I'm WET

MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
edited May 2004 in Hardware
Well I took the plunge and went with water cooling since the Prescott runs so warm. I got the Koolance Exos-AL with the 300 watt CPU water block.

Unit is very nice. Well designed including dual pumps. Easy to install. You could do it in 10 minutes easy. Worst thing was tilting the case around after to get all the air out of the cpu block. It being gold plastic is nice as you can see any air trapped in it. I used AS5 on the heat spreader rather than the Koolance supplied stuff.

It was worth it's money just for the quiet. Temps have dropped quite a bit. The Prescott with a mild O/C from 3 to 3.2 is idling at 27C and when folding is showing 31C. Used to idle at 48.5 and fold at 52 with the Aero 4+ and all the fans all the way up. I have a Lian Li case with 6 fans and an Antec True Control 550W with dual fan. With the Aero 4+ too it sounded like a jet taking off in here. Now I have the case fans down to 65% and I can hear the hard drives clicking again. I haven't heard them in a couple of years :)

I would recommend this unit to anybody looking at wanting to quiet down a system or wanting to try water cooling. If you can install a card, or install a regular heatsink you can hook this system up. Well worth the investment I think.

Comments

  • MedlockMedlock Miramar, Florida Member
    edited May 2004
    Does this thing cover just the cpu? What about the graphics card and north bridge? It looks good, but $200 at newegg. Isn't there cheaper stuff out there?

    How high do you plan on overclocking?
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Well I have had this CPU at 3.8Ghz but was running REAL hot. After it runs a couple of days I'm gonna start stepping it back up and see what the temps do. You can run a Northbridge and a GPU block too if you want. I just wanted to keep it down to CPU at first to see how water cooling was. First time at it. I plan on adding the Northbridge and the ATI later. Probably a month or too.
    Those blocks in the same line as the 300 watt CPU block run aboout $35 a piece. Actually the same block except the Northbridge one has Vertical fittings and the GPU one has 90 degree bent ones.

    You can do some cheaper setups, but not a whole lot cheaper and a heck of a lot messier. Most estimates for changing over are $250-$300. This unit is clean and very effecient. Every review was amazed at it's cooling effiency while only running 1/4" ID lines. I just didn't want to go through all the bull of matching flows, pumps, water block fitting diameters, where I was gonna set my reservoirs or radiators. This was like a plug-n-pray setup. Easy to move too. Just pop 2 hose fittings loose. Unplug the serial cable and you are off and running. No spills or leaking to worry about.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Oh sorry... I thought this thread was about something else... I'll excuse myself.... :thumbsup:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2004
    primesuspect wrote:
    Oh sorry... I thought this thread was about something else... I'll excuse myself.... :thumbsup:
    You too, huh? ;)

    I'm going to follow this thread anyway, seeing as how it concerns my second favorite subject. :cool:
  • MedlockMedlock Miramar, Florida Member
    edited May 2004
    primesuspect wrote:
    A major advancement in digital imaging technology is made. And within one post, it goes to the gutter..... :shakehead

    Geeks! ;D
    Kinda went the opposite direction with that last post didn't ya? ;D


    Looks, good, missleman! If I had $200 bucks laying around I might decide to experiment with it as well.
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Now Guys. If I had said I'm wet in the pub and not the cooling forum I could understand it, but this is a "clean" hardware oriented board (most of the time anyway) :eek2:

    But then again - that choice of words and guys. I guess I deserve a bit of a ribbing.

    :wink:
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited May 2004
    i've got one of these coming in the mail from madmat, along with a gpu block. once i get everything set up i'll post some results here. i hope i get as drastic results as you got
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    From what I've read the water temp goes up about 3C to add the GPU block to the loop.

    So far so good. The water temp at full load went all the way up to 34C and the CPU junction temp got all the way up to 49.5C. Since this is an Abit IC7-MAX3 that means it reads about 5-7 degrees too high. (I know it used to be 10C but they recalibrated the readings for Prescotts in the new bios and it dropped down about 3-5C.) And that is with the Exos fans running at 45%. I have it set in mode 2 which is to ramp up gradually from 45% to 100% with temp increase. You can also set them to jump up all at once or you can latch them at 100%. I put them at 100% for a few minutes and they were driving the temp down about 3C. Probably would have went lower, but I'm enjoying the silence too much :)
  • MedlockMedlock Miramar, Florida Member
    edited May 2004
    Hmm... What exactly do those fans blow on to drive they water temps down?
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    I think you can see it in this pic. 3 80mm fans draw air on from the side grills, up through the Radiator and out the top.

    Here's a couple of front and back views too. So people can see what we are discussing.
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited May 2004
    Missleman,

    Always thought those looked sexy on top of a PC case. Do the fans auto spin up for RPM with temp or is it the low-med-high setting. How intrusive is the fan noise at high btw?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2004
    Forgive my ignorance, but I assume the serial port is to provide automatic shutdown in case of pump failure. Is that right?

    Sweet-looking setup! :thumbsup:
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    MM the fans at full are only about 35-40DB not much worse than a current heatsink fan. The fans have 3 operating modes:
    1. Fans run at 45% speed until temp reaches 45C then jump to 100% speed

    2. Fans run at 45% speed until temp hits 35C. They then start to gradually speed up until they reac 100% speed at 40C.

    3. Fans locked at 100%.

    The serial cable is actually connected to a interface board that supplies power, thermocoulple data and power on off commands up to the unit on top.

    Here's pic:
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Good choice for ease and performance. I was going to actually get one next month but Citrix put his mach II for sale and for 600 shipped I couldnt resist. I hear that once you go water / phase change you never go back. But in all seriousness that is one sweet looking system
  • JengoJengo Pasco, WA | USA
    edited May 2004
    how do you guys afford these things....

    your nuts!!
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    i pawned off around 200 bucks worth the dvs and cds i dont like anymore and then i sold a extra pc I had for 400
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    I'm really starting to be impressed with water cooling. I have been running double Prime, folding, and surfing for 4 hours. Cpu bridge temp only hit 50.0C and water block temp stayed at 34C the whole time. After this big tinker fold gets done this afternoon I'll stop folding for a few and see what a true idle temp would be. Don't want to risk losing a 90% complete 240+ work unit right now :)
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