should be super silent aswell as cheaper and easier to install than water.

Hope that helps ;)
 
Ooookay... coincidence but I got up early this morning and the first thing I did... clean out the H50 radiator/fan combo and put it all back on.. is working fine and CPU is 29 degrees and 35 under load... it was extremely clogged with dust (the missus has 2 cats... so makes for a lot of dust/fur).

As for the GPU (to MikeTimbers).. Mine is the eVGA GTX460OC 1gb card... I downloaded eVGA Precision and checked out the info (I have it running still).. The fan is on auto and the minimum it will go down to on either auto or manual is 40% speed. The card sits at 40 degrees when idle and is still pretty noisy.. when I start up something, World of Warcraft for example (which I have on 1680x1050 at medium settings) the temp shoots up to 70 degrees with fan on 40% manual.. as soon as I put it on auto.. it goes to 60% fan and sounds like a vacuum cleaner...

I tried leaving the fan on manual 40% and the highest it seemed to get to was 70 degrees... wonder what its like on BFBC2 on manual????

As for my case fans.. Yes I have the top 140mm fan (exhaust).. I have front 120mm fan as an intake (its very quiet).. I have the 120mm fan on the H50 radiator on the back. All of this is quiet enough apart from the graphic card... which is amazingly noisy..

I know its not as quiet at my HD5770 card I had before and I didn't expect it to be but it does seem to have got a lot louder in the past 3 months or so. Not sure what db difference is with the fan on the Thermalright Shaman Graphics Card Cooler you linked and my stock eVGA cooler but 21db at max rpm sounds pretty quiet... I may give this a try...

Thanks again guys.
 
Just been noseying around and it seems that eVGA have got a good rep for graphics cards... but a bad rep for NOISY graphics cards. It seems that quite a lot of people sent them back and changed their orders to MSI or Gigabyte versions of the 460 which aparrently are a lot quieter...

Someone tested the sound level of their stock eVGA GTX460 OC card from 15ft away and got 55db at 100% fan speed..

I think I'll give the thermalright cooler a try.. if not that one I wonder if the Zalman F3000 or the Gelid Icy Touch would be compatible.. both say they are for the 400 series cards but don't specifically list the 460 whereas they do list the 465, 470 and 480. The reviews of those put them in the 20-22db category.. which would be great.
 
thanks guys!

Ok guys thank you very much for your help.

As an update... I received my Thermalright Shaman cooler and 3 Coolermaster Turbine Master 13db high flow fans.

The fitting of the cooler looked more complicated than it actually was. The review linked earlier mentioned how long it took... tbh I did it in about 20 minutes.

Couple of gripes though.. the little heat sinks you get to put on the memory chips aren't in any way sticky enough. The adhesive on them is very poor. I'm keeping my ears open for the noise of a heat sink dropping off. I hope when they heat up it makes the adhesive a bit more sticky.

The rest of it I cannot fault at all... just be prepared to have plenty of room in your case. I have 1 PCI slot left that I can use for my wireless N card.... and a PCI-E slot for whatever else.. the rest is covered by the heat sink and fan.

With stock cooler my eVGA GTX460 SC EE was running about 45 degrees idle with 40% fan speed (quite noisy). Under load it was 75-80 degrees with fan speed forced to 40% and 65-70 degrees on auto fan speed (60% and incredibly noisy)...

With the Thermalright Shaman its running at 25 degrees idle and under load between 35 and 40 degrees... The fan is on default speed (I don't yet have a controller) and is still very quiet. I can hear a low hum when I'm sitting next to it and any other noise (game, music, tv and even speech) drowns it out totally. I imagine that as it runs cooler under load than my stock fan did when idle I can reduce the speed of the fan and make it even quieter...


All round its a very very good product for those wanting a cheaper cooling solution than water cooling.


Nico... you suggested using two fans on the side of the case (Gladiator 600 case).. one intake at the bottom and the other as an exhaust at the top. Unfortunately the Shaman cooler is that big it will not allow for space to put a fan on the lower fan point (the intake). There is plenty of space for an exhaust above though so not too much of a problem.
 
Nico_Joey said:
You have fitted the H50 fine (as the temps are good)
Click to expand...

btw Nico_Joey..

After cleaning out the rad and fan (i've just put one of the coolermaster turbine fans on it)... the temp on my processor has gone down to 26c idle and 31c under load... and thats with processor clocked from 2.6 to 3.2ghz.

That corsair H50 does a good job.
 
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