Watercooling, Mk. II
Yes, I've already upgraded the watercooling rig. The Thermaltake stuff is nice, but not high-performance. It starts with a fair platform, but some of the stuff just isn't for overclocking. The CPU waterblock is way too restrictive, and doesn't allow a quad-core to dissipate the heat nearly quickly enough. Likewise, the pump is rated at 500GPH, but it has no head pressure (1.6 meters.) Restrictions in the line are going to cut pressure immensely.
So, enter the D-Tek Fuzion. This baby has a low-restriction design, and is specifically intended for multi-core CPUs and when you have several other blocks on the water loop. As of right now, with a mild overclock of 15% (2.7 GHz) and Folding@Home SMP pegging all of the cores at 100%, I'm seeing core temps of 57 degrees, and an overall temp on the CPU of 46 degrees, and the Ceramique hasn't even cured yet. The old block was already hitting in the mid-60s at this point. No blue LED any more, but the black/silver is dead sexy when you shine something on it.
I've also beefed-up the water delivery system. Again, the ThermalTake pump is okay, but not high-performance. So, I pulled the pump out of the other Kandalf LCS sitting in the garage (my system, when the Penryn chips and the X38 northbridge get released this November,) yanked the attached reservoir, and put it into the line. Interestingly, the intake barb on the pump is a 1/2" barb (that goes straight into the reservoir,) while the outlet is 3/8". So, I reversed the barbs, put a 1/2" barb on the GPU block inlet, used the standard 1/2" barbs on the Fuzion, and piped this sub-loop with 1/2" primoflex tubing. I was planning on using a DDC-3.2 pump for my system anyway, so the second pump was "free" and probably adds 3 feet of head pressure to the line. Redundancy and increased performance! Now to see just how far I can push those cores... (B3 stepping, unfortunately, not G0, but I'm sure I'll get a decent overclock before I'm done...)
So, the water setup is now:
Pump 1 (3/8")-> Radiator -> Pump 2 (1/2") -> Fuzion -> GPU (1/2" inlet, 3/8" outlet) -> Y Splitter -> 3/8" reduced to 1/4" in both lanes -> memory -> 1/4" expanded to 3/8" in both lanes -> Y Splitter -> Reservoir (3/8") -> Pump 1
The conversion between 1/2" and 3/8" occurs at the GPU water block. This thing is a heavy-duty EK block, solid copper with a thick lucite top. I'm not worried about any kind of pressure differential with this thing. The barbs screw into either solid copper or the lucite, and I have O-rings and teflon tape for leakage protection. So far, nada.
I also dumped the crappy ThermalTake coolant; I was seeing some crystalline buildup in the lines, an effect which has been documented by others. The stuff is also conductive, so a leak would kill the system. TT coolant just sucks overall. I switched to distilled water, with a syringe of PrimoChill Liquid Utopia dyed with a syringe of UV green dye bomb. Some people have complained about this stuff, saying it foamed up on them, but I didn't have an issue with it. Probably added too much or used too little water.
I also yanked the Aquabay; I looked inside, and all of the blue anodizing was gone! So I had bare aluminum sitting in my line with bare copper, and conductive fluid running through the tubes. Can you say Galvanic Corrosion? I'm going to RMA this back to ThermalTake and ask for a refund. I don't need the second reservoir, and I *know* water is running through the circuit, with 2 pumps going. If the CPU heats up over 60 degrees, I have it set to shut down.
I'll post a picture of the new setup once I get it cleaned up again. Re-plumbing left a mess of my formerly clean wiring, etc.
So, enter the D-Tek Fuzion. This baby has a low-restriction design, and is specifically intended for multi-core CPUs and when you have several other blocks on the water loop. As of right now, with a mild overclock of 15% (2.7 GHz) and Folding@Home SMP pegging all of the cores at 100%, I'm seeing core temps of 57 degrees, and an overall temp on the CPU of 46 degrees, and the Ceramique hasn't even cured yet. The old block was already hitting in the mid-60s at this point. No blue LED any more, but the black/silver is dead sexy when you shine something on it.
I've also beefed-up the water delivery system. Again, the ThermalTake pump is okay, but not high-performance. So, I pulled the pump out of the other Kandalf LCS sitting in the garage (my system, when the Penryn chips and the X38 northbridge get released this November,) yanked the attached reservoir, and put it into the line. Interestingly, the intake barb on the pump is a 1/2" barb (that goes straight into the reservoir,) while the outlet is 3/8". So, I reversed the barbs, put a 1/2" barb on the GPU block inlet, used the standard 1/2" barbs on the Fuzion, and piped this sub-loop with 1/2" primoflex tubing. I was planning on using a DDC-3.2 pump for my system anyway, so the second pump was "free" and probably adds 3 feet of head pressure to the line. Redundancy and increased performance! Now to see just how far I can push those cores... (B3 stepping, unfortunately, not G0, but I'm sure I'll get a decent overclock before I'm done...)
So, the water setup is now:
Pump 1 (3/8")-> Radiator -> Pump 2 (1/2") -> Fuzion -> GPU (1/2" inlet, 3/8" outlet) -> Y Splitter -> 3/8" reduced to 1/4" in both lanes -> memory -> 1/4" expanded to 3/8" in both lanes -> Y Splitter -> Reservoir (3/8") -> Pump 1
The conversion between 1/2" and 3/8" occurs at the GPU water block. This thing is a heavy-duty EK block, solid copper with a thick lucite top. I'm not worried about any kind of pressure differential with this thing. The barbs screw into either solid copper or the lucite, and I have O-rings and teflon tape for leakage protection. So far, nada.
I also dumped the crappy ThermalTake coolant; I was seeing some crystalline buildup in the lines, an effect which has been documented by others. The stuff is also conductive, so a leak would kill the system. TT coolant just sucks overall. I switched to distilled water, with a syringe of PrimoChill Liquid Utopia dyed with a syringe of UV green dye bomb. Some people have complained about this stuff, saying it foamed up on them, but I didn't have an issue with it. Probably added too much or used too little water.
I also yanked the Aquabay; I looked inside, and all of the blue anodizing was gone! So I had bare aluminum sitting in my line with bare copper, and conductive fluid running through the tubes. Can you say Galvanic Corrosion? I'm going to RMA this back to ThermalTake and ask for a refund. I don't need the second reservoir, and I *know* water is running through the circuit, with 2 pumps going. If the CPU heats up over 60 degrees, I have it set to shut down.
I'll post a picture of the new setup once I get it cleaned up again. Re-plumbing left a mess of my formerly clean wiring, etc.