Who does Water Cooling

s0uthpaw

I have a 3 year old Core 2 Duo machine, overclocked and watercooled. I am planning on upgrading to a Core i7 setup.

I am not too keen on re-fitting the watercooling myself. Where in Dublin should I ask? I tried ITDirect, but they say they don't do watercooling.

Anti

None that i know of, plus your cpu block will more then likely not fit on a new i7 board.

requiem1

Are you looking to pay someone to do it? I'm sure someone here would help you out myself included.

Is it just cpu or are you doing cpu northbridge gpu etc. Actually post up WC gear you're looking to use

s0uthpaw

I had planned on the following upgrades (I'm open to suggestions):

[FONT=&quot]RAM: 4Gb ===========================> 6Gb

Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-SLI =================> ASUS P6T

Graphics card: Nvidia 7950 GX2 ===========> ATI Radeon HD 4870 1Gb

CPU: Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 3.22GHz (OC) =======> Core i7 920 (not oc'd?)

Sound: Asus D2 Xonar sound card ========= staying

Case: Lian-Li V2000B Plus Black ============ staying

Cooling: LiquoCool Antarctic D (CPU+VGA+Chipset) ===== staying, if I stick with watercooling

PSU: Enermax Galaxy Modular 850W PSU =========== staying

Display: Dell 30"[/FONT]

Another option would be to ditch the watercooling, and not overclock the machine.

I would be happy to "employ" someone from the boards to build the machine, if they had experience with watercooling. The machine runs quite loud at the moment (pump with 8 fans). Would a proper watercooling, not-overclocked build result in a quiet machine?

requiem1

s0uthpaw wrote: »

I had planned on the following upgrades (I'm open to suggestions):

[FONT=&quot]RAM: 4Gb ===========================> 6Gb

Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-SLI =================> ASUS P6T

Graphics card: Nvidia 7950 GX2 ===========> ATI Radeon HD 4870 1Gb

CPU: Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 3.22GHz (OC) =======> Core i7 920 (not oc'd?)

Sound: Asus D2 Xonar sound card ========= staying

Case: Lian-Li V2000B Plus Black ============ staying

Cooling: LiquoCool Antarctic D (CPU+VGA+Chipset) ===== staying, if I stick with watercooling

PSU: Enermax Galaxy Modular 850W PSU =========== staying

Display: Dell 30"[/FONT]

Another option would be to ditch the watercooling, and not overclock the machine.

I would be happy to "employ" someone from the boards to build the machine, if they had experience with watercooling. The machine runs quite loud at the moment (pump with 8 fans). Would a proper watercooling, not-overclocked build result in a quiet machine?

Not necessarily cause fans on a radiator can cause more noise than an aircooled system. It really all depends, people usually get more pissed about their case vibrating because of fans or the reference HSF on graphics cards.

Given core i7 is a new socket you'll have to upgrade the cpu block and you'll have to buy blocks for the chipset(s) and gpu. If I was you I'd just cool the cpu and gpu cause cooling the chipset on a the P6T is a pain in the hole.

What are the watercooling specs you have? as in what pump, what rad and what size, the size of the tubing?

that case is huge so there's plenty of space

requiem1

Wait I just realised...is this a Vadim PC?

uberpixie

Build it running on air cooling.

Get some quiet case fans and a thermalright ultra extreme 120mm socket 1366 cooler or equivalent quiet cooler.

My rig is aircooled and was quieter than water cooled systems at the last LAN I went too...

I am also suprised you are going iCore 7 this early.
The real bottleneck in your PC atm is the gfx card NOT the cpu.

I would replace the gfx card first and stick with your current setup otherwise.

A core2duo running over 3.0ghz with a 4870 or 4890 is more than enough poke for any game going.....

s0uthpaw

Good guess.

How did you know?

It is a Vadim, from 2006. I'm not sure that it was ever setup properly - it had multiple problems from day one, had to go back to them several times, and was eventually rebuilt.

You're spot on about the case vibrating being annoying. It's beginning to wreck my head.h

s0uthpaw

uberpixie wrote: »

Build it running on air cooling.

Get some quiet case fans and a thermalright ultra extreme 120mm socket 1366 cooler or equivalent quiet cooler.

My rig is aircooled and was quieter than water cooled systems at the last LAN I went too...

I am also suprised you are going iCore 7 this early.
The real bottleneck in your PC atm is the gfx card NOT the cpu.

I would replace the gfx card first and stick with your current setup otherwise.

A core2duo running over 3.0ghz with a 4870 or 4890 is more than enough poke for any game going.....

The problem is video transcoding, not gaming...

I have a lot of avchd files, and Adobe CS4 really struggles on my setup to render them. That's why I'd like to switch to more than 2 cores.

Actually, I hardly game at all now. It's all media stuff.

I am beginning to lean towards your suggestion of air cooling. Water cooling is a bit of a PITA, and I'm getting a bit old for the luminous boy-racer style setup of the Vadim.

uberpixie

s0uthpaw wrote: »

The problem is video transcoding, not gaming...

I have a lot of avchd files, and Adobe CS4 really struggles on my setup to render them. That's why I'd like to switch to more than 2 cores.

Actually, I hardly game at all now. It's all media stuff.

I am beginning to lean towards your suggestion of air cooling. Water cooling is a bit of a PITA, and I'm getting a bit old for the luminous boy-racer style setup of the Vadim.

Well then an icore7 would fit the bill nicely so..... that would be a nice jump over a core2duo or even a core2quad.

Funnily enough i know a mate of a mate who ditched water cooling as he found it too much of a PITA when lugging his PC to LANs. (and he was hardcore into his watercooling). The only reason I would never go water cooling atm is the extra TLC needed for it.

Don't see why you cannot build a quiet aircooling rig. Quiet case fans, a quiet fan on the new gfx card and a quiet PSU make a huge difference.

whats your case like for airflow and noise muffling?

Considering you will have to strip out your water cooling: could you not also pickup a new case and sell on/use your old Pc for something else....

An antec p182 would be an extra €130, a new psu €100+ for a quiet corsair model.

you are pretty much doing a new build from scratch anyway.....

Nehaxak

Get an Nvidia card and use it's GPU + CUDA for your media stuff. Also works with Adobe. The 4890 cards, the stock cooler/fan on them are rediculously noisey at the moment and the driver support from ATI, as always, is complete rubbish.

I'd do that firstly before anything else, see then where you need to go from there.

s0uthpaw

That's a good point about CUDA. I'm not sure what real-world effect it has on encoding in Adobe products, as the specific Adobe plugin is only available for the Quadro range of cards (>2000EUR), but seeing as Adobe have jumped into bed with nVidia, it may make more sense to go with them than ATI.

Mac daddy

You will need to do it yourself believe me you will get great pleasure out of doing it!

Also the case you have is a brilliant one tons of room in the bottom for two double rads and get some decent sound proofing for it or look into a silverstone Tj07

requiem1

s0uthpaw wrote: »

Good guess.

How did you know?

It is a Vadim, from 2006. I'm not sure that it was ever setup properly - it had multiple problems from day one, had to go back to them several times, and was eventually rebuilt.

You're spot on about the case vibrating being annoying. It's beginning to wreck my head.h

Dude its the biggest pain in the hole in computing, my rig is watercooled and doesn't vibrate in the slightest, its pretty quiet tbh. I've been watercooling for a while and when I added up your parts and the watercooling it had to be a vadim.

I'm a bit with uberpixie on the watercooling thing. It can be expensive and not worth it. From my experience its not worth watercooling the gpu cause the blocks are way too expensive and usless when the card has had its day. Also if you want to change to latest card you have to re-plumb the whole system.

Watercooling the cpu gives you great headroom for overclocks but doesn't require a huge rad and alot of noisy fans to do that. The northbridge can be worth watercooling for really big overclocks but most heatsinks do the job just fine.

Mac daddy wrote: »

You will need to do it yourself believe me you will get great pleasure out of doing it!

Also the case you have is a brilliant one tons of room in the bottom for two double rads and get some decent sound proofing for it or look into a silverstone Tj07

Its great to do yourself but for my first two times I had a mate help me out even just to have a spare set of hands can be great when clamping tubes etc.

You have a great case, probably a couple of great rads, a good pump and res. If i was you i'd but a new block for the cpu, get some quiet slow spinning fans for the rads and just cool the cpu and possibly the northbridge. But only cool the northbridge if you can do something like this.

(Leaving out the gpu)

If you need a hand I can help out even if you want to do it and I'll just give you a hand

s0uthpaw

Thanks for all the advice.

Having weighed up all the options and the advice above, I have decided to abandon watercooling... After 3 years of struggling with case rattles and fan speeds (and 1 leak), I think it's time to return to passive and air cooling.

Watercooling is a bit like a convertible car. If you've never had one, you think to have one would be amazing, but once you have had one, it soon loses its appeal, and you begin eying up the Skoda next door.

I am going for a Core i7 920 with a Cooler Master v8 120mm fan. I also picked up a GTX 285. Hopefully it'll help with the video encoding.

Nehaxak

s0uthpaw wrote: »

with a Cooler Master v8 120mm fan. I also picked up a GTX 285. Hopefully it'll help with the video encoding.

Good choice
I have a V8 on order from overclockers.co.uk - it's out of stock though so still waiting on more stock to come in before I can get mine delivered, along with some noise reduction mats to see if they'll help bring down the noise even more.

The 285 is bloody brilliant though ! I got mine this morning and had the ATI 4890 out and the 285 in the case within a few minutes. So quiet, even on peak load compared to the ATI. I am so impressed with this card so far.
The CUDA on the 285 also works with Photoshop CS4 perfect.

Vreveal, Badaboom, CoreAVC and Tempgenc are a few apps I've tried also with the CUDA on the 285 and it makes a seriously big difference to encoding.

requiem1

s0uthpaw wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice.

Having weighed up all the options and the advice above, I have decided to abandon watercooling... After 3 years of struggling with case rattles and fan speeds (and 1 leak), I think it's time to return to passive and air cooling.

Watercooling is a bit like a convertible car. If you've never had one, you think to have one would be amazing, but once you have had one, it soon loses its appeal, and you begin eying up the Skoda next door.

I am going for a Core i7 920 with a Cooler Master v8 120mm fan. I also picked up a GTX 285. Hopefully it'll help with the video encoding.

Your welcome dude, I completely agree, I'm thinking for my next build I'll go back to air and make building a computer less of a hassle. Best of luck with it all

Req

uberpixie

requiem1 wrote: »

Your welcome dude, I completely agree, I'm thinking for my next build I'll go back to air and make building a computer less of a hassle. Best of luck with it all

Req

Well ye always could go for a fully sealed unit like this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-001-CI&groupid=701&catid=193&subcat=1038
(has gotten good reviews, still a good aircooler would do the same job just as good and a hardcore water cooling setup would offer better cooling)

Something i might consider messing around with at some stage if I ever felt like dipping in my toe into watercooling. (true it's not TRUE hardcore watercooling but it does take a lot of the hassle and maintanence out of it....)

I have a quiet aircooled setup atm I doubt I will be breaking anything again soon.:pac:

requiem1

Yeah I was considering one of them but they're pretty noisy, although one of their models (the domino alc i think) was in so much demand that they had to get massive funding to increase their production. I won't upgrade my main rig for a while yet as I just got a gtx295 and am building a HTPC but I'd seriously consider one of those units instead of a air cooling given the price