watercooling - rad on output or intake ?

mortals

mortals

mortals

Soldato
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
3,103
I'm thinking of building a new system soon and possibly going for a watercooling setup. I was going to go for watercooling when I built my last case but was put off by the price etc.

Well here is my basic question: on placing a radiator inside a case, which is best?

1. To have it on the intake
This means you get cool air at room temperature, downfall being the rad heats up the air going into the case, meaning a higher case temperature and therefore heating up other air cooled components :confused:

2. To have it on the exhaust/output
No effect on the air cooled components inside the case, average case temperature is maintaned (altho aircooled components still heat the air).
Downfall being the radiator gets warmer (few degrees?) air going thru it, altho it should still be effective at cooling :confused:

The way I guess to get around this is to build a seperate radbox but then that possibly means a bigger system with further for the water to travel :confused:

Not sure if either way is better than the other or if it's just 50/50 but I guess it depends on the number of air cooled components in comparison to watercooled aswell as airflow etc.

components not cooled by water: RAM/PSU/HDD(possible,but not used much?)/mobo components
 
well seeing as its really only the orientation of the fans which decide this I'd suggest you try both?

I tend to have the rad as the exhaust myself, makes a couple of degrees difference in temps but it also helps to keep your airflow more positive so passive components like mobo parts, ram, hdds etc should hopefully have more air passing them.

With reference to the hdd blocks, no, most people tend not to bother with them, tbh with even half decent airflow they will be kept at a sensible temp and its not as if you can make them go any faster by cooling them :p

Personally I hate radboxes, what case are you using? It really shouldn't be necessary.

Only bit of advice I'd give you is try to get the fans pulling air through the rad rather than pushing air onto it, simple reason is pushing air onto it seems to encourage it to fill up with dust quite quickly and seems to be more noisy to my ears but thats hardly scientific.
 
Have to say I'm in the 'other' camp on this one - I'd rather use the coolest air to cool my critical components (that's why I'm watercooling them after all), and let the motherboard heat up a couple of degrees instead. As with all of these little finesses it will make little difference to your overall clock, but it's down to personal prefference. Look after the CPU/GPU and the rest will survive!

I feel your pain on the Rad-box though - I really should build one on my new media rig, having to shoehorn everything into the case ATM, but can't be bothered at the moment - on the plus side - if you do, you could plumb in a second loop to cool your Hdd's and anything else (NB/mem etc...) (put them in silent enclosures and not only will they last longer, but it will be quieter too :D )

And finally, if you've got the space (radbox) you can always go for a push/pull with fans on both sides of the RAD, gives you about 40% extra airflow which is nice
 
Cool sounds like both ways work just as well.

I was thinking of going for a dual 120mm rad at the top of the case so the warm air from the radiator leaves the case. I think there are too many other components that need air cooling. I'm also not sure whether to get a gpu block or not. I might go for cpu and northbridge.

So far I am thinking of going for a midi case as full towers mean more air to move and also take up loads of space. There don't seem to be many nice looking cases around atm.

I will probably build everything from new components. The spec I am thinking of so far is:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2
Thermaltake VC3000BWS Armour Jr SuperMidi Tower - Black
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 NR PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit

ATI X1800XT or Geforce 7900GT (not sure atm due to linux support for ATI)

Water Setup:
1/2" setup? :)
Dual 120mm Rad (Thermochill PA 120.2)
Aquatube Res
Pump (arg not sure which :) )
Water Wetter
240mm Guard
775 Waterblock (not sure which atm? - Swiftech Apogee Extreme Performance)
NB Block (also unsure)
GPU Block *might just go for NB/CPU to start with

The gigabyte boards look good, the only thing I noticed is there might be trouble using a watercooler for the northbridge on the higher spec ones as they have massive heatpipes :confused: :(
 
Last edited:
Definitely go for the GPU block over the NB block (wc'ing the NB does little to the overall clock, for a fair bit of extra loop heating - but hey - I like adding them into my loop!) - if you can do both - do!

By watercooling the GPU (and no - I'm not going to comment on the ATI/Nvidia debate :p ) you will take a massive chunk out of your case heating issue, and get much better clocks - especially if you take the plunge and get a pelt on there - but just make sure your rad is up to the task (the PA series of RADs are awesome, and quite a bit better than the old HE's, especially if you get some decent fans - Nexus/Panaflo etc...) - Personally I'd try to got for either the PA160 or a 120.3 if you can wedge them in - can look very smart mounted to the top of the case on the outside if you get a colour co-ordinated shroud)

Personally I always go Full Tower if I can, I love the extra room, it just makes all the plumbing *much* easier. Having said that - if you've got the cash, try to get one of the New BTX designs - awesome layout, much beter airflow. I'd dispute saying that it's easier to cool midi cases, I find it harder to tidy the cables properly in confined cases and nothing kills airflow like dangling cables!

Whatever you go for, make sure you take lots of pics and give us a nice build log!
 
I'm moving house atm, so probably won't be building it for a while. Also from what I hear, I'm not going to be able to get a conroe for a month or so.

ATM I'm just getting some ideas :) looking at the size of some of the rad's, I'm not sure if a midi will be big enough. I like the CM Stacker 810, possibly will get one of those if I can, the 830's look ugly :(.

I will probably post a project log, similar to my last case I built 2years ago :)

The pumps seem a bit of a minefield aswell. The swiftech one is meant to be good but from what peeps have said it is noisy :( might end up getting a eheim/hydor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom